doge speedruns identity theft any% with social security data
Behold the Social Security Administration, bravely defended by security protocols that apparently lose to a determined dude with a USB stick.
The Department of Government Efficiency — a name that ages worse than unrefrigerated shrimp — is back in the spotlight after a whistleblower says a former DOGE software engineer walked out of the Social Security Administration with copies of databases containing personal information on almost every living American. Because when you give Trumpworld bros "god-level" access to federal systems, what could they possibly do besides allegedly load your retirement into a thumb drive and brag about sharing it with their new private-sector boss?
Congressional Democrats and the Social Security Administration’s inspector general are now poking through the wreckage, trying to determine whether this ex-DOGE employee really retained the ability to edit SSA data at will, which is a totally normal sentence to say about a core pillar of the U.S. safety net. SSA’s anonymous spokesperson insists it’s all bogus and points out that the Washington Post couldn’t verify the claims — a bold defense that boils down to "trust us, the guy who allegedly had root access to your entire life definitely didn’t." Meanwhile, Americans get to play the fun new Trump-era game show: "Is My Government Check Real, or Did DOGE Patch Notes Delete Me?"
#lawlessness#forever-grifting
trump admin discovers pr, asks house gop to say the quiet part less loud
Trump officials explaining that it’s not *mass* deportation if you call everyone a criminal first.
The Trump administration is apparently workshopping its fascism for suburban audiences now, quietly nudging House Republicans to dial back the talk of "mass deportations" and say they're just focused on "removing criminals." You know, the classic strongman move: keep the same machinery of state repression, but slap a friendlier label on the box so the HOA moms don't get nervous.
This is not a policy rethink; it's a branding exercise. The same administration that built child cages, tried to end DACA, and turned ICE into a roaming fear factory now wants everyone to pretend this is a targeted, surgical operation against "bad hombres" only. The goal is to keep the deportation dragnet broad while the rhetoric gets just narrow enough to survive a campaign ad.
So while the House GOP dreams out loud about buses and camps, Trump's team is in the back room with a whiteboard, crossing out "mass deportations" and replacing it with focus-grouped euphemisms. The underlying project — criminalize presence, weaponize the state against immigrants, and keep a permanent underclass terrified — stays exactly the same. The only difference is whether they say it with a bullhorn or a press release.
#anti-immigration#killing-democracy
trump-endorsed gun guy comes with 2007 rape allegation, gop shrugs and reloads
Blake Miguez, Trump-endorsed marksman, expertly aiming at higher office while the GOP tries to shoot down a 2007 rape allegation with an email from dad.
The MAGA talent pipeline has produced another star: Louisiana state senator and champion sharpshooter Blake Miguez, now running for Congress with Donald Trump’s coveted endorsement and a 2007 rape allegation that somehow never made it into the campaign brochure. The accusation was reported to police the same night it allegedly happened, complete with a rape kit and a detailed sheriff’s report, but mysteriously did not surface while Miguez rose through the Louisiana legislature writing bills to let 18-year-olds carry concealed weapons. Priorities.
Republican operatives quietly pulled the police report last summer, then sat on it while Miguez first flirted with a Senate run against Bill Cassidy and then pivoted to an open House seat. Once the story started leaking into the political bloodstream, the response from Team Miguez was not "here’s why this report is wrong" but "here’s an email from the accuser’s dad calling his own daughter a liar with a drug problem"—an email he sent after declining to even read the police report and after being contacted by a reporter. Truly the gold standard of exonerating evidence.
Conservative writer Matthew Foldi rushed in to portray the whole thing as a "Kavanaugh-esque smear," attacking the woman’s credibility by leaning hard on her arrest record and past protective orders, as if being abused before and after 2007 somehow proves you can’t be abused in 2007. Club for Growth, also backing Miguez, declared the claims "false" based on her supposed "long record of false claims" against multiple men, while declining to clarify whether anyone had actually known about — or cared about — the police report before they wrote the checks.
