The Trump Presidency Is Going Great

The Trump Presidency Is Going Great

Documenting the chaos since day one — one awful day at a time.

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Friday, April 3, 2026

corruption

trump digs his own bunker, sends the bill to democracy

Trump proudly displays a rendering of the $300 million presidential panic ballroom, where history meets drywall dust and classified bunker schematics.

Trump proudly displays a rendering of the $300 million presidential panic ballroom, where history meets drywall dust and classified bunker schematics.

Turns out Trump's $300 million White House ballroom isn't just about chandeliers and ego acoustics. Court filings and Trump's own big mouth have now confirmed what the rubble already hinted at: while he's bulldozing the East Wing for his gilded dance floor, the government is also quietly installing a new underground military bunker beneath it. So it's not just a monument to himself — it's a taxpayer-funded panic room for when the consequences of his presidency arrive on the doorstep. Judge Richard Leon briefly tried to play grown-up by ruling that construction on the ballroom "must stop until Congress authorizes its completion." Then, in a plot twist familiar to anyone who's watched this administration steamroll basic governance, he allowed construction to keep going anyway in the name of "the safety and security of the White House." Translation: the unconstitutional vanity project has to pause, but the classified bunker bonus level can keep right on leveling. The East Wing is gone, the preservationists technically won, and yet the drilling continues — a perfect metaphor for checks and balances in the Trump era. Architectural and conservation groups are furious, the public hates the project, and one of the country's most historic buildings is being treated like a combo casino-renovation and doomsday lair. The administration insists it's all totally necessary, definitely not a security fig leaf draped over Trump's desire to host state dinners in a room that looks like Mar-a-Lago fell into a Pottery Barn catalog. America asked for infrastructure; Trump gave us a secret bunker under a ballroom.
npr.orgSource Article
#corruption#killing-democracy#forever-grifting
oligarchy

trump’s billionaire stimulus package is going great

Americans gather near the Capitol to demand the radical idea that billionaires should pay more tax than a barista with two roommates and a 20-year-old Honda.

Americans gather near the Capitol to demand the radical idea that billionaires should pay more tax than a barista with two roommates and a 20-year-old Honda.

Under Donald "man of the people" Trump, billionaire fortunes hit all-time highs while the federal minimum wage stayed frozen at $7.25, like a museum exhibit from a time when groceries didn’t cost your firstborn. Oxfam reports that in the year after Trump’s re-election, billionaire wealth grew three times faster than in the previous five years, which is what happens when you pass tax laws written like a love letter to private jets and stock buybacks.

Out in the real world, people like Karen Sanchez are spending their free time at breweries asking strangers if they’d like to mildly inconvenience Elon Musk’s net worth. California’s pushing a one-time 5% wealth tax on its 200+ billionaires to patch the holes blown in hospital and education funding, while states like Massachusetts and Minnesota are already using millionaire taxes to do radical things such as feeding kids and fixing roads. At the federal level, Bernie Sanders and Ro Khanna have the audacity to propose that billionaires pay an annual 5% wealth tax, which in Trump’s America ranks somewhere between arson and treason.

Polls show about 70% of Americans think the system is rigged for corporations and the wealthy, possibly because the system is very obviously rigged for corporations and the wealthy. After Trump’s 2017 and 2025 tax cuts shoveled money to the top, CEOs of the five biggest US companies are averaging $52 million a year while the people who actually keep the country functioning are told to be grateful for "opportunity" and maybe some pizza in the break room. So yes, billionaire fortunes are soaring, and so is the movement to finally send them a tax bill that isn’t written in crayon by their lobbyists.

theguardian.comSource Article
#oligarchy#forever-grifting
killing democracy

good news: the courts keep slapping trump. bad news: he's still president

Trump attends Supreme Court arguments, apparently under the impression that glowering from the front row is a recognized legal doctrine.

Trump attends Supreme Court arguments, apparently under the impression that glowering from the front row is a recognized legal doctrine.

Trump, a man who thinks "separation of powers" is what happens when you get divorced more than twice, decided to physically show up at the Supreme Court during arguments over ending birthright citizenship — a constitutional principle that has been around a bit longer than his spray tan. He parked himself in the chamber for an hour, presumably hoping that looming over the justices like a disgruntled Times Square Elmo would somehow convince them to strip citizenship from the U.S.-born children of undocumented immigrants. Even with a bench tilted to the right and salted with his own appointees, the Court looks likely to rule against him.

