Saturday, January 31, 2026
Germany’s DFB headquarters, where leaders courageously concluded that Trump’s travel bans, tariff threats, and protest crackdowns are troubling—but not nearly troubling enough to miss a single sponsored banner at the World Cup.
Germany’s football federation took a brave stand against authoritarianism by announcing that, after deep reflection on Donald Trump’s travel bans, threats of tariffs over his Greenland cosplay annexation bid, and his tear-gassing-protesters-for-photoshoot governing style, they have decided to… play the group stage in Houston, Toronto, and New Jersey. Because nothing says sending a message to Trump like absolutely not changing your plans at all.
DFB vice‑president Oke Göttlich briefly flirted with the radical notion that maybe holding a giant sports festival in a country busy menacing Europe, roughing up domestic protesters, and playing regime-change tourist in Venezuela might be a bad look. The federation swiftly smacked that down, insisting such debates should be held "internally"—in other words, behind closed doors where they can be safely ignored while everyone pretends football is magically separate from politics, visas, tariffs, and border guards with guns.
France chimed in with the same bold energy, saying there is currently “no desire” to boycott this “great competition,” though they graciously left the door open to caring later if things get even more on‑fire. Meanwhile, fans are staring down obscene ticket prices and Trump’s travel bans, which might bar some supporters from even entering the country. So the official line is: sport is unifying, politics should stay out of it, and if your fans can’t get past Trump’s border regime, well, at least the TV signal still crosses borders.
Fifa’s own disgraced ex‑lord Sepp Blatter is telling people not to travel to the US—when Sepp Blatter thinks your World Cup optics are too corrupt and unstable, that’s an achievement. But the DFB insists they’ll be there to “celebrate a peaceful festival of football,” apparently confident that Trump’s America will suspend the creeping police‑state vibes for 90 minutes at a time. The message to Trump is clear: keep undermining democracy and cracking down on dissent, just don’t touch the kickoff time.
Trump stares at a trade deficit chart upside down, declares victory, and somewhere in Beijing a surplus hits $1.2 trillion.
Donald Trump spent four years LARPing as a tariff whisperer, slapping duties on Chinese goods and declaring victory on Twitter while the actual global economy quietly re-arranged itself around him. The result? China’s trade surplus exploded to $1.2 trillion in 2025, exports surged across Asia and Europe, and US influence in the global trading system kept circling the drain. In other words, Trump “owned” China so hard that Beijing ended up exporting more to everyone else while imports stayed flat and manufacturers from Latin America to Europe got strangled by Chinese overcapacity.
The piece politely notes that the US “turned against the global order it built,” which is a very academic way of saying Trump took a sledgehammer to institutions like the WTO, walked away from serious rule‑writing, and replaced it with vibes-based nationalism and rally merch. Meanwhile, other rich countries actually built social safety nets to cushion the China shock, while the US just handed people Fox News and fentanyl and told them to blame foreigners. That rage powered MAGA, while China happily kept running a turbocharged mercantilist model—state subsidies, undervalued currency, closed markets—and watched everyone else belatedly realize the WTO no longer works when one giant player just ignores the rules.
Now the EU is openly talking about ditching the WTO’s most-favored-nation principle, Mexico and India are slapping tariffs on Chinese goods, and developing countries are filing hundreds of antidumping cases. Mark Carney flies to Beijing to sign a “strategic partnership” while Washington is too busy threatening its own civil servants to bother leading anything. The world needs an engaged US to balance China; instead it got Trump’s cosplay trade war and a Republican Party that thinks international law is for suckers. But sure, tell us again how the tariffs were a historic win for American manufacturing.
Congress turns out the lights on half the government while making sure ICE’s $75bn deportation slush fund stays plugged in—priorities, people.
Congress has shut down chunks of the federal government again, but don’t worry: Trump’s deportation machine is fully funded and ready to kill more Americans. After federal agents gunned down Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis—during a Trump-ordered surge of immigration agents—Democrats decided maybe, just maybe, it was time to ask that armed federal officers not roam American cities like masked paramilitaries.
The ask? No masks, mandatory body cameras, an actual code of conduct, independent investigations when agents kill people, and a ban on "roving patrols" that amount to "you look foreign, get in the van." In other words, basic 21st-century policing standards. The response from the Trump GOP: better to partially shut down defense, education, labor, health, transportation, and housing than mildly inconvenience the president’s pet deportation squads. Because nothing says "law and order" like blocking rules that might stop your agents from shooting citizens.