Meanwhile, the White House reportedly worries that Miguez "wasn’t fully vetted" or "wasn’t forthcoming" about the easily discoverable rape allegation. Because if there’s anything that might bother the Trump political machine, it’s not the pattern of elevating men with credible accusations of sexual misconduct — it’s failing to manage the optics properly. The party of "law and order" remains fully on board: the gun law stays, the endorsement stands, and the woman who went to the cops the night it happened is reduced to a talking point in a damage-control memo.
#perverts#forever-grifting
trump discovers cancel culture, applies it to the entire federal government
Bezos, Pichai, and Musk at Trump’s inauguration, presumably discussing the long-term business risks of building tools for a guy who thinks "supply chain risk" means "they hurt my feelings on TV."
The Trump administration has reportedly decided that if you won't build them a panopticon and a robot war machine, you don't get to do business with the United States government. Anthropic refused to strip contract language banning domestic mass surveillance and autonomous weapons from its AI tools, so Trump went on Truth Social, had a tantrum, and announced Claude would be purged from the entire federal government. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth then slapped Anthropic with a "supply chain risk" label — something never before used against an American company — while the Pentagon allegedly called Anthropic’s customers to quietly suggest they drop the company. Free market capitalism, but make it retaliatory blacklist.
This escalation was so nakedly punitive that even Big Tech, which has been shoveling money and support at Trump since his comeback tour, briefly remembered it has lawyers. Microsoft, Google, Apple, Amazon, Nvidia and friends filed amicus briefs warning that the administration’s behavior is basically a government-run protection racket: nice AI business you’ve got there, shame if the president called you "woke" and the DoD destroyed your customer base. They explicitly spell it out: labelling Anthropic a "risk" looks like a political temper tantrum with "potentially ruinous" consequences, and if it stands, it creates a "culture of coercion, complicity, and silence" where companies are punished for daring to disagree.
Former top military officials are also chiming in to say, in polite lawyer-speak, that this is how you scare serious companies away from working on national security at all, because any policy disagreement can now trigger "capricious retaliation." Meanwhile, a free-speech group notes that this is exactly what it looks like when the government uses its power to crush disfavored speech and force compliance. The tech sector isn't suddenly noble here — they’re just realizing that once you let an administration weaponize national security labels and procurement power to smash one "disobedient" vendor, every other CEO is one public disagreement away from being declared an enemy of the supply chain. Authoritarianism meets enterprise SaaS.
#killing-democracy#fascism#forever-grifting
commander-in-tweet shuts the strait of hormuz
US warships guard an empty shipping lane while Trump rage-posts about mines that aren’t the main problem. What could go wrong?
US intelligence says the biggest threat to oil tankers in the Strait of Hormuz isn’t mines, it’s Iran directly blowing them out of the water with drones and shore-to-ship missiles. The Trump administration, ever the master strategist, responded by fixating on mines anyway and launching strikes on 16 mostly moored mine-laying vessels after Trump rattled his digital saber on Truth Social. US Central Command dutifully posted the video, because nothing says careful escalation management like turning a potential regional war into influencer content.
Lawmakers got a classified briefing in which, according to Sen. Chris Murphy, the Pentagon basically admitted they have no idea how to safely reopen a chokepoint that carries a fifth of the world’s oil. Meanwhile, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard has effectively shut down the strait, oil prices are spiking, and ship operators are understandably refusing to play "suicide run" with their crews. The White House, asked about all this, pointed reporters back to Trump’s social media threats as if that counts as a policy. National security by vibes and gas prices by roulette wheel is apparently the entire plan.
Energy secretary Chris Wright went on TV to insist that the US has destroyed “many” of Iran’s weapons and that traffic will resume in “a few weeks,” without offering details, math, or reality. Within days, at least three ships were still hit in and around the strait, including a Thai bulk carrier Iran openly claimed. So the current US posture is: we launched our biggest attack of the war, we can’t guarantee we can protect tankers, crews don’t want to sail, Iran is still hitting ships, and the White House is outsourcing its messaging to Trump’s unhinged posts. But relax, they’ve totally got this under control.
