holiday cheer, but make it anti-fascist
American shoppers bravely navigating the holiday season, trying to buy a mug without accidentally funding ICE recruitment, tariff abuse, or Elon Musk’s federal demolition derby.
Nothing says “Merry Christmas from President Life Alert” like having to run your gift list through a human rights filter. After a year of Trump’s second-term purge of DEI, immigrant crackdowns, and Musk’s federal-agency bonfire, shoppers are doing the unthinkable in America: spending less at giant corporations that openly lick the regime’s boots. The "We Ain’t Buying It" campaign, backed by more than 220 organizations, told people to skip Target, Home Depot, and Amazon over Black Friday, and millions actually listened. Little Blue Cart, a directory of progressive small businesses, saw record traffic, because apparently some people prefer not to fund fascism with one-click checkout.
Target is getting hit for rolling back diversity programs it used to brag about, Home Depot is under fire because ICE is scooping up day laborers from its parking lots like it’s a federal Costco, and Amazon is being shunned for its Trump inaugural cash dump and long, proud history of treating workers like disposable shipping materials. Spotify is helpfully running ICE recruitment ads—because nothing says holiday playlist like “Now Hiring for Family Separation 2.0”—and Tesla is bleeding sales after activists decided that if Elon Musk is going to help dismantle federal agencies, at least they won’t help him move Model Ys while he does it.
Meanwhile, immigrant-owned businesses are shortening hours or closing altogether under ICE terror campaigns, and some shoppers are deliberately supporting companies suing Trump over what they say are illegally enacted tariffs. Others are throwing money at colleges refusing to bow to Trump’s culture war decrees. In other words, the White House spent years screaming that the only freedom that matters is the freedom to shop—and now people are using that freedom to tell Trump and his corporate enablers to get bent. Capitalism meets conscience, and for once, conscience is actually putting a dent in the QVC Reich.
#killing-democracy#forever-grifting
america re-ups the reality show for another season
A room full of people applauding their own victimhood while the president calls it a "unity address."
MAGA activists are gathering in Phoenix, which in normal times would be called a fringe conference, but in our current hell timeline is just called "politics." Because nothing says "healthy democracy" like a movement whose whole brand is refusing to accept election results and then getting rewarded with more power.
Meanwhile, President Trump is once again addressing the nation and—more importantly—his fans, because the line between a presidential address and a fan convention disappeared somewhere around the third "witch hunt" speech. It's less "head of state" and more "livestreamed grievance rally" beamed into every living room.
And on the other side, Democrats are apparently holding a post-mortem on how they managed to lose 2024, which must be a very short meeting: "We underestimated the authoritarian cult again" followed by twelve PowerPoints about suburban messaging. In other words, the MAGA movement keeps radicalizing in public, Trump keeps mainlining attention into his personality cult, and the supposed opposition is still trying to focus-group its way out of a constitutional crisis.
#killing-democracy#fascism
president of the united states reviews jake paul fight from air force one
Anthony Joshua restores boxing sanity in Miami while the President turns Air Force One into a flying Jake Paul reaction channel.
Anthony Joshua did his civic duty in Miami by reintroducing Jake Paul’s head to gravity, four times, on a global Netflix stream designed for memes and traumatic brain injury awareness. The former heavyweight champ finally stopped the YouTuber-turned-punching-bag in the sixth, in what the Guardian politely calls a "restoration of sanity" and what any ringside neurologist would call "evidence for a future class-action lawsuit." Paul spent most of the night clinching, flopping, and buying time like a filibustering senator who forgot his talking points, before getting systematically folded by Joshua’s right hand.
The real national content, though, was happening at 30,000 feet. From Air Force One, President Donald Trump tuned in and rushed to Truth Social to praise Jake Paul’s "GREAT Courage" and "Fantastic Entertainment" against a "very talented and large Anthony Joshua." Because nothing says serious leader of the free world like live-blogging a Netflix novelty fight between a YouTuber and a faded heavyweight while flying on the taxpayer’s $200,000-an-hour plane. In other words: the imperial presidency has gone full Twitch streamer.