Meanwhile, down in the lower courts — the ones Trump hasn’t fully turned into a loyalty program yet — judges keep swatting away his more cartoonishly authoritarian ideas. A federal judge blocked his plan to siphon $400 million in public money into a gaudy White House ballroom, because apparently presidents don’t get to unilaterally redecorate the seat of government like it’s a Mar-a-Lago annex. Another court ruled his executive order cutting off federal funding to NPR and PBS was blatantly unconstitutional, while yet another told the administration it can’t decide which reporters get access to the Pentagon based on who flatters Dear Leader enough. Courts: 3. Trump’s tinpot ambitions: still losing in regulation time.

The catch is that these legal victories feel a lot like winning a fire extinguisher after your house has already burned down. Congress already helped Trump gut public media by clawing back $500 million from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which then shut down. So yes, a judge declared the defunding order unconstitutional — after the funding was already gone and the institution dismantled. It’s a perfect summary of the Trump era: the courts show up, point to the smoking crater, and say "this is illegal," while Trump and his allies have already walked off with the copper wiring.

So no, the judiciary can’t singlehandedly rescue a democracy being slowly tenderized by a president who treats constitutional norms like nondisclosure agreements. The lower courts are drawing some real lines — stopping illegal deportations, protecting elections, blocking obvious power grabs — but they don’t have an army, a budget, or a functioning Congress. What they do have is paperwork. The rest is on a citizenry that has to decide whether it wants a republic or a reality show autocracy with worse writing and more executive orders. The judges can delay the collapse; only voters can stop the series from getting renewed.
theguardian.comSource ArticleAlso: npr.orgAlso: npr.org
#killing-democracy#lawlessness
imperialism

pentagon plays ‘don’t worry it’s just another airstrike’ near tehran

A perfectly normal peacetime hobby: blowing up a bridge outside a foreign capital and calling it ‘deterrence.’

A perfectly normal peacetime hobby: blowing up a bridge outside a foreign capital and calling it ‘deterrence.’

The U.S. military has reportedly destroyed a bridge near Tehran in yet another airstrike, because nothing says "stable global order" like casually bombing critical infrastructure next to a capital city. Officials are, of course, framing this as a precise, totally justified, deeply responsible use of force — the geopolitical equivalent of "we meant to do that" while the world watches a nuclear-armed state get poked with a very expensive stick.

While the Pentagon rolls out its usual PowerPoint of calm assurances and euphemisms, Congress is once again performing its favorite wartime ritual: doing absolutely nothing meaningful to reassert its constitutional war powers. No formal declaration, no serious debate, just vibes, firepower, and a president who treats the Middle East like his personal Risk board. International law, civilian risk, regional escalation — all neatly filed under "problems for later".

So as bridges near Tehran turn into rubble, Americans are told this is all very normal, very routine, and definitely not an undeclared war slowly expanding by press release and 30-second cable news clips. The administration gets its tough-guy footage, defense contractors get their contracts, and the rest of us get to hope this latest "limited" strike doesn’t come with unlimited consequences.
today.comSource ArticleAlso: theguardian.comAlso: theguardian.com
#imperialism#national-security#killing-democracy
killing democracy

misogyny is the only thing getting promoted

Trump cabinet meeting, where the dress code for women is "disposable" and for men is "scandal-proof".

Trump cabinet meeting, where the dress code for women is "disposable" and for men is "scandal-proof".

Trump has discovered a bold new standard for accountability: only fire the women. Pam Bondi becomes the second woman ejected from an already male-stacked cabinet, following Kristi Noem out the door, while human scandal generators Pete Hegseth, Kash Patel, RFK Jr, and Epstein pen pal Howard Lutnick float serenely along on a cushy sea of impunity. Commit "egregious, impeachable offenses" as a woman and you’re gone; endanger troops, botch major investigations, or lie about your ties to a convicted sex offender as a man and you get a warm pat on the back and maybe a promotion. This is all happening in what is already the least diverse cabinet of the century, in an administration where Trump has killed DEI initiatives, boasts a decades-long record of misogyny, and was found liable by a jury for sexually abusing E. Jean Carroll. So when Tara Setmayer calls it a "misogynistic administration," that’s less a hot take and more a mission statement. The White House HR policy appears to be: women are disposable, men are indispensable, and loyalty to Trump beats competence, legality, and basic decency every single time. And just to keep the pattern tidy, Tulsi Gabbard reportedly has a target on her back too, with Trump privately shopping around for her replacement after she dared not grovel hard enough over the Iran war. Outside critics describe it as misogyny; inside the administration it’s just called succession planning. For MAGA women still lining up to serve Dear Leader, activists have a simple reminder: you are not partners in power, you’re interchangeable props. The second you stop being useful, the boys club will show you the door and then lecture the country about how cancel culture is the real oppression.
theguardian.comSource ArticleAlso: theguardian.comAlso: theguardian.com
#killing-democracy#racism
forever grifting

king charles to visit world’s neediest man-child

Starmer, seen here desperately searching a crowd for someone who hasn’t noticed their energy bill is now pegged to Trump’s mood swings.

