trump discovers the word ‘de‑escalate’ after lighting the match
Live look at the administration bravely attempting to ‘de-escalate’ the fire it just spent a week enthusiastically fanning.
Donald Trump is now urging a more "de-escalated" approach in Minnesota after the police shooting of Alex Pretti and days of chaos in Minneapolis, which is adorable coming from the guy whose entire political brand is gasoline and matches. The administration is suddenly talking about "shifting strategy"—after the situation spirals, public outrage explodes, and the political cost meter starts blinking red. Because nothing says "responsible leadership" like discovering restraint only once the polling memos show swing suburbs are not, in fact, thrilled with paramilitary cosplay in American cities.
Meanwhile, DHS Secretary Kristi Noem is facing calls to resign and has become, in the words of Sen. Gary Peters, "impossible to defend"—which is impressive, because this Senate has managed to defend a lot. Noem’s tenure at DHS has been a greatest-hits album of hardline enforcement, civil liberties shredding, and political theater, but now that the blowback in Minnesota is too big to ignore, suddenly everyone who rubber-stamped her confirmation is shocked—shocked—that putting a Fox News segment in charge of homeland security might have consequences.
In other words, the Trump administration green-lit an aggressive approach, watched it blow up on the ground in Minneapolis, and is now trying to speed-run the "measured statesman" cosplay while its own DHS chief teeters on the edge of becoming politically radioactive. But sure, let’s all pretend this is a thoughtful policy recalibration and not just another panicked PR pivot from an administration that only ever "de-escalates" when the lawsuits, cameras, and approval ratings all show up at the same time.
#killing-democracy#lawlessness#anti-immigration
trump tries to starve foreign aid, congress tosses the world a half-eaten sandwich
A stack of budget binders labeled 'Foreign Aid' next to a giant red Sharpie and a MAGA hat, because nothing says serious global leadership like trying to defund vaccines and famine relief.
Nothing says 'america first' like 'everyone else can go fend for themselves.' The new bipartisan spending bill coughs up $50 billion for foreign aid in 2026 — less than 2024 levels, but still "billions more" than what the Trump administration was willing to tolerate. In other words, Congress had to drag the White House kicking and screaming into the radical position that maybe we shouldn't totally abandon disaster relief, global health, and basic humanitarian work.
So yes, funding is still down, but in the magical world of Trump budgeting, merely not slashing it to the bone now counts as a win. The administration tried to turn U.S. foreign aid into a hostage for its isolationist cosplay and domestic grievance politics; Congress responded by handing the rest of the planet a smaller, dented life raft and calling it "bipartisan compromise." But sure, tell us again how this crowd is restoring American leadership in the world.
#killing-democracy#imperialism
trump threatens ‘rigged’ prosecutions, fbi magically appears in fulton
Fulton County’s Election Hub, where the crime of counting votes continues to inexplicably attract federal agents and presidential tantrums.
The FBI rolled up to the Fulton County Election Hub with "court-authorized law enforcement activity" just days after President Donald Trump went to Davos, whined that the 2020 election was "rigged," and promised that "people will soon be prosecuted." Totally normal democracy stuff: the president keeps publicly demanding revenge prosecutions over an election he already lost six years ago, and then federal agents show up at the exact county he’s been obsessing over since he begged Brad Raffensperger to "find 11,780 votes."
Fulton County has been Trump’s white whale ever since he decided that rumors about shredded ballots counted as evidence and not, you know, rumors. His lies helped unleash death threats on local election workers, earned him a state criminal case from DA Fani Willis, and then—because nothing says rule of law like consequences for the people investigating you—that case was dismissed after she was disqualified over a conflict-of-interest mess. Now Trump is trying to claw back more than $6.2 million in legal fees from that investigation, because in Trump’s America, you don’t just escape accountability, you send the bill.
