bezos spends $70m on melania fanfic, calls it cinema
Melania takes a call, presumably to confirm the check from Bezos cleared before she continues pretending this is a documentary and not a $70m campaign ad.
Amazon drops $70m on a Melania Trump documentary covering the 20 days before Donald Trump’s second inauguration and, shockingly, it’s not a hard-hitting exploration of fascism so much as a glossy brochure for life in the gilded bunker. The box office haul? $7m – which in Trumpworld apparently counts as a roaring success, making it the top documentary of the decade and also a spectacular way for Jeff Bezos to light piles of money on fire in exchange for the faint hope of regime goodwill.
Republican women, meanwhile, are treating this like Barbie for people who think Stephen Miller is a serious policy mind. In Austin, they show up to the AMC in “what would Melania wear?” power suits and leather pants, turning state propaganda into girls’ night while Cecilia Abbott, wife of Greg Abbott, slips in with a security detail like she’s attending the Met Gala instead of a 2-hour soft-focus ad for authoritarian chic. Former Trump press secretary turned Fox fog machine Kayleigh McEnany brags her mom’s screening was “standing room only”, helpfully confirming she has no idea how movie theaters or basic counting work.
The audience is, predictably, older, white, and very into the idea that watching a carefully curated, context-free portrait of Melania’s outfits and “vulnerability” is the same thing as engaging with history. Influencers from the conservative “womanosphere” push it as must-see content for tradwives, while Katie Miller somehow blames South Africa for pulling the film because they’re “biased against white people” – a bold take from the spouse of the guy who built family separation as a lifestyle brand. It’s all pitched as a story of grace under pressure, with the minor omission that the pressure largely comes from the administration dismantling democracy in the background.
So yes, while the rest of us remember child separation, coups, and open contempt for the rule of law, Amazon is out here funding a Jackie Kennedy cosplay reel for a first lady who spent four years decorating the White House like a Slavic horror maze. State-aligned billionaires pumping out prestige propaganda for an aging base desperate to feel persecuted and glamorous at the same time – what could possibly go wrong?
#killing-democracy#oligarchy#forever-grifting
state department to america: please submit a foia request for reality
The State Department, where even the sign out front may soon require a FOIA request to verify it ever existed.
The State Department has decided that history is need-to-know, and the public does not need to know. All posts on its official X accounts from before Trump’s glorious second coming on Jan. 20, 2025 — including from Obama, Biden, and Trump’s own first term — are being wiped from public view and shoved into an internal archive. If you want to see what your government said in the recent past, you can now enjoy the uniquely American experience of filing a FOIA request and waiting months to maybe learn what was once a public tweet.
This is not an isolated clerical tidy-up; it’s part of the administration’s larger "Delete Anything That Makes Us Look Bad Or Real" program. Environmental and health data? Scrubbed. Mentions of women, people of color, and LGBTQ+ communities? Vanished. National park signs that admit slavery happened? Gone. References to Trump’s impeachments at the National Portrait Gallery? Erased. In their place: a White House "revisionist history" of Jan. 6 and a COVID page titled "Lab Leak: The True Origins of Covid-19", because why have science when you can have fan fiction?
A State Department spokesperson swears this is all about avoiding "confusion" and "speaking with one voice" to advance the President’s "America First" goals. Translation: if it didn’t serve the current cult narrative, it goes behind the curtain. Public-facing records are out; curated propaganda feeds are in. The history is technically "preserved," they insist — just not where the public, journalists, or foreign audiences can see it without legal gymnastics. You know, the kind of transparent, accountable diplomacy you expect from a government that keeps needing to reassure everyone it’s definitely not sliding into authoritarianism.
#killing-democracy#fascism
trump’s export-grade fascism hits the european market
Le Pen, Orbán, and friends waiting for the next tranche of moral support from Washington’s Department of Export-Grade Authoritarianism.
European leaders are apparently worried Trump might invade a NATO ally or hand the continent to Putin, which is adorable, because the actual plan is much cheaper: just help elect a bunch of homegrown mini-Trumps and call it a "second American revolution." The new U.S. National Security Strategy literally name-checks far-right parties like Reform UK, AfD, Le Pen’s RN, Fidesz, and Vox as "patriotic" partners, because nothing says safeguarding freedom like using state power to boost movements with ex–neo-Nazi intellectuals on the payroll.