Starmer, seen here desperately searching a crowd for someone who hasn’t noticed their energy bill is now pegged to Trump’s mood swings.

Donald Trump has apparently decided the war with Iran will be wrapped up in a breezy "two to three weeks" – which is a bold promise from a man who still hasn’t managed to win a sentence without contradicting himself halfway through. He’s already declared victory multiple times while continuing to bomb things, like a guy rage-quitting a video game after every level and insisting he beat the final boss. Meanwhile, the people really "winning" seem to be Trump’s buddies and Fox ornament Pete Hegseth, whose well-timed bets on oil and arms are doing very nicely as energy prices spike.

The rest of the world, particularly the UK, gets the honor of paying what the column dubs a "Trump Tax" – higher fuel bills as the price of America electing an unstable sociopath who treats global war like a get-rich-quick side hustle. Keir Starmer’s government is too scared to say the special relationship is now a one-sided dependency on a petulant arsonist with the matches, so instead of leveling with the public, they’re sending King Charles on a state visit to Washington. The monarch now gets to play awkward photo-op backdrop while Trump trashes British forces and shakes down the planet through energy markets.

So while Trump’s friends cash in on the chaos and he speed-runs diplomacy like a reality show plotline, the UK dutifully wheels out the king as a prop for a man who’s turned foreign policy into a combination casino and hostage situation. Long live the special relationship, currently surviving on vibes, delusion and the hope that the next president won’t treat NATO like a scratch-off ticket.
theguardian.comSource ArticleAlso: npr.orgAlso: bbc.com
#forever-grifting#killing-democracy
forever grifting

trump sons launch exciting new startup: war

Eric and Don Jr, proudly standing between a drone and a cash register, explaining that any resemblance to war profiteering is purely coincidental.

Eric and Don Jr, proudly standing between a drone and a cash register, explaining that any resemblance to war profiteering is purely coincidental.

The Trump boys have decided that golf courses and failed crypto scams just weren’t scratching the moral bankruptcy itch, so they’ve upgraded to the classics: war profiteering. Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr have hitched themselves to a Florida drone company, Powerus, which is currently trying to sell drone interceptors to Gulf states that are—minor detail here—under attack by Iran in a war their father helped start without Congress. So while President Daddy orders strikes with Israel that make those countries desperately dependent on US protection, his sons are flying around the region doing "many demos across the Middle East" to pitch their shiny new war gadget. Ethics experts are pointing out that these countries are under immense pressure to buy from the president’s kids so he’ll keep protecting them, which is a polite, lawyerly way of saying: this is shake-down diplomacy with a Shopify cart. Powerus insists there’s no conflict of interest and frames it all as patriotic industrial policy—America is in an arms race, we must build fast, and we should be "thankful" anyone is investing in American manufacturing. Very moving, if you ignore the part where the president’s family is positioned to cash in on a war he started, using Pentagon money his administration helped earmark, after they explicitly decided they "didn’t get credit" for pretending to have ethics during his first term. This time around, they’re done faking it and are just going straight for the open, unapologetic grift. Eric, for his part, says he’s "incredibly proud" to invest in drones because they’re the "wave of the future"—which is a bold way of describing a business model that boils down to: start conflict, sell protection, repeat. The Trump presidency has finally achieved vertical integration: the family now owns a piece of both the match and the fire extinguisher.
theguardian.comSource ArticleAlso: theguardian.com
#forever-grifting#corruption

Thursday, April 2, 2026

imperialism

trump discovers you can simply 'just take' strategic waterways

Trump, moments before explaining that international straits work exactly like hotel ballrooms: you just book them, or preferably, just take them.

Trump, moments before explaining that international straits work exactly like hotel ballrooms: you just book them, or preferably, just take them.

President Trump has a bold new Middle East strategy: he wants U.S. allies to, quote, "go to" the Strait of Hormuz and "just take it." Because when you’re talking about one of the most strategically vital and heavily militarized waterways on Earth, why bother with things like international law, diplomacy, or basic sanity when you can treat it like grabbing the last parking spot at Mar-a-Lago?

The New York Times helpfully brings in national security correspondent Eric Schmitt to explain that, actually, clearing and controlling the Strait of Hormuz by force is not "easy" unless your benchmark for success is "global oil shock and potential regional war." While Trump riffs like a guy yelling at CNN from his recliner, serious people have to game out what happens when a U.S.-led coalition tries to muscle Iran out of a narrow shipping lane bordered by missiles, mines, and small attack boats. Spoiler: it doesn't end with everyone shaking hands and going home for golf.