#national-security#imperialism#full-stupid
republicans debate which flavor of minority rule they prefer
Sen. Kevin Cramer explains that democracy is great, as long as it has a 60‑vote handicap and only counts when his party wins.
Sen. Kevin Cramer popped up on Meet the Press to bravely defend the filibuster, that cherished Senate tradition where nothing happens and democracy goes to nap, after fellow Republican Sen. John Cornyn suggested maybe it’s time to put the 60‑vote requirement out of its misery. Cornyn, suddenly discovering that majority rule might be useful when your party is busy backing a president playing nuclear footsie with Iran, wants to clear the procedural underbrush. Cramer, ever the institutionalist when it’s convenient, insists the filibuster is vital — translation: Republicans want to keep their obstruction tool handy for whenever voters briefly wrest control away from them again.
This isn’t a lofty constitutional debate so much as an argument over which weapon they’d like to keep pointed at representative government. On one side, Cornyn & Co. fantasize about a world where Trump can get judges, appointees, and war authorizations approved with fewer annoying questions. On the other, Cramer clings to the filibuster as a backup generator for minority veto power once the electorate tires of endless Iran escalation and economic chaos. Both factions agree on the core principle: actual majority will is something to be managed, not respected — they’re just haggling over the most efficient way to keep it throttled.
#killing-democracy#oligarchy
king of the swamp: trump & epstein do titanic cosplay on the mall
Artist’s rendering of American elite accountability: Trump and Epstein doing cruise-ship fan fiction in gold while the Department of Justice quietly erases the word "Justice" and walks away.
Washington finally has a Trump monument worthy of the era: a 12-foot golden statue on the National Mall of Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein posed as the doomed lovers from Titanic. Titled "King of the World," the piece has Trump standing behind Epstein, arms outstretched, gazing out toward the Washington Monument like the world’s worst cruise line promo. Plaques helpfully explain that their "friendship" was built on luxurious travel, raucous parties, and secret nude sketches, which is a polite way of saying: this is a shrine to the rot everyone in power keeps pretending not to smell.
A row of banners completes the subtlety-free experience: photos of Trump and Epstein under the slogan "Make America Safe Again," each stamped with the Department of Justice seal, where the word "Justice" has been literally blacked out. The permit for the statue reportedly has its end date redacted too, which is either part of the art or just the National Park Service method-acting as the FBI when it "loses" inconvenient records. Meanwhile, Trump keeps insisting he’s been "totally exonerated" by millions of pages of Epstein files that somehow still include his name thousands of times. Truly, the most exonerated man in history.
The White House, naturally, is furious. Deputy press secretary Abigail Jackson rushed out to complain that rich liberal donors aren’t commissioning enough Epstein statues of Democrats, proving that the administration’s official position on a serial sex offender is: "What about our bipartisan predators?" This all follows earlier Trump–Epstein installations—"Best Friends Forever" and a giant replica of a crude birthday note allegedly signed "Donald"—because when the justice system refuses to hold powerful men accountable, anonymous artists are apparently the closest thing we have left to consequences.
#perverts#killing-democracy
kemi badenoch applies to be trump’s junior war intern
Kemi Badenoch, carefully calibrating the exact distance at which you can both support and not support a Trump war at the same time.
Kemi Badenoch has discovered the difficult art of supporting Trump’s war on Iran while simultaneously denying she ever supported Trump’s war on Iran. Initially, she accused Keir Starmer of cowardice for not diving headfirst into a US-Israeli bombing campaign with no legal mandate and no plan, then retrofitted her position into a galaxy-brain distinction where calling for British forces to strike targets inside Iran is somehow not the same as joining the war. She can’t explain how, but you’re supposed to clap anyway.