This "new right" isn’t pretending to be nostalgic anymore; it’s proudly hyper-modern, exploiting every crisis from 2008 to Covid to Ukraine as proof that liberal democracy is a failed product and only ethnonational border fetishism can save us. The formula is simple: turn borders into moral sorting hats, tariffs into culture-war cosplay, foreign policy into "what’s in it for us," and any institutional oversight into a sinister "deep state" conspiracy. Then have Elon Musk and friends launder it all through an algorithmic funhouse where "free speech" means infinite disinfo, and obscure activists become martyrs in a parallel reality most normal people don’t even see.
Mainstream parties, being extremely good at losing, either ignore the threat or try to copy the rhetoric on migration and identity, which naturally just makes the originals look more authentic. Meanwhile, Trump and JD Vance are busy turning the U.S. government into an international far-right venture capital fund, underwriting parties that exist to dismantle the very liberal order NATO was built to protect. So no, Europe doesn’t need to fear an American tank division rolling through Berlin; it needs to worry about Washington sending memes, money, and moral support to the people who want to shut democracy down from the inside.
#killing-democracy#fascism#oligarchy
pentagon declares war on harvard, recruits only from trump university of vibes
Defense secretary Pete Hegseth heroically protects America from the grave national security threat of people who read books at Harvard.
Pete Hegseth, the Fox News weekend host currently LARPing as defense secretary, has announced that the Pentagon will cut off all military training, fellowships and certificate programs with Harvard because it’s too "woke" and allegedly full of "Hate America activism". A proud Harvard graduate himself, Hegseth bravely omitted the part where he cashed in on a Kennedy School master’s degree before deciding that higher education is treason.
This isn’t just a tantrum about campus politics; it’s the Trump administration turning the Defense Department into an ideological enforcement arm. Hegseth says the Pentagon’s focus on "building lethality" means no more "millions of dollars" for "expensive universities" that don’t sufficiently worship the troops or the Dear Leader, and he’s ordering all branches to review every Ivy League and civilian grad program for active-duty service members. Translation: if your university teaches anything beyond flag worship and culture-war talking points, the pipeline of military students and funding is on the chopping block.
The same guy who once theatrically defaced his Harvard diploma on Fox & Friends – then immediately admitted it was just a stunt and that, yes, he’s still keeping the degree – is now using the Pentagon to make that stunt national policy. The message to the officer corps is clear: loyalty to Trumpist ideology outranks professional education. "We train warriors, not wokesters," Hegseth sneers, as the world’s most powerful military is methodically rewired to fear critical thinking more than actual enemies.
#killing-democracy#fascism
trump tries to rebrand his coup as a policy agenda
Trump, mid-rant, explaining how if you just change all the rules and never admit defeat, you never technically lose an election.
Trump is reportedly workshopping his 2026-era election tantrums into something Republicans can politely nod along to, like turning a full-blown coup attempt into a tasteful policy white paper. Instead of just screaming that every election he doesn’t win is rigged, he’s now trying to "channel" those grievances into proposals GOP officials can back without having to say the quiet part (we don’t accept losing) out loud.
One of the big ideas floating around: nationalizing elections, i.e., handing more power over how votes are run and counted to the same guy who tried to strong-arm Georgia into "finding" votes and sent a mob to the Capitol. Republicans, who spent decades shrieking about states’ rights, are suddenly discovering that their whole federalism cosplay clashes badly with their new enthusiasm for election control from Dear Leader. It’s creating what NBC politely calls "a problem for Republicans" and what normal people might recognize as the ongoing project of dismantling free and fair elections.
So the party is now stuck trying to translate Trump’s never-ending list of personal grudges into something that sounds like an agenda instead of a confession. They don’t want to alienate his base by admitting the 2020 Big Lie was, in fact, a lie, but they also don’t really want to put their names on an open blueprint for future election subversion. The result is the usual GOP compromise: pretend this is all about "election integrity" while quietly workshopping how much democracy they can strip-mine before anyone notices the lights flickering.