So we now have the Commander in Chief treating the world’s energy lifeline as a sort of geopolitical Black Friday doorbuster. Allies are supposed to show up, push Iran out of the way, and plant a flag, presumably while Trump takes credit on Truth Social and complains that NATO didn’t Venmo him for the operation. American foreign policy, reimagined as a real estate seizure with cruise missiles.

nytimes.comSource ArticleAlso: npr.orgAlso: npr.org
#imperialism#national-security
killing democracy

trump discovers you’re supposed to explain wars *before* you start them

Trump, reading a teleprompter about a war he already started, discovering in real time that the Constitution is not just a decorative menu.

Trump, reading a teleprompter about a war he already started, discovering in real time that the Constitution is not just a decorative menu.

Over a month into the U.S. engagement in Iran, Donald Trump finally wandered onto primetime TV to remember that in a nominal democracy, you’re supposed to at least pretend to explain why you started a war. After 30+ days of bombs first, questions never, he delivered a belated sales pitch, assuring the country that the U.S. would complete all its objectives "very shortly" — a phrase that has never once gone wrong in the history of American wars in the Middle East. This is the Trump doctrine in its purest form: launch military action, keep Congress and the public largely in the dark, then slap together a post-hoc justification once the cameras are booked and the polling looks dicey. No detailed objectives, no clear legal rationale, just vibes and a promise that it’ll all be wrapped up any minute now. Mission Accomplished, but make it early-access beta. While previous administrations at least went through the tedious constitutional motions of debating war powers and seeking authorization, Trump appears to be running foreign policy like a late-night infomercial: act now, justify later, hope no one checks the receipt. The fact that the "case for war" arrived after the war was already well underway says everything about how seriously this White House takes Congress, the Constitution, and the small matter of sending Americans into combat.
npr.orgSource ArticleAlso: nbcnews.comAlso: npr.org
#killing-democracy#imperialism#lawlessness
forever grifting

trump invents pharma feudalism, calls it drug price reform

Trump explains that drug prices will drop dramatically once every pharma CEO signs a loyalty oath and builds a factory in Ohio with his name on it.

Trump explains that drug prices will drop dramatically once every pharma CEO signs a loyalty oath and builds a factory in Ohio with his name on it.

Donald Trump has decided that the best way to fix America’s obscene drug prices is to personally run a protection racket on the pharmaceutical industry. Branded drugs and their active ingredients get slapped with a 100% tariff unless the companies kiss the ring, cut a “most-favored-nation” pricing deal with the White House, and promise to onshore production. Generics – you know, the things most people can actually afford – are spared for a year, like a condemned prisoner getting a complimentary last meal. This new regime conveniently hands out multi-year exemptions to the biggest players – Pfizer, Eli Lilly, and friends – who already locked in sweetheart deals with Trump, while mid-sized biotech firms are told to enjoy their "two-tiered system" and crippling cost shocks. Large companies get 120 days to negotiate their way out of the pain; smaller ones get 180 days and a prayer. The result is a government-approved pharma caste system where your tariff rate depends on how fast you can cut a deal in the Oval Office. Trump, meanwhile, is selling this as a heroic crusade against high drug prices and the cost-of-living crisis he blames on Biden, even as his broader tariff circus and a war-driven gas spike jack up everything else. He’s already bragged that on drug prices alone, "we should win the midterms" – a nice quiet part to say out loud when you’re using executive power to strong-arm an entire industry into a political talking point. Regulatory policy, but make it a shakedown.
theguardian.comSource ArticleAlso: theguardian.com
#forever-grifting#killing-democracy
killing democracy

colorado's election‑tampering martyr gets a do‑over

Tina Peters, seen here auditioning for the role of "Whistleblower" while playing the part of "Defendant".

Tina Peters, seen here auditioning for the role of "Whistleblower" while playing the part of "Defendant".

Mesa County’s favorite election‑tampering clerk, Tina Peters, is still very much a convicted felon – she’s just getting a resentencing because the trial judge committed the unpardonable judicial sin of telling the truth to her face. The Colorado appeals court upheld every bit of her conviction for letting an unauthorized rando rummage through Dominion voting machines so MAGA world could post the data online like it was a QAnon Dropbox, but decided the judge went too hard on the “you’re a charlatan peddling snake oil” part.

