trump declares war on weather forecasting, americans lose
American homeowner practices cutting-edge Trump-era disaster planning technique: ‘stand on roof and hope the president stops firing scientists.’
Trump’s second-term brain trust has apparently decided that if you don’t measure disasters, they don’t count. So the administration spent year one going after the people who, tragically, know what they’re doing: gutting FEMA, kneecapping NOAA, firing experts, and slashing climate-resilience programs. Because nothing says great again like firing the folks who tell you when a Category 5 hurricane is about to park on your coastline.
The result: a hollowed‑out FEMA that rolled into hurricane season with no plan, weather-balloon networks in Alaska so shredded they couldn’t warn people before one of the worst storms in state history, and a federal government that took more than 72 hours to approve search-and-rescue teams after the Guadalupe River flooded a Texas summer camp and nearby communities, killing over 135 people. In other words, the “small government” crowd finally achieved their dream of shrinking the state so much it can’t even pull children out of floodwaters.
All this is happening in a year with three Category 5 hurricanes, record heat and humidity, and lethal fires and floods – precisely the moment you’d want more climate science and preparedness, not a presidential tantrum against data. But sure, keep canceling research contracts and ripping climate information offline, and then act shocked when the bill for preventable disasters comes due in lives and billions. It’s not incompetence at this point – it’s policy.
#killing-democracy#anti-science#trumps-america
trump eyes the fed, markets reach for the panic button
Wall Street tries to model the risk of an AI bubble, private credit blowups, and Donald Trump treating the Federal Reserve like another failed Trump-branded venture.
Global investors are apparently bullish on 2026, betting that stocks will keep climbing as long as Donald Trump doesn’t finish turning the Federal Reserve into his own personal campaign ATM. A Deutsche Bank survey of 440 investors found that the top risk to markets is an AI/tech bubble, but the second biggest fear is Trump appointing a new Fed chair who slashes interest rates "by a lot" – because nothing says "independent central bank" like a president openly shopping for a human rate-cut machine.
Markets are quietly gaming out the scenario where Trump picks a loyalist willing to blow up decades of Fed credibility for a few quarters of sugar-high growth and a nicer Dow Jones chart for his rallies. Investors are also worried about a crisis in private credit and the usual shadow-banking funhouse, but the fact that "loss of Fed independence" is now a standard risk-line in bank research notes tells you everything about where American institutions are. In other words: the global economy’s 2026 outlook is "pretty good" – unless the guy who once suggested defaulting on US debt decides the central bank should work like his casinos did.
#killing-democracy#money
wisconsin candidate promises the thing washington keeps chickening out on
Mandela Barnes, apparently unaware that in modern America you’re supposed to *talk* about accountability, not actually try it.
Mandela Barnes went on Meet the Press to commit the ultimate D.C. heresy: saying out loud that Donald Trump should actually be held accountable for the stuff he did, not just booked for another Sunday panel. The Wisconsin gubernatorial hopeful framed his race as part of a larger effort to make sure Trump and his enablers don’t just skate by on vibes, nostalgia, and whatever’s left of the Fox News legal defense fund.
Barnes talks about using state power to protect democracy and voting rights while Trump and his party keep trying to speedrun authoritarianism. In other words, he’s proposing that laws should apply to former presidents too, which in our current system counts as a radical leftist position. While national Republicans keep pretending January 6th was just an especially spirited tourist visit, Barnes is out here saying, "No actually, crime is crime, even if you had the nuclear codes once."
Because nothing says "healthy democracy" like the fact that a state-level candidate has to promise to do the accountability work Congress, DOJ, and half the political class have spent years slow-walking. But sure, let’s keep asking whether holding a coup-curious ex-president "to account" might be too divisive.
#killing-democracy#lawlessness
trump saves tesla from success, hands ev crown to china
Journalists admire a Tesla in Mumbai, unaware that back in Washington, Trump is busy making sure America loses the EV race on purpose.