The FBI won’t say what this new investigation is about yet, but the pattern is clear: Trump keeps demanding that someone, anyone, be punished for the crime of accurately counting votes, while the system he’s been methodically breaking for years staggers around trying to pretend it’s still independent. In other words, the election workers of Fulton County are once again stuck in the middle of a president’s authoritarian cosplay, but sure, tell us more about how this is all just "election integrity."
#killing-democracy#lawlessness
trump heroically rescues la fire victims from the tyranny of building codes
Donald Trump announces that what wildfire survivors really needed all along was fewer rules for developers and more threats to claw back disaster funds.
Donald Trump has bravely ridden to the rescue of Los Angeles wildfire survivors by doing the one thing they did not ask for: an executive order to bulldoze state and local permitting, let builders "self-certify" safety standards, and fast-track waivers around environmental and historic preservation laws. Because nothing says "we care about your burned homes" like telling contractors to pinky-swear the buildings won’t fall over.
The order tells FEMA and the SBA to magically preempt state and local rules—something the federal government may not even have the power to do—but sure, let’s cosplay unitary executive while people are still living in hotels. Meanwhile, Gavin Newsom and Karen Bass are over here begging for the actual thing survivors need—money: $33.9 billion in disaster aid, faster FEMA reimbursements, insurance payouts, mortgage forbearance, and no-interest loans. In other words, tangible help, not a press-release cosplay of deregulation.
On the ground, fewer than a dozen homes have been rebuilt out of roughly 13,000 destroyed, and experts point out that it’s mostly the wealthy and developers who are making progress. Survivors report their number one barrier is cash and insurance companies stonewalling them, not the permitting that LA has already sped up and stripped down. But instead of forcing insurers and banks to do anything, Trump’s big move is to tell agencies to cut corners on rules and pretend that solves the problem.
And just to round out the performance, the order directs Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and acting FEMA head Karen Evans to audit California’s use of Hazard Mitigation Grant Program funds, with an eye toward slapping on new conditions or even clawing money back. This, from the same administration that hasn’t approved a single HMGP request since February as part of its crusade against climate mitigation. So: no mitigation funds, no full disaster aid, but a lot of tough talk about "recoupment" and a deregulation stunt that mostly helps developers. But sure, tell us again how this is all about helping fire survivors.
#killing-democracy#forever-grifting
bruce springsteen vs king trump’s private ice army
Bruce Springsteen, apparently now the unofficial Inspector General of State Terror, performs while King Trump’s private ICE army does its best Gestapo impression offstage.
Bruce Springsteen just dropped a song in record time – written Saturday, recorded Sunday, released Monday – because nothing says normal functioning democracy like needing emergency protest ballads about federal agents killing people in the street. The track is dedicated to Minneapolis, its immigrant communities, and specifically to Renee Good and Alex Pretti, both killed by ICE agents in what Springsteen bluntly calls “state terror.”
In the lyrics, Springsteen describes Minneapolis as “a city aflame” under “King Trump’s private army from the DHS” – which is a poetic way of saying the White House has turned immigration enforcement into its own little paramilitary cosplay. He sings about “bloody footprints where mercy should have stood” and two people “left to die on snow-filled streets,” because under this administration, due process has apparently been replaced with live-action fascist fan fiction.
This isn’t Springsteen’s first rodeo calling out Trump’s goons. Earlier this month, he blasted the administration’s ICE surge at his shows as “Gestapo tactics” and warned that the country’s founding principles “have never been as endangered as they are right now.” In other words, when Bruce Springsteen is out here doing more to document authoritarian creep than half of Congress, things are going extremely great. Trump, naturally, responded like a totally stable head of state by calling him “highly overrated,” “not a talented guy,” and a “pushy, obnoxious jerk” – because nothing screams strength and confidence like rage-tweeting at the guy who wrote Born to Run while your security forces are shooting people in the snow.
#killing-democracy#fascism
trump gives rural hospitals a band-aid, amputates the rest of the system
Donald Trump, RFK Jr., and Mehmet Oz discuss rural health care, presumably between segments of an infomercial for miracle supplements and miracle budget cuts.
