nevada discovers trumpenomics kind of sucks
Gov. Joe Lombardo, moments before remembering he stapled his political future to Trump's economic policies.
Nevada Gov. Joe Lombardo is learning the hard way that hitching your career to Donald Trump's economic brain trust (Kudlow and vibes) has consequences. Trump's policies are so wildly unpopular in the state that Lombardo, an actual sitting governor, is already being treated like a lame-duck extra in someone else's reality show.
The big drama now: Tuesday's primary will decide which Democrat gets to spend the fall replaying Nevada's bank statements and grocery receipts on loop while asking voters whether they're enjoying this particular season of "Making America Broke Again." Lombardo, meanwhile, gets to smile through gritted teeth and pretend Trump's agenda is going great as it saws through his own approval ratings.
#leopards-ate-my-face#full-stupid
madison square garden launches boos-based space program
Pictured: thousands of fake news ears mishearing the president’s "massive cheers" in real time.
Donald Trump showed up to the NBA Finals at Madison Square Garden and was greeted with that most American of traditions: a roaring chorus of boos during the national anthem. Apparently New Yorkers decided that if they had to stand through performative patriotism, they might as well exercise the First Amendment while they were at it.
True to form, Trump emerged afterward to declare that the arena was actually "mostly cheers," describing the atmosphere as "loud" and "enthusiastic"—which is technically accurate if you don’t specify what people were loudly enthusiastic about. The crowd watched the Knicks blow Game 3, while Trump continued his lifelong streak of refusing to admit when he’s on the losing end of obvious math.
So we get the full Trump presidency experience in miniature: reality plays on the jumbotron, tens of thousands of witnesses hear one thing, and the president turns to the cameras and confidently announces the opposite. Forget policy for a second—this is how you normalize gaslighting as a governing philosophy: start with crowd sizes, graduate to boos, and keep going until people are expected to doubt their own ears.
#killing-democracy#full-stupid
trump admin discovers free speech, coincidentally for u.s. tech profits
Trump officials staring solemnly at a chart labeled "child safety" that’s just Meta’s quarterly earnings upside down.
The Trump White House has discovered a deep, heartfelt commitment to child safety online — specifically, the safety of Mark Zuckerberg’s revenue streams. After the UK floated a social media ban for under-16s, the U.S. embassy in London rushed out a warning against "one-size-fits-all" rules and "blunt regulatory instruments," which is a very elegant way of saying: please don’t mess with our ad-targeting pipeline, thanks.
Liz Kendall and No 10 responded with the diplomatic equivalent of lol, no, saying they’ll press ahead with restrictions next week, including an under-16 ban, limits on talking to strangers in gaming, and maybe even curbs on AI chatbots. Meanwhile, the Trump administration nobly suggests that instead of actual regulation, parents should be given "robust tools" and platforms should just promise to be healthy and safe — because nothing screams effective oversight like asking Meta, TikTok, and Snapchat to pinky-swear they’ll behave.
Across the Atlantic, JD Vance is accusing the UK of putting free speech "in retreat" while Republicans brand the Online Safety Act as an "online censorship law" — which, coming from the party that wants to ban books and criminalize teachers, is a bold branding exercise. The White House frets that the UK and EU are unfairly targeting American tech firms, as Meta simultaneously sues the UK regulator over fines and fees, because if there’s one universal constant, it’s U.S. corporations insisting that any law applying to them is an outrageous violation of human rights.
So Britain hurtles toward rushed, litigation-bait regulations; Trump’s team runs interference for Silicon Valley under the holy banner of the First Amendment; and teenagers remain the lab rats in a transatlantic experiment where governments and tech giants argue over who gets to exploit them most efficiently. Democracy, but make it ad-supported.
#oligarchy#forever-grifting
house gop shovels $70bn into the deportation-industrial complex
Congress, carefully balancing the budget between deportations, slush funds, and ballroom renovations like a banana republic HOA meeting.
House Republicans are racing to ram through the "Secure America Act," a $70bn care package for Trump’s deportation machine, because nothing says "public safety" like rewarding agencies whose agents just killed two US citizens in Minneapolis. ICE gets $38bn, CBP pockets $26bn, and DHS gets a $5bn tip for looking the other way. Democrats had blocked the money after the killings, but the GOP’s position is clear: if the crackdown produces corpses, the answer is obviously more crackdown.