Joshua, to his credit, played the role of boxing’s reluctant bouncer, ejecting the influencer from the heavyweight VIP section while politely congratulating him for staying conscious slightly longer than expected. Paul, jaw probably broken and bank account definitely not, declared he has "already won in every single way in life"—which is an honest motto for the influencer-politics era: get wrecked for content, cash the check, and let the president hype your "stamina" to his base. But sure, tell me more about how this is all normal and not a late-stage empire glued to its screens while the guy with the nuclear codes live-reviews pay-per-view brain damage.
#killing-democracy#full-stupid
trump’s loudest hall monitor suddenly has ‘family time’
Elise Stefanik announces she’s leaving Congress to spend more time with her family, and less time defending a guy who tried to overturn an election — personal growth, but make it decades late.
Elise Stefanik, one of Trump’s most devoted impeachment-defense parrots, has decided that running for New York governor against another Trump mini-me and staying in Congress is just too much work. So she’s doing the next best thing for democracy: quietly backing away from elected office while pretending it’s all about “efficient use of resources” and “family time.” Because nothing says I would have totally won like quitting the race the moment a real primary fight shows up.
Instead of spending 2026 trying to turn New York into a MAGA theme park, Stefanik says she’ll focus on her young son’s “safety, growth, and happiness” — which is a fascinating pivot from her previous focus on Trump’s safety, growth, and happiness during impeachment and beyond. Trump, naturally, stayed neutral between his two loyalists, calling both Stefanik and Bruce Blakeman “great people,” in other words: interchangeable foot soldiers in the same personality cult.
So the woman who helped normalize Trump’s abuses of power, defended his first impeachment circus, and nearly got shipped off to the UN as a reward (until House math got in the way) is now walking away from Congress and her gubernatorial ambitions. The last Republican governor of New York left office in 2007; Stefanik just made sure that streak is safe for a while longer — but sure, tell us again how this was all part of a grand, selfless plan.
#killing-democracy#fascism
judge commits crime of following the law, is swiftly removed
Artist’s rendition of a ‘Deportation Judge’: one hand on a gavel, the other on a shredder full of asylum applications.
The Trump administration has apparently discovered a new category of misconduct for immigration judges: granting asylum when people qualify for it. Army reserve lawyer Christopher Day lasted a whole five weeks as a temporary immigration judge in Annandale, Virginia before being fired, after he committed the unforgivable sin of letting six out of 11 migrants stay in the US. In other words, he acted like an actual judge instead of a "Deportation Judge"—which, fun fact, is now what the job postings literally call the role, because nothing says "independent judiciary" like naming the outcome in the job title.
This is all part of Trump’s master plan to bulldoze a 3.8 million case asylum backlog by turning the nation’s 75 immigration courts into one giant conveyor belt to the border. Nearly 100 judges "too liberal" (translation: occasionally followed the law) have already been fired. The solution? Flood the bench with up to 600 military lawyers, many of whom know about as much immigration law as your dentist—something the American Immigration Lawyers Association helpfully compared to a cardiologist doing a hip replacement. And it’s going great: in November, military judges ordered removal in 78% of their cases, versus 63% for everyone else. Rubber stamp in uniform, mission accomplished.
Day, however, messed up the script by not treating asylum hearings like a ceremonial pre-deportation ritual. Now he’s out, and because he’s military, he doesn’t even get normal civil service protections—just a delightful buffet of potential reprimands and career-killing letters that can take years and lots of money to fight. Meanwhile, the Pentagon and White House swear there’s no improper interference, and the Uniform Code of Military Justice’s protections for legal independence may or may not apply here. But sure, tell us more about how this isn’t a politicized purge of judges to enforce Trump’s mass deportation agenda. Totally normal rule-of-law country we’ve got here.
#killing-democracy#anti-immigration#lawlessness
fbi bravely protects ice from dangerous first amendment
Behold: a handy FBI map showing where dissent against ICE is being upgraded from ‘protest’ to ‘potential terrorism,’ because nothing says freedom like a field office in every state tracking who hates concentration camps.