Meanwhile, House Republicans—clinging to a one-seat majority and a full-size persecution complex—are trying to strap the "Save Act" voter-ID suppression scheme onto the funding bill, just to make sure that while ICE keeps its $75bn war chest from last year’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act, fewer Americans can actually vote against the people running this clown show. And in case anyone wondered what gets protected in a Trump-era shutdown: health care subsidies for regular people quietly died at the end of 2025, but deportations roll on, agents can be forced to work through the shutdown, and the only thing the White House is really worried about is keeping the mass removal conveyor belt humming.
So the government pauses, but the authoritarian core functions—militarized immigration raids, voter suppression demands, and total impunity for federal agents who kill citizens—keep right on operating. Trump’s America: where your subsidies expire, your government closes, but the deportation death squads are an essential service.
Trump explaining that the real unemployment problem is too many statisticians who won’t lie for him.
Donald Trump, still mad that math refuses to pledge personal loyalty, has now nominated Brett Matsumoto to run the Bureau of Labor Statistics — the same agency whose commissioner he personally fired hours after a bad jobs report. Back in August, Trump declared the data "rigged" and implied Erika McEntarfer cooked the numbers "for political purposes," because nothing says "independent statistics" like the president decapitating the agency when the line on the chart points the wrong way.
This comes after the administration’s first genius idea: nominating Heritage Foundation/Project 2025 warrior E.J. Antoni, whose qualifications included attacking BLS and being a self-described Jan. 6 "bystander" at the Capitol. That nomination had to be yanked once it turned out installing a coup-adjacent ideologue to control jobs data was a tiny bit on-the-nose. Now we get Matsumoto, a career economist everyone insists is "unbiased" — which is exactly what you want to hear after the president has already demonstrated he’ll fire anyone whose spreadsheets make him look bad.
In other words, the message to every civil servant crunching numbers is clear: produce data that reflects reality, and you’re accused of rigging it and tossed out; produce data that flatters Dear Leader, and suddenly you’re a "Brilliant, Reputable, and Trusted Economist" on Truth Social. But sure, let’s all pretend this is just a normal nomination and not another step in turning official economic statistics into campaign literature.
Friday, January 30, 2026
Trump in the Oval Office, confidently explaining that the Navy is basically just really expensive driftwood that he’s decided to park next to Iran.
Donald Trump announced that Iran "wants to make a deal" while simultaneously floating a large US naval "Armada" off its coast, because nothing says good faith diplomacy like parking a war fleet in someone's front yard and then refusing to say when you'll leave. Asked if there was a deadline for Tehran, Trump replied that "only they know for sure" — a strong statement from a man whose entire Iran strategy appears to be vibes, bluster, and whatever Fox was running in the chyron that morning.
In between threatening a sovereign state with war, Trump laid out his two conditions to avoid military action: "no nuclear" and "stop killing protesters" — which would sound less cynical if he weren't simultaneously cozying up to other regimes with body counts and zero democracy. Human rights groups estimate more than 6,300 people have already been killed in Iran's crackdown, with the final toll potentially above 25,000, while Trump treats the whole thing like a reality show cliffhanger: "If we do make a deal, that's good. If we don't make a deal, we'll see what happens."
Meanwhile, Iran repeats that its nuclear program is peaceful and says its missile defense systems will "never" be up for negotiation, Russia is quietly meeting with Iran's security chief, and Trump is out here explaining that the warships "have to float someplace, so they might as well float near Iran." In other words, US foreign policy is now officially "we pointed a gun at your head because we needed somewhere to put it" — a totally normal way to run a nuclear-adjacent standoff in a volatile region.
Lindsey Graham, bravely defending the sacred constitutional right of senators to cash in if the DOJ looks at their phone records.
Lindsey Graham spent 24 hours holding the government hostage because the new funding deal dared to repeal his favorite little side hustle: a custom provision that lets him and seven other GOP senators sue the DOJ for potentially millions if their phone records were subpoenaed in Trump coup investigations without their knowledge. In other words, Congress almost shut the lights off so Lindsey could keep his "hurt feelings = cash payout" clause intact.