The problem, beyond the obvious "starting a war with no strategy" thing, is that Trump’s latest foreign-policy improv session is wrecking global trade, spiking oil prices, rattling markets, and pumping up inflation. So now Badenoch is frantically backing away from the flaming wreckage she was cheering a week ago, trying to look like Churchill while behaving like a focus group in human form. Nigel Farage did the same routine, just faster, proving that if you’re going to be a Trump satellite, at least orbit with some agility.
What’s left of the British right is now basically a franchise operation for MAGA foreign policy: automatically align with Washington’s worst impulses, then panic when the bill arrives. Badenoch literally praised JD Vance’s rant about Europe being a bigger threat than Russia as "truth bombs"—because nothing says "serious stateswoman" like applauding the US vice president for insulting your own continent. The editorial’s core point is simple: maybe, just maybe, the leader of the opposition should base war-and-peace decisions on the UK national interest, not on earning a retweet from Donald Trump.
#imperialism#killing-democracy
florida man tries to outdo trump’s timeline with all‑you‑can‑threaten terror menu
Artist’s impression of American political discourse: a Florida man, an X account, and a death threat for every branch of government.
America’s favorite export — unhinged political violence — is thriving. Florida man Diego Villavicencio has been indicted for allegedly threatening to kill Rep. Eric Swalwell, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, and President Donald Trump, apparently deciding that the best way to express his views on capitalism was to cosplay as a one-man terror cell in a comments section. Among the hits: “I’ll kill you and your family,” “Jerome is next,” and a promise to drive over and “take a couple of shots at trump and some other corrupt plutocrats.” Truly a bipartisan assassination fantasy — at last, something that crosses the aisle.
Swalwell, who has basically become a recurring character in the “people who get death threats for doing oversight” cinematic universe, notes that previous threats against him and his family somehow didn’t result in charges. But now, under Attorney General Pam Bondi — who recently told Congress that no one should be threatened, which is a bold stance in Trump’s America — DOJ is finally moving on at least this case. The FBI affidavit says the X account tied to Villavicencio had been calling for terrorist acts against government officials and CEOs, culminating in a neat little manifesto: “Death to America… Bomb the federal reserve… Kill politicians… Shoot Joe Biden… Shoot Donald Trump… END CAPITALISM FREE THE PEOPLE.”
X eventually suspended the account, apparently deciding that open calls for mass political violence were just a smidge over the line — somewhere between “slur-filled rant” and “buy my crypto scam.” Meanwhile, a federal judge has ordered Villavicencio held pending trial, and we’re all left pretending this is some isolated outburst instead of the logical end stage of a political culture that’s spent years telling supporters that opponents are traitors, pedophiles, communists, or all three. But sure, let’s keep asking why members of Congress need extra security.
#killing-democracy#lawlessness
trump workshopped world war iii like a yelp review
Trump, fresh off bombing Iranian ships, explains that when it comes to war, the U.S. really hasn’t even started trying yet.
Trump was asked what other “military accomplishments” were needed in Iran, and he responded like he was rating a hotel on TripAdvisor instead of openly musing about more war. Saying “we could do a lot worse,” he treated the prospect of escalating conflict with a major regional power as a kind of casual upsell, as if the Pentagon were a timeshare and the Strait of Hormuz was the pool bar.
This is the same administration already bragging about hitting multiple Iranian mine-laying ships and then acting baffled that gas prices and war fears are rising. Trump’s answer made clear there’s no coherent strategy, just a vibes-based foreign policy where civilian lives, global markets, and U.S. troops are background extras in his personal action movie.
So what else needs to be accomplished in Iran? According to Trump, apparently the only real limit is how much destruction he can get away with before the polls, oil prices, or reality catch up. American foreign policy reduced to a shrug and a threat: we “could do a lot worse,” and this White House is always happy to prove it.
#imperialism#national-security#killing-democracy
trump wins 2024, promptly loses new hampshire
Artist’s rendering of New Hampshire voters gently escorting Trumpism to the state line and telling it to keep walking.