#killing-democracy#fascism#lawlessness
libraries to receive funding, must pretend history had a happy ending
Trump-era cultural policy, where your grant proposal is judged on historical rigor, community impact, and how vigorously it salutes.
The Institute of Museum and Library Services used to fund things like Wi‑Fi in rural Alaska, kids’ science labs, and digitizing World War I documents. Under Trump 2.0, it now “particularly welcomes” projects that align with the president’s vision for America – which, according to his own executive orders, means "uplifting" stories about the country, less talk about "how bad slavery was," and a firm stand against the terrifying menace of "anti-Christian weaponization of government." Federal grants: now with 30% more mandatory vibes.
After failing to kill the agency outright and firing its professional director, Trump installed Labor Department bro Keith E. Sonderling – a man with about as much museum experience as a food court Sbarro – who immediately put almost all 75 employees on administrative leave, fired the board, and yanked previously awarded grants until the courts told him to sit down. Now the agency is back to giving out money, but with guidelines that read less like cultural policy and more like a loyalty oath to the leader’s preferred narrative of American history.
Former directors from both parties are quietly freaking out, warning that museums and libraries are being nudged into a state-approved version of the past, backed up by the White House’s ongoing audit of Smithsonian exhibits for "tone" and "alignment with American ideals." The administration swears everything will still go through peer review, just… after you signal that your project won’t mention structural racism too loudly and will definitely make visitors leave feeling "patriotic" and not, say, informed. Congratulations to the United States: we’ve invented the federal grant version of a state media department, but for story time and museum plaques.
#killing-democracy#fascism#anti-science
trump world discovers crime exists, demands more power
Live shot from cable news as the White House discovers a way to turn one criminal case into a week-long argument for giving Trump even more power.
A Maryland man has been charged with attempted murder in an alleged plot to kill a Trump cabinet official, instantly becoming the White House’s new favorite excuse for why it needs more money, more guns, and fewer constitutional limits. Federal law enforcement actually did its job and intervened before anyone was hurt, which is good news for public safety and terrible news for whatever dramatic martyrdom narrative Trump was workshopping on Truth Social.
Instead of treating this as what it is — a serious but isolated criminal case — you can already see the outlines of the coming PR blitz: every protest is dangerous extremism, every critic is a latent assassin, and every abuse of power is now a necessary precaution. The administration that shrugs at mass shootings and political violence when it’s their side doing it will now spend the week explaining that this one incident proves they need broader surveillance powers and a bigger security bubble around officials who already travel like minor royalty.
So yes, a real crime, real charges, real victims potentially spared — and also a very real opportunity for an administration addicted to fear politics to squeeze one more drop of authoritarian juice out of it. Law enforcement stopped the plot; now we get to see whether anyone stops the inevitable overreach.
#killing-democracy#national-security
trump tries speedrun gerrymander, virginia hits ‘patch update’
The Virginia Capitol, where democracy goes to get surgically redrawn every time Trump panics about an election.
Trump has decided that once-a-decade redistricting is for losers and people who read the Constitution, so he launched a fresh redistricting push to tilt the 2026 midterms toward Republicans. Virginia Democrats, apparently tired of watching the slow-motion arson of representative government, responded by dropping their own map designed to net them four extra House seats. Democracy: now available as competing DLC map packs.
The catch? Virginia’s pesky constitution still says redistricting belongs to a bipartisan commission — you know, that little reform voters passed back when we were still pretending guardrails mattered. So Democrats are now racing to amend the constitution via a special election on April 21, which Gov. Abigail Spanberger hasn’t even formally called yet and has until Feb. 11 to approve. Until then, the commission is theoretically in charge, while other states are already happily redrawing lines mid-cycle because Trump decided the rules are more of a vibe than a framework.
So Virginia is now stuck in a civics escape room: to block Trump’s election-rigging project, they first have to sideline their own ‘independent’ redistricting system, with voter approval, on an accelerated timeline, in the middle of a presidential tantrum about losing the midterms. The supposed world’s oldest continuous democracy is now functionally a cartography arms race being refereed by Donald Trump’s ego and a bunch of state constitutions no one thought they’d need to emergency patch.