Elon Musk spent 2024 lighting money on fire to get Donald Trump back into the White House, and in a plot twist no one could have predicted except everyone who has ever met Donald Trump, the payoff was Trump kneecapping the very industry Musk depends on. The Trump White House yanked EV subsidies, scrapped emissions rules that nudged companies toward cleaner cars, and generally did everything possible to make sure the US lost the electric vehicle race to China—because nothing says "America First" like turbocharging Shenzhen.
The result: China’s BYD sold 2.26 million battery EVs in 2025, while Tesla limped in at 1.63 million, with deliveries down 9% year-on-year and a grim final quarter. BYD didn’t just beat Tesla in a one-off quarter; it pulled away for the year, while US policy under Trump loudly signaled: "If it helps the climate or the future, kill it." In other words, BYD got industrial strategy and scale, while Trump gave US automakers culture-war tweets and a regulatory bonfire.
This all comes after Musk briefly ran a performative "cut government costs" sideshow for Trump and posed in front of the White House in a Tesla like a rejected stock photo model. Then they fell out, and—shockingly—the guy famous for petty revenge and zero impulse control suddenly turned on EVs too. US climate policy, industrial competitiveness, and a once-dominant domestic EV champion all got dragged into the feud. But sure, tell us more about how this is 4D chess and not just full, weaponized stupidity masquerading as governance.
#killing-democracy#full-stupid
trump declares war on wind, loses to danish lawyers
Artist’s impression of a deadly national security threat: wind turbines quietly making cheap electricity instead of oil barons obscene profits.
Ørsted, Europe’s biggest offshore wind developer, is dragging the Trump administration into court after the White House randomly decided that a nearly finished $5bn offshore wind farm is now a grave "national security" threat. The Department of the Interior froze leases for five major offshore wind projects with all the legal precision of a late-night Trump tweet, offering no actual details about the supposed risks—because nothing says "serious security review" like "we just made something up to help oil buddies".
The Revolution Wind project had already spent nine years in environmental and regulatory purgatory, secured every required federal and state permit in 2023, and is about 90% built—foundations in, 58 of 65 turbines installed, and scheduled to deliver "reliable, affordable power" in 2026. So naturally, Trump’s team slapped on a "stop-work order" in August, tanked Ørsted’s market value, got smacked down by a federal judge, waited a few months, and then tried again with a broader lease suspension. In other words, it’s not energy policy, it’s bureaucratic sabotage in service of Trump’s fossil fuel donors and his personal vendetta against tall white spinny things he finds "ugly".
Senator Sheldon Whitehouse politely translated the move as an effort to raise energy prices, kill American jobs, and supercharge climate chaos—so yes, from the administration’s perspective, it’s going great. Ørsted and partner Skyborn now say litigation is "necessary" to protect their rights and avoid "substantial harm" from the suspension, which is legalese for "this is blatantly unlawful garbage and we’re done pretending it’s not". But sure, tell us more about how this is all about "national security" and not just another front in Trump’s war on renewables and the rule of law.
#killing-democracy#forever-grifting
moonshot fascism: flags, billionaires, and a dead nasa
Jared Isaacman at the White House, auditioning for the role of ‘NASA Administrator Who Gets the Flag Shot Before the Budget Collapses.’
Donald Trump has decided that what his second term really needs is a photo-op on the moon, ordering “American space superiority” and demanding a flag-planting before he’s out of office. To make that happen, he’s put billionaire Jared Isaacman – SpaceX fanboy, private astronaut, and definitely not a space policy expert – in charge of NASA. Because nothing says serious national space strategy like handing the keys to the agency over to a guy whose main qualification is being friends with Elon Musk.
In the past year, Trump’s people tried to ram through an “extinction level” science-killing budget for NASA, slashed jobs, and let Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) run a chainsaw through the agency’s expertise. The result? A year of disruption, chaos, and lost institutional knowledge – all so they can now panic-rush a moon landing before China and get Trump his historic selfie. In other words, they deliberately kneecapped NASA, then yelled at it to run faster.