The Trump administration is very proud of its new $50 billion Rural Health Transformation Program, a five-year "experiment" in which every state gets at least $100 million a year and maybe more if they say the magic words: Make America Healthy Again. Because nothing says evidence-based health policy like tying survival money for rural hospitals to whether a state adopts the administration’s political priorities.
There’s bipartisan applause for finally throwing something at the rural health crisis, but there’s a small catch: this flashy $50 billion pot sits next to roughly $1 trillion in cuts to Medicaid and Obamacare that Congress already passed. In other words, Trump, RFK Jr., and Mehmet Oz are holding a rural health roundtable to celebrate a shiny new life raft while quietly drilling holes in the ship’s hull. Experts note the proposals have promising ideas, but if you really wanted to transform rural health care, you probably wouldn’t start by defunding the main programs keeping people alive.
States were given 52 days to design sweeping overhauls of rural care delivery, workforce, and innovation—which is perfect, because nothing complicated has ever gone wrong when the federal government rushes massive health funding out the door. And with allocations partially based on how closely states align with Trump’s health agenda, this isn’t just health policy—it’s a loyalty test with ventilators attached. But sure, zip codes are predicting life expectancy because of bad luck, not because the government keeps swapping long-term coverage for short-term press releases.
#healthcare#forever-grifting#killing-democracy
trump suggests ilhan omar attacked herself, because of course he does
Ilhan Omar at a town hall, apparently under the impression that representing your district shouldn’t require a hazmat suit and a presidential smear campaign.
Ilhan Omar gets sprayed with an unknown substance at a Minneapolis town hall, which is what passes for "constituent engagement" in the Trump era, and Donald Trump’s immediate response is to suggest she staged the attack herself. Because nothing says "totally normal president" like accusing a sitting member of Congress of faking an assault for attention.
House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries calls Trump’s comment "disgusting" and points out that the president’s endless lies and demonization are helping fuel exactly this kind of violence. Other Democrats note that the steady stream of rhetoric against Omar isn’t just gross, it’s dangerous – in other words, when you spend years turning a Muslim Black woman in Congress into a cartoon villain for your base, eventually someone decides to act on the script.
A few Republicans, to their credit or at least their survival instinct, manage the bare minimum of condemning the attack. Nancy Mace stresses that she "vehemently" disagrees with Omar but that physical attacks are a bridge too far, while Don Bacon bravely announces that political violence is bad and the attacker should see the inside of a jail cell. Bold stuff in a party whose leader is still out there implying the victim did it to herself.
So the new standard is: member of Congress is assaulted, we get a bipartisan chorus of "this is not who we are" while the president suggests it is who she is. But sure, tell us again how the real threat to democracy is college kids chanting too loudly on a quad.
#killing-democracy#racism
little marco discovers gunboat diplomacy
Marco Rubio practices explaining that a naval blockade, extraterritorial kidnapping, and 126 dead people do not, in fact, count as a "war" if you say "law enforcement" three times into a camera.
Marco Rubio, now Trump’s secretary of state and still America’s smallest hawk, is heading to the Senate to calmly explain that the US is "not at war" with Venezuela, it’s just reserving the right to use more military force if the country’s "interim" leaders stop doing what Washington wants. In other words: comply with US demands or we might bomb you again, but don’t worry, this is totally just "law enforcement"—because nothing says due process like cross-border raids and naval blockades.
Rubio is defending Trump’s decision to kidnap Nicolás Maduro, drag him to the US on drug charges, keep a naval blockade in place, continue deadly boat strikes that have killed at least 126 people since September, and seize oil tankers—all while insisting there are "no US troops on the ground" so, technically, no war. Congress, naturally, has mostly rolled over: a war powers resolution to rein in Trump’s Venezuela adventure barely failed, and Republicans are pretending that a massive regional military buildup plus a raid to snatch a sitting leader is just cops and robbers on hard mode.
