trump’s civil-rights cosplay targets john brennan
John Brennan, pausing briefly between being accused of leading the deep state and waiting for the next Trump loyalty test disguised as a subpoena.
The Trump DOJ has decided that the real victim of a decade of investigations into Russian interference and stolen classified documents is, naturally, Donald Trump. So former CIA director John Brennan is getting dragged before a Florida grand jury in a sweeping "grand conspiracy" probe built on the premise that law enforcement officials conspired to violate Trump’s civil rights by investigating his crimes. When you’re facing multiple indictments, why not just indict reality instead?
The subpoena landed the same day the original ringmaster of this circus, Joe diGenova, abruptly quit after the White House and DOJ reportedly got cranky about his pace. The consolation prize? Brennan’s lawyer is now dealing with Kurt Olsen, the guy who tried to get DOJ to back Trump’s bogus 2020 election fraud claims. So the investigation into whether Trump’s critics formed a shadowy deep-state cabal is being shepherded by a man who tried to help overturn an election. Perfectly normal justice system, nothing to see here.
Brennan is also still a "target" in a separate Washington probe into whether he lied to Congress in 2023, a charge he denies, while he sues to preserve records so he can argue this is all vindictive prosecution. Because when a former president openly demands retribution against his perceived enemies, and the machinery of the state dutifully cranks up to oblige, that’s not authoritarian score-settling at all — that’s just America’s new favorite sport: prosecute the investigators.
#retribution#killing-democracy
trump heroically considers maybe thinking about 9/11 truth
Trump, fresh off a weekend abroad, prepares to bravely contemplate whether confronting Saudi Arabia is worth more than another arms deal and a few hotel bookings.
Twenty-five years after 9/11 and after multiple administrations have slow-walked or buried key records about possible Saudi involvement, Donald Trump has boldly promised to "look at it" when he gets back from Ireland. The families of the victims are asking for declassification of documents that might shed light on what role Saudi officials or extremist clerics played in the attack that killed their loved ones. Trump’s response: a vague commitment to consider maybe thinking about it later, presumably after checking whether it upsets Riyadh.
Terry Strada, who lost her husband on 9/11, spelled out what every administration has done for a quarter-century: protect the Saudi government and its oil-soaked friends instead of standing with the families. She asked Trump to "tell the Saudis to stop lying" and to finally stop the "betrayal". For now, the White House position seems to be that accountability for the worst terrorist attack in modern U.S. history is something you pencil in between a golf weekend and a foreign junket. But hey, at least he’s considering not running cover for a repressive monarchy this time. Progress?
#oligarchy#killing-democracy
america’s ai safety plan: vibes and a ‘high iq’ president
AI leaders warn their products could wipe out humanity while Trump explains that, luckily, he personally has a very high IQ, so it’s all under control.
Trump has discovered the ultimate AI safety framework: no guardrails, just a “STRONG AND SMART (High IQ!) PRESIDENT” — a description he helpfully provides of himself, in case anyone missed the last ten years of his posting. While AI researchers are out here saying things like “this might kill us all,” the White House strategy is basically, "Have you tried trusting my gut?"
Instead of independent oversight, Trump brags that his administration has already used its "tremendous CRIMINAL and REGULATORY power" to stop AI "people" like Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei from doing "bad, or potentially bad, 'things.'" So no guardrails for the tech, just more threats for the humans who question it. He denounces concerns about AI and data centers as a "SICK conspiracy" and waves the usual magic word — China — to justify whatever he wants: WHOEVER WINS AI, WINS!
Out in the real world, 70% of Americans say they’re more worried than excited about AI, including most Republicans, and local communities don’t want giant AI data centers dropped on their heads. AI researchers are resigning and publicly warning that companies like Anthropic and OpenAI are "gambling with our lives" and that AI could "kill all humans." The bipartisan political response is, broadly: maybe we should slow down and think. The Trump response is: people raising safety concerns are "Conspiracy Theorists, Treasonists, Traitors, and Leakers" who should “BEWARE!”