The Artemis program is limping forward on an over-budget, years-delayed Space Launch System that everyone admits is unsustainable, but they’ll keep using it anyway because it’s the quickest way to stage Trump’s lunar campaign ad. Long term, they’ll probably hand even more over to SpaceX and other friendly billionaires, further hollowing out the public agency while calling it “efficiency” and “innovation”. So yes, the US might get back to the moon – but only after turning NASA into a billionaire playground and a prop department for Trump’s great-power cosplay.
But sure, tell us again how this is about science and humanity’s future, and not about one president’s ego, a new space arms race with China, and a nice fat transfer of power and money from a public institution to a cluster of tech oligarchs.
#killing-democracy#forever-grifting
rubio invents ‘humanitarian aid, but make it extortion’
Marco Rubio explains that the UN can ‘adapt, shrink or die,’ which is also the unofficial mission statement of Trump-era diplomacy.
The Trump administration has discovered a bold new innovation in humanitarian policy: pay-to-obey. Washington is loudly bragging about a “bold and ambitious” $2bn UN aid pledge, while quietly stapling a ransom note to it that says the UN must “adapt, shrink or die” and route everything through a single Ocha fund Washington can lean on. In other words, it’s not really a contribution, it’s a hostile takeover bid.
The money can only go to 17 countries personally blessed by the US, conveniently skipping inconvenient disasters like Afghanistan and Yemen, but including places where the US has nice, tidy political interests. Aid experts are pointing out the obvious: this isn’t humanitarianism, it’s a foreign policy slush fund with better branding. As analyst Ronny Patz notes, pre-announcing a handpicked list of countries just “solidifies a massively shrunk UN humanitarian system” that can’t even respond to the next crisis unless Marco Rubio signs off between Fox hits.
Also fun: the $2bn “landmark” pledge is actually less than what the US gave under Biden in 2025, and that’s on top of Trump already cutting $5bn in congressionally approved foreign aid as “woke, weaponised and wasteful” and trying to kill peacekeeping while still owing the UN $1.5bn. But sure, let’s all clap for this “generous” move while the UN bows and scrapes for a promise that, as Patz politely reminds us, is “$2bn promised, but not $2bn given”. Because nothing says “rules-based international order” like forcing the world’s humanitarian system to choose between obedience, irrelevance, or collapse.
#killing-democracy#imperialism
strongman cosplay enters the 'mission accomplished' phase
Trump explains that the troops will leave the cities now that he’s finished using them as extras in his ‘I Alone Can Police This’ reality show.
Donald Trump rang in 2026 by announcing he’ll be pulling National Guard troops out of major U.S. cities — you know, the troops he helped turn into background extras for his domestic strongman reboot. After weeks of using soldiers as set dressing for a president who thinks the Insurrection Act is a light switch, Trump is now declaring victory and promising to send them home, as if the whole thing was just a limited-time holiday fascism pop-up shop.
Because nothing says “law and order” like flooding blue cities with armed troops, stoking fear, and then bragging about your magnanimous decision to stop doing the thing you never should’ve done in the first place. The White House is spinning the withdrawal as proof that Trump “restored calm,” which is an interesting way to describe pouring gasoline on a fire and then demanding a medal for finally putting the gas can down.
In other words, the president spent weeks normalizing military presence in civilian streets, undermining local control, and treating the Guard like his personal campaign prop — and now wants applause for not escalating further. But sure, we’re supposed to be grateful that the constitutional crisis is being dialed back from an 8 to a 6 on the authoritarian cosplay scale.
#killing-democracy#fascism#national-security
new york elects an immigrant socialist just to personally annoy donald trump
Zohran Mamdani, immigrant Muslim socialist mayor of New York, preparing to personally ruin every Fox News chyron for the next four years.
New York City has elected Zohran Mamdani, a young Muslim democratic socialist immigrant who openly says he doesn’t think we should have billionaires – so naturally, somewhere in Florida, Donald Trump just felt a great disturbance in the Force and blamed it on the deep state. Mamdani used his victory speech to do what most Democratic politicians have spent a decade avoiding: calling Trump out by name and promising that if ICE wants to terrorize immigrant communities, they’ll have to go through the entire city first. Because nothing says “law and order” like having to fight all of New York before you can deport someone’s grandma.