#killing-democracy#lawlessness
operation midnight hammer, zero watt brain
Trump studies a blank map of Iran while the Pentagon labels it 'flexible objectives.'
The Trump administration is apparently gearing up for potential war with Iran using the same strategic rigor it usually applies to fast food orders. Top officials, according to U.S. sources, have no clear guidance on what Trump actually wants from possible military action — regime change, "pressure," or just some cool B-roll for campaign ads. They’ve already conducted "Operation Midnight Hammer," a 12-day bombing of three Iranian nuclear sites, while still insisting they need Iran to agree to stop a nuclear program Trump also claims he already "obliterated." Consistency is for democracies that like planning.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio is out here demanding Iran negotiate over nukes, missiles, proxies, and how it treats its own people, while Iran says it will only discuss the nuclear file. So naturally, the U.S. is simultaneously threatening more strikes, moving an aircraft carrier group into position, and insisting this is all just…"leverage." Even Gulf states and Israel — yes, Israel — are now quietly telling Trump to maybe not start World War III without a plan, especially since the White House hasn’t bothered to share objectives with its own allies. Always inspiring when everyone in the region looks at Washington and says, "this seems reckless."
Back home, the messaging is exactly as unhinged as the policy. Trump boasts on TV that Iran’s supreme leader should be "very worried" while claiming credit for ending a bloody crackdown that killed more than 6,000 protesters, then immediately pivots to demanding more concessions under threat of further military action. The White House spokesperson dismisses questions by saying the commander-in-chief "wisely" doesn’t tell his plans to the "fake news" — which is convenient, since it appears he hasn’t told them to the Pentagon either. There’s no defined end state, no agreed role for the U.S. after any strikes, and even Rubio admits no one knows who would run Iran if the regime fell. Perfect conditions, historically, for a nice, clean, totally-not-endless war.
#killing-democracy#imperialism
tulsi gabbard, field agent for the ministry of 2020 truth
Tulsi Gabbard, Director of National Intelligence, carefully monitoring national security by standing in the middle of an FBI raid on a Georgia election office like an unpaid extra in Trump’s 2020 remake.
Tulsi Gabbard, who is somehow the Director of National Intelligence in this timeline, turned up at an FBI raid on a Georgia election center because... reasons. At least three different reasons, depending on which Trump quote you pick. First he told NBC he had no idea why she was there and started mumbling about China. Then, at the National Prayer Breakfast (perfect venue for casual authoritarianism), he said she went at Attorney General Pam Bondi’s insistence to "look at votes". Meanwhile, Gabbard has informed Congress she went at Trump’s direct request under her "broad statutory authority" to help with his personal 2020 obsession tour.
So we now have the nation’s top intelligence official — who has zero domestic law enforcement role — popping into an FBI raid like a surprise wedding guest, because Trump has her running a separate, White House‑approved 2020 election investigation alongside the actual justice department probe. She’s been briefing him and his inner circle every few weeks, presumably on the latest findings from the Department of Never Let It Go. The FBI does law enforcement, DOJ does prosecutions, and Trump’s DNI does... freelance MAGA myth‑validation on county voting machines. Totally normal separation of powers, if your civics textbook was written by Viktor Orbán.
The official story now exists in a kind of quantum state: Trump says it was Bondi’s idea, Gabbard says it was Trump’s, and yesterday Trump said he didn’t know at all. What is clear is that the intelligence community is being repurposed as an extension of Trump’s personal grievance committee, and the boundary between national security work and campaign‑style witch hunt has been erased with a Sharpie. But hey, if you’re trying to turn the federal government into a permanent 2020 fan fiction project, sending your DNI to hover over FBI agents in a county election office is at least on brand.
#killing-democracy#fascism
trump upgrades deep state to at-will cult membership
Trump reviews a list of 50,000 civil servants and circles the ones whose only crime was reading the Constitution.
The Trump administration has decided that 4,000 political appointees just aren’t enough loyalists, so they’re reclassifying about 50,000 career civil servants into a new "Schedule Policy/Career" bucket – which is Latin for "you’re fired the second you follow the law instead of Trump". Traditionally, only political appointees could be canned on a whim; now the White House wants the power to purge huge swaths of the professional bureaucracy for the crime of not treating Truth Social posts as binding legal authority.