Speaker Mike Johnson needs all 218 Republican-aligned members present to pull this off, since Democrats are unified in opposition. The real drama, though, is over Trump’s nearly $1.8bn "anti-weaponization" fund — a proposed loyalty payout pool for his allies, because of course the man who screams about the "deep state" wants his own taxpayer-financed legal defense Patreon. Acting attorney general Todd Blanche swore to Congress the idea was dead, while Trump went on TV and basically said, "We’ll see," which in Trumpese translates to "I will absolutely do this if I can get away with it."
Republicans also tried to sneak in a cool $1bn for "security improvements" tied to the ballroom Trump is building at the White House. Yes, a ballroom. For the people who spent years howling about Michelle Obama’s vegetable garden, taxpayer-funded dance floors for Dear Leader are apparently fine. The Senate parliamentarian eventually killed the ballroom bucks on procedural grounds, not ethical ones, because in this era, the only thing standing between the public treasury and Trump’s personal wish list is the fine print of reconciliation rules.
#anti-immigration#forever-grifting#killing-democracy
trump hands america’s spy tools to the intern desk
Trump and Mike Johnson pretending to fix surveillance law while the DNI’s office burns behind them like a controlled demolition of basic competence.
Donald Trump has discovered a bold new approach to national security: give one of the most powerful surveillance programs on Earth to a housing finance guy and his old defense lawyer, then act shocked when Congress balks. Section 702 of Fisa — the law that lets the government vacuum up foreign communications and "accidentally" a bunch of Americans’ too — is days from expiring on paper, but can legally limp along into 2027 thanks to a Fisa court certification. That awkward fact has not stopped the administration from staging a deadline panic worthy of a used-car lot going-out-of-business sale.
The bipartisan renewal deal cratered the moment Trump dropped Bill Pulte — a political loyalist with zero intelligence experience — into the acting DNI slot, while leaving Todd Blanche, his former defense attorney, as acting attorney general in charge of overseeing how this spying toy box gets used. Democrats (minus Fetterman) and a handful of Republicans responded by blocking the bill, because apparently handing warrantless surveillance powers to Team "We Just Got Here, Where’s The SCIF?" is a bridge too far even for the Senate.
Meanwhile, Tom Cotton and Chuck Grassley are firing off dire letters to Secretary of State Marco Rubio about looming "significant gaps" in foreign intelligence, carefully omitting the part where the Fisa court has already certified collection for another year. And as a side quest, White House aides are using the manufactured chaos to push Trump’s dream of shrinking or outright killing the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, so he can just never replace Tulsi Gabbard when she leaves. As Senator Mark Warner politely noted, this is "self-inflicted harm" — or, translated from Senate-speak, they smashed the smoke detector with a golf club and are now yelling that the house might burn down.
#killing-democracy#national-security
jd vance discovers rule of law, immediately uses it as a weapon
JD Vance, freshly concerned about abuse of power, demonstrates the concept by personally siccing the DOJ on Trump’s former opponent.
JD Vance, currently cosplaying as vice-president and assistant strongman, has asked the Justice Department to criminally investigate Minnesota governor Tim Walz and AG Keith Ellison — you know, the guys who ran against Trump and have sued his administration dozens of times. The trigger? A 205-page "bombshell" House GOP report alleging that Minnesota officials knew about widespread fraud in social programs and "failed to act", plus maybe retaliated against whistleblowers. Very convenient timing for a White House that treats the DOJ like Trump's personal collections agency.
Ellison calls the whole thing what it looks like: a political stunt from an administration that "uses the machinery of government to target its perceived opponents while extending leniency to those aligned with its interests." The report, he notes, contains no actual evidence that he or his office ignored fraud claims — which is awkward, given that federal and state authorities are already aggressively prosecuting the same schemes Republicans claim everyone ignored. Walz’s office labeled the report a "joke" and helpfully suggested that if Republicans are so worked up about fraud, they might start with why President Trump keeps letting fraudsters out of prison.