Mamdani also committed the unforgivable sins of refusing to apologize for being Muslim, denouncing Islamophobia as a winning electoral strategy, and suggesting that maybe – just maybe – a handful of billionaires hoarding more wealth than entire countries is bad. In other words, he took the exact values Trumpism demonized for years and used them as the basis of a winning campaign in the city that produced Donald J. Golden Toilet himself. He even closed by telling Trump to “turn the volume up” while he explained how to dismantle the conditions that created him – a polite way of saying, “watch closely while we try to make sure your kind never happens again.”
Meanwhile, the right is stuck screaming “communist” at a guy who hops on a Citi Bike and corrects them with, “It’s pronounced ‘cyclist’.” Trump and his friends spent years trying to build a politics of fear around immigrants, Muslims, and socialists; New York just turned around and elected all three in one person and handed him City Hall. But sure, tell us more about how the country is crying out for more billionaires and fewer burrito-eating, bike-riding mayors who don’t want ICE prowling the subways.
#killing-democracy#trumps-america
uncle sam wants you (to raid trailer parks for trump)
ICE recruitment booth featuring Uncle Sam, an American flag, and a sign-up sheet for people who think ‘wartime’ should start in the nearest parking lot.
ICE is rolling out a $100m ‘wartime recruitment’ media blitz because nothing says ‘totally normal democracy’ like the federal government targeting the MAGA-verse with Call of Duty–style ads for real-life deportation squads. The agency is geofencing military bases, Nascar races, gun shows, and college campuses to find people whose dream job is "deport illegals with your absolute boys" — an actual ICE ad line, not a rejected Proud Boys slogan.
All of this is made possible by Trump’s big, beautiful HR 1, which shovels $45bn into cages and another $32bn into enforcement and manpower, so ICE can hire roughly 14,000 new agents and brag that arrests will “explode” in 2026. They’re dangling up to $50,000 signing bonuses and $60,000 in student loan payoff to fill the ranks, while a record 68,440 people sit in detention — the vast majority with no criminal conviction — and the administration grumbles that only about 300,000 people have been deported so far, well short of their dream of a tidy, round million removals in year one.
To sell this, ICE is slapping Uncle Sam, George Washington, and Lady Liberty onto recruitment ads that paint immigrants as ‘criminals and predators,’ and then farming out the message to fitness and ‘tactical lifestyle’ influencers for at least $8m, because why just have fash aesthetics when you can literally sponsor them? Marketing experts politely note that the campaign is aimed at people “with something to prove” who want power “under the guise of patriotism” — in other words, exactly the personality type you’d pick if your goal was maximum abuse potential with a flag on top. But sure, tell me again how this is about ‘guarding the homeland’ and not building a taxpayer-funded, ultra-jacked deportation militia.
#anti-immigration#killing-democracy#fascism
jack smith explains crime, trump explains 'i'm president again'
Jack Smith testifies on how he built airtight cases against Trump, only to learn the real legal strategy was "win back the presidency and delete everything."
Congress dropped the 255-page Jack Smith transcript on New Year’s Eve, because nothing says "fresh start" like a meticulous record of how the sitting president allegedly committed crimes and then just canceled the prosecutions by winning the Electoral College again. Smith calmly walks through how his team found proof beyond a reasonable doubt that Trump tried to overturn the 2020 election and hoarded highly classified documents at his country club — including in a ballroom and a bathroom, because when you think "national security," you obviously think "next to the guest towels."
Smith also notes that Trump "repeatedly tried to obstruct justice" and that there was enough evidence to charge him in both cases. So what happened? Trump got re-elected, took back control of the Justice Department, and his people helpfully made the criminal cases "go away" — not because he was innocent, but because he was in charge. In other words, the rule of law got replaced with the rule of "who’s holding the nuclear codes this week." Smith and his staff were then fired, because nothing screams "totally exonerated" like purging everyone who investigated you.