JD Vance tries a more polite version of the same thing, saying he’s "weirded out" that AI companies are asking for regulation and hinting it’s some kind of Trojan horse, while still insisting the administration wants to "regulate smartly" — which, in this context, seems to mean "no rules for the tech, endless discretionary punishment power for the president." So to recap: the people building AI say it might end civilization, the public doesn’t want it in their backyard, and Trump’s plan is to strap the whole thing to his ego, floor the gas, and threaten anyone who reaches for the brake.
#killing-democracy#national-security#full-stupid
trump nearly bankrupts the kennedy center, demands naming rights as ransom
The Kennedy Center, seen moments before being rebranded as TRUMP PERFORMING ARTS & CASINO, pending court approval and sufficient groveling.
The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts is reportedly days away from bankruptcy and could shut its doors as early as Tuesday, because nothing says vibrant national culture like “we can’t make payroll.” According to internal documents obtained by the Washington Post, the Trump-installed leadership is floating a spectacularly on-brand solution: slap Donald Trump’s name on the facade to stave off “certain fiscal collapse.” America’s national performing arts center, now reduced to the aesthetic of a failed Atlantic City casino.
This crisis didn’t fall from the sky. Trump shoved himself into the chairman’s seat in February 2025, kicking off a year of financial chaos, leadership churn, and lawsuits. Fundraising and ticket sales tanked once his name got stapled to the building, because donors and audiences apparently weren’t lining up to attend The Nutcracker at the Mar-a-Lago Memorial Arts Pavilion. A judge ruled in May that the Trump branding was illegal and ordered it removed; it finally came down in June after Trump’s emergency appeal flopped.
Now, per the trustees’ report, Trump will “help” the Kennedy Center if his involvement is acknowledged—a nice, subtle way of saying: your national cultural institution might survive, if you agree to be my billboard. It’s less arts stewardship and more a mob protection racket with worse taste in chandeliers. The Kennedy Center may not make it to Wednesday, but Trump’s instinct to turn every public good into a personal branding opportunity is doing just fine.
#forever-grifting#corruption
trump blocks french ambassador until france admits america is a human rights icon now
State Department officials explain that America still leads on human rights, provided you don’t mention votes, facts, or reality in general.
The Trump administration has discovered a bold new tool of statecraft: refusing to let France have an ambassador until Paris apologizes for pointing out the obvious. After France’s U.N. mission dared to lump the U.S. together with Russia and North Korea over a human rights vote, Team Trump quietly froze approval of France’s new ambassador to Washington, Aurélien Lechevallier. Seven weeks of diplomatic hostage-taking later, France has now issued a public mea culpa for the offending post so its envoy can finally enter the world’s most emotionally fragile superpower.
The original sin? The U.N. General Assembly voted overwhelmingly to give Volker Türk a second term as U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights. The U.S. joined its favorite club — the 10-country "No" caucus featuring Russia and North Korea — and then raged that Türk had mortally wounded the U.N. human rights system. France pointed out that maybe, just maybe, Washington screaming about human rights while embracing authoritarians and gutting protections at home was a bit rich. The Trump White House responded in its usual mature fashion: weaponize diplomacy, demand public humiliation, call it a win for freedom.
This little tantrum slots neatly into the broader Trump foreign policy vision: punish allies for speaking honestly, reward dictators for flattery, and treat human rights as an annoying PR problem rather than a principle. Europe and the U.S. are now "diverging" over Greenland annexation fantasies, Ukraine diesel schemes, and the entire postwar international order — but at least the administration can celebrate a big victory where it counts. Not on human rights, of course. On forcing France to pretend Trump’s America isn’t acting like the guy in the autocrat group chat who types in all caps.
#fascism#killing-democracy
trump rescues dying ohio town from the horror of thriving haitian kids
Local leaders point to signs celebrating Haitian students while Trump’s policies work diligently to turn those kids from star athletes into deportation cases with ankle monitors.