Meanwhile, the administration is "normalizing" ties with acting president Delcy Rodríguez by making sure she understands that Maduro’s fate is her future if she doesn’t align Venezuela’s "key objectives" with Trump’s wish list: open the energy sector to US companies, give them preferential access, use Venezuelan oil money to buy US goods, and stop subsidized oil exports to Cuba. So it’s not regime change, it’s just a hostile corporate takeover enforced by missiles. But sure, tell us again how this is about democracy and the rule of law, not old-school imperialism in a MAGA hat.
#imperialism#killing-democracy
environmental protection agency decides environment, people overrated
Lee Zeldin outside the White House, presumably pausing between deleting climate data and checking his inbox for "please let us pollute more" emails.
The Trump EPA, now helmed by Lee Zeldin, has looked at its mission of "protecting human health and the environment" and decided that was cute, but what if instead it just protected coal companies, gas guzzlers, and AI server farms? In the first year back under Trump, the agency has clocked 66 environmental rollbacks, slashing limits on mercury and soot, killing grants for renewables and toxic communities, gutting clean water protections, and even deleting mentions of the climate crisis from its own website—because nothing says "serious governing" like editing reality out of your About page.
The real innovation, though, is philosophical: the EPA is now assigning a new monetary value to human life in air pollution rules, and that value is zero. The agency will no longer count the health costs from common air pollutants, but will still lovingly tabulate what regulations cost industry. In other words, your lungs are worthless, but a coal plant’s compliance budget is priceless. This comes on top of the plan to rescind the 2009 endangerment finding—the legal backbone for federal climate action—essentially trying to erase the government’s own obligation to act on greenhouse gases, something even George H.W. Bush’s EPA chief calls "revolutionary" in the "are you kidding me" sense.
To recap: Trump promised to "unleash" oil, gas, and AI by bulldozing a "globalist climate agenda," and Zeldin’s EPA has responded by inviting polluters to email in for exemptions from black-letter air laws, rewriting cost-benefit math so that industry always wins, and trying to legally blindfold the federal government on climate. The official line is that these are just "updates" guided by science and concern for taxpayers. The unofficial reality is that the Environmental Protection Agency has been rebranded as the Environmental Profit Assurance office—but sure, tell us again how this is all about freedom and efficiency.
#corruption#forever-grifting
wall street to celebrate rare planetary event: musk’s ego eclipses the sun
Elon Musk at Davos, explaining how the free market is totally working fine while planning a $1.5tn government-adjacent IPO based on what Jupiter is doing that week.
Elon Musk is reportedly planning a $1.5 trillion SpaceX IPO, carefully timed to coincide with a planetary alignment and his birthday, because nothing says "serious, systemically important federal contractor" like literally scheduling your liquidity event by horoscope. The deal would raise about $50bn and could further inflate Musk’s already absurd $680bn fortune, while investors pretend this isn’t just a state-adjacent infrastructure monopoly wrapped in a midlife-crisis cosplay.
SpaceX, which pulls in $1.1bn a year from NASA contracts alone and runs Starlink — the satellite network that now functionally decides which wars get internet — is poised to turn Musk into an even bigger unelected power center. In other words, the US government keeps outsourcing critical capabilities to a guy who times capital markets around Jupiter and Venus. But sure, tell us again how this isn’t oligarchy, it’s just "innovation."
Wall Street royalty — Bank of America, JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley — are lining up to underwrite the celestial coronation, because if there’s one thing they love more than fees, it’s helping a politically wired billionaire lock in permanent leverage over public policy while calling it a "hectocorn" success story. Meanwhile, SpaceX’s deep integration with NASA and US security interests ensures that when Musk’s planetary-aligned stock price collides with his political whims, it’s democracy that gets vaporized on re-entry.
#oligarchy#forever-grifting
trump discovers the fed has a spine, calls for criminal investigation
Jerome Powell, apparently under the impression the Fed is still independent, prepares to set interest rates without first checking what Trump screamed on Truth Social.