Last year, during the great MAGA Shutdown Spectacular, Graham quietly tucked into the reopening deal a provision that applies only to senators, conveniently including himself, to sue if investigators accessed their phone records. House members from both parties noticed that this smelled less like oversight and more like Senate VIP Rewards Points, so they repealed it in the latest six-bill funding package. Senate negotiators agreed — and Graham promptly lost his mind, dressing it up as a principled stand for DHS and ICE, because nothing says "law and order" like demanding special legal protections for the guys who helped enable an attempted coup.
Graham ranted about ICE agents being "demonized" and "spat upon" while the real crime, apparently, is that Jack Smith’s "Arctic Frost" probe dared to look at his call logs. He insisted "every senator" should want this protection, which is a cute way of saying: we’d like to be above the law now, please. When the White House and Chuck Schumer cut a deal with Trump without involving him, Graham reminded everyone he’s an ally of the White House but "not owned by them" — just a guy who will tank a funding bill unless he gets a vote on his sanctuary cities bill and a rebranded version of his Arctic Frost perk that he swears contains "no enrichment" for him anymore. Because nothing screams innocence like promising to slightly dial back the self-dealing once you’re caught.
He even threatened Speaker Mike Johnson for repealing his provision without asking permission: "Speaker Johnson, I won’t forget this." In normal democracies, lawmakers fight to protect citizens’ rights from government overreach. In Trump’s America, Lindsey Graham nearly shuts down the government so he can keep a personalized legal cheat code in case the DOJ notices his role in the 2020 election mess. But sure, tell us more about how the real problem is "open borders" and not a senator trying to legislate himself a get-rich-off-investigations card.
Don Lemon being led away in cuffs so the Trump administration can finally experience the sweet, sweet freedom of never being filmed doing anything wrong.
Don Lemon, former CNN anchor and current full-time Trump nemesis, was arrested by federal agents in Los Angeles for the unthinkable crime of … filming a protest in a Minnesota church. The Trump justice department is charging him and three others with civil rights crimes for allegedly interfering with religious freedom — because nothing says "defending the Constitution" like using civil rights law as a club against journalists who film protests against ICE.
Abbe Lowell, Lemon’s lawyer, noted that a federal magistrate judge already looked at this and basically said: "you’ve got nothing" — twice. So naturally, Pam Bondi’s DOJ did what any healthy democracy would do: got enraged, vowed to "pursue this to the ends of the Earth" on Megyn Kelly’s show, then sent the feds back in anyway. Meanwhile, independent journalist Georgia Fort was also arrested for the radical act of holding a camera, and press freedom groups are calling this what it obviously is: a "naked attack" on the First Amendment.
The White House responded with the seriousness the moment demanded by posting on X: "When life gives you Lemons" with a chain emoji — because nothing screams "not a police state" like the president’s official account openly celebrating the arrest of a journalist. Top Democrats called it authoritarian, a "police state" move, and "pure authoritarian bile", which is Washington-speak for "this is what we used to condemn in other countries." But sure, tell us again how this is the administration bravely defending religious liberty and civil rights — by arresting the press after a judge already said there was no evidence of a crime.
Trump, ever the neutral observer, called Lemon a "loser, lightweight" and denounced his walk into the church as "terrible" while praising the pastor as a victim of being "accosted" by people with cameras. In other words, the DOJ has been repurposed from "justice" to "Department of Vengeance", civil rights law now protects you from being criticized, and journalists are being hauled off in chains to send a message. But don’t worry, democracy is doing great.
Congress frantically pretends to govern while making sure the only fully funded part of the state is the masked deportation squad that just killed two US citizens.
The Senate is racing to avoid a partial shutdown because federal agents killed two US citizens in Minneapolis while acting as Trump’s roving, masked deportation squads—and Democrats suddenly discovered this thing called "leverage." Chuck Schumer is demanding the wild, utopian fantasy that DHS agents wear body cameras, follow a basic code of conduct, and maybe stop doing paramilitary cosplay with masks and random street hunts for anyone who looks "illegal." In other words: the bare minimum standards you’d expect from a halfway-functioning democracy are now a bargaining chip in a shutdown standoff.