Springfield, Ohio spent years quietly disproving every Fox News chyron. Haitian families moved in, took the jobs no one wanted, stopped the population decline, revived schools and sports, and helped pull an ageing Rust Belt city back from the brink. Graduation rates up, attendance up, district grades up, $6m high school stadium renovation funded by, among other things, their property taxes. The horror.
So naturally Donald Trump and his administration looked at this rare Midwestern success story and decided the real emergency was too many brown kids playing soccer. First he spent 2024 blasting out lies about Haitian immigrants, which mysteriously coincided with a wave of bomb threats shutting down Springfield schools and government buildings. Then his administration finished the job in 2026 by killing Temporary Protected Status for Haitians and others, yanking legal status from roughly 350,000 people, including 20‑year‑old Springfield student and soccer player Pierre Damas Bel.
Bel went from beloved bilingual teammate and volunteer translator to monitored suspect, slapped with an ankle bracelet after a routine immigration check-in. He told his family it was humiliating and stopped him from playing the sport that tied his life together. Weeks after TPS was stripped away, he walked into traffic and died; authorities are calling it an apparent suicide. So to recap: Haitian youths rebuild a shrinking Ohio city, enrich its schools, and give it a future. Trump responds by turning them into targets, stoking threats against their community, and tearing away their legal protections, then calls it law and order. The only thing being protected here is white grievance.
#anti-immigration#killing-democracy#racism
trump discovers nine new ways to kill a sponge
NOAA scientists gently examine sponges that the Trump administration would prefer to meet a large metal rake attached to a profit motive.
Scientists just found nine new deep-sea sponge species off Alaska, delicate ancient animals that quietly filter water, build habitat, and help sustain fish and crab populations. NOAA biologists are painstakingly cataloging them with DNA barcodes and microscopes, trying to understand a 600-million-year-old ecosystem that we barely know exists.
The Trump administration took one look at this fragile, irreplaceable seafloor life and said: great, a demolition site. While researchers describe "sponge gardens" as essential fish habitat and a potential source of cancer-fighting compounds, Trump is busy pushing expanded deep-sea mining for nickel and copper and cheerleading more bottom trawling – the ecological equivalent of dragging a lawnmower through a coral cathedral. Environmental groups, Indigenous communities, and Pacific territories are all yelling "stop", so naturally the administration is flooring the gas.
According to the Center for Biological Diversity, bottom trawling is already "insult to injury" for these habitats; Trump’s answer is to add industrial seafloor strip-mining on top, because if you’re going to wreck a 600-million-year-old ecosystem, why not do it thoroughly? Instead of stewarding sponge gardens that support fisheries and coastal communities, the administration is treating the ocean like a scratch-off ticket for defense contractors and mining companies. The sponges have no brains, but somehow they’re still not the dumbest creatures in this story.
#imperialism#killing-democracy
oil shocks, drone wars, and ai doom – president golf cart has it covered
Three tech billionaires stare into the middle distance, contemplating whether it’s too late to ask President Mar‑a‑Lago to care about AI killing us before the next tee time.
Oil prices blast past $108 a barrel after drone attacks launched from Iraqi territory shut down Saudi Arabia’s east–west pipeline, and Saudi traders are openly saying the quiet part: if they don’t get it running again in days, they run out of exportable oil. The Middle East is on fire – literally and figuratively – thanks to the US‑Israel war with Iran, but don’t worry, the guy in charge is the one who thinks ‘energy policy’ means yelling at the Fed and retweeting memes about gas stoves.
Meanwhile, Iran‑aligned Houthi forces just grabbed the island of Perim in the Bab al‑Mandab strait, extending their grip over a key global shipping choke point. Iraq admits the attacks came from its soil and promises an investigation, while Trump skips the part where you do complex diplomacy and just points at Tehran like he’s picking the villain of the week on Fox & Friends. Four percent of global oil supply is now riding on a pipeline that’s offline, and Yanbu’s got about five to seven days of export cushion. What could possibly go wrong?