Now, from the safety of his restored throne, Trump is demanding investigations into the officials who charged him, and Smith openly says he has "no doubt" Trump wants retribution against him and that DOJ now wants payback on anyone who worked the Trump cases. House Republicans, led by Jim Jordan, are doing their part by hauling Smith in for an eight-hour deposition, just to make sure every future prosecutor in America understands the new precedent: if you follow the evidence to the president, enjoy the unemployment line and maybe an investigation. But sure, tell us again how this is all about "law and order."
#killing-democracy#lawlessness#retribution
trump’s anti-dei crusade comes for the newsroom
Trump’s America: the FCC hunts for “woke” programming while newsrooms mysteriously become even whiter, purely by coincidence and definitely not because the government declared diversity the new enemy.
Trump’s war on diversity isn’t just about making federal offices whiter – it’s coming for the people who tell you what’s happening. At CBS, when a show gets axed, five white producers magically find soft landings elsewhere, while the four producers of color discover that, oops, there are suddenly no other jobs available. One of them, Trey Sherman, walks out of his layoff meeting and immediately learns his white colleagues were reassigned. But sure, this is all about
merit.
This isn’t happening in a vacuum. Trump signs executive orders to
end DEI programs and
kill affirmative action in the federal government, and—what do you know—corporations start torching their own DEI efforts one by one. The new Trump-appointed FCC chair Brendan Carr helpfully announces he’s scrapping the FCC’s DEI work, then launches investigations into Comcast/NBC and Disney/ABC over their diversity initiatives. In other words, the government loudly signals that diversity is now suspicious, and media companies fall over themselves to comply.
Meanwhile, the merger crowd gets in on the fun. Skydance tells the FCC it will kill Paramount’s DEI programs, then CBS hands the keys to its newsroom to Bari Weiss, whose brand is basically
"end DEI for good". NBC lays off 150 people and guts teams dedicated to covering Black, Asian American, Latino, and LGBTQ+ communities, but insists those verticals will still "exist"—just without dedicated staff, like a ghost town with a nice logo. Teen Vogue, which somehow committed the crime of covering politics and marginalized communities, gets folded into Vogue as most of its (heavily women of color) staff allegedly disappear in a "restructuring."
Newsrooms were already overwhelmingly white, and they’d been missing their own diversity targets for decades. Now, under Trump’s anti-DEI regime, the remaining journalists of color are being quietly shown the door while executives and regulators repeat the magic words
"merit-based" like a legal force field. Because nothing says "free press in a vibrant democracy" like the government pressuring media conglomerates until they decide the safest story to tell is the one told by as few people of color as possible.
#killing-democracy#racism#fascism
trump doj discovers 5 million reasons to stall the epstein files
Artist’s rendering of the Trump DOJ document review: a shredder labeled “redactions,” a clock stuck on December 19, and a giant box marked “totally not hiding anything, promise.”
The Trump Justice Department has suddenly "discovered" that the Jeffrey Epstein case involves more than 5 million pages of documents, which is extremely convenient for an administration that’s already blown its congressionally mandated deadline to release the files. Deputy AG Todd Blanche is on X assuring everyone that DOJ lawyers are working "around the clock" through Christmas and New Year’s, because nothing says good faith transparency like missing your legal deadline by more than a month while roping in national security prosecutors to redact paperwork about a dead sex trafficker.
Attorney General Pam Bondi’s shop originally dribbled out under 40,000 pages—less than 0.01% of the total, as Chuck Schumer helpfully pointed out while accusing Bondi, Blanche, and friends of lying to the public "since day one." Meanwhile, DOJ keeps announcing they’ve found "more" documents like a teenager who just remembered another homework assignment, and insisting that the real problem is all the pesky laws requiring them to protect victims. That line took a hit when they briefly yanked an image that showed a desk drawer with photos, including at least one of Donald Trump, then quietly put it back after claiming it was about victim exposure. But sure, this is all just about privacy, not politics.