The Minnesota "fraud crisis" has become a full MAGA cinematic universe: rightwing influencers film breathless videos about Somali fraud, the administration sends thousands of federal immigration agents into the state, and two US citizens end up dead in the streets at the hands of those agents. Meanwhile, the feds try to freeze childcare and food assistance money over these same claims, because nothing says "protecting taxpayers" like starving kids to own the libs. Now Vance has escalated from Fox News talking points to formal DOJ referrals against his old campaign rival and a lawsuit-happy AG, while the administration keeps dangling federal funding over Minnesota’s head like a mob boss holding a loan shark ledger.
So yes, there was real fraud — like the $250m Feeding Our Future Covid scam, whose ringleader just got 42 years in prison — and yes, it’s being prosecuted. But House Republicans, led by James Comer, insist the "real" scandal is that Minnesota officials didn’t shut it down fast enough because they were worried about discrimination lawsuits. Democrats on the committee call it what it is: using fraud as a pretext to kneecap a blue state that keeps taking Trump to court. The message from Washington is clear: sue the administration, challenge its immigration dragnet, or run against Dear Leader, and suddenly every policy dispute becomes a federal criminal case. Law and order, selectively applied.
#killing-democracy#fascism
trump pardons reality fraudsters, they celebrate by suing their lawyers
Todd and Julie Chrisley, fresh off a Trump pardon for multi-million-dollar fraud, bravely continue their fight against the real enemy: consequences.
Todd and Julie Chrisley — the "Chrisley Knows Best" reality stars who actually knew best how to defraud banks out of millions — are now suing their former lawyers for $25 million, claiming incompetent representation ruined their lives. Not the years of wire fraud, tax evasion, and conspiracy to defraud the United States, mind you. The lawyers. The couple insists their attorney botched a motion over an allegedly illegal 2017 search, which they say led to "catastrophic" consequences like prison, losing their TV show, and reputational damage. You know, the kind of things that typically happen when you get convicted of a massive federal fraud scheme.
Then comes the Trump twist: these devoutly persecuted reality grifters aren’t actually in prison anymore, because Donald Trump pardoned them last year after their daughter Savannah lobbied his administration and even got a speaking slot at the 2024 Republican National Convention to claim her parents were targeted for their "politics" and celebrity. So we’ve now reached the stage of American governance where you can defraud banks for over $36 million, get convicted in a federal court, have the president erase the consequences, then turn around and try to cash in again by suing your own lawyers for the theoretical money you might have made if only the justice system hadn’t briefly functioned.
The lawyers, for their part, say they’ll vigorously defend against the complaint, while the Chrisleys have moved on to a Lifetime documentary called The Chrisleys: Back to Reality, which appears to be about anything except reality. The message from Trump’s first term keeps echoing: if you’re famous, connected, and loudly Republican on TV, federal crimes are just a branding issue — and the courts, the pardon power, and now malpractice suits are all just content for the extended universe of your personal grift franchise.
#corruption#forever-grifting#killing-democracy
very important president shuts down midtown to maybe nap at knicks game
The Very Important President, sealed in plexiglass above Madison Square Garden, personally demonstrating that the real national emergency is not enough people watching him watch basketball.
Donald Trump, fresh off a federal conviction on 34 felony counts, decided the most urgent item on his presidential to‑do list was not inflation, not war with Iran, not a shaky global economy – but catching the Knicks in their first NBA Finals home game in nearly three decades. So the Very Important President turned Manhattan into his personal red carpet: barricades across midtown, airport‑style security outside Madison Square Garden, and Secret Service wanding Victor Wembanyama like the real threat to democracy is a 7'4" French rookie, not the guy in the half‑mile motorcade.
Having spent his pre‑presidency life clawing for validation in New York’s status ecosystem, Trump has now solved that problem by simply making the entire event orbit him. Courtside? That’s for peasants and Spike Lee. The convicted felon‑in‑chief watched from a plexiglass‑encased suite with Knicks owner James Dolan and assorted courtiers, forcing fans who paid a few months’ rent for tickets to endure endless security theater so Grandpa Donnie could reportedly doze off during the game. Authoritarian vibes on the outside, retirement home energy on the inside.