On the tech side of the apocalypse, the CEOs of Anthropic, OpenAI, and SpaceX are suddenly begging the world to slow down ‘reckless’ AI development because it might, minor detail, wipe out humanity by 2030. When the guys selling the doomsday machine start asking for a speed limit, you’d think the White House might look up from the buffet. Instead, Trump, speaking from his natural habitat – a golf course in Ireland – waves off extinction risk as ‘very negative forces’ saying things that ‘won’t happen’. Oil shocks, drone wars, and possible AI‑driven human extinction – and the president’s main contribution is heckling reality between rounds.
#national-security#full-stupid
climate-hushing in a burning country
A firetruck races past yet another megafire while politicians debate whether it's polite to say the words "climate change" out loud.
Ron DeSantis literally scrubbed the words "climate change" from Florida law in 2024, and then Trump waltzed back into the White House and started rolling back Biden-era clean energy rules like he was speedrunning the apocalypse. Result: Democrats, terrified of being accused of caring whether their voters drown or combust, have started "climate-hushing" – pretending the planet isn't on fire while their constituents' houses are being reclassified as uninsurable kindling.
Meanwhile, a few candidates are stubbornly acting like governance still exists. In California, Jane Kim is running for insurance commissioner on a single-payer disaster insurance plan because private insurers have taken one look at climate-fueled wildfires and said, "good luck with that, peasants." Elsewhere, progressives are talking datacenters, right to repair, and green economic populism – i.e., tying climate policy to the fact that people like having homes, jobs, and electricity that doesn't come bundled with a Category 4 hurricane.
This is the Trump climate era in a nutshell: the federal government pretends climate isn't real, corporations run for the exits, and state-level candidates are left designing public insurance schemes and quiet emissions cuts just to keep basic civilization from collapsing. Elite consensus? Trump torched that. Now the choice is between building a mass, pissed-off pro-climate majority – or letting the "don't say climate change" crowd finish turning disaster insurance into a luxury product for whoever hasn't flooded yet.
#killing-democracy#anti-science
democrats launch 'please don’t steal the election' corps
Artist’s rendering of American democracy: one side in blue vests handing out voter info, the other side checking if ICE can bring handcuffs to the polling place.
Democrats are rolling out the "New Battlefield Project," which is a very dramatic name for what used to be called "basic election administration before one party went full coup-curious." Tens of thousands of volunteers in blue vests will fan out to about a quarter of the country’s 95,000 polling places to do wild, extremist things like: help people find the right location, explain provisional ballots, and write down when Trump’s goons try to scare voters away.
This whole operation exists because the Trump administration refuses to rule out sending federal agents to cities on election day and Trump-world voices keep fantasizing about immigration agents at the polls. Homeland security secretary Markwayne Mullin — whose job apparently now includes live-testing the boundaries of the Voting Rights Act — says ICE doesn’t normally patrol polling places, but hey, if they have a warrant or feel like there’s a "threat," who’s to say?
So Democrats are telling people to "bank their vote" early, before Trump wakes up one morning, declares a national emergency, and decides democracy is suspended until he feels properly adored again. Alongside that, they’re building a "democracy defense network" to track disinformation, dark money, AI manipulation, and old-school election subversion — basically a volunteer fire brigade trying to hold back a five-alarm authoritarian arson spree with clipboards and smiles.
#killing-democracy#fascism
senator tariff-face and the amazing two-headed sullivan brothers
Senator Dan Sullivan, seen here in his natural habitat: far away from any microphone where someone might ask him about the tariffs he keeps voting for.
In Washington, Senator Dan Sullivan is a dependable vote for Trump’s tariff roulette, helping keep the great trade-war experiment humming along while prices spike and supply chains do parkour. Back home in Alaska, though, he treats the word "tariff" like it’s Voldemort – something that must never be spoken in front of voters who are, inconveniently, living with the bill.