The FBI, ever the bold defender of the homeland, has opened “criminal and domestic terrorism investigations” into anti-ICE activity in at least 23 regions across the US, because nothing says public safety like treating protests and organizing as a terror threat. The cases are being run under Trump’s NSPM-7 memo, his post–Charlie Kirk assassination love letter to the word “terrorism,” which helpfully defines threats as things like “anti-fascism”, “anti-capitalism”, and “anti-Christianity”. In other words: if you don’t like fascists, corporations, or the government’s preferred religion, congratulations, you’re now on the terrorism mood board.
The internal FBI report, obtained via public records by transparency group Property of the People (doing the oversight Congress refuses to), warns of “threats” against ICE and immigration enforcement, citing two violent Texas incidents while quietly expanding the target list to anyone who, say, researches ICE agents’ movements online or uses encrypted messaging apps. You know, totally normal behavior for journalists, organizers, and basically any adult in 2025. Civil liberties groups like the ACLU point out the obvious: the report is drenched in vague, overbroad language that invites surveillance and investigation based purely on First Amendment–protected beliefs – exactly what critics said NSPM-7 was designed to do.
So while the FBI talks about “assault on a federal officer” and “bombing matters,” the net it’s casting sweeps up protesters, nonprofits, and critics of Trump’s deportation machine under a domestic terrorism label. It’s a neat little trick: take outrage over ICE abuses, rebrand it as “organized political violence,” and then let federal law enforcement go fishing in activist Signal chats. But sure, it’s the campus kids with cardboard signs who are the real threat to American freedom, not a president using national security powers to criminalize dissent against his favorite paramilitary deportation agency.
#killing-democracy#fascism
civil rights? we don’t go here anymore
Woman who naively thought the Office for Civil Rights was about protecting kids from racism, not giving school districts a federal stamp of "try ignoring it harder."
The Trump Education Department has discovered a bold new approach to civil rights enforcement: simply don’t do it. Under Trump’s second term, the Office for Civil Rights — the part of the department that’s supposed to stop schools from becoming open-air harassment camps — has not entered into a single new resolution agreement involving racial harassment of students. That’s zero. In nearly a year. Meanwhile, more than 1,000 racial harassment cases from previous administrations are just sitting there, gathering dust, like democracy under this administration.
Previously, OCR actually did things: investigated schools where Black kids were taunted with whipping sounds, told they should be shot "to make us a better race," or shaken off buses while classmates waved Confederate flags. It found districts at fault, forced reforms, and monitored compliance. That era is over. Now, the agency has opened only 14 investigations into racial harassment of Black students out of more than 500 complaints received — but it’s somehow finding time to work on discrimination complaints from white students, because nothing says "equal protection" like flipping the sign on the civil rights office from "No racism" to "Whites Only."
At the same time, Trump’s people are busy trying to dismantle diversity, equity and inclusion programs everywhere, gut protections for transgender students, and erase consideration of historically disadvantaged groups. The department has stopped updating public case information, stopped monitoring districts it already found in violation, and is being slowly hollowed out while Trump openly talks about shutting it down entirely. In other words, if your kid is Black, queer, or both, the official federal policy is: good luck out there.
In Arizona’s Cottonwood-Oak Creek district, OCR had documented a school where Black and queer students were shoved, kicked, groped, doused with water as a "baptism" for "the sin" of being gay, and surrounded by swastikas and kids saying "slavery is good" and "white power." The district’s response? Mild paperwork and briefly kicking one boy out of music class. OCR used to call that "minimal and ineffective" and demand change. Under Trump, that’s basically the model: let the harassment fester, shut down enforcement, and pretend the real civil rights crisis is white kids not being able to fly their Confederate flags in PowerPoints.
#killing-democracy#racism#lawlessness
europe boldly chooses to be trump’s middle east side character
Europe stares longingly at the Middle East from the cheap seats while Trump sells the stage to the highest bidder.