Donald Trump carried this New Hampshire district in 2024, so naturally in 2026 it just elected a Democrat by 4 points after a 13-point GOP margin last time. Bobbi Boudman, who previously lost twice to Republican Glenn Cordelli, finally won the seat once he fled the district, proving that the strongest Democratic field operation remains: Republicans moving away.
National Republicans and their dark-money friends like Americans for Prosperity dutifully backed GOP candidate Dale Fincher, then watched more than 4,000 voters politely respond: "No thanks, we’ve tried Trumpism, turns out it’s bad." This is the 28th seat Democrats have flipped since Trump’s 2024 win, while Republicans have flipped exactly zero, which is also the approximate number of lessons the party appears capable of learning.
Democrats are calling it part of a growing wave, with the DLCC openly planning the biggest state-level gains in two decades and the DNC chair saying that no Republican seat is safe. Meanwhile, state Republicans are discovering that running on soaring costs, culture war hysteria, and whatever Trump posted on Truth Social this morning might not be the electoral cheat code they were promised. Tuesdays are becoming a rolling referendum on the Trump agenda, and the voters keep hitting "reject call."
#leopards-ate-my-face#losses
trump finally unites america: in not paying him
Woman with megaphone seen committing the gravest sin in Trump’s America: demanding that her taxes stop funding cages and bombs instead of more golden drapes for the Oval Office.
Turns out when you use the federal treasury as your personal war-and-deportation slush fund, people eventually notice the direct debit from their conscience. Rachel Cohen, a 31-year-old Chicago lawyer, has helpfully gone on Instagram to announce she’s parking her $8,800 tax bill in a high-yield account instead of funding Trump’s adventures in Iran, Gaza, and ICE’s neighborhood kidnapping service. She’s getting the usual replies – "this is illegal" – to which she responds, essentially: yes, that’s the point.
The National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee, which used to be a niche concern for pacifists and people who read footnotes for fun, just held its biggest training ever: from a dozen attendees to nearly 500, with 110,000 people poking around their website to see how far they can tell the IRS to get bent. They’re pretty upfront that some of this is illegal and can end with wage garnishment or even home seizure – and yet, under Trump’s second-term war-and-police state budget, more people are deciding they’d rather risk a lien than bankroll what Cohen bluntly calls "concentration camps".
Tax resistance has a long American pedigree – Boston Tea Party, Depression-era strikes that almost bankrupted Chicago, Vietnam-era refusers who wouldn’t pay the phone tax funding the war. What’s new is that after two decades where "tax protest" mostly meant rich guys whining about capital gains, the spotlight is swinging back to people who don’t want their paychecks underwriting drone strikes and ICE raids. Trump promised to "run America like a business"; he just forgot that when customers hate the product, they sometimes stop paying the invoice.
#killing-democracy#imperialism#anti-immigration
octagon on the south lawn, brain cells not included
Live look at the South Lawn, where the People’s House has been rebranded as the Octagon so Trump can celebrate his 80th birthday with a taxpayer-subsidized hype reel.
Trump promised the White House UFC gala would be the most historic fight card in human history – eight or nine title fights, all "legendary". What America is actually getting for its 250th birthday (and Trump’s 80th) is two real title bouts, a bunch of mid-tier matchups, and a lineup mysteriously stacked with vocal Trump superfans. So it’s less "UFC Freedom 250" and more "Make Pay-Per-View Great Again" fan-cam, live from the South Lawn.
Instead of a once-in-history sports spectacle, the UFC and Dana White delivered something that looks exactly like their regular content mill, just with better bunting and more fascist cosplay. The company that spent a decade laundering Trump as the ultimate tough-guy outsider is now helping him turn the literal White House into a branded cage-fighting set piece, timed to his birthday and wrapped in patriotic marketing copy. The fighters? Cheaper Trump loyalists. The politics? Soft-focus authoritarian pageantry with sponsorship logos.