The contrast gets extra cute when you bring in his brother, Frank Sullivan, C.E.O. of the family company RPM International, who’s on investor calls describing the tariff-induced economic volatility as a huge problem and explaining how they’ve had to move manufacturing, rejigger deals, stockpile materials – and of course, raise prices. So in D.C., Dan helps create the mess; in the boardroom, Frank complains about the mess; and at the ballot box, Alaska gets to pay for the mess.
It’s a neat little Republican magic trick: support Trump’s economically illiterate tariffs in the Senate, quietly profit-manage around them in the family business, then go home and campaign like a folksy bystander who just wandered in from the Palmer State Fair and has no idea why everything suddenly costs more.
#trade-war#forever-grifting
putin’s pal picks up the wedding tab
Donald Trump Jr. and his bride enjoy a fireworks display generously brought to you by the International Boxing Association and whatever’s left of American counterintelligence standards.
Donald Trump Jr. celebrated his three-day yacht-bro fairy tale wedding in the Bahamas with helicopters, seaplanes, a five-tier airlifted funfetti cake, and fireworks over the water — all the wholesome, all-American stuff you’d expect when your secret wedding planner is a Putin-linked Russian oligarch. The private island reception, the $100,000-a-night second island, the fireworks show, the villas? Largely underwritten by Umar Kremlev, head of the Gazprom-financed International Boxing Association, paid through an IBA-affiliated Dubai entity. Because nothing says totally normal son of the president like having a Kremlin-adjacent sports boss quietly cover your bar tab and pyrotechnics.
Trump Jr. later described the guest list as “really small, like, just really close friends.” Those close friends included Jared Kushner — the guy helping run U.S.-Russia negotiations over Ukraine — Eric Trump, and a cluster of Russian-speaking dudes standing off to the side like the world’s most obvious B-roll for a counterintelligence training video. National security experts, being killjoys, pointed out that when a Putin-favored oligarch pays hundreds of thousands of dollars for your wedding, you might someday be expected to return the favor. But don’t worry: Don’s spokesperson says Umar is just a “personal friend,” not a business partner, and Kremlev’s team swears they never talk politics. Just boxing, hunting, and presumably how to launder influence through destination weddings.
This would be bad enough if Junior were just another failson with a podcast, but he’s now described as his father’s “most essential political adviser” and played a key role in picking Cabinet members for Trump’s second term. JD Vance literally credits him for landing the VP slot. So while Russia is sanctioned, Putin is invading neighbors, and Kremlev is under Ukrainian sanctions for his closeness to the Kremlin, the president’s politically powerful son is letting that same guy pick up the check for his Bond-movie wedding on the very islands where "Casino Royale" was filmed. The MAGA base gets told this is all about sovereignty and America First; behind the scenes, it’s more like America, Sponsored by Gazprom.
#corruption#national-security#forever-grifting
speaker of the house prays the war follows trump’s campaign schedule
Mike Johnson, earnestly explaining that he’s leaving the war schedule up to God and Donald Trump, not necessarily in that order.
Speaker Mike Johnson went on national TV and, with a straight face, said he "certainly" prays that Donald Trump is right that the Iran war will end after the midterms — as if the timing of a major international conflict is just another line item in the RNC’s field plan. American troops, regional stability, global oil markets? All apparently subordinate to the sacred calendar of U.S. partisan politics.
Instead of asking why a former president is out here casually predicting the end date of a war like he’s spoiling a Marvel movie, Johnson treats it as a hopeful prophecy. The top legislator in the country is now basically saying: Lord, please let the commander-in-chief’s favorite strongman be right about when this war wraps, preferably in a way that helps our side.
This is what passes for "checks and balances" in Trump’s Washington: Congress doesn’t question why Trump thinks he can call the shot; it just prays reality conforms to his campaign narrative. Foreign policy has been fully downgraded from national security to election-season content — war not as last resort, but as programming, scheduled right after the midterms and before the next rally.