The NBA, which once treated Trump like a walking culture‑war oil spill, politely rolled over. Adam Silver, whose league loudly clashed with Trump during the George Floyd protests and over LeBron and the Warriors’ White House snub, now serenely framed Trump’s presence as a unifying moment for America. Meanwhile, the Garden crowd booed when his face hit the jumbotron, the real party stayed on the floor with Jay‑Z and Derek Jeter, and the Knicks lost their first game in six weeks, spawning talk of a "Trump jinx." The man shut down midtown, hijacked a historic night, and still couldn’t win the one contest that matters most to him: the status game.
#forever-grifting#killing-democracy
trump’s doj hires the arsonist to run fire investigations
Kurt Olsen, seen here auditioning for the role of ‘Chief Arson Investigator’ while still holding the gas can.
The Justice Department has parked Kurt Olsen — a 2020 election denier who tried to help overturn Trump’s loss after watching some YouTube clips like a very stable legal scholar — in the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Florida. There, he’s now part of a team probing a supposed "grand conspiracy" against Trump’s enemies, because when you’re building a politicized witch hunt, you obviously staff it with the guy who pushed schemes to access election systems in Georgia and Puerto Rico and may still be sitting on copies of voting software.
Free Speech For People, a group that still believes in law and elections, sent a letter to 11 Democrats urging them to get Olsen booted from DOJ and to investigate how exactly this merry band of patriots got their hands on voting equipment. They note that court records suggest Olsen obtained election system software via efforts to compromise voting machines between 2020 and 2022 — you know, the kind of thing that used to get you indicted, not promoted. The Justice Department, naturally, had no comment, presumably because “we’re turning federal law enforcement into a revenge cosplay for Trump” didn’t test well with comms.
The Florida probe is led by 81-year-old Joe diGenova, another veteran of the failed 2020 coup litigation circuit, aided by assorted Trump-world loyalists and an FBI agent who once tried to chase down the "Italygate" theory that Italian satellites stole the election — a conspiracy one of Trump’s own DOJ officials called "pure insanity." DiGenova has already announced his wish list of enemies who should go before a grand jury and "go to prison," including Barack Obama and top intelligence officials. As one former DOJ official dryly noted, when facts and law aren’t on the administration’s side, they just drag in unscrupulous outside lawyers willing to break the rules for the president. Functioning justice system who?
#killing-democracy#lawlessness
when your corruption lawyer endorses the other guy
Ken Paxton, seen here wondering how even his own corruption lawyer managed to flip before Texas did.
Ken Paxton, the Texas attorney general who treats indictments like merit badges, just got a glowing endorsement in his US Senate race — for his opponent. Dan Cogdell, the Houston attorney who spent nearly a decade defending Paxton from corruption and securities fraud accusations and helped him skate through his 2023 impeachment trial, has decided that maybe, just maybe, the guy who worships Donald Trump more than he governs Texas shouldn’t be promoted.
Cogdell insists he doesn’t think Paxton should’ve been removed from office and swears he doesn’t dislike him personally; he just thinks Texas needs things like education and healthcare, not a full-time Trump bootlicker rubber-stamping whatever the Mar-a-Lago brain trust dreams up. After nine years of hauling Paxton’s legal baggage, the man has apparently hit his limit on client loyalty cosplay and would like a senator who can talk about policy without checking Truth Social first.
Paxton’s camp, naturally, responded with the intellectual rigor we’ve come to expect, dismissing Cogdell as a “Democrat” — in a state where you don’t even register by party — while lead impeachment lawyer Tony Buzbee rushed to X to reaffirm his fealty. Meanwhile, Democrat James Talarico, who’s running on the radical idea that senators should maybe focus on their state instead of their indicted cult leader, is suddenly looking competitive in deep-red Texas. When your own corruption defense attorney decides the country’s safer with you not in the Senate, that’s not a vibe, that’s a warning label.
#lawlessness#killing-democracy
department of government efficiency creates 600,000% more death
Elon Musk explains that government is too bloated, shortly before helping kill USAID and hundreds of thousands of poor people in the name of ‘efficiency’.