The plan: pass five bipartisan spending bills, then slap DHS on a two-week leash while they negotiate whether ICE should continue operating like a taxpayer-funded terror organization. But thanks to the House taking a long weekend, a partial shutdown is locked in anyway—because nothing says "responsible governance" like clocking out while the government runs out of money. Speaker Mike Johnson swears they "want to get the government funded, as does the president," which is cute, given that Trump’s real priority is keeping his mass deportation campaign fully operational and minimally accountable.
Meanwhile, Lindsey Graham is holding things up to protect one very special interest: Lindsey Graham, and other lawmakers who really don’t want the FBI using their phone records against them in that pesky Trump 2020 election meddling investigation. And over in the House, the far-right brain trust is demanding that every funding bill be stapled to the SAVE Act—a voter suppression package dressed up as election security—because if you’re going to keep deportation squads rich and unrestrained, you might as well also make it harder for the wrong people to vote you out. Even if the government shuts down, ICE keeps humming along on its $75bn slush fund from the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, with agents likely forced to work through the shutdown. The message from Trump’s America is clear: national parks can close, food inspections can pause—but the deportation machine and its body count? That never sleeps.
Federal agents stand by a government SUV with a broken taillight, which now apparently carries more presidential concern than the dead ICU nurse who kicked it.
Nothing says "law and order" like the president of the United States posthumously branding a dead ICU nurse an "agitator" and "perhaps, insurrectionist" because he yelled at ICE and broke a government taillight. Alex Pretti, a legally armed VA hospital nurse fatally shot by federal agents in Minneapolis, is now being recast by Donald Trump as a crazed menace based on a newly surfaced video of him shouting at immigration agents and kicking the back of their vehicle. The officer, Trump insists, was "calm and cool"—because nothing screams independent fact-finding like the guy in charge of the shooters issuing the character judgment on social media.
This comes after the White House already tried out a few other labels—"gunman," "domestic terrorist," "would-be assassin"—before quietly walking them back when even Republicans started looking uncomfortable with the speed-run from "citizen" to "terrorist". Pretti’s family, understandably not thrilled that their dead relative is being used as a prop in Trump’s federal-police fan fiction, has condemned the smear campaign. But the administration’s message is clear: carry a gun legally, get killed by federal agents, and the president will personally log on to call you an insurrectionist if it helps justify the shooting.
Meanwhile, Trump claims he wants to "de-escalate" in Minnesota, even as he ramps up the rhetoric and keeps promoting the saintly calm of heavily armed federal officers over the life of a nurse who treated veterans. Border czar Tom Homan is out here begging everyone to "tone down the dangerous rhetoric" while his boss is on Truth Social pouring gasoline on the situation and lighting matches. In other words: citizens should be calm, obedient, and quiet—and if they aren’t, and something bad happens, the president will make sure they’re remembered as the problem, not the people with badges and guns.
IndyCars prepare to do 200 mph past the Capitol so Fox can sell truck ads while the Constitution watches from the curb and quietly files for divorce.
Donald Trump has decided that the best way to celebrate America’s 250th birthday is to turn the National Mall into a high-speed billboard with an executive-ordered IndyCar race, because nothing says “constitutional republic” like commandeering federal agencies to stage a televised street carnival for Fox Sports and Roger Penske.
Via an executive order that hasn’t even been made public yet (very normal, very transparent), Trump is directing the Interior and Transportation departments to “expeditiously” ram through permits, design a race route wrapping the monuments, and let Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy “use available funds to facilitate the race”—in other words, crack open the public wallet so billionaires can do burnouts in front of the Lincoln Memorial. Fox Sports CEO Eric Shanks is thrilled, IndyCar owner Roger Penske is honored, and everyone insists this is about “patriotism” and “freedom” rather than a federally subsidized, ad-plastered branding orgy in the middle of what’s supposed to be the nation’s front lawn.
There’s the small issue that advertising is banned on Capitol grounds and IndyCar is basically a 220-mph NASCAR jacket, which might actually require Congress to bless this stunt. But don’t worry: Eleanor Holmes Norton’s office says she’ll “work to make it happen” if the mayor’s on board, because apparently representation for D.C. now means helping the White House turn your city into a corporate race track. Duffy is also told to work with the FAA to allow extra drones and aerial photography over sensitive government facilities, because if there’s one thing this administration loves, it’s casually rewriting safety rules to juice the TV spectacle.