#killing-democracy#fascism
trump discovers the fed is not his personal casino atm
Kevin Warsh learns the true dual mandate of the Trump-era Fed: price stability and maximum flattery.
Central bankers in the US, Japan, and the UK are staring down surging inflation, oil over $100 a barrel, and global bond markets doing their best impression of a roller coaster designed by Elon Musk. In the US, that circus now comes with a bonus act: Donald Trump howling on Truth Social that America should have the "LOWEST RATE of any country in the World" and ordering his handpicked Federal Reserve chair Kevin Warsh to "BE PATRIOTS for a change" — because nothing says sound monetary policy like framing interest rates as a loyalty oath.
Warsh, allegedly in charge of an independent central bank, is expected to consider raising rates to deal with inflation that’s been above target for more than five years, while Trump wants them slashed so the economy looks juiced heading into election season. So the question isn’t just whether rates go up on Wednesday; it’s whether the Fed still functions as a technocratic institution or as another branch of the Trump campaign. Meanwhile, UK and Japanese policymakers quietly do their jobs while America’s president publicly demands cheaper money and more obedience, turning the world’s most important central bank into yet another test of how fast institutions will bend the knee.
#killing-democracy#money#forever-grifting
trump declares war on bikes to save oppressed suvs
Pictured: a radical DEI extremism corridor, also known as a bike lane, moments before being liberated for its true purpose—more parking for oversized trucks.
The Trump administration has discovered a new existential threat to the republic: painted stripes on asphalt. Transportation officials are now labeling bike lanes as "DEI bike lanes" and using that magic incantation to freeze or cancel grants, bad-mouth alternative transit as "unworkable," and even float ripping out existing lanes. Evidence that bike lanes reduce crashes and offer a carbon-neutral alternative to cars? Irrelevant. The only study that matters in Trumpworld is whether something offends the fragile masculinity of a guy whose exercise routine is golf-cart adjacent.
Instead of acknowledging that fewer cars on the road might mean less traffic and fewer dead pedestrians, the administration has settled on the advanced math of "cars good, bikes woke." By rebranding basic safety infrastructure as a diversity plot, they get to keep funneling power to car culture, oil companies, and the eternal suburban id, while pretending they’re bravely standing up to the tyranny of people not wanting to die on their commute. It’s not transit policy; it’s a vibes-based transportation coup.
So the federal government is now weaponizing the culture war against bike lanes the same way it did against school curricula and public health: slap a DEI label on it, declare it un-American, and let the lawsuits and lobbying cash flow. If you were hoping your city might prioritize clean air and safe streets over the sacred right to double-park an F-150, the Trump administration has a message: get back in your car, plebe, and pay $6 a gallon like a real patriot.
#killing-democracy#forever-grifting
trump 2026: now with 30% more islamophobia
Donald Trump explains that democracy is working "too well" now that Muslims keep winning elections, surrounded by Republicans nodding along like stripping rights from entire religions is just another line item in the midterm strategy memo.
Tommy Tuberville took one look at Abdul El-Sayed winning a Democratic Senate primary and immediately decided Michigan had "just voted to send a TERRORIST" to Washington, because nothing screams national security expertise like Tommy Tuberville screaming on X in all caps. That set off a 1,900% spike in Islamophobic posts naming El-Sayed, as the GOP base reacted to the horrifying spectacle of a Muslim guy winning an election in a democracy.
Donald Trump, never one to pass up a chance to punch down, called El-Sayed a "jihadist" from the Oval Office and warned that "jihadists" are being elected "all over the place" – which is an interesting way of describing Americans who win elections. JD Vance tagged along to call El-Sayed "very, very evil", while Ted Cruz, Nancy Mace, Randy Fine, and Andy Ogles took turns auditioning for a "Who Can Say The Most Openly Bigoted Thing On TV" competition. Mace declared that every Muslim in public office is a "trojan horse" and that Islam "must be removed from civil society in the US" – you know, just casual talk about religious cleansing from a sitting member of Congress.