Elon Musk is about to become the world’s first trillionaire, because when you pour $290m into Donald Trump and the GOP, the universe apparently rewards you with a personal printing press. In return for his campaign cash, Musk got cabinet-room access, a seat on state visits to China and Saudi Arabia, and a series of government deals so lucrative his net worth jumped more than $500bn in under two years. Late-stage capitalism speedrun: complete.
The highlight of this little civics lesson is Musk’s stint running the "Department of Government Efficiency" – DOGE, because of course it is – where he fired tens of thousands of federal workers, hacked away at foreign aid, and helped dismantle USAID so thoroughly that Harvard public health researchers estimate 600,000 people, two-thirds of them children, have died from disease and malnutrition. That’s not a policy disagreement; that’s Elon-Musk-made death in spreadsheet form.
All of this is made possible by the Supreme Court’s Citizens United gift basket to billionaires, which turned elections into luxury hobbies for about 300 people who really hate taxes, regulations, and the idea that anyone else should have healthcare. Musk is just the loudest symptom of a system where one guy can buy an election as casually as you buy lunch, then use the White House as his personal venture fund. Call it what it is: oligarchy with a flamethrower, and Trump is happily holding the gas can.
#oligarchy#killing-democracy
ambani family buys a texas refinery and, coincidentally, u.s. policy
Donald Trump Jr. and Anant Ambani doing a Gujarati folk dance, also known as the traditional ritual where American policy and Indian billions learn each other’s choreography.
Donald Trump Jr. flew to India, danced garba with Anant Ambani, toured the family’s private zoo, and somehow came home with more than just jet lag and Instagram content. Within months, the Ambani empire — fresh off being publicly flogged by the Trump administration for buying cheap Russian oil — dropped a nine-figure investment into a flailing Texas startup that had just rebranded itself as America First Refining. The same startup where Trump Jr. had quietly picked up a stake and whose executives bragged to foreign officials that investing would help with White House access. Truly, a heartwarming tale of cross-cultural exchange… of cash and influence.
The company’s CEO has a history of bankruptcies and fraud lawsuits, but under Trumpism that’s not a red flag, it’s a résumé. After a decade of failing to raise money, AFR suddenly finds salvation via one of the richest families in Asia — right as those same billionaires secure key U.S. policy wins they’d been lobbying for. Bloomberg politely framed it as “Reliance Goes From Trump Foe to Friend With Refinery Pledge.” A less genteel description would be: pay the prince, fix the tariffs.
Trump Jr., whose net worth has allegedly sextupled since dad’s second election, insists he’s just a “passive minority investor” who absolutely does not interface with the federal government on behalf of his companies, perish the thought. Meanwhile, his lawyer publicly bragged about a “nice closing” with Don Jr. as he flew back from India — right before the refinery entity was formally created — and later boasted online about helping land the Ambani deal. The refinery then used its Trump Jr. connections to pitch Saudi and other foreign officials, hinting that investing in the plant was basically a VIP wristband for U.S. policy.
Reliance had already slid the Trump Organization $10 million in 2024 for a still-mysterious Mumbai real estate project, hosted Ivanka at an Ambani wedding concert with Rihanna, and got Mukesh Ambani into Washington for Trump’s second inauguration photos. Then, when Trump slapped 50% tariffs on India to punish Reliance for its Russian oil profits, Anant Ambani and Don Jr. shared a dance — and the family’s problems began to melt away under a warm stream of Texas crude and ethics violations. The administration calls it “America First.” ProPublica calls it “documented.” Everyone else can just call it what it is: foreign policy for sale, refinery included.
#corruption#forever-grifting#oligarchy
maine democrats speedrun the ‘nazi tattoo’ candidate problem
Lindsey Graham, seen here trying to remember whether he’s currently pandering to Trump, his donors, or whatever’s left of his conscience.
Maine Democrats are on the verge of handing their Senate nomination to Graham Platner, a man whose oppo file reads like a dare: years of profane, racist, and sexually gross Reddit posts, a tattoo that "resembled a Nazi symbol" (which one, who can say!), and ex-girlfriends describing "volatile" and "unsettling" behavior, including allegations he twisted an arm behind a back and locked a woman in a room. Platner now insists the physical abuse claims and the idea he knew the tattoo was Nazi imagery are all just the fantasies of a "politically motivated" woman who, coincidentally, worked for Republicans. The party, meanwhile, is frantically Googling "how to replace a nominee who turns out to be a walking ethics violation" while he cruises to an easy primary win against a governor who already suspended her campaign.