In between the redactions, we’ve already learned the FBI knew about Epstein’s abuse of minors at least a decade earlier than previously admitted, plus DOJ is shrugging off the release of fake letters and fake suicide videos with a casual "sometimes we release bogus stuff, it was just in the pile." In other words: the Trump DOJ is using victim protection and document volume as a very on-brand shield for maximum delay, minimum accountability in a case that touches the rich, the powerful, and at least one guy who used to host The Apprentice.
#killing-democracy#corruption
doj discovers 'top priority' crimes: embarrassing the trump administration
The Department of Justice, bravely protecting America from the real threat: people who win cases against the Trump administration.
Nothing says "rule of law" like turning your own screw-up into a felony. Newly unsealed court records show that Kilmar Ábrego García, a Salvadoran man who was wrongfully deported and then vindicated by the US supreme court, mysteriously became a "top priority" for the Trump justice department only after he won his case and embarrassed them.
Deputy attorney general Todd Blanche went on Fox News and basically said the quiet part out loud, implying DOJ went after Ábrego because he’d prevailed in his deportation fight. But don’t worry, former acting US attorney Rob McGuire swears he alone decided to prosecute and totally had no vendetta. Unfortunately for that story, Judge Waverly Crenshaw just unsealed an order noting that internal emails show McGuire “reported to others” at DOJ and that the decision to prosecute Ábrego "may have been a joint decision"—with Blanche’s office emailing that they wanted García "charged sooner rather than later" and labeling the case a "top priority" right after the supreme court ruled in his favor.
The supposed crime? A 2022 Tennessee traffic stop where Ábrego was pulled over for speeding, troopers chatted among themselves about human smuggling, then let him go with a warning and no charges. Homeland Security Investigations sat on it for years—until April 2025, days after the supreme court ruling, when suddenly the deputy AG’s office got very interested, demanded a quick indictment, and told prosecutors to hold the draft until they got political "clearance." In other words: win a wrongful deportation case against Trump’s machine, and that machine may come back with federal charges, because nothing screams “independent justice system” like punishing people for making you look incompetent in front of the supreme court.
A hearing on whether this is straight-up vindictive prosecution is set for 28 January. Place your bets on whether the judge decides this was just another totally routine instance of career prosecutors coincidentally aligning with Fox News talking points and the deputy attorney general’s wounded ego.
#killing-democracy#lawlessness#anti-immigration
making america kill again
America, 2025: fewer safety nets, more firing squads — but don’t worry, the executions are very “strong and decisive.”
Trump came back to the White House and immediately celebrated by signing an executive order titled “Restoring the death penalty” — because nothing says law and order like nearly doubling state killings to the highest level in 16 years while public support hits a 50-year low. Forty-seven men were executed in 2025, turning the US into a blood-soaked outlier among developed countries. But sure, tell us again about “American exceptionalism.”
The message from Trump’s DOJ was crystal clear: kill more people. Federal prosecutors greenlit over 20 new capital cases and death-penalty states got the memo. Florida, under Ron DeSantis’ personal vengeance LARP, rocketed from one execution in 2024 to nineteen in 2025, smashing its own record and leapfrogging Texas in the race to the moral bottom. Alabama, South Carolina, and Texas eagerly joined in, with 12 states in total firing up their death chambers like it’s a jobs program for executioners.
And because plain old lethal injection apparently wasn’t dystopian enough, states started experimenting like Dr. Mengele with a procurement budget. Louisiana used nitrogen gas to slowly suffocate a prisoner who shook for minutes while witnesses watched, and South Carolina brought back the firing squad — including one botched execution where the shooters missed the heart, likely prolonging the man’s suffering. Totally normal justice system stuff.
Hovering above it all is Trump’s remodeled supreme court, now so hard-right it can’t be bothered to pretend to care whether executions are unconstitutional, cruel, or maybe killing the wrong person. The court denied every single request to stay an execution this year, effectively shredding the last safety net between the state and the needle, gas mask, or bullet. In other words: the government is killing more people, in more sadistic ways, with fewer checks, against the will of the public — but hey, at least the “pro-life” crowd can sleep soundly.