The hate isn’t just rhetorical; it’s metastasizing into policy cosplay. Greg Abbott is burning state time and money investigating private wudu stations at airports as illegal religious favoritism, while fighting a mosque-centered housing project like it’s an invading army instead of an apartment complex. Meanwhile, a "Sharia Free America Caucus" – yes, that’s a real thing and not a rejected Onion headline – has grown to 65 members, pushing bills against a made‑up problem they invented so they can heroically defend America from Muslims washing their hands.
All of this is happening while Muslim representation in government hits historic highs, and hate crimes and discrimination stay permanently elevated. Researchers describe the rhetoric as "so bigoted" and "so crude" that the mask is basically off now. The GOP isn’t dog‑whistling anymore; it’s just standing on the Capitol steps with a bullhorn yelling that an entire religion is a national security threat. It’s not a culture war; it’s a slow‑motion campaign to define millions of citizens as enemies of the state.
#racism#killing-democracy
president mail fraud tries to cancel the mail
Trump peers at a mailbox like it’s personally plotting a coup against him, while the Postal Service is drafted as his latest voter suppression task force.
Donald Trump, a man who has personally voted by mail multiple times, has now decided that voting by mail is a "hoax" that must be crushed for the good of… Donald Trump. Despite roughly 29% of Americans using mail-in ballots in 2024, the White House is staging a full-scale assault on the practice, because if Democrats tend to use it more, then clearly it must be illegal. Evidence of widespread fraud? That would be 0.000043% over four election cycles. So naturally, it’s time to blow up the system.
Instead of, say, winning votes, Trump signed an executive order commanding the US Postal Service to maintain a national list of "eligible" voters and block mailed ballots to anyone not on it—yanking core election functions away from states and dropping them into the lap of Louis DeJoy’s favorite playground. The Save America Act (translation: Save Trump From Mail Ballots Act) hasn’t made it through Congress, but the administration is already trying to jam the new rules through USPS rulemaking. Federal courts, so far, have responded with the legal equivalent of, "absolutely not" and slapped an injunction on the whole scheme.
Voting rights groups immediately sued, and a three-judge panel in the First Circuit just upheld the injunction, pointing out that the Post Office cannot simply decide who gets to vote while pretending it’s just regulating envelopes. The administration is now begging the Supreme Court to lift the block, arguing this is about mail, not elections, while the calendar screams "midterms are almost here" and the Purcell principle says you don’t change the rules mid-flight. Meanwhile, a whistleblower has come forward describing the internal USPS process for blocking "unapproved" ballots—because nothing says "free and fair elections" like a secret federal blacklist deciding which votes are allowed to exist.
So as military ballots are already going out and local officials try to run an election, Trump is once again testing how far he can bend the system before it snaps. Counting votes is suspicious, suppressing them is patriotic, and the president is very upset that the courts keep confusing his personal grievances with the Constitution.
#killing-democracy#lawlessness#fascism
trump sneezes, britain gets long covid
Donald Trump studies a global economic forecast, mistakes it for a fast-food menu, and orders extra inflation for everyone.
Britain’s new Labour government is trying to write a boring, responsible autumn budget while Donald Trump is across the Atlantic LARPing as a petrostate warlord and central banker-in-chief. The US–Israel war on Iran has lit oil prices on fire, triggering a global bond selloff, and Trump’s chef’s kiss combo of reckless deficits and public threats to meddle with the Federal Reserve is turning that spark into a full-blown financial brushfire. UK gilt yields spike, debt costs soar, and suddenly John Healey is discovering that his fiscal room for manoeuvre has been quietly repossessed by President MAGA Margin Call.