So for America’s 250th, we’re getting a taxpayer-assisted, executive-ordered motorsports infomercial wrapped in a flag and sold as “freedom.” The Founders were worried about standing armies; they didn’t even get to the part where a future president would use the executive branch to build a temporary Trump-branded Monaco around the Washington Monument.
America’s most connected sex trafficker, seen here during one of the many, many times the system politely looked the other way.
The Trump justice department has proudly announced it is releasing more than 3 million pages of Jeffrey Epstein files, along with over 2,000 videos and 180,000 images, because nothing says “we definitely didn’t help cover any of this up” like a document tsunami dropped years after Epstein conveniently stopped being available for questioning. Deputy attorney general Todd Blanche says this Herculean paperwork dump is all part of complying with the Epstein Files Transparency Act—which is Washington-speak for "fine, you caught us, here’s the stuff we didn’t manage to bury."
Blanche also bragged that the Trump administration has produced roughly 3.5 million pages in total, as if volume equals virtue and not "we redacted the good parts and buried them in a PDF labyrinth so dense it should come with a Sherpa." In other words, the same government that once let Epstein walk away with a sweetheart deal is now tossing millions of pages into the public record and calling it accountability. But sure, dump a warehouse of files on a Friday and pretend that’s justice—because in Trump’s America, transparency means "you can technically see it, if you can afford a full-time research team and several spare lifetimes."
Dr. Oz, now taxpayer-funded, gesturing at Armenian bakery signs like he’s uncovered the Zapruder film of Medicare fraud.
CMS administrator Mehmet Oz took a break from selling miracle weight-loss scams to sell a new one for the Trump administration: that LA’s Armenian community is basically a $3.5bn hospice fraud cartel. In a social media stunt, Oz tours Van Nuys, waves at Armenian signage like it’s probable cause, name-drops the “Russian Armenian mafia”, and singles out a bakery on camera—because nothing says serious law enforcement like drive-by ethnic profiling with B-roll of pastries.
Gavin Newsom responded by filing a civil rights complaint with HHS, accusing Oz of spewing “baseless and racially charged allegations” that are already hurting real businesses and scaring people away from hospice and home care. Oz and CMS, naturally, have provided no corroborating details, while Newsom points out that California has already yanked more than 280 hospice licenses and frozen new ones since 2022—so the whole “California ignores fraud” talking point is as fake as Oz’s TV credentials as a public health guardian.
This little ethnic hit piece isn’t happening in a vacuum. It’s part of a wider Trump administration “fraud” crusade that previously used allegations about Somali-run daycare centers in Minneapolis to justify a sweeping immigration crackdown—one that’s already produced mass protests and two people shot dead by federal agents this month. In other words, we’re not looking at a crackdown on fraud; we’re looking at a crackdown on communities, with Dr. Oz happily playing the role of government infomercial host for state-sanctioned scapegoating.
Live look at Minnesota, where the forecast calls for freezing temps and a 90% chance of surprise ICE surge depending on whatever Trump blurts out next.
Trump has once again discovered his favorite law-enforcement strategy: say one thing, do another, and then yell about it on TV. After officials announced plans to draw down ICE and other federal agents in Minnesota, Trump publicly contradicted them and suggested the crackdown would, in fact, continue — because nothing says "rule of law" like treating federal policing levels as a campaign rally prop.
In other words, Minnesotans are now stuck in a fun little constitutional experiment where local officials are told one thing in briefings while the president goes on air and demands more boots, more raids, and more chaos. The actual operational plans? Who knows. The point isn’t safety or policy; it’s spectacle. Trump gets to posture as the tough guy, while communities get to live in permanent uncertainty about how many armed federal agents are roaming around this week.
This is the same playbook we’ve seen everywhere else: use ICE and DHS as a personal political branding exercise, then leave everyone else — from mayors to police chiefs to immigrants just trying to live their lives — to sort out the fallout. But sure, tell us again how this is all about "law and order" and not about a president testing how far he can push federal power into states that don’t clap hard enough.
A refinery flare stack in New Jersey bravely exercising its newfound freedom to dump more crap into the air, courtesy of the Trump EPA’s ‘pro-life except for lungs’ agenda.