#killing-democracy#lawlessness#fascism
trump declares war on fentanyl, addicts, and math
Trump proudly displays the executive order declaring fentanyl a “weapon of mass destruction,” finally bringing weapons-of-mass-destruction-level stupidity to domestic drug policy.
In year one of his comeback tour, Trump took a Biden-era public health response that was actually reducing overdose deaths and replaced it with a loud, shiny drug war reboot, because nothing says “I care about the opioid crisis” like cutting treatment and sending in the Navy. Biden’s team poured tens of billions into medication-assisted treatment, harm reduction, Medicaid coverage, and housing — and overdose deaths started dropping in 2023 and 2024. Trump looked at that modest success and said, essentially, “what if we tried the 1980s again, but dumber?”
So now fentanyl is officially labeled a “weapon of mass destruction,” cartels are designated terrorist organizations, National Guard troops are patrolling U.S. cities and the border, and the Navy is launching strikes on alleged drug boats — all while the administration temporarily froze $140 million in addiction treatment grants and threw basic public health programs into chaos. In other words, we’re criminalizing illness, militarizing domestic policy, and starving the people actually keeping addicts alive. Trump even claimed “three hundred million people died last year from drugs,” which is impressive, since that’s basically the entire U.S. population. But sure, let’s trust that guy with WMD classifications and troop deployments.
The result: a sweeping pivot from treating fentanyl deaths as a health crisis to treating them as a justification for more cops, more troops, more executive power, and fewer services. It’s the classic Trump formula — less science, more guns — sold as tough-on-crime leadership while quietly dismantling the only strategies that were working. Because why save lives with boring medicine when you can posture on TV with a big executive order and pretend you’re fighting ISIS instead of addiction?
#killing-democracy#fascism#anti-science
trump discovers veto pen, immediately uses it for spite and racism
Trump, freshly reminded what a veto pen is, prepares to use it on clean water and tribal land—because why waste raw spite on anything less?
Trump’s second-term veto era has begun, and—shocking absolutely no one—it’s fueled by revenge, cruelty, and a light dusting of racism. He just vetoed two bipartisan bills that sailed through Congress by voice vote. One would finish a long-delayed pipeline to bring clean drinking water to rural southeastern Colorado. The other would expand the Miccosukee Tribe’s reserved area in Florida to include part of Everglades National Park. In other words: help people get water, and honor tribal land rights. Naturally, Trump killed both.
For the Colorado bill, Trump suddenly cosplayed as a deficit hawk, declaring “enough is enough” on supposedly “expensive and unreliable policies” and “taxpayer handouts.” Because nothing says fiscal responsibility like cutting off clean water to rural communities while shoveling tax breaks at billionaires and defense contractors. Even Rep. Lauren Boebert, who sponsored the bill, is mad at him—when you’ve lost Lauren “what if we armed the furniture” Boebert on a basic infrastructure bill, you might not be the populist hero you think you are.
The Miccosukee bill is where it goes fully on-brand authoritarian. Trump vetoed their Everglades land expansion because, he claims, the tribe is trying “to obstruct reasonable immigration policies that the American people decisively voted for when I was elected.” So the president is openly using federal power to punish a Native American tribe over his immigration agenda—weaponizing the veto against a sovereign tribe’s land rights as political retribution. Because nothing screams ‘constitutional conservative’ like turning tribal sovereignty and public lands into a hostage situation for your border tantrums.
Trump vetoed ten bills in his first term and only got overridden once. Now he’s back, immediately treating bipartisan, low-drama legislation on water and tribal land as targets in his never-ending “revenge tour,” as Sen. Michael Bennet accurately put it. Congress could override him with two-thirds votes in both chambers. We’ll see if anyone in the GOP is willing to cross Dear Leader to give people drinking water and respect Native land—or if rural Colorado and the Miccosukee Tribe just learned the hard way what happens when you live in Trump’s America.