Europe, once the self-declared conscience of the international order, has now auditioned successfully for the role of Trump’s anxious regional intern. After the US under Trump illegally bombs Iran, Europe doesn’t just shrug and move on; it rebrands Iran as an official adversary because it’s aligned with Russia, then dutifully lines up behind Washington’s Middle East tantrums to keep Trump onside over Ukraine. Nothing says "values-based foreign policy" like retrofitting your principles to match the latest White House war crime.
Meanwhile, Trump’s administration openly sidelines Europe in the Middle East, preferring to cut deals directly with Riyadh, Doha, Abu Dhabi, and Ankara. European leaders respond with real backbone: they hide behind Trump’s Gaza "peace plan" while Gaza burns, refuse to use any leverage over Israel, and let Germany’s Friedrich Merz explain that Israel is basically doing Europe’s "dirty work" in Iran. In other words, they’ve blown past "double standards" and gone straight to no standards at all.
On Iran, the E3 (France, Germany, UK) manage to saw off the last branch they were sitting on by triggering UN sanctions snapback, effectively killing the nuclear deal they once bragged about brokering. Now, any hope of progress on Gaza or Iran runs through Qatar, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt, while Europe gets demoted to third-tier extras whose main job is to "support Gulf efforts to influence Trump." Because nothing screams "strategic autonomy" like begging Mohammed bin Salman to talk sense into the White House.
The punchline: Europe is told that if it wants to matter at all, it should maybe try not completely abandoning Syria, Iraq, and Lebanon to collapse and war. But with Trump more interested in transactional photo-ops – like hosting Syria’s ex-jihadi-turned-president in Washington for a sanctions "partial suspension" PR moment – even that "strategy" looks less like diplomacy and more like everyone rearranging deckchairs while Trump lights the ship on fire.
#killing-democracy#imperialism
making the kennedy center great again
Artist’s rendering of the Trump-Kennedy Center, featuring the ghost of JFK trying to claw his name back off the façade while a golden TRUMP sign gets drilled in at taxpayer expense.
The Kennedy Center board has apparently decided that American arts history wasn’t humiliating enough and has voted unanimously to rename the iconic venue the Trump-Kennedy Center, according to the White House. Press secretary Karoline Leavitt announced the move and praised the "unbelievable work President Trump has done over the last year in saving the building" — because nothing says cultural stewardship like stapling the name of a reality TV landlord to the memorial of a murdered president.
Leavitt then "congratulated" John F. Kennedy, assuring everyone this will be a "truly great team" going forward, as if we’ve just watched the Celtics trade for a backup power forward instead of witnessing a sitting president glue his brand onto a national performing arts institution. In other words, it’s the Trump era’s favorite genre: state-sponsored rebranding, where every public space is just another opportunity for a naming-rights grift and a little forced gratitude.
The move is expected to be wildly unpopular in Washington, DC, where the building has been an enduring landmark and memorial to Kennedy for decades — but sure, let’s pretend this is about "saving the building" and not about building the Trump cult into the architecture. Authoritarian regimes build statues; the Trump crowd just quietly rewrites the plaques and calls it a unanimous board decision.
#killing-democracy#oligarchy
nothing says ‘we learned a lot’ like hiding the report
Ken Martin carefully filing the 2024 ‘autopsy’ under “do not open until after the next preventable disaster.”
The DNC has finished its much-hyped 2024 election ‘autopsy’ on how Kamala Harris managed to lose to Donald Trump, and has bravely decided the American public should never see it. DNC chair Ken Martin says releasing the report would be a “distraction” from winning, because nothing screams confidence in your conclusions like locking them in a drawer and throwing away the key.
According to officials, the review covers organizing, messaging, fundraising, and structural problems, and even notes that Democrats outspent Republicans at every level — in other words, they lit a mountain of cash on fire and still lost to a guy who tried to overthrow the government. But don’t worry, party insiders assure us they’re “already putting our learnings into motion,” which is consultant-speak for “trust us, we definitely read the PDF.”
The New York Times previously reported the autopsy was expected to tiptoe around the obvious questions: whether Biden should’ve run again, whether he should’ve dropped out sooner, and whether Harris was the right understudy to send onstage against a fascist game show host. A progressive group, RootsAction, released its own report blaming the loss on chasing moderates instead of energizing working-class, young, and progressive voters — so naturally that’s the one the party is ignoring while former DNC flacks celebrate the decision to keep the official findings secret as the “right call.”