The kicker: this "one-of-one" extravaganza reportedly costs around $60m, which the UFC hopes to claw back from sponsors while the president gets priceless propaganda footage of himself bathed in fireworks and adulation. The United States’ 250th anniversary could have been a sober reflection on democracy; instead, it’s being celebrated by turning the people’s house into a PPV backdrop for an aging strongman LARPing as the main event.
#forever-grifting#killing-democracy
trump flies to kentucky to primary the concept of a separate branch of government
Trump, moments before explaining that forcing the release of Epstein files is "very disloyal" to the guy still hoping everyone stops reading them.
Trump is jetting into Hebron, Kentucky, to teach Rep. Thomas Massie an important civics lesson: in the modern GOP, you don't represent your district, you represent one very aggrieved Florida resident and his legal exposure. Massie’s crime? Helping force the release of the Jeffrey Epstein files and trying to make Congress vote before Trump keeps playing Commander-in-Chief Mad Libs with Iran. For this, Trump has called him a "moron," a "lightweight," and a "loser" — which, in this universe, is practically a Medal of Honor.
The White House, with a straight face and a podium, insists this is not political, just Trump visiting a packaging plant to talk about the economy. Totally normal for the president to show up in a single House district where he personally recruited a Navy SEAL farmer to run, while a Trump-aligned super PAC called MAGA KY sets $2.6 million on fire to make sure voters understand that Massie is basically the Ayatollah with a Kentucky drawl. Hard-line pro-Israel donors and GOP operatives even built a bespoke state branch of MAGA Inc. whose sole mission is "ruin this one congressman’s life."
Massie is running the heretical campaign of saying he’s actually the one doing what Trump pretended to stand for: no new wars, less debt, some vague "healthy America" thing, and occasionally reading the Constitution before voting. Gallrein, meanwhile, offers the simpler pitch: Trump likes me, Trump hates him, and do you really want to risk being on the wrong side of the guy who can vaporize your career with a Truth Social post? The message from Trump and his donors is clear: oppose the One Big Beautiful Bill that balloons the debt and question the Dear Leader’s foreign policy, and the entire weight of the MAGA money machine will descend on your district like a swarm of angry Super PAC locusts.
Massie says if he wins, it proves we still have a republic and that Congress doesn’t work for the president. The fact that this is even up for debate — and that Trump is personally flying in to settle it — tells you exactly how well that’s going. The 4th District isn’t just voting on a congressman; it’s voting on whether Republican lawmakers are allowed to occasionally act like a separate branch of government, or if their job description has been permanently updated to "loyalty tester on call."
#retribution#killing-democracy#oligarchy
half the country is cool with troops at the ballot box, what could go wrong
Voters in Queens bravely exercise their rights in one of the few remaining elections not yet supervised by guys in camo and rifles.
America has reached the "sure, let's put soldiers at the polls" stage of democratic decline. A new NPR/PBS/Marist poll finds 46% of Americans support the National Guard monitoring polling places this November — a thing that would be illegal if ordered by the federal government, which is, of course, exactly the kind of thing President Trump keeps fantasizing about while talking about "nationalizing" elections and wishing he'd sent troops to seize voting machines in 2020.
This isn't some abstract civics seminar: about three-quarters of Republicans say they want the Guard at polling places, while three-quarters of Democrats say absolutely not, please stop speedrunning Weimar. Experts gently note that the Guard can be used by governors for limited support roles, like cybersecurity, but that whole "federal troops policing voting" thing is a giant legal and constitutional no-no — which naturally makes it a top item on Trump's wish list as he urges the GOP to "take over" voting in certain places.
War with Iran and a recent bombing attempt in New York are now the convenient backdrop for normalizing military presence at the ballot box, as some voters say they're more afraid of terrorists than of soldiers guarding their right to vote. State and local election officials, meanwhile, are quietly freaking out after last year's Guard deployments to U.S. cities and Trump's open regret that he didn't use them to snatch voting equipment. So yes, nearly half the country is now pre-gaming for an election system where you cast your ballot under the watchful eye of people with guns — but don't worry, it's all in the name of "security." What could possibly go wrong.