It doesn’t stop at macroeconomic arson. Trump’s tariff tantrum is hammering the car industry so hard that Jaguar Land Rover is cutting 4,000 jobs on the same day Healey tries to give his big “we’ve got this” speech in Coventry. Meanwhile, Trump’s demolition of the post–WWII security architecture means Britain is being nudged to hike defence spending just as the bond market is demanding a kidney for every extra pound of borrowing. The Office for Budget Responsibility now has to bake this Trump-generated chaos into its forecasts, potentially halving Labour’s fiscal headroom and turning every social care or welfare decision into a choice between helping people or appeasing the markets Trump just set on fire.
So the UK, like the rest of the world, is discovering the updated version of that old line about America sneezing. Under Trump, it’s less a mild cold and more a deliberate global infection of economic instability: weaponised oil shocks, tariff whiplash, and threats to independent central banks. Sovereign democracies can technically still make their own choices, sure — just as long as those choices fit inside the narrow fiscal coffin Trump’s chaos has built for them.
#killing-democracy#imperialism
trump launches $5,000 democracy clearance sale
Trump explains that if you re-elect his party, you get five grand, like a democracy-themed infomercial where the fine print is the US constitution catching fire offscreen.
Donald Trump has announced that if Republicans keep control of Congress, every US adult gets a $5,000 "Trump dividend" — a sort of cash-back rewards program for voting the right way. The price tag runs up to $1tn, the national debt is north of $40tn, and the White House is insisting this is all fiscally responsible, which is like calling a casino loan a retirement plan.
Commerce secretary Howard Lutnick swears it’s "not tax money" and that the administration will simply "earn the money" — largely by turning the US into a high-end visa pawn shop where wealthy foreigners pay up to $5m to extend their stay. He claims there’s a waitlist of 100,000 rich people ready to be shaken down, which would allegedly net $500bn, while also pointing at the government’s Intel investment like a guy who bought one lucky stock and now calls himself Warren Buffett.
Elsewhere in fantasyland, Kevin Hassett is floating a reconciliation process and "multiple paths" to make the checks real, while JD Vance is still pretending tariffs will cover it — never mind that the supreme court already ordered Trump’s "liberation day" tariff haul returned, and a previous $2,000 tariff rebate promise was for more money than the tariffs ever raised. So the plan is: promise voters a $5,000 loyalty bonus, pretend it’s free, fund it with imaginary tariff cash and speculative visa-rent-seeking, and dare anyone to call it what it looks like — a federalized vote-buying scheme with a MAGA logo slapped on the check.
#killing-democracy#corruption
maga inc asks voters to ignore war, inflation, and reality
James Blair explains that the Iran war will wind down just as soon as the polls do, purely by coincidence and definitely not because the commander-in-chief is using live ammunition as campaign mailers.
The head of Trump’s personal slush fund — sorry, MAGA Inc. super PAC — James Blair, popped up on an NBC podcast to announce he’s “cautiously optimistic” that Republicans can cling to their congressional majorities. The pitch: yes, Trump’s approval is circling the drain at 36%, the Iran war is even less popular at 31%, inflation is up again thanks to his tariffs and energy mess, but if you just squint hard enough and compare every Democrat to Chuck Schumer, maybe voters won’t notice they’re broke and there’s a war on.
Blair helpfully explains that voters are starting to “care less” about the Iran war, which is one way to describe people being exhausted by a conflict the president has literally said will not end until after Election Day. Trump openly treats a shooting war — complete with U.S. strikes on Iranian oil tankers and Iran hitting U.S. warships — as a campaign prop, while Blair calls it a “correct decision in the scope of history” and a political success. Nothing says responsible governance like promising to keep the bombs falling until the absentee ballots are counted.
On the economy, Blair’s strategy is to blame Joe Biden’s ghost for everything, even though inflation was lower when Trump took office for the second time and then rose again after his “Liberation Day” tariffs and Iran adventure kicked in. But don’t worry, MAGA Inc. is now flooding Senate races with cash to convince you that 3.4% inflation and an ongoing war are just the necessary down payment on greatness. Trump is begging supporters to “pretend I’m on the ballot,” which is convenient, because his policies, his war, and his price hikes already are.
#killing-democracy#forever-grifting