Jerome Powell is holding interest rates steady, which would normally be the most boring thing happening in Washington. But this is Trump’s America, so instead of a quiet Fed day we get a criminal investigation of the central bank’s chair launched by Trump ally and D.C. U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro — because nothing says "independent monetary policy" like putting the Fed under threat of indictment until it cuts rates for Dear Leader.
Powell has openly accused the White House of using the probe as a pretext to bully him into delivering the rate cuts Trump wants. Meanwhile, down the street at the Supreme Court, justices are busy deciding whether Trump can just fire Fed Governor Lisa Cook on the basis of unproven "mortgage fraud" allegations, which is a fun new way of saying "I don’t like your votes on monetary policy." Even several conservative justices seem skeptical, which tells you how naked the power grab is.
The supposed basis for the criminal probe? A pricey renovation of the Fed’s headquarters that was approved before Powell was even chair — but sure, now it’s evidence of "mismanagement" grave enough to justify grand jury subpoenas. Powell has already asked the Fed’s inspector general to review it, but Trump wants handcuffs, not audits. In other words, the message is clear: cut rates or catch charges.
Markets were rattled, the Fed’s independence is hanging by a Supreme Court thread, and Trump is already shopping for Powell’s replacement as his term ends in May. Inflation is still above target, the data is foggy thanks to Trump’s own six-week shutdown, and yet the White House is demanding cheaper money on command. Welcome to the new monetary policy framework: dual mandate plus a third objective — "whatever helps Trump’s re‑election this quarter."
#killing-democracy#fascism#lawlessness
no kings, just trump and 3,000 secret police
Homeland Security’s finest pose in Minnesota, bravely defending America from the menace of people standing in their own neighborhoods while not being sufficiently terrified of Donald Trump’s secret police.
The "No Kings" marches are back on March 28, because nothing says constitutional monarchy cosplay like Donald Trump flooding Minnesota with 3,000 immigration agents and getting two civilians, Alex Pretti and Renee Good, killed in the process. The administration immediately branded Pretti a "domestic terrorist" who was supposedly out to massacre federal officers — and then witness videos and accounts inconveniently showed that story to be, in technical legal terms, complete garbage.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem is now in the spotlight for running what activists are flat-out calling a secret police force terrorizing Americans. Even a couple of Republicans have noticed this might be bad and are calling for her to be fired, while Border Patrol commander Greg Bovino — previously scolded by federal judges for his tactics, so naturally promoted into this mess — has been quietly sidelined. In other words, the regime empowered the guy judges already hated and then acted shocked when things went predictably lethal.
Indivisible, which has turned "No Kings" into the unofficial national pastime of objecting to authoritarian cosplay, is staging its flagship march in the Twin Cities. They say Trump is weaker and lashing out, which tracks: weaker authoritarians do tend to crank the repression dial to 11 on their way down. Their online training on how to peacefully and lawfully monitor immigration agents drew 200,000 people, because when the government deploys a roaming federal death squad vibe, the only counterweight left is millions of regular people with cameras, clipboards, and a basic understanding of civil rights.
#fascism#killing-democracy
trump quietly yeets 750 pages of nuclear safety rules into the sun
Idaho National Lab, now available in ‘move fast and break containment’ mode — safety paperwork sold separately.
The Trump Department of Energy has been busy doing what it does best: secretly rewriting life-or-death rules so rich people can move faster. Over the fall and winter, DOE quietly shredded more than 750 pages of nuclear safety directives governing new experimental reactors — then handed the new, slimmed-down rules to industry while keeping the public completely in the dark. Because nothing says "responsible nuclear stewardship" like classified oopsies.