#killing-democracy#fascism
trump doj to america: felons and fake electors need guns too
Nothing says "We the People" like a government that hands guns back to felons and fake electors, then calls it constitutional patriotism.
The Trump Justice Department quietly dug up a 30‑year‑dormant program, dusted it off, and started handing federal gun rights back to felons like it's a loyalty rewards card. Buried in a Federal Register notice: 22 people whose firearms "disability" has now been cured by the healing power of Trump’s DOJ. Most have old nonviolent felonies; one of them, however, is Arizona GOP state senator Jake Hoffman — better known as one of the indicted fake electors from 2020 and a proud recipient of a Trump pardon.
This renaissance in Second Amendment charity work is being sold as a noble effort to help reformed offenders, blessed by the Supreme Court’s Bruen decision and wrapped in talk of "no longer a threat to public safety." Yet somehow, amid all the carefully vetted 20‑ and 40‑year‑old cases, the department just happened to slip in a freshly indicted Trump ally who still faces state felony charges. So while DOJ insists it's just following the law and precedent, the practical message is clear: if you help overturn an election, this administration will help you get your guns back. Law and order, Trump-style — where the law is optional and the order is: protect the loyalists first.
Meanwhile, states can still block some of these people from owning guns, which means the only thing standing between a fake elector and a federally blessed firearm might be a state law that hasn’t yet been kneecapped. The federal government is out here treating democratic sabotage like a paperwork hiccup, and the gun lobby gets a bonus prize: a Justice Department that sees no conflict between "defending democracy" and rearming the people who tried to help steal it.
#killing-democracy#lawlessness#forever-grifting
trump’s white identity whisperer doesn’t clear the senate metal detector
Jeremy Carl, moments before discovering that saying the quiet white-identity part out loud is still frowned upon in Senate hearings… sometimes.
Trump’s latest gift to American diplomacy, Jeremy Carl of Claremont Institute fame, has withdrawn his nomination for assistant secretary of state for international organization affairs after Republican senators discovered—through the grueling, high-tech process of watching a clip on X—that he’d been workshopping white identity takes and making "insensitive" remarks about Jews and Israel. When even Sen. John Curtis decides you’re not the guy to represent America at the U.N., that’s less a red flag and more a ten-story klaxon.
During his confirmation hearing, Carl helpfully explained that he’s worried about the loss of “majority common American culture” due to mass immigration, but insisted he’s not a white nationalist, just a guy talking about white culture being erased and posting through it. Sen. Chris Murphy responded by calling him a “legit white nationalist,” which, fun twist, turned out to be a career-limiting diagnosis for a State Department job that involves not sounding like a Telegram channel in front of other countries.
Carl blamed his exit on a lack of unanimous Republican support on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, bravely withdrawing so that Trump and Secretary Rubio wouldn’t have to “waste valuable time and energy” trying to sell his nomination. He then praised the administration for not picking from the usual ‘business as usual’ nominees—which is true, if by “business as usual” you mean “people who don’t show up to their hearing with a public record of white identity discourse and anti-Israel hot takes.”
The position he was supposed to fill: implementing U.S. policy at the United Nations and other multilateral bodies. Instead, the administration will have to go back to the drawing board and find another ideologue who can talk about "culture" loudly enough for the base, but not so loudly that GOP senators have to pretend they’ve never heard of him.
#awful-nominations#racism#killing-democracy
trump puts texas senate race on layaway until voter suppression clears
John Cornyn bravely campaigns for the Senate seat he already holds, while waiting to find out whether his political future will be decided by Texas voters or one man’s tantrum on Truth Social.