The appeals panel stressed that Peters is being punished for her actions, not her absolutely galaxy‑brained belief that she was uncovering mass fraud by… violating election security and chain of custody. Meanwhile, Donald Trump has already handed out a federal pardon like it’s a Bedminster drink ticket, which the court politely noted has zero effect on a state conviction. Colorado’s Democratic governor Jared Polis has flirted with the idea of shaving down her sentence, while Secretary of State Jena Griswold and AG Phil Weiser are over here reminding everyone that Peters helped fuel conspiracy theories, endangered people, and "threatened our democracy" – and will always be a felon no matter how gently the resentencing judge phrases it this time.

So the ruling stands: she wrecked election security to prove elections weren’t secure, fed the Big Lie machine, and got herself branded for life. The only thing up for debate now is how many years of prison time America’s latest MAGA martyr will get to spend workshopping her next "election integrity" podcast.
theguardian.comSource Article
#killing-democracy#lawlessness
killing democracy

olc discovers monarchial presidency, declares archives optional

Trump smiles in front of a stack of boxes, helpfully labeled “Not Evidence” and “Totally Not Classified,” as the DOJ OLC stands nearby holding a memo titled “Because We Said So.”

Trump smiles in front of a stack of boxes, helpfully labeled “Not Evidence” and “Totally Not Classified,” as the DOJ OLC stands nearby holding a memo titled “Because We Said So.”

The Trump Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel has graciously announced that the Presidential Records Act — the law passed after Watergate so presidents can’t walk off with the government’s stuff — is actually unconstitutional, and Trump therefore “need not further comply” with it. Post-Nixon reforms? Cute, but have you tried just declaring the law doesn’t apply to Dear Leader? Instead of presidential records automatically going to the National Archives when Trump leaves office, OLC lawyer and Alito-clerk-turned-campaign-operative T. Elliot Gaiser says the presidency’s "autonomy" requires that Trump be allowed to keep it all. You know, unlike Congress or the Supreme Court, which apparently don’t need public accountability because they’re not Trump. This is the same Gaiser who shows up in Jan. 6 testimony as one of the guys pushing the fantasy that Mike Pence had a "substantive" role in overturning the 2020 election. Naturally, he’s now in charge of deciding which post-Watergate laws still count. This sudden discovery that the Presidential Records Act is illegal comes after Trump was previously accused of violating it by hoarding documents, including highly sensitive national defense materials, at Mar-a-Lago. That criminal case conveniently evaporated in 2024 thanks to Judge Aileen Cannon, and now OLC is backfilling the story: if the law is fake, then the crime was, too. Trump already fired the head of the National Archives for daring to be involved in that case; now his DOJ is trying to make sure the Archives never gets near his papers again. So the institution meant to provide neutral legal advice — the same one that once justified "enhanced interrogation" — is now busy explaining why the president is basically a private records hoarder whose files the public has no right to ever see. The Presidential Records Act was supposed to stop a repeat of Nixon. Trump’s solution is elegantly simple: just declare Nixon’s guardrails unconstitutional and call it a day.
nbcnews.comSource Article
#killing-democracy#lawlessness#forever-grifting
killing democracy

we can afford endless war, just not grandma's meds or your kid's daycare

Trump explains that the richest country on earth can afford $11.3 billion for six days of war, but not a nap mat and some apple slices for your toddler.

Trump explains that the richest country on earth can afford $11.3 billion for six days of war, but not a nap mat and some apple slices for your toddler.

At a private White House Easter luncheon – because nothing says resurrection like killing the social safety net – Donald Trump announced that it's "not possible" for the U.S. government to fund Medicaid, Medicare, or child care. According to the Commander-in-Excuses, Washington has only one job now: shoveling money into the war machine. Healthcare for seniors and poor families? That’s for the states to "take care" of, presumably using magic beans and bake sales. The administration has already been practicing this vision of compassionate conservatism by freezing child care and family assistance funds to five Democratic-led states over mostly evidence-free "fraud" allegations. Viral right-wing attacks on Minnesota daycare centers turned out to be nonsense, but the punishment stayed. Trump now claims places like Minnesota and Los Angeles have "more daycare centers than they have children" and that of 700 inspected centers, "not one" was real – a statistic so detached from reality it should come with a Surgeon General warning. To really drive home that this is about power, not fraud, Trump admits Republican states are probably doing "thievery" too, but only because they have to "compete" with Democrats, turning basic social services into a race to the bottom. Meanwhile, JD Vance is put in charge of an anti-fraud task force and a new Assistant Attorney General for National Fraud Enforcement gets sworn in, because what this country truly needed was a federal bureaucracy dedicated to justifying taking food and care away from kids while Trump insists we can always afford another war. We’re fighting wars, so obviously we can’t fight poverty or disease – the Pentagon might get jealous. The White House briefly posted video of this policy confession on YouTube and then deleted it, like a teenager trying to walk back a terrible post. But the message is clear: the federal government exists to fund endless conflict and corporate contractors, and if you want healthcare or childcare, go beg your state – preferably one that didn’t vote against Dear Leader.
nbcnews.comSource ArticleAlso: theguardian.comAlso: npr.org
#killing-democracy#forever-grifting
killing democracy

trump mad ag won’t indict fast enough, considers new henchman

Trump, on his way to the Supreme Court, pondering whether his Attorney General is sufficiently committed to the sacred constitutional principle of ‘lock them up because I said so.’