To really complete the autocrat starter pack, the rule also guts whistleblower protections by shifting enforcement away from the independent Office of Special Counsel and into the agencies themselves. So if you report misconduct in your department, the people you reported will helpfully decide whether you still get to have a job. The Office of Personnel Management insists that “personal or political loyalty tests” are prohibited, while simultaneously handing Trump the ability to politically purge anyone deemed insufficiently obedient. It’s like banning arson while mailing out free flamethrowers.
Unions and watchdogs are calling this what it is: a blueprint for politically motivated purges and a direct assault on a nonpartisan, merit-based civil service. AFGE warns that competent professionals will be swapped out for political flunkies, which, if history is any guide, means a lot more Jareds and Kash Patels and a lot fewer people who know how federal law works. Heritage’s Project 2025 has been drooling over this exact plan for years; now OPM director Scott Kupor is dutifully selling it as “much-needed accountability,” because nothing screams accountability like making every policy job dependent on personal loyalty to one extremely indicted man.
#killing-democracy#fascism
bernie sanders notices the house is on fire, suggests maybe we stop pouring gasoline
Bernie Sanders, patiently explaining that when the president is arresting opponents, terrorizing communities with a domestic shock troop, and fantasizing about annexing random countries, maybe the real problem isn’t too much civility in politics.
Bernie Sanders has taken a brief break from being the country’s disappointed grandfather to lay out the obvious: the American Dream has been repossessed, the middle class is on life support, and the billionaire class is joyriding around in what’s left of the republic. Wages are flat, housing is a luxury product, college is a debt trap, healthcare is a slot machine, and our food and transit systems are held together with corn syrup and wishful thinking.
But the economic collapse is just the appetizer. The main course is Trump’s ongoing authoritarian cosplay, which has now blown past "strongman aesthetic" and landed firmly in actual strongman behavior. Sanders spells it out: Trump is usurping Congress, menacing the courts, bullying the media and universities, and using the justice system as a personal vengeance machine. ICE, meanwhile, is described as Trump’s "domestic army" – terrorizing communities, kicking down doors without due process, detaining children, illegally deporting people, and, yes, shooting American citizens, because nothing says "law and order" like state-sanctioned chaos.
Abroad, President Big Brain feels more at home with Gulf monarchies and far-right extremists than with boring old democracies. Sanders points to Trump’s unconditional embrace of Netanyahu (currently starring in "Genocide, But Make It Policy"), illegal attacks on Venezuela, and fever-dream ideas like annexing Canada or seizing Greenland, as if Risk is now official U.S. foreign policy. The op-ed then commits the gravest sin in Washington: it suggests actually confronting oligarchs, ending Citizens United, taxing the rich, guaranteeing healthcare, building housing, and letting workers unionize – you know, the sort of agenda that might interfere with the donor class’s urgent need for a ninth yacht.
Sanders’ message is that you don’t beat creeping fascism just by tweeting "this is not normal" into the void. You organize, build a multiracial working-class movement, and pass policies that actually improve people’s lives – which, inconveniently, would make Trump-style strongman theatrics less appealing. The ruling class calls that "radical"; history calls it "the bare minimum for not sliding into oligarchic ruin."
#killing-democracy#fascism#forever-grifting
trump discovers elections work better when he runs all of them
Live look at American democracy, brought to you by the guy who thinks elections are only legitimate when he wins them.
On today’s episode of “What If We Just Deleted Federalism”, Trump is reportedly pushing to “nationalize” U.S. elections — because if there’s one guy you want in charge of every ballot, it’s the man who tried to overturn the last one and then demanded to be made president again by default. Even congressional Republicans, whose job description is usually “nod along and pretend this is fine,” are backing away from this one like it’s a subpoena.
Meanwhile, over at DHS, the administration is apparently assembling what House Democratic Whip Katherine Clark bluntly calls a “rogue paramilitary force.” So that’s cool: centralized control of elections on one side, an unaccountable, politicized security apparatus on the other. Somewhere James Madison just sat bolt upright in his grave and started looking for the nearest exit.