The new orders gut requirements for site security, environmental protections, groundwater safeguards, record-keeping, accident investigations, and even eliminate at least one key safety role. They also raise the radiation exposure threshold before an accident investigation is triggered — in other words, workers can soak up more radiation before anyone is officially allowed to admit something went wrong. All of this is to speed along Small Modular Reactors that just so happen to be backed by billions from Amazon, Google, and Meta, who want cheap power for AI — truly the most comforting reason to weaken nuclear safeguards.
Former Nuclear Regulatory Commission chair Christopher Hanson — whom Trump fired in 2025, naturally — points out that secretly relaxing nuclear safety "is not the best way" to build public trust. Edwin Lyman, a longtime nuclear safety expert, is blunter: the administration is taking "a wrecking ball" to the system that kept the U.S. from having another Three Mile Island. But sure, I’m sure everything will be fine. After all, when has a government-industry partnership that hides safety rollbacks around nuclear reactors ever gone badly?
#national-security#forever-grifting#killing-democracy
trump threatens to steal greenland, gets neil young instead
Donald Trump eyes Greenland on a map like a toddler spotting a new toy, while Neil Young frantically tries to smother the fire with free classic rock.
Donald Trump has apparently decided that buying Greenland was too 2019, so now he’s talking about annexing the Danish territory for "national security"—but don’t worry, he says he "won't use force," which is exactly what you say when you’ve been loudly fantasizing about taking someone else’s land. In response to this very normal superpower behavior, Neil Young is giving every Greenlander a year of free access to his music archive to help "ease some of the unwarranted stress and threats" coming from what he politely calls "our unpopular and hopefully temporary government."
Because nothing says 21st century American diplomacy like: the president menacing an autonomous territory while a 79-year-old rock legend steps in as the de facto State Department of Peace and Love. Young—who’s already tried to stop Trump from blasting his songs at rallies—now requires only a Greenland-registered phone number to get free access, effectively turning his back catalog into a humanitarian aid package for people being harassed by a nuclear-armed real estate guy with impulse-control issues.
In other words, the US government is out here LARPing imperial conquest, and the opposition is… classic rock, streaming logins, and a Canadian-American grandpa yelling "wake up people" on his website. But sure, tell us more about how this administration is restoring American greatness, one attempted land grab and celebrity boycott at a time.
#imperialism#killing-democracy
trump discovers the economy again, just in time for the midterms
Trump, bravely enduring another taxpayer-funded flight so he can explain how much he cares about affordability from behind a presidential seal and a merch table.
After starting the year playing wannabe strongman in Venezuela and glad-handing billionaires at Davos, Donald Trump has remembered that the United States actually has an economy and, inconveniently, voters. So he jets off to Iowa for a "speech on affordability" that the White House openly bills as a campaign-style event—because nothing says good governance like turning official travel into a taxpayer-funded rally tour.
The Iowa stop is framed as the big kickoff for the midterm push, a chance to "rally Trump's base" under the warm glow of presidential branding. In other words, it's the same old Trump show: use the trappings of office to run a permanent campaign, blur every line between governing and electioneering, and then act shocked when anyone mentions ethics laws or the Hatch Act. But sure, this is all about helping Americans "afford" things—not about helping Trump afford more rallies.
#forever-grifting#money
trump ice discovers bold new tactic: detain preschoolers
ICE, bravely protecting America from the existential threat of preschoolers with backpacks.
A federal judge had to step in and issue a temporary restraining order to stop the Trump administration from removing a 5-year-old boy and his father after ICE scooped them up in Minnesota and quietly shipped them to Texas. Because nothing says "law and order" like grabbing a kid after preschool and flying him a thousand miles away to a detention center in Dilley.
The Department of Homeland Security insists they weren’t targeting little Liam Conejo Ramos, they were just coincidentally arresting his dad right after preschool drop-off, then moving both of them across the country. Critics say ICE is using kids as "bait"; DHS says, actually, this is fine and "consistent with past administrations," which is a hell of a defense: we’ve always been awful, your honor.