Down in South Carolina, Lindsey Graham is spending millions to convince GOP voters he’s still sufficiently MAGA after a Project 2025 architect, Paul Dans, briefly tried to outflank him on the right before dropping out and endorsing rich guy Mark Lynch. Trump endorsed Graham ages ago, because of course he did; nothing says "healthy democracy" like a senator begging the blessings of an ex-president who tried to overturn an election. On the Democratic side, pediatrician Annie Andrews is calling Graham a "warmonger" and "swamp creature," which in today’s Republican Party is basically a LinkedIn endorsement.
Over in the Maine governor’s race, Democrats have a ranked-choice battle royale featuring a former CDC director, a couple of legislative leaders, and the offspring of sitting members of Congress and the Senate, all running on being anti-Trump and vaguely pro-affordable living. It’s a crowded field of people who, crucially, do not have public Nazi-adjacent tattoos or years of racist Reddit posts, which in 2026 apparently counts as the high road. Democrats may still lose the Senate seat, but at least they’re proving they can manufacture their own self-inflicted disasters without any help from the RNC.
#corruption#killing-democracy
trump tries to slap a $100k cover charge on skilled immigrants, judge says no
Aspiring Americans line up for a chance at citizenship, blissfully unaware that the administration is trying to turn visas into luxury goods for the ultra-rich.
Trump’s immigration brain trust decided the best way to fix labor shortages in medicine, education, and research was to… charge a $100,000 fee for new H-1B visas. Because nothing helps hospitals in rural America like making it financially impossible to hire the doctors who want to work there.
A federal judge in Boston, Leo Sorokin, looked at this genius idea and concluded that, shockingly, the executive branch doesn’t get to invent a six-figure tax on visas just because Stephen Miller’s ghost demands a sacrifice. Sorokin ruled the policy exceeded executive authority and violated the Administrative Procedure Act, which is the boring little law that says you can’t run the government like a Trump golf club.
States suing the administration pointed out that this would kneecap their ability to hire teachers, professors, and doctors, and the American Medical Association helpfully noted that maybe, just maybe, we shouldn’t be actively sabotaging efforts to get physicians into underserved communities. Meanwhile, DHS responded by calling the ruling “blatant judicial activism” and insisted that the real threat to America is too many educated, law-abiding immigrants paying taxes and saving lives.
So for now, the $100,000 anti-immigrant cover charge is dead in Boston, still shambling along in D.C., with another case in San Francisco. The Trump administration has managed to turn high-skilled visas into a three-circuit legal circus, but sure, tell us more about how this is all about protecting American workers and not about weaponizing bureaucracy to keep foreigners out.
#anti-immigration#killing-democracy
trump hires his own lawyer to run the law
Todd Blanche, auditioning for the role of ‘Attorney General of the Trump Organization, formerly known as the United States.’
Donald Trump has decided that the best person to serve as America’s top law enforcement officer is, naturally, his former personal lawyer Todd Blanche – the guy who has already been dry‑running the job as acting attorney general by turning the justice department into a bespoke revenge boutique. Under Blanche, DOJ has rolled out criminal charges against James Comey, escalated its hunt for John Brennan, and quietly scrubbed press releases about Jan 6 rioters like they were inconvenient Yelp reviews.
Because that wasn’t quite brazen enough, Blanche also helped design a secretive $1.8bn “compensation” fund for Trump’s allies – a hush-money loyalty program paid for with public power. He only killed the scheme after everyone noticed the mob‑movie plot unfolding in broad daylight and even Senate Republicans started edging toward the fire alarm. Now this same guy is Trump’s pick to run DOJ permanently, pending Senate confirmation. So yes, the president is literally trying to make his personal defense attorney the nation’s chief prosecutor, while they jointly memory‑hole an insurrection and shovel cash toward the loyal. Totally normal rule‑of‑law country we’ve got here.
#corruption#killing-democracy#lawlessness
trump doj to coal baron senator: go forth and pollute
Jim Justice gazes out over his coal empire, secure in the knowledge that the Trump DOJ has his back more firmly than any retaining wall near a slurry pond.