Trump, on his way to the Supreme Court, pondering whether his Attorney General is sufficiently committed to the sacred constitutional principle of ‘lock them up because I said so.’

Donald Trump is reportedly frustrated with Attorney General Pam Bondi because she’s not turning the Justice Department into a fully operational personal revenge machine at a fast enough clip. According to multiple sources, Trump thinks Bondi hasn’t “executed on his vision” — which, helpfully translated from Trumpese, means she hasn’t produced enough indictments of his political enemies to satisfy a man who now talks about the DOJ like it’s DoorDash for prosecutions.

Bondi’s standing apparently cratered after the Jeffrey Epstein files saga, where Trump’s allies decided she didn’t squeeze the case hard enough to manufacture “wins” against his foes. Failing to secure indictments, a former White House official notes, is “a problem for job security with the president,” because nothing says "independent law enforcement" like your boss grading you on how many people he hates end up in handcuffs. Trump, we’re told, is very aware that “time goes fast” and “wants action” — a charming way to describe an elderly man trying to speedrun banana republic authoritarianism.

Enter Lee Zeldin, current head of the Environmental Protection Agency — an agency he’s presumably been busy dismantling — now floated as a top contender to run the Justice Department. Trump has been polling his friends about Zeldin as a possible replacement, with the key question being whether the Senate will confirm someone even more openly enthusiastic about weaponizing federal law enforcement. Publicly, Trump calls Bondi “a wonderful person” who is “doing a good job,” while privately shopping for a new Attorney General who will treat indictments like campaign swag.

So the president is mad that his Attorney General hasn’t gone hard enough after his political enemies, is looking to replace her with a loyalist, and everyone’s calmly discussing whether the Senate will sign off on this next step in turning the DOJ into his personal hit squad. American democracy continues to be held together by the fact that his cronies keep failing at authoritarianism in the most embarrassingly public ways possible.

nbcnews.comSource ArticleAlso: nbcnews.comAlso: nbcnews.com
#killing-democracy#fascism
killing democracy

trump tries to turn usps into the ballot police

USPS truck preparing for its new role as Trump’s Official Ballot Gatekeeping Service, because what elections really needed was a presidential doorman.

USPS truck preparing for its new role as Trump’s Official Ballot Gatekeeping Service, because what elections really needed was a presidential doorman.

The Trump administration has discovered a bold new interpretation of the Constitution: Article II, Section "I Do What I Want." Trump’s latest executive order demands a federal list of who really counts as an eligible voter in every state, then orders the US Postal Service to only deliver mail-in ballots to those blessed by the White House spreadsheet. The lawsuit from civil rights groups politely translates this as: the president is trying to wedge a federal choke point between voters and the ballot box and pretend that’s legal.

This stunt manages to violate separation of powers, state control of elections, postal neutrality laws, the Voting Rights Act, and the Privacy Act, which is quite an efficiency gain for an administration that usually needs three scandals to hit that many violations. The ACLU, NAACP Legal Defense Fund, Brennan Center, and others are suing, pointing out that the Constitution gives states and Congress power over elections, and gives the president exactly zero. Trump’s team, undeterred by reading or reality, is still leaning on debunked 2020 conspiracy theories, FBI raids on local election offices, and losing streaks in court as the foundation for its latest attempt to sabotage mail-in voting ahead of the midterms.

This is Trump’s second try at unilaterally rewriting election law after last year’s executive order to add proof-of-citizenship requirements and punish states for counting ballots that arrived after Election Day. A federal judge already smacked that one down with the refreshing clarity of “our Constitution does not allow the President to impose unilateral changes to federal election procedures.” So naturally, rather than accept that, the administration is now testing whether it can just conscript the mailman as a partisan gatekeeper. American democracy: now with a federal bouncer at the mailbox.
theguardian.comSource ArticleAlso: theguardian.comAlso: theguardian.com
#killing-democracy#fascism#lawlessness
killing democracy

trump turns indiana into his personal gerrymander gulag

Jim Banks-funded democracy demolition derby: now with 4X more Trump mentions per 15-second ad.

Jim Banks-funded democracy demolition derby: now with 4X more Trump mentions per 15-second ad.