So as Trump’s second-term clown car accelerates toward the Constitution, Democrats’ big takeaway from their last catastrophic loss is: no public reckoning, no transparency, just vibes and vibes-based strategy. But sure, nothing to see here — democracy will be fine as long as no one ever finds out who screwed up and how.
#killing-democracy#full-stupid
white house turns into trump’s presidential burn book
Historic White House hallway, now featuring limited-edition Trump-brand grievance plaques—because why honor the presidency when you can subtweet it in bronze?
In a bold new step for American statemanship, the Trump White House has reportedly installed plaques mocking former presidents inside the actual White House, because nothing says "confident, legitimate leader" like defacing the building with mean-girl wall art about your predecessors.
Instead of the usual reverent displays of history, visitors now get a guided tour of Trump’s insecurities, etched in metal. The people who once treated the office as a temporary trust are now being roasted by the guy who treats it like a Mar-a-Lago bathroom wall. Separation of powers? No no, we’re doing separation of presidents into categories: those who served and the guy who needs to neg them from beyond the grave of his own approval ratings.
This isn’t policy, it’s not even competent propaganda—it’s just the state turning its most symbolic building into a taxpayer-funded Reddit comments section. But sure, tell us again how this is the most "presidential" administration ever, as it literally nails its grudges to the walls like a bargain-bin personality cult.
#killing-democracy#full-stupid
rfk jr and trump heroically save kids from their doctors
Robert F Kennedy Jr explains that the best way to care for vulnerable children is to threaten their hospitals, criminalize their parents, and ignore every major medical association, all while calling it "protection."
The Trump administration, with Health Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr proudly leading the charge, has unveiled its latest plan to "protect" children by cutting them off from medically recommended healthcare. HHS is rebranding gender-affirming care as "sex-rejecting procedures" — because when you can't win on science, you can always try focus-grouped slurs — and CMS will start rule-making to tell every hospital in America: if you want Medicare or Medicaid money, you don't treat trans minors. In other words, deny care or lose your funding. Very normal, very free-country behavior.
The proposal would also ban Medicaid and CHIP from covering this care at all, targeting the half of American children who rely on those programs, because nothing says "protect the vulnerable" like making sure only rich kids can even try to see a specialist. HHS is also sending FDA warning letters to breast binder manufacturers for allegedly "illegal marketing" to minors — turning basic, non-surgical support garments into a federal case, while pretending this is about safety and not about making trans kids' lives as miserable as possible.
Not content with that, HHS is moving to strip gender dysphoria of disability protections under Section 504, rolling back Biden-era recognition so schools and institutions can go back to ignoring or punishing trans students without pesky legal obligations. This all builds on Trump's earlier executive orders declaring there are only two sexes and threatening federal funds for hospitals that dare treat trans youth — a science-free culture war masquerading as policy. Meanwhile, the House, led by Marjorie Taylor Greene, just passed a bill to criminalize parents and providers who follow mainstream medical guidelines, because when you can't run a country, you can always try running a witch hunt.
HHS even produced a handy "review" declaring the evidence for gender-affirming care in minors "very low", a conclusion that just so happens to contradict basically every major US medical organization. But sure, trust RFK Jr and Donald Trump over the American Academy of Pediatrics. This is not healthcare policy; it's a federally coordinated campaign to withdraw rights, weaponize poverty, and terrorize families — all under the banner of "protecting children" from their own doctors, their own parents, and themselves.
#killing-democracy#pro-life#trumps-america
trump shopping for a third term like the constitution is a suggestion
Alan Dershowitz explains that when the 22nd Amendment says "no person shall be elected... more than twice," what it really means is: buy the book and maybe we can work something out.