In his triumphant return to the Oval Office, Donald Trump has decided that if you can’t repeal the laws of physics, you can at least pretend they’re optional. His EPA has launched 66 separate actions to kneecap environmental protections in a single year—because nothing says "core mission of protecting human health" like handing out pollution exemptions via email to coal plants and chemical factories.
Former EPA officials describe it as a “war on all fronts” and an attempt to leave only a symbolic husk of the agency. Mission accomplished: the EPA is now openly functioning as the Environmental Pollution Agency, where the main innovation is stopping the calculation of the monetary value of human lives saved and only tallying what regulations cost companies. In other words, if you die from fine particulate matter or ozone, that’s not a "cost" anymore—just a patriotic donation to corporate profits.
Trump’s team is shutting down clean air advisory committees, offering two-year get-out-of-the-Clean-Air-Act-free cards to some of the most toxic facilities in the country, and then insisting America’s air is "the cleanest it’s been in decades" as they rip out the measuring tools. It’s regulatory policy by gaslighting: gut enforcement, erase the science, declare victory. But sure, tell us more about how it’s the "climate zealots" who don’t care about people.
JD Vance delivers economic remarks at Uline, the world’s premier supplier of cardboard boxes, packing peanuts, and soft-focus fascism.
Uline, the Amazon Prime of fascism accessories, just got a very public resignation letter from one of its own. Laura Wittmann, a Canadian customer service worker on the "leadership track," noped out via a company-wide email explaining that she could no longer help fatten the fortunes of Liz and Dick Uihlein—two of Trump’s biggest 2024 megadonors—as America "descends rapidly into fascism." Because nothing says "neutral office supply company" like bankrolling the people dismantling democracy and cheering on border patrol shootings.
The Uihleins, who dropped roughly $139 million on MAGA Republicans and recently hosted Vice-President JD Vance for a little light autocracy pep rally at their Pennsylvania facility, are exactly the kind of respectable extremists Wittmann calls out. She describes their power as the "most insidious form of evil"—the kind that hides behind decorum, policy memos, and political donations while the state kills a mom and a VA nurse in Minneapolis. Meanwhile Liz is still penning scolding letters in Uline catalogs about lazy "nomads" who dare change jobs, blaming the now-gutted Affordable Care Act and stimulus checks for workers realizing they don’t have to grovel forever for the privilege of packing boxes for billionaires.
Wittmann’s parting shot? Higher-than-average pay isn’t generosity; it’s an "assurance of compliance" in service of what she calls the American imperialist war machine. She urges coworkers to stop pretending they’re just selling tape and pallets while their bosses help bankroll the regime tearing up healthcare, unleashing border forces, and expanding "territories they invade." Uline’s response was to scrub the email from inboxes in about 40 minutes—because nothing screams confidence in your values like frantically hitting delete on a conscience.
Tulsi Gabbard, America’s top spy, personally inspecting dusty 2020 ballots like she’s about to uncover the Rosetta Stone of voter fraud instead of starring in a very expensive campaign ad for the big lie.
The Trump administration just sent the FBI to raid the Fulton County election office and seize every 2020 ballot, tabulator tape, ballot image, and voter roll they could get their hands on, because nothing says "confidence in elections" like a federal smash-and-grab of lawfully cast votes from six years ago. This is all in service of the eternal 2020 fan fiction: the big lie that Atlanta was a crime scene instead of the place where Joe Biden actually, verifiably won Georgia – twice confirmed by recounts, and thoroughly debunked by state investigators.
And because this is the Trump era, the clown car comes with its own intel chief: Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard personally showed up at the raid, like a cosplay KGB officer looking for "foreign interference" in a county warehouse. Senator Mark Warner politely pointed out that either she has a real intel case and is breaking the law by hiding it from Congress, or she’s turning the supposedly nonpartisan intelligence community into a prop for Trump’s domestic election conspiracy circus. The Wall Street Journal helpfully reports that Gabbard is actually leading the administration’s nationwide hunt for phantom voter fraud – in other words, the DNI is now the president’s chief election denial officer.