If that’s not enough authoritarian cosplay for one news block, Democrats are also begging for “common sense” rules to make sure ICE agents “behave” — which is a polite way of saying “maybe the federal government shouldn’t run its immigration enforcement like a spite-fueled militia.” The throughline of the whole hour: Trump wants more direct control over the mechanics of democracy, fewer checks on the people with guns, and Republicans are only objecting because it might blow back on them in the midterms, not because any of this resembles a healthy republic.
So to recap: a president who tried to overturn an election now wants to run all elections, his DHS toys are being described as a rogue paramilitary, and the best Congress can muster is a mix of nervous press hits and sternly worded letters. The Founders definitely imagined this when they wrote “checks and balances,” they just forgot to add the part where one branch is too scared of mean tweets to use them.
#killing-democracy#fascism
trump swaps one deportation ghoul for another, calls it 'de-escalation'
Tom Homan explains that flooding Minnesota with 2,000 federal agents is actually de-escalation if you squint hard enough and ignore the bodies.
Tom Homan, the guy who helped design family separation and once promised to run "the biggest deportation force this country has ever seen," has been flown into Minnesota as Trump's "border czar" to calm tensions after two US citizens were killed during immigration raids. His big peace offering? Pulling back 700 agents while proudly noting that 2,000 federal immigration officers are still flooding the state, compared with the usual 150. Nothing says "de-escalation" like leaving a small occupying army in place and refusing to say the victims' names.
Gregory Bovino, the previous crisis arsonist in charge, made a name for himself with parking-lot ambushes, home raids and echoing Kristi Noem's baseless claim that Alex Pretti was armed. Now he's been replaced by Homan, who is slightly better at talking to cameras but fully committed to the same program: "If you're in the country illegally, if we find you, we will deport you." Meanwhile, people with legal status and no criminal record keep getting scooped up, protesters and observers get roughed up, and DHS pretends it's all about "public safety threats."
The new strategy is classic Trump-era strongman: squeeze local jails into quietly collaborating so ICE can vacuum people up at release, then brag that "more agents in the jail means fewer agents in the street"—as if moving the civil rights violations indoors makes them gentler. Minnesota law bans holding people past release on ICE detainers, so Homan swears nobody’s being kept "one minute" extra, while refusing to say which sheriffs have cut backroom deals. Experts point out the obvious: the mission hasn't changed at all, just the PR packaging, and if Minnesota caves now, the administration can always come back later with more raids and more demands.
So Minneapolis gets a polished architect of family separation instead of a loudmouthed raid enthusiast, thousands of federal agents still roaming the state, and an administration openly using one blue state as a test lab for a national mass deportation regime. The agenda is still the same: normalize a permanent crackdown, call it law and order, and hope people stop noticing that citizens are getting killed while the "border" is now apparently in downtown Minneapolis.
#killing-democracy#anti-immigration
trump takes a chainsaw to the arts, accidentally invents a resistance festival
Live from New York: one last performance of free expression before the Ministry of Culture turns the lights off.
The Trump administration has discovered a bold new frontier in culture policy: if it looks like art, defunds like art, or might someday criticize Dear Leader, it gets the axe. Around $27m in arts grants have vanished, some 560 projects tossed into the trash, and the Kennedy Center — where Trump proudly bragged about cutting "woke programming" — is now conveniently "closed for renovations". The Smithsonian and other big institutions have been put on notice: stay safe, stay bland, and definitely don’t mention fascism unless you’re endorsing it.
Artists, being historically bad at shutting up, are responding by turning the whole country into a low-budget Weimar reboot. In LA, Unquiet: A Night of Creative Resistance features poems like Antifa Tea Party and anti-fascist improv, while the nationwide Fall of Freedom series pulled off 700+ performances, from live remediations of ICE detentions to dance protests at the very Kennedy Center Trump is trying to neuter. Playwrights are staging dystopias about ICE raids and abortion, climate dramatists are bracing for death threats because the president is busy "gutting meteorology and science", and theaters serving immigrant and Palestinian communities are building safety protocols in case ICE decides the show needs a raid.