The White House now says America would be "lucky" to have Donald Trump for a constitutionally prohibited third term, because nothing says "conservative respect for the Founders" like asking if the 22nd Amendment is more of a vibe than a rule. Spokesperson Abigail Jackson bragged that no administration has done as much in less than a year, so naturally the next step is seeing how far they can punt the whole "peaceful transfer of power" thing down the stairs.
This latest authoritarian trial balloon comes courtesy of Alan Dershowitz, who apparently looked at the crystal-clear 22nd Amendment and decided, "what if it wasn’t?" He’s written a whole book—"Could President Trump Constitutionally Serve a Third Term?"—because in this timeline, trying to lawyer your way around term limits is just another grifty publishing opportunity. Dersh pitched his fanfic directly to Trump in the Oval Office, then workshopped it at a White House Hanukkah party with billionaire mega-donor Miriam Adelson, who responded like someone being offered a third season of her favorite reality show: "Oh my God, I hope this can happen."
Trump’s allies are doing the usual "who, us?" routine. Speaker Mike Johnson says he "doesn’t see a path," Chief of Staff Susie Wiles insists Trump "knows he can’t run again" and is just "having fun" with the idea—meanwhile, the Trump Store is already selling "Trump 2028" hats and the donor class is on stage chanting "four more years" while Trump jokes about getting another $250 million if he "thinks about it." In other words: they’re normalizing the premise, testing the messaging, and pretending it’s all a joke right up until the moment someone decides it isn’t.
But sure, tell us again how the real threat to democracy is college kids protesting and not the president openly shopping for legal theories to stay in power past the constitutional limit while his White House calls it America’s "good luck." Totally fine, very normal, no fascism here at all.
#killing-democracy#fascism
brendan carr proudly announces the fcc is now trump’s ministry of truth
Brendan Carr, proudly explaining that the FCC is totally independent—except from the guy whose face he wears on his chest and whose enemies he investigates on demand.
Brendan Carr went to the Senate and said the quiet part into the hot mic: the FCC is no longer an independent agency, it "serves at the pleasure of the president" — a president whose face Carr literally wears on his lapel like a teenage Swiftie, if Taylor Swift were an aspiring autocrat with 91 felony counts. Within hours, the FCC helpfully scrubbed references to its independence from its website, because nothing says "arms-length regulator" like retroactively editing your own mission statement to match Dear Leader’s legal fantasies.
Carr has declared himself Trump’s personal journalism police, wielding the FCC’s squishy "public interest" standard as a bludgeon against anyone whose reporting makes Trump mad. Every single investigation and social media tantrum Carr has launched — from 60 Minutes’ Kamala Harris interview, to Jimmy Kimmel jokes about Charlie Kirk, to Comcast contradicting Trump’s lies about Kilmar Abrego García’s immigration case — has one thing in common: it annoyed Trump. The rule of Carr’s FCC is simple: don’t piss off the guy on my pin. Everything else is improvisational authoritarian jazz.
The KCBS case shows how this works in practice. After Carr opened an investigation into the station’s reporting on ICE raids, AP reports the anchor was demoted, political coverage was gutted for months, and reporters were told to avoid anything that might attract the regime’s attention. Staff got dragged into meetings where lawyers combed through their social media for signs of thoughtcrime, and the news director flat-out said they had to avoid angering the FCC for “business” reasons. In other words, the First Amendment is still technically on the books, but Carr and Trump have discovered it’s much easier to terrify newsrooms into self-censorship than to win in court.
And then there’s the Paramount saga, where Carr reopened a bogus "news distortion" probe into CBS’s Harris interview while Paramount just happened to be begging the FCC to approve a multibillion-dollar merger. Executives reportedly believed they needed to pay Trump $16 million to settle his frivolous lawsuit before Carr would greenlight their deal, and were worried enough about bribery optics to hire lawyers to protect the board. Carr has investigated nearly every outlet Trump sues — Disney, the BBC, you name it — but sure, this is all just neutral regulation in the "public interest." What we’re watching is the federal communications regulator being openly repurposed as a political protection racket for Trump’s ego and agenda. But hey, at least now they’re honest about it.