Meanwhile, Trump’s DOJ – lovingly reengineered into an anti–voting rights wrecking ball – is filing flimsy lawsuits across the country to hoover up sensitive voter rolls, most of which courts are already swatting down. In Georgia, Fulton County was already in the middle of a legal process to turn over 2020 records after a state board stacked with Trump allies subpoenaed them. A judge had ordered a transfer plan, a hearing was scheduled, and then the feds just kicked in the door anyway, grabbed the ballots, and vanished them into the federal evidence void. Local officials now have no idea where their ballots are or what the administration plans to do with them, but they’re pretty clear on what this is: a staged "criminal" investigation designed to smear election workers, threaten public officials, and keep the base marinating in manufactured doubt heading into 2026 and 2028. But sure, tell us again how this is all about "election integrity" and not about building a permanent excuse for whenever Trump loses.
Kari Lake, live from Voice of America, demonstrating how you turn a congressionally funded news service into a taxpayer-subsidized Trump campaign ad in under five minutes.
Kari Lake has discovered a bold new innovation in American broadcasting: why merely appear on Fox, Newsmax, and OANN to worship Trump when you can use U.S. government media to do it, in multiple languages, beamed straight into foreign countries? As the official overseeing the parent agency of Voice of America, Lake went on VOA’s Persian-language service to celebrate Trump’s first year back in office, calling him the "president of peace," repeating his fantasy claim that he ended eight wars, and attacking an "out-of-control judiciary" for daring to rule against Dear Leader. The segment was part of a glowing one-hour Trump special, then rebroadcast on VOA’s Chinese service, because nothing says "independent public broadcaster" like a taxpayer-funded campaign infomercial in two time zones.
The small problem: federal law and agency policies explicitly exist to stop exactly this — political appointees turning VOA into a White House propaganda arm. That’s the whole point of the VOA "firewall": to prevent the ruling party from using government-owned media as a personal hype machine. Lake’s defense is that you can’t tell the story of the "brave Iranian people" without amplifying Trump’s greatness and the "support" they supposedly have for him. In other words, the law doesn’t apply if the propaganda is for freedom. The network she’s trying to dismantle is now being conscripted to glorify the man she serves and to attack his political opponents and the courts — but sure, tell us again how it’s the other guys who love state-run media.
TikTok’s new US algorithm: now proudly made in America, censored by your favorite billionaires, and brought to you by the guy who merged Paramount so Trump could yell at CBS in peace.
Remember when Trump pretended to be terrified that China might use TikTok to censor political speech and warp American democracy? Good news: the problem has been solved by handing the US version of TikTok to a Trump-aligned investor consortium led by Oracle, the data-hoarding besties of the American right. ByteDance gets a minority stake, Oracle gets the keys to the algorithm, and Trump gets what he always wanted: leverage over the app he credits for his 2024 win. Because nothing says "protecting free speech from foreign interference" like building your own state-approved propaganda firehose at scale.
US TikTok users are already noticing the magic of American freedom: videos about a federal agent killing Alex Pretti get stuck in endless "review", anti‑Trump content mysteriously flatlines in reach, and words like "Epstein" suddenly become Voldemort-tier unutterable. TikTok USDS swears it’s all just a quirky little "Oracle datacenter power outage"—in other words, the algorithmic equivalent of "the dog ate my homework"—while Gavin Newsom wonders aloud why his state’s laws seem to be getting throttled along with everyone’s For You page.
Meanwhile, the new joint venture is run by Adam Presser, who thinks references to Zionism should count as hate speech, and Benjamin Netanyahu is openly thrilled that a platform which made Western kids notice Palestinian suffering is now in friendlier hands. Palestinian journalist Bisan Owda? Conveniently banned. The algorithm is being retrained on US-only data, a perfect way to wall off Americans from global debates, juice conservative narratives, and quietly bury minority voices—Facebook’s rage-boosting 2018 algorithm change, but now under direct influence of Trumpworld donors like Larry Ellison, who is simultaneously hoovering up CBS, Paramount, and potentially Warner Bros and CNN.
In other words, censorship has gone full invisible-hand-of-the-market. You can technically "say" what you want; it just won’t go anywhere if it upsets the guys who own the servers, the newsrooms, and the president. Rightwing billionaires who cosplay as free speech warriors are consolidating control of both traditional media and social platforms, swapping book bans and police raids for something cleaner: algorithmic throttling you’ll never quite be able to prove. But sure, tell us again how this is all about stopping Chinese propaganda and defending the First Amendment.