So now just showing up to a play about climate change or state violence is a political act, and venues are quietly planning for what happens when law enforcement or federal goons decide art is terrorism. Trump gets his culture war; what he’s actually building is a shadow network of resistance theaters, poets, and performers who’ve realized that if the administration is going to treat them like enemies of the state, they might as well act like it — tickets on sale now.
#killing-democracy#fascism
robert kraft kneels … to trump
Robert Kraft presents Donald Trump with a Patriots jersey, helpfully reminding everyone which team American oligarchy really plays for.
Robert Kraft once cosplayed as the reasonable billionaire of the NFL – visiting Meek Mill in prison, nudging Devin and Jason McCourty into activism, and tut-tutting Trump after January 6 like a disappointed dad who just found the fascism stash under the bed. He even allegedly stopped talking to Trump for a while, which in oligarch terms is the equivalent of storming the Bastille.
That brief outbreak of conscience has now been resolved, thanks to the healing power of Melania: The Documentary, a $40m Amazon MGM love letter to the woman who thought cyberbullying was bad unless her husband did it on live TV. Kraft shows up at the premiere and then on stage with Trump, happily dancing through the authoritarian afterparty while the country slides into "restorative whiteness" and the NFL quietly memory-holes its own fleeting flirtation with phrases like "End Racism" in the end zones.
The league’s political energy hasn’t disappeared; it just changed jerseys. Black coaches are shut out again, the Harbaugh brothers are openly swooning for Trump, and the NFL’s military pageantry rolls on while the slogans get dialed back to the safest corporate gibberish imaginable. Kraft, once sold as a bridge between radicalized players and reactionary owners, is back where he started: standing next to a president who incited an attack on his own government and then used the Department of Justice to cut a $5m check to Ashli Babbitt’s family. The bread is more expensive, but the circuses are still free – especially if you own the tent.
#killing-democracy#oligarchy
trump crowns himself king, discovers first amendment is inconvenient
Nancy Pelosi politely explaining that when the president arrests journalists, you’re not in a rom-com, you’re in the prequel to a junta.
Nancy Pelosi used a Washington Press Club dinner to deliver the kind of line you usually reserve for failed democracies: press freedom in the US is "under siege" thanks to the Trump administration arresting Don Lemon and sending the FBI to ransack Washington Post reporter Hannah Natanson’s home. Agents reportedly seized her electronic devices, because nothing screams "totally normal presidency" like treating reporters’ laptops as enemy combatants.
Pelosi called the arrest and raid "an affront to press freedom meant to scare, chill and silence" — which, to be fair, is probably the most honest mission statement this White House has ever had. At the same time, Jeff Bezos’s Washington Post laid off about a third of its staff, helpfully demonstrating that even when the government isn’t crushing journalism, corporate America is there to finish the job. "Democracy dies in darkness," the paper’s slogan says, while the owner switches off the newsroom lights to save on overhead.
Pelosi didn’t stop at the press. She described "a president who has crowned himself King, a Congress which has abolished itself, and a supreme court that has gone rogue" — a neat little summary of how checks and balances became more of a nostalgia brand than a functioning system. The First Amendment, she reminded everyone, is supposed to protect a free and independent press as the fourth estate. Under Trump, it’s more of a suggestion — one that can be ignored whenever the monarch-in-chief feels a little too criticized on TV.
#killing-democracy#fascism
treasury bro discovers congressional oversight is not a podcast
Scott Bessent discovering, in real time, that a House hearing is not a Fox Business segment he can talk over.
The Trump Treasury’s new money man, Scott Bessent, went to the House Financial Services Committee to explain why the president’s economic agenda is definitely not just vibes and tax cuts for donors. Ranking Democrat Maxine Waters did the unthinkable in Trump’s America: she tried to get a straight answer on whether this administration is actually committed to lowering prices for normal humans and not just juicing the stock portfolios of everyone who has Mar-a-Lago on speed dial.
The hearing quickly shifted from "routine oversight" to "family Thanksgiving with cameras" as Bessent dodged and deflected his way through questions until Waters finally asked the Republican chair to "shut him up" so she could actually do her job. Bessent, channeling the full wounded dignity of a man unused to consequences, responded by telling Waters to "maintain some level of dignity"—because nothing screams respect for institutions like a Trump official lecturing Congress about decorum while refusing to give clear answers on how their policies are squeezing Americans.