#killing-democracy#fascism#forever-grifting
jack smith helpfully explains the coup was, in fact, a crime
Jack Smith, patiently explaining that organizing a coup is still illegal, even if you shout "witch hunt" between golf rounds.
Special Counsel Jack Smith went to Congress and basically said the quiet part into the microphone: yes, he could prove Donald Trump ran a criminal scheme to overturn the 2020 election. In other words, the thing Trump and his fan club keep calling "legitimate political discourse" is what prosecutors usually call "a felony conspiracy," but sure, let's keep pretending this was just an especially enthusiastic civics lesson.
Smith reportedly laid out that he had the evidence to show Trump was at the center of an organized effort to subvert the vote and cling to power after losing—because nothing says "peaceful transfer of power" like pressuring state officials, weaponizing fake electors, and whipping up a mob to storm the Capitol. The message was clear: this wasn't confusion, it wasn't chaos, it was a plan.
The punchline, of course, is that in today's GOP, "We can prove this was a criminal scheme" is less a warning and more a campaign slogan. Trump and his allies will spin this as more proof the "deep state" is out to get him, while carefully ignoring that the "deep state" in this case is just the law, the Constitution, and anyone who thinks elections should count. Because in Trump's America, attempting to overturn democracy isn't disqualifying—it's the whole job description.
#killing-democracy#lawlessness#fascism
doj discovers new terrorist threat: people in black shirts with signal
Prairieland detention center, where the government cages immigrants—and now apparently test-drives new ways to label their supporters and protesters as terrorists.
The Trump administration promised a "no-holds barred" crackdown on the left after Charlie Kirk’s assassination, and for once they actually followed through—just not on the actual shooter. Instead, Trump, JD Vance, Pam Bondi, and Stephen Miller decided that the real threat to America is anyone in black clothing with a Signal account and a zine. So DOJ rolled out its first-ever "antifa terrorism" case in Texas, triumphantly announcing they had busted a "North Texas antifa cell" allegedly tied to a protest at ICE’s Prairieland detention center.
Yes, a cop was shot and there are serious charges for the alleged shooter and helpers. But that’s not enough for an administration that literally designated "antifa" as a domestic terrorist organization even though it’s an ideology, not a group. So prosecutors went shopping for a conspiracy: 18 people swept up, 15 hit with "material support for terrorism" and a whole blizzard of federal and state charges. The evidence of a sophisticated terror cell? Leftwing flyers, black clothes, use of Signal, and some general chat about guns. In other words: basic protest culture is now "al-Qaeda, but with patches."
Legal experts are pointing out the obvious: this is a test case to turn terrorism laws into a blunt instrument against political dissent. People who didn’t know each other before the protest are magically transformed into a "cell" because it makes for great Fox News hits and lets the US attorney go on TV and accuse them of wanting to "overthrow the United States government." Family members say their loved ones aren’t even antifa; terrorism charges don’t match any actual ideology, just the administration’s need for a trophy. But sure, nothing says "defending the Constitution" like using anti-terror statutes to criminalize mainstream activism and scare everyone else off the streets.
The real innovation here isn’t law enforcement, it’s fascism-as-a-service. Trump’s DOJ is "creatively" repurposing terror laws to target people who aren’t part of any recognized terrorist group at all, just to build the precedent that protesting ICE can get you labeled a terrorist. As one scholar put it, this means the government is "actively thinking" about using these statutes at all in domestic dissent contexts—translation: they’ve finally found a way to make the war on terror fully domestic. First they came for the kids in black hoodies with zines, and Pam Bondi tweeted about it.
#killing-democracy#fascism
great leader delivers historic speech about how great leader is
Trump pauses mid-speech to admire his own bravery in reading pre-screened applause lines off a teleprompter.
Trump marked his first year back in office by doing what he does best: standing in front of flags and a teleprompter to explain that everything is going tremendously and that any evidence to the contrary is a Democrat plot. Using the trappings of the presidency as a campaign stage, he ran through a greatest-hits reel of cherry‑picked stats and fantasy accomplishments, because nothing says "successful administration" like needing a taxpayer‑funded infomercial to convince people things are going great.