The Trump DOJ has discovered a bold new interpretation of the Clean Water Act: if you’re a loyal Trump ally drowning Appalachia in coal sludge, it’s more of a vibe than a law. Career prosecutors and EPA investigators built what they believed was a strong criminal case against Sen. Jim Justice’s Southern Coal — a company with tens of thousands of alleged Clean Water Act violations and a long, greasy history of ignoring environmental rules. The probe had even been greenlit by Trump’s own U.S. attorney in the Western District of Virginia.
Then the political appointees noticed they were accidentally doing law enforcement on a Republican senator, and the Office of the Deputy Attorney General swooped in and ordered everyone to go "pencils down." Todd Blanche’s shop shut the whole thing off while Justice’s lawyers were busy fighting subpoenas in court — and, miraculously, also convincing DOJ that there was "no evidence" for criminal charges. As a bonus, DOJ spokeswoman Emily Covington explained that any career prosecutor who thought the case was strong was just a "deep state" Biden stooge, which is an interesting way to describe people enforcing the law under a Trump administration.
This fits neatly into Trump’s second-term pattern: hammer enemies, protect friends, and treat environmental crimes like parking tickets in a lawless strip mall. Environmental enforcement has cratered, environmental attorneys were reassigned to work on Trump’s immigration crackdown, and Blanche personally told prosecutors to stand down on diesel emissions cheating cases. Meanwhile, Justice’s companies keep racking up violations, blowing off court hearings, and allegedly undercounting assets to dodge environmental penalties, but sure, the real problem is rogue prosecutors.
So to recap: a coal baron senator who switched to the GOP at a Trump rally, helped secure Trump a Senate majority, and runs what officials call a "routine bad actor" operation gets his potential criminal case killed from on high because it doesn’t match "Trump administration priorities." The priority, as always, appears to be: laws for the poor, deregulation for the rich, and a nice tall glass of arsenic-laced water for everyone downstream.
#corruption#killing-democracy
administration discovers citizenship comes with a return policy
Markwayne Mullin, proudly announcing that citizenship is now a subscription service, terms and conditions subject to change without notice.
The Trump administration has decided that the whole "citizenship is permanent" thing was more of a suggestion. The Justice Department just filed cases to strip 17 immigrants of their U.S. citizenship, the latest batch in a growing denaturalization project that treats passports like Costco memberships. The targets are scattered across the country, and the message is crystal clear: even if you did everything the legal way, the government reserves the right to retroactively un-do your American-ness if it decides you checked the wrong box fifteen years ago.
Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin helpfully explained that "American citizenship is a privilege" that must be "earned honestly," while presiding over an administration whose honesty record makes used-car lots look like monasteries. He vowed to "use every lawful avenue" to denaturalize and remove "aliens"—because nothing says "you belong here" like the government putting your citizenship under monthly review quotas. DHS has already been told to crank up referrals to around 200 denaturalization cases a month, steadily transforming what used to be a rare, high-bar legal remedy into just another tool in the anti-immigrant toolbox.
Yes, some of the 17 people are accused of serious crimes. The point of a functioning justice system is that those crimes are prosecuted and punished, not that the government retrofits them into a justification to revoke citizenship like a warranty claim. By pushing denaturalization as a standard enforcement strategy, the administration isn’t just going after alleged fraudsters; it’s sending a warning to every naturalized citizen that their status is conditional and always subject to political mood. Turning citizenship into a revocable status for disfavored groups is not a bold innovation in immigration policy; it’s a greatest hit of authoritarian regimes everywhere.
#killing-democracy#anti-immigration#lawlessness
crypto failson applies for trump brand ‘no consequences’ badge
Sam Bankman-Fried on his way into court, dressed like a serious businessman who definitely did not turn a crypto exchange into a very expensive blender for other people’s money.
Sam Bankman-Fried, the fallen crypto messiah who turned FTX into a very expensive magic trick where everyone’s money disappeared but his lifestyle didn’t, has applied for a presidential pardon from Donald Trump. He’s only two years into a 25-year sentence for federal fraud, but why let a little thing like time get in the way of asking the guy who hands out pardons like loyalty punch-cards?