So the economic plan remains the same: prices are high, accountability is low, and the administration treats congressional oversight like an annoying pop-up ad. Authoritarian vibes, zero customer service.
#killing-democracy#full-stupid
trump discovers taiwan is worth exactly 8 million extra tonnes of soybeans
Two guys who definitely aren’t trading away anyone’s democracy for soybeans and photo ops, why do you ask?
Xi Jinping picked up the phone to remind Donald Trump that Taiwan is "China's territory" and that the US should be very "prudent" about shipping weapons to the island. Trump, naturally, emerged from the call declaring it "excellent" and "long and thorough" — which is how he describes everything from peace talks to lunch — while Beijing's state media framed the chat as China patiently teaching the class dunce about "stability" and "responsibility".
The Trump team just greenlit an $11 billion arms sale to Taipei — rocket launchers, howitzers, missiles, the usual "please don't invade us" starter pack — and Xi gently suggested that maybe Washington dial it back unless everyone wants a live-fire sequel to the Taiwan Strait Crises. Trump, ever the master strategist, countered with his favorite foreign-policy doctrine: soybeans first. He bragged that China might buy 20 million tonnes of US soybeans instead of 12 million, as if the fate of a 23-million-strong democracy should be negotiated like a Costco bulk discount.
While Xi talks about "sovereignty" and "territorial integrity" and Trump posts about his "extremely good" personal relationship with Xi on Truth Social, Taiwan’s president is over here insisting ties with the US are still "rock solid" and all the defense cooperation is continuing. Translation: Taipei is desperately hoping the island’s security isn’t being quietly horse-traded for tariff rollbacks, TikTok deals, and a photo op in Beijing. But don’t worry — Chinese state media assures us China is a "stabilising force" and a "responsible major power". If there’s one thing this era keeps proving, it’s that when authoritarian leaders and Trump say "stability," they mostly mean their power, your risk.
#killing-democracy#oligarchy#forever-grifting
trump fact-checks reality, reality loses
President Trump, mid-sentence, carefully explaining how 3% inflation is actually the worst in history if you close your eyes and really believe in yourself.
Donald Trump sat down with NBC and treated the Oval Office like his old reality show set, except now the lies come with ICE raids and tariff policy. He claimed he inherited "the worst inflation in the history of our country" — which is a bold statement for a guy whose own tariffs helped nudge prices back up from the relatively tame 3% he walked into. The actual record-holder is 1980 at over 14%, but why let the Federal Reserve’s data get in the way of a good self-pity monologue?
He bragged that there are more people working than ever, which is technically true in the same way that saying "I built the tallest sandcastle" is technically true when you showed up at low tide. Job growth has cratered since he took office again, wage growth is slowing, and his magical “$18 trillion” in investment shrinks to roughly half that when you look at his own website — and then shrinks again once you strip out pre-Trump announcements and fantasy pledges from sovereign funds and data-center fever dreams. It’s less an investment boom and more a PowerPoint boom.
On immigration, Trump repeated his favorite genre: horror fanfic presented as policy justification. He insisted his administration is "totally focused on criminals" even though more than a third of ICE arrests in his first nine months were people with no criminal record. He then tossed out a very precise 11,888 “murderers” supposedly “let in” by Biden, which turns out to be a decadeslong count of noncitizens convicted of homicide, many of whom arrived under multiple presidents and are already in state or federal prisons. He also inflated Biden-era illegal crossings from 7.4–10.2 million (depending on how you count) to 25 million, because if you’re going to demonize migrants, you might as well round up by a casual fifteen million.
And throughout, he waved around “record low crime” like a participation trophy, using real declines to launder his fantasy border numbers and justify broad, indiscriminate enforcement. The pattern is the same: cook the stats, scare the public, then claim a mandate for ever-harsher crackdowns. It’s not policy, it’s a vibes-based security state — with fact-checkers playing whack-a-mole while the administration quietly builds the machinery to treat entire categories of people as criminals first and human beings never.
#killing-democracy#anti-immigration