#killing-democracy#retribution
stable genius can't tell a bald eagle from a dead israeli falcon
Pictured: not a bald eagle, not in America, but absolutely good enough for White House–approved propaganda.
Donald Trump, bravely fighting renewable energy from the front lines of his Florida resort, took a break from golf to post a photo of a dead bird under a wind turbine and declare: “Windmills are killing all of our beautiful Bald Eagles!” The White House’s official X account dutifully blasted it out to over a million followers, because nothing says serious governance like state-amplified bird fan fiction.
Tiny problem: the bird is not a bald eagle, and the turbine is not in the United States. It’s a falcon, killed eight years ago at a wind farm in Israel, helpfully labeled with Hebrew writing Trump somehow missed while he was busy LARPing as Audubon. The photo traces back to Israel’s Nature and Parks Authority and a 2017 Haaretz report – you know, the sort of basic fact-checking one of the 18 US intelligence agencies that report to him could have done in about 30 seconds if anyone in this administration cared about reality more than rage engagement.
In other words, the president of the United States used a foreign, misidentified carcass to stir up American nationalist outrage against wind power, and the official White House comms shop just hit retweet. But sure, tell us again how fake news is the real problem and how this crew is laser-focused on “energy dominance” and “patriotism” while they can’t even correctly ID the national bird.
#killing-democracy#full-stupid
trump hhs sees viral video, decides poor kids don’t need daycare
Pictured: the moment a viral video officially replaced audits, due process, and basic governance at Trump’s HHS.
The Trump administration just discovered a bold new oversight tool: TikTok. HHS announced it is freezing all federal child care payments to Minnesota because a right-wing influencer posted a viral video about alleged fraud. No numbers, no scope, no details on how much money is being frozen—just vibes, a ring light, and an X video from Deputy Secretary Jim O’Neill and Assistant Secretary Alex Adams. Because nothing says "responsible governance" like turning off the child care spigot for an entire state based on internet content.
The FBI, led by Kash Patel (because of course it is), says it had already "surged" resources to Minnesota to investigate alleged fraud at child care facilities, an effort that has "largely targeted Somali immigrants." Important detail: the big $250 million fraud case Minnesota is known for? That was a child nutrition scheme prosecuted under Biden, and the mastermind, Aimee Bock, is white and already convicted. So naturally, the Trump team’s response is to publicly dog-whistle about Somali communities while punishing every low-income parent in Minnesota who relies on federal subsidies so they can, you know, go to work.
In other words, instead of quietly tightening audits or waiting for actual indictments, HHS decided to launch a nationwide crackdown and cut off Minnesota entirely, then announce it via social media like it’s a merch drop. No one can say how much funding is frozen, but the message is clear: if a right-wing influencer points a camera at your state, your kids’ daycare is now collateral damage in the content war. But sure, tell us again how this is about "stopping fraud" and not about performative cruelty, racial scapegoating, and flexing federal power over blue states.
#killing-democracy#racism#forever-grifting
commander-in-chief of not-reading-the-constitution escalates venezuela strikes
Trump, moments before explaining that Article II lets him do whatever he wants to Venezuela, Congress, and reality.
Trump is apparently escalating strikes on Venezuela and, according to a House Democrat, has made it clear he “doesn’t want to deal with Congress.” Because nothing says "constitutional republic" like the guy with the nukes deciding that checks and balances are for losers and people who read.
In other words, the president is treating Congress’s war powers like he treats subpoenas, oversight, and basic ethics rules: as optional suggestions from the help. While missiles fly and tensions escalate, the legislative branch is once again relegated to watching it all unfold on cable news like the rest of us.
So we’ve now reached the part of the show where foreign policy is run on pure vibes and executive ego. The Framers imagined spirited debate before military action; Trump imagines a TV hit, a rally chant, and maybe a new hat. But sure, tell us again how this is all about restoring American greatness and not about one guy discovering that bombing another country is the one thing he can still do without anyone telling him no.
#killing-democracy#imperialism#lawlessness