He’s not even asking for a commutation — he wants a pardon after completion of sentence, which is basically: “I’ll do the time, but please scrub the record so I can pretend this was all a quirky misunderstanding in my future TED Talk.” His request is now buried among more than 20,000 other pleas in the Justice Department’s pardon queue, the world’s saddest suggestion box. The White House won’t comment, his lawyer won’t comment, and Trump has previously hinted he wouldn’t pardon SBF — though given Trump’s historic weakness for rich guys who commit massive financial crimes, that stance is about as stable as a meme coin.
The man who allegedly used customer deposits as his personal piggy bank now wants legal absolution from the man who used the presidency as his. American justice continues its long-running experiment: how many different flavors of fraud can one system politely entertain before it just admits the oligarchs run the place?
#forever-grifting#money
judge to trump: you can’t just sharpie your name on the kennedy center
The Kennedy Center, seen here trying to remember it was supposed to honor a president who read books, not one who brands government buildings like timeshares.
The Kennedy Center has quietly performed the digital equivalent of scraping gum off its shoe, yanking Donald Trump’s name off its website after a federal judge reminded everyone that you can’t just rebrand a congressional memorial like a failed casino. US district judge Christopher Cooper ruled that the arts venue is, shockingly, supposed to be named for John F. Kennedy, and that Trump’s board can’t unilaterally transform it into the "Trump Kennedy Center" just because the guy really likes seeing his name on buildings.
The center’s general counsel promptly told staff to purge Trump’s name from email signatures, letterhead, templates, brochures, and the website by June 12, which is how we got today’s little act of digital exorcism. The physical facade in DC still reads "The Donald J Trump and The John F Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts" for now, but Cooper’s 94-page opinion makes clear that only Congress can change the name – not a group of Trump appointees cosplaying as a branding agency.
As a bonus, the judge also put a temporary stop to Trump’s $257m "revitalization project" that would have conveniently shut down the Kennedy Center for two years, because nothing says "support for the arts" like padlocking the nation’s premier arts venue for an entire presidential term. Trump responded with a 578-word social media tantrum insisting he has "no interest" in the Kennedy Center anymore, which is a bold claim from a man whose name is currently being peeled off its stationery by order of a federal court.
#killing-democracy#forever-grifting
octogenarian fight promoter turns white house into pay‑per‑view backdrop
President-turned-fight-promoter surveys his 600-ton birthday claw, wondering which federal law to body-slam next.
Donald Trump is celebrating his 80th birthday by turning the White House and the Lincoln Memorial into a UFC-branded Chuck E. Cheese, and somehow that’s not even the most corrupt part. A watchdog group has sued to block the "UFC Freedom 250" event, pointing out that the administration twisted a National Park Service rule meant for federal semiquincentennial events to let Trump’s buddy Dana White run a private, for-profit cage match on America’s front lawn. Patriotic celebration? Sure, if your idea of honoring the founders is slapping logos on the Lincoln Memorial and charging donors for the privilege.
The lawsuit helpfully notes that Trump bought up to $50,000 of stock in TKO Group, UFC’s parent company, back in March, shortly before deciding that the nation’s 250th anniversary should be commemorated by juicing his portfolio. Meanwhile, a 92ft, 600-ton steel monstrosity called "the Claw" has been dropped onto the South Lawn without congressional authorization or an environmental review, because nothing says "limited government" like casually installing a small stadium on federal property for your own birthday party. The administration calls the lawsuit "obstructionist" and "baseless", which is a bold description for people pointing out that you can’t just convert national monuments into your personal pay-per-view backdrop.
Most of the celebrities Trump bragged about inviting — including Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, Adam Sandler, and Jared Leto — have reportedly noped out, leaving lobbyists, donors, and members of Congress to fight over seats like it’s Black Friday at the oligarchy outlet mall. To round out the vibes, the understaffed National Weather Service — hollowed out by Trump’s own budget cuts — is forecasting thunderstorms right around the main event. So if the courts don’t stop it and Congress won’t, there’s always the faint hope that basic atmospheric science will do what the rule of law apparently can’t.
#corruption#forever-grifting