Indiana Republicans committed the unpardonable sin: they didn’t contort the congressional map quite hard enough to please Donald Trump. So now the president is on a full-blown revenge tour, using the White House like a mob clubhouse and the Resolute Desk as a step-and-repeat backdrop for state senate primary challengers whose main qualification is that they’ll happily saw democracy’s legs off if he asks nicely.

Blake Fiechter literally dropped out of his race, then got called to the Oval, took a photo with Trump, and — presto — he’s back in. The message, as one adviser helpfully translated: “Work hard, we’ll be there for you, don’t let me down.” Totally normal thing for a president to say about a state legislative primary that just happens to be about punishing anyone who voted against a Trump-approved gerrymander. Millions of dollars are now flooding into these primaries, because apparently the republic must be saved from the existential threat of Republicans who think maybe the maps shouldn’t be drawn exclusively to please one guy.

Outside groups are lining up to kiss the ring and crack the whip. Club for Growth is tossing in $1.5 million, Jim Banks-linked outfits are throwing $3 million more, and every ad reads like a personality cult infomercial: Trump’s name four times in 15 seconds, loyalty oaths dressed up as campaign spots, and attacks on sitting GOP senators for the crime of being “against Trump.” One digital ad even tells voters to scold a state senator because he’s “voting like a bad guy,” which is what passes for policy analysis in the MAGA era.

Fair Maps Indiana — an Orwellian little brand, given the context — brags that Indiana could have picked up two more GOP seats if only the legislature had fully surrendered to Trump’s demands, and now those who hesitated must be purged. The president of the United States is micromanaging state senate primaries to enforce loyalty to gerrymandering and himself, while a network of PACs and “youth groups” shovel cash into the fire. American democracy isn’t just being undermined; it’s being focus-grouped, branded, and sold by the ad buy.

nbcnews.comSource Article
#killing-democracy#fascism#forever-grifting
trade war

trump discovers tariffs are just taxes in a red hat

Trump proudly holds up a tariff chart in the Rose Garden like a kid showing off a crayon drawing of a house fire he started himself.

Trump proudly holds up a tariff chart in the Rose Garden like a kid showing off a crayon drawing of a house fire he started himself.

Donald Trump celebrated “Liberation Day” by liberating Americans from their money, slapping a minimum 10% tariff on foreign goods and jacking the average effective tariff rate from 2.5% to about 10% in a year. He promised a manufacturing renaissance and easy cash for the government; instead, the US and China basically hit pause on trading with each other while companies scrambled to re-route supply chains like they were fleeing a burning building.

US imports from China cratered ~30%, exports to China fell more than 25%, and Chinese goods dropped below 10% of total US imports — levels not seen since the days when people still bought CDs. The “decoupling” Trump started in his first term has finally landed, only now it’s more expensive and more chaotic. Multinationals didn’t stop trading; they just moved production to Vietnam and Mexico and kept going, proving that the one thing tariffs really punished was the illusion that Trump understands how global supply chains work.

Meanwhile, traditional allies got the message that America is now run like a mood swing. Canada, the UK and others started rewiring trade toward Europe and elsewhere, hedging against the guy who wakes up and decides your exports need a 10% loyalty tax. Global trade “held up,” economists note, which is a polite way of saying everyone else quietly built workarounds while the US government tried to cosplay as a 1930s tariff state. Trump promised to make America the center of global trade again; he’s just doing it by encouraging everyone to trade around us.
bbc.comSource ArticleAlso: theguardian.comAlso: theguardian.com
#trade-war#full-stupid

Wednesday, April 1, 2026

killing democracy

gop ends dhs shutdown, puts deportation machine on auto-pay

Mike Johnson and John Thune announcing that, good news, TSA can eat again — and so can the deportation machine, now with its own reconciliation-protected trust fund.

Mike Johnson and John Thune announcing that, good news, TSA can eat again — and so can the deportation machine, now with its own reconciliation-protected trust fund.

Republican leaders have finally decided that maybe turning airport security lines into a live-action survival game was bad optics, so Mike Johnson and John Thune are moving a bill to reopen most of DHS — except the parts that actually do Trump’s mass deportations. TSA gets paid so planes can fly, but ICE and chunks of CBP get carved out for their own special funding joyride, because nothing says "homeland security" like making sure the secret police stay well fed.

Democrats tried to attach basic rules like "don’t wear masks while arresting people" and "maybe get a warrant before you kick in a door," after ICE agents killed two US citizens in Minneapolis. Republicans responded by reaching for the nuclear option: Lindsey Graham’s reconciliation scheme to fund ICE, bankroll Trump’s Iran adventure, and cram in pieces of the Save America Act — a voter-ID fever dream designed to make registering and voting harder — all with GOP votes only. Mass deportations, overseas war money, and voter suppression, bundled together like a fascism starter pack.