In the speech, he leaned heavily on attacking Democrats and unnamed "enemies" while presenting himself as the lone savior of the nation, turning what should be a routine presidential address into yet another loyalty rally beamed from the White House. In other words: state TV content, now with more grievance. The message was clear—if you don’t see the roaring success he’s describing, the problem isn’t reality, it’s you.
#killing-democracy#fascism
tiny tyrant slaps 'emergency' tariff on toys
Pictured: a small business executive who naively believed that in America, presidents couldn’t just declare a fake emergency and tax his toys into oblivion.
The Trump administration has finally found the real national emergency: children’s binoculars. Learning Resources, a mid-sized educational toy company that survived the Great Recession and Covid, is now staring down its "greatest challenge" yet: Donald Trump discovering he can use the International Emergency Economic Powers Act as his own personal tariff vending machine.
Trump unilaterally jacked up tariffs under IEEPA, and this one company alone watched its bill jump from $2m in 2024 to a projected $14m this year, with even more pain coming in 2026 if the Supreme Court doesn’t intervene. In other words, the self-proclaimed champion of small business is using emergency powers to kneecap them, then calling it a win for America.
So Learning Resources did the unthinkable in Trump’s America: they fought back. Their lawsuit, Learning Resources v Trump, is now one of the biggest legal challenges to his trade-war cosplay, joined by Democratic attorneys general, libertarians, and even Costco — because nothing says "limited government" like a president unilaterally taxing imports by fiat and daring the courts to stop him. The company is asking not just for the tariffs to be ruled illegal, but for refunds on what they and others have already paid, which would be awkward for an administration that treats the Treasury like a campaign slush fund.
Meanwhile, big retailers mostly stayed quiet, letting smaller businesses front the legal risk while they pass the costs on to consumers. But sure, tell us more about how this is a populist uprising for the forgotten American worker, led by a guy using emergency national security powers to make kids’ learning toys more expensive.
#killing-democracy#trade-war#lawlessness
trump discovers the real campus snowflakes are scientists
Yale student speaks into a microphone, bravely advocating for higher education while the Trump administration tries to replace research grants with culture-war talking points.
The Trump administration’s latest big-brain idea for ‘saving’ higher education: freeze billions in federal research funding and threaten the visas of thousands of international students, then call it a war on ‘woke.’ Because nothing says ‘America First’ like telling the world’s brightest minds to get out and taking a blowtorch to the labs that develop, you know, medicine and technology.
While Trump’s people run a scorched-earth campaign against universities—going after equity initiatives, academic freedom, and anything that smells like independent thought—a bunch of students in Class Action are out here doing the unthinkable: criticizing elite universities without wanting to burn them to the ground. They argue that Yale, Stanford & friends have become citadels of privilege that serve Wall Street more than the public good, and they’re trying to draft a new ‘academic social contract’ instead of just chanting ‘defund the humanities’ on Fox.
In other words, students are trying to reform elitist institutions so they better serve democracy, while the Trump administration is busy weaponizing public mistrust to smash those same institutions into dust. One side wants universities to align their wealth and influence with the public good; the other wants them terrified, defunded, and politically obedient. But sure, tell us again how this is all about ‘free speech’ on campus.
#killing-democracy#anti-science
trump announces boom, forgets to tell the voters living in it
Trump explains that the economy is doing amazingly well, as long as you don’t look at rent, groceries, or any actual humans.
In a primetime address, President Trump declared the U.S. is on the brink of an economic boom and that prices are falling fast — a bold claim, considering the large number of Americans who apparently forgot to experience this miracle firsthand. Affordability is still a top concern for voters, but don’t worry, Trump says it’s all fine now, so clearly the problem is just your lying bank account and your disobedient grocery receipts.
This is the classic Trump economic strategy: if you can’t fix it, just announce on TV that you already did. In other words, the White House message is that the economy is great, the vibes are wrong, and if people can’t afford housing, healthcare, or food, that’s a perception issue — not a policy one. Because nothing says “booming economy” like a president insisting prices are falling while voters are still doing math in the cereal aisle.
#killing-democracy#full-stupid