The family’s lawyer points out they did everything by the book: entered in 2023 using the CBP One app, showed up for court, followed every protocol, posed no flight risk—and still got detained. Then Trump killed the app last year, because why have an orderly, legal process when you can have chaos and child detention instead? Meanwhile, a school board chair on the scene says there were multiple safe adults ready to take the child, but ICE somehow chose the "drag him to Texas" option on the menu.
For now, the judge has barred ICE from removing or transferring the father and son outside the Western District of Texas. In other words, the only thing standing between a 5-year-old and Trump’s deportation machine is a federal court order. But sure, tell us more about how this is all about "border security" and not a deliberate policy of terrorizing immigrant families.
#anti-immigration#killing-democracy
trump parks a floating nuke airport off iran ‘just in case’
The USS Abraham Lincoln, bravely defending American freedom by lurking off yet another country we might bomb ‘for stability’.
The US is rolling out a "multi-day readiness exercise" in the Middle East, which is Pentagon-speak for "we moved a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, guided-missile destroyers, and a bunch of strike aircraft right next to Iran and are now doing donuts in the Gulf." Air Forces Central says the drills will "demonstrate the ability to deploy, disperse and sustain combat airpower" across CENTCOM’s turf, because nothing says stability like rehearsing how fast you can light up a region that's already on fire.
This comes as Trump brags to Axios about a "big armada next to Iran. Bigger than Venezuela"—in other words, he's now measuring foreign policy in carrier groups per ego unit. Officially, the USS Abraham Lincoln is there to "promote regional security and stability", which is a very poetic way of describing parking several dozen fighter jets and nearly 5,000 sailors within strike distance while Trump alternates between threatening Iran with attacks and insisting, without evidence, that "the killing has stopped" after a crackdown that activists say may have killed more than 30,000 protesters.
The White House keeps hinting that airstrikes are still on the table "just in case", while CENTCOM runs joint drills and practices shooting down drones in anticipation of the counterattacks their hypothetical humanitarian bombing campaign might provoke. Meanwhile, even usually compliant Gulf partners like the UAE are backing away, publicly declaring their airspace and waters are closed for any Iran attack. But not to worry: the US insists all this will be done with "host-nation approval" and "respect for sovereignty"—as long as that sovereignty doesn’t get in the way of the next photo op with a carrier battle group.
#imperialism#national-security
trump-kennedy center drives lincoln guy out of the building
The Trump-Kennedy Center, where Lincoln’s legacy is welcome as long as it fits on the marquee under Trump’s name.
Philip Glass has decided that his new symphony about Abraham Lincoln probably shouldn’t premiere at the newly rebranded “Trump-Kennedy Center”, because nothing says “government of the people, by the people, for the people” like slapping Trump’s name on a memorial to a president who literally died defending the Union.
In an 88-year-old burst of basic integrity, Glass pulled his Symphony No 15, “Lincoln”, saying the Kennedy Center’s current values are in "direct conflict" with the work’s message. That’s the polite composer way of saying: I wrote a piece about Lincoln, not a soundtrack for a gold-plated personality cult. The withdrawal follows Trump’s second-term hostile takeover of the Center’s leadership, his installation of a new board of loyalists, and his ongoing attempt to turn America’s premier arts institution into a culture-war stage set where everything is either “woke” or worshipful.
Meanwhile, Senator Sheldon Whitehouse helpfully summarized the new management style as what happens "when the brigands took the ship"—they looted it and hired their friends. In other words, the Kennedy Center has gone from national arts institution to federally subsidized MAGA banquet hall with orchestral accompaniment, at least when anyone is still willing to play there. And hovering over all of this: the administration is simultaneously dealing with the fallout from federal agents killing US citizens in Minneapolis during Trump’s mass deportation campaign, because of course the regime that’s busy rewriting the arts is also busy rewriting who gets to stay alive in the country.
#killing-democracy#fascism
white grievance whisperer gets a west wing punch card
Tucker Carlson attends a White House meeting with Trump and oil executives, presumably to ensure the talking points are as toxic as the product.