The shutdown, triggered when Democrats blocked a DHS bill that rubber-stamped Trump’s crackdown, has been dragging on for weeks while Johnson played Freedom Caucus cosplay and tried to jam through a 60-day all-DHS funding patch that Democrats promised to filibuster. Now, Republicans will reopen most of the department without the reforms, then use reconciliation to "insulate" ICE and Border Patrol from any future attempts to rein them in for the rest of the Trump administration. Schumer is calling it a Democratic win for blocking a "blank check" — meanwhile Republicans are busy hardwiring the deportation state and voter restrictions into the budget code.

So yes, the airport lines might get shorter. In exchange, Trump’s immigration shock troops and his ballot-policing fantasies get locked onto automatic payments, safely tucked away from pesky concepts like oversight, warrants, or democracy. America: we’ll get you to your gate on time, as long as you can prove who you are to vote and don’t get disappeared by a masked agent first.
theguardian.comSource ArticleAlso: nbcnews.comAlso: nbcnews.com
#killing-democracy#fascism
forever grifting

trump discovers a pre-existing condition he likes: profit

Stock photo of a smiling senior holding a tiny pill that Medicare will pay a not-so-tiny fortune for.

Stock photo of a smiling senior holding a tiny pill that Medicare will pay a not-so-tiny fortune for.

The FDA has granted expedited approval to Eli Lilly’s new oral GLP‑1 weight-loss pill, Foundayo, under a program for drugs deemed of “national importance.” Apparently the national emergency is not, say, poisoned water systems or a collapsing maternal health infrastructure, but making sure Americans can get their hands on $149–$349-a-month diet pills a few weeks faster so Lilly’s earnings call doesn’t have to wait.

Because this is the Trump era, the public subsidy hose is already pointed in the right direction. Under a Trump administration proposal, Medicare could start covering the drug for certain patients as early as this summer, dropping copays to around $50 while taxpayers quietly eat the rest. So you get a neat little pipeline: fast-tracked FDA approval, direct-to-consumer shipping via LillyDirect, telehealth upsell factories, and a federal insurance program poised to underwrite the whole thing. It’s not healthcare, it’s a vertically integrated obesity monetization strategy.

Executives like Eli Lilly CEO David Ricks are framing Foundayo as a way to “level the playing field” for people with obesity, which is an interesting way to describe a product priced like a car payment and pushed through a regulatory fast lane usually reserved for actual life-or-death crises. Fewer than 1 in 10 eligible patients are on GLP‑1s now, but don’t worry: between Trump’s Medicare rule change and Big Pharma’s direct-marketing blitz, that little obstacle called “cost” is on track to be someone else’s problem — namely, the federal budget and whatever’s left of a rational healthcare system.

theguardian.comSource ArticleAlso: theguardian.comAlso: theguardian.com
#forever-grifting#money
killing democracy

trump calls nato a paper tiger, helpfully works pro bono for the kremlin

Donald Trump explaining that Nato is a 'paper tiger' while accidentally setting the entire security order of the West on fire with a paper match.

Donald Trump explaining that Nato is a 'paper tiger' while accidentally setting the entire security order of the West on fire with a paper match.

Donald Trump is once again auditioning for Employee of the Month at the Kremlin, announcing he’s considering pulling the US out of Nato and dismissing the alliance as a "paper tiger." The world’s most successful collective defense pact, which has deterred actual tanks and actual invasions for 75 years, is being reviewed by a man who couldn’t deter Rudy Giuliani from using a landscaping company as a legal venue.

After weeks of Trump raging that Nato allies aren’t doing enough to help reopen the Strait of Hormuz, he’s now threatening to kneecap the entire alliance because other countries won’t instantly obey his latest geopolitical mood swing. It’s foreign policy as Yelp review: one star, did not immediately start a conflict for me. Meanwhile, UK prime minister Keir Starmer is left doing the "responsible adult" routine, calling Nato the most effective military alliance in history and promising to act in the British national interest — which currently seems to mean quietly cleaning up after America’s Orange Foreign Policy Arsonist.

Europe is now stuck with the fun new game show, "Will the US Abandon the Alliance That Keeps It Safe?" Spoiler: the studio audience in Moscow is loving this season. Trump gets to posture as the tough guy who calls Nato a "paper tiger" while the actual tigers — Russia, Iran, and every other authoritarian regime taking notes — watch the US president casually threaten to torch the security architecture of the democratic world because his allies won’t jump fast enough when he shouts.
theguardian.comSource ArticleAlso: nbcnews.com
#killing-democracy#national-security