Donald Trump has discovered a fun new use for his endorsement: hostage-taking. What was supposed to be a routine nod to Sen. John Cornyn in the Texas GOP Senate runoff is now stuck in a "holding pattern" because Trump wants something first — passage of the SAVE America Act, a bill that "saves" America by making it harder to vote and easier to discriminate. He’s explicitly telling Republicans that nothing moves in Texas until his voter-suppression wishlist moves in the Senate.
Both Cornyn and his runoff opponent, walking ethics violation Ken Paxton, are dutifully backing the bill, which would require photo ID to vote in federal elections and documentary proof of citizenship to register. Trump, never one to leave cruelty on the table, also wants to bolt on unrelated culture-war goodies: a ban on transgender athletes in women’s sports and new restrictions on gender-affirming care for minors. Voting rights, trans kids, and a Texas Senate seat are now all chips in the same Trump casino.
Republican leaders like John Thune are nervously admitting this "linkage" is probably bad, which is GOP for "this is wildly corrupt but we’re too scared to stop it." Paxton, fresh off an impeachment on bribery and corruption charges and a divorce on "biblical grounds," is openly offering to drop out of the race if leadership kills the filibuster to ram through Trump’s bill. Cornyn’s allies warn that if Trump endorses Paxton, they could lose the seat to Democrat James Talarico — but Trump’s base loves Paxton, and Trump loves leverage. So U.S. election rules and civil rights are being rewritten in real time to solve one man’s Texas primary drama.
Democrats need four seats to flip the Senate. Trump is apparently willing to trade away the GOP’s best chance to hold Texas unless he gets a national voter-suppression law and some bonus anti-trans persecution. Call it the SAVE America Act: Saving America from democracy, one extorted endorsement at a time.
#killing-democracy#fascism#anti-immigration
sen. marshall assures us trump’s totally following the war powers act, pinky promise
Sen. Roger Marshall explains that when Trump ignores constraints on presidential war powers, he’s actually respecting them really hard.
Sen. Roger Marshall popped up on Meet the Press to reassure America that Donald Trump, a man who treats the Constitution like a user agreement he definitely didn’t read, has followed the War Powers Act "to the letter" in his war with Iran. Yes, war – not a "limited kinetic action," not a "police action," but an actual shooting conflict – and the Kansas senator’s main concern is making sure Grandpa Coup looks like a meticulous law student.
Meanwhile, elsewhere in the same broadcast universe, we learn that Trump is "shopping messages" on the Iran war to see what polls best, and the White House is busy retrofitting his demand for Iran’s "unconditional surrender" into something that sounds slightly less like a World War II fanfic. Congress, whose job is to declare war, appears to have outsourced that whole constitutional duty to a man testing slogans like he’s A/B testing email subject lines.
So we have Trump escalating with Iran, floating unconditional surrender, and improvising his war branding in real time, while Senate Republicans run around solemnly insisting that this is all perfectly compliant with the War Powers Act. It’s a neat trick: turn a law designed to restrain presidents into a prop that justifies whatever the president already decided to do. Killing democracy and calling it "by the book" is the closest this administration gets to performance art.
#killing-democracy#imperialism#lawlessness
trump explains democracy: heads i win, tails you cheated
A Pennsylvania voter tries to remember when "we're going to stop it" stopped being about potholes and started being about elections.
President Trump has helpfully clarified the rules of American democracy: if Republicans win, it's the sacred will of the people; if Democrats win, it's cheating and must be "stopped." NPR then takes a road trip through Pennsylvania swing districts to ask voters how they feel about the president announcing, out loud, that elections are only legitimate when they produce him.
Some Pennsylvanians roll their eyes at the idea that every Democratic victory is a heist, while others nod along like they're reviewing terms and conditions for a coup. The man who spent years screaming about a "rigged" system he somehow won is now pre-loading the excuses for any future loss, normalizing the idea that the solution to electoral disappointment is to just declare the other side criminals and let "we're going to stop it" do the authoritarian heavy lifting. Ballots in, democracy out.
#killing-democracy#fascism