Tucker Carlson spotted in the East Room with Donald Trump and oil executives is the least subtle visual metaphor in American politics: the propaganda department, the fossil fuel barons, and the aspiring autocrat all in one handy photo-op. NPR walks through how Carlson went from bow-tied cable clown to one of the far right’s most influential voices by doing the unthinkable in 2015: realizing that a nativist white grievance campaign might actually be the GOP’s whole deal, not a bug.
Jason Zengerle’s new book lays out the trajectory: Carlson rode conservative print media into TV, got fired from CNN and MSNBC, found his true home at Fox, then was ejected in 2023 right after Fox paid nearly $800 million for lying to the country. Naturally, he landed on X, where he’s embraced the full attention-economy spiral by pushing the "great replacement" conspiracy theory in ever more explicit terms—because nothing says "serious public intellectual" like laundering white nationalist talking points into prime-time content.
Now Carlson isn’t just yelling from the sidelines; he "has a seat at the table" with Trump, happily feeding advice to a man who already thinks the Constitution is more of a restaurant suggestion than a founding document. Zengerle notes Carlson’s real throughline is "fame, fortune and power," and suggests he might run for office himself. In other words: the guy who mainstreamed replacement theory and grievance politics is no longer just shaping the base—he’s shaping policy, and possibly auditioning to be the next demagogue on the ballot. But sure, tell us again how this is all just "populism."
#killing-democracy#fascism
trump declares war on boats, accidentally murders fishermen
Artist’s impression of Trump’s ‘war on drugs’: a random boat, an airstrike, and zero due process, but plenty of flag graphics on cable news.
The Trump administration’s latest innovation in law-and-order cosplay is now getting its day in court: the families of two Trinidadian men killed in an October U.S. strike on a small boat are suing for wrongful death and extrajudicial killing. The Pentagon called it a hit on a drug-smuggling vessel full of “narcoterrorists.” The families say Chad Joseph and Rishi Samaroo were fishermen and farm workers just trying to get home. The government’s evidence so far: Trump posted on Truth Social that they were bad guys. In other words, the usual rigorous intel vetting process.
This is the first lawsuit targeting Trump’s shiny new campaign of blowing up alleged drug boats in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific — a campaign that has already hit about three dozen vessels and killed at least 125 people, according to the Defense Department. The administration’s legal theory is that the U.S. is in a “non-international armed conflict” with drug cartels, which is a very fancy way of saying, “We wanted to use bombs instead of indictments.” The lawsuit points out the tiny problem that there is no actual armed conflict here, meaning the laws of war don’t apply and these are just… murders. Ordered, the complaint notes, by “individuals at the highest levels of government,” because nothing says limited government like claiming war powers against fishermen.
Trinidad’s own government says it has no information linking Joseph or Samaroo to any illegal activity, and no evidence anyone on the boat had drugs or weapons. But the U.S. didn’t bother notifying the families, because why add basic human decency to your extrajudicial killing program? Instead, their loved ones just stopped calling one day and never came home, while Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth bragged that six “narcoterrorists” had been successfully obliterated. The families are suing under the Death on the High Seas Act and the Alien Tort Statute — quaint little relics that say you’re not supposed to vaporize foreign civilians on the ocean because the president got bored of sanctions.
The complaint calls the strike “simply murders,” and it’s hard to argue with that when your big legal move is to rebrand drug interdiction as a forever war and let the Commander-in-Chief play drone whack-a-mole with boats in the Caribbean. But sure, tell us again how this administration is the last line of defense against tyranny, as it literally claims global war powers to kill unarmed fishermen without charges, evidence, or notice to their families. Rule of law, Trump-style: if the president tweets you’re a narcoterrorist, you’re a legitimate target; if he’s wrong, your survivors can file some paperwork after the funeral and hope a judge still remembers what the Constitution is.
#killing-democracy#imperialism#lawlessness
