shield of the americas, brought to you by trump national doral
Trump unveils his new hemispheric security architecture between the 9th and 10th holes, proving that all roads to regional stability run through the pro shop.
Trump has discovered a bold new venue for hemispheric security strategy: his own Miami-area golf club. Twelve Latin American leaders were summoned to Trump National Doral so the president could announce his "Shield of the Americas" summit, a sort of NATO-for-cartels concept where the entrance fee appears to include greens fees and a photo op. Nothing says "rules-based international order" like convening regional allies in a property you personally profit from while talking about other people’s corruption.
The sales pitch: a "counter-cartel coalition" modeled on the war against Isis, because if there’s one thing the region desperately needs, it’s more militarized US adventurism wrapped in counter-narcotics branding. Trump helpfully declared Mexico the "epicenter" of cartel violence and said cartels are "running Mexico"—while praising President Claudia Sheinbaum, who was not invited to this little golf diplomacy cosplay. Apparently the new hemispheric doctrine is: insult your key neighbor, work around their government, then demand regional loyalty anyway.
As a warm-up act, the US recently ran a military operation to snatch Venezuela’s former president Nicolás Maduro, now awaiting trial in the US, while Trump gushes over interim president Delcy Rodríguez for "doing a great job working with us"—a phrase that traditionally precedes decades of blowback. He then casually predicts Cuba’s imminent collapse and promises a "great new life" once Havana gets with the program, because nothing has ever gone wrong when Washington starts redesigning Caribbean regimes like a suburban HOA board.
To tie the whole thing together, Trump rolled out the "Donroe doctrine"—a Monroe Doctrine knockoff with more branding and fewer scruples—vowing not to allow "hostile foreign influence" near strategic assets like the Panama Canal. Secretary of State Marco Rubio used the occasion to dunk on the UK for not being sufficiently enthusiastic about US strikes in Iran, while Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth complained that America has been too focused on "far-flung" borders instead of its own hemisphere. So yes, the administration’s big innovation is to move from forever wars in the Middle East to a golf-club-based security sphere in Latin America, with a side of regime change and a generous helping of self-enrichment.
#imperialism#forever-grifting
trump saves putin’s allowance for 30 days
Behold: the world’s most passive-aggressive convoy to Moscow, where every sedan is a quiet reminder that sanctions work great, right up until presidents start waiving them for poll numbers.
Donald Trump has discovered a bold new strategy for confronting Russian aggression: help pay for it. After years of painstaking, incremental sanctions that have been slowly strangling Russia’s oil-fueled war machine, he’s handed Vladimir Putin a tidy little lifeline by waiving the U.S. ban on India buying Russian oil for 30 days. Why? Because gas prices might go up and nothing scares the self-proclaimed strongman more than a cranky voter at a Shell station.
Sanctions have been hammering Russia hard enough that even Moscow’s bureaucrats can’t keep up the “everything is fine” cosplay: municipal investments slashed, staff cut, debts hidden in local books like a mob ledger. The U.S. had actually been leading on tough measures—freezing Rosneft and Lukoil assets, threatening secondary sanctions, even boarding shadow-fleet tankers. So naturally, now that the pressure is finally working, Trump’s move is to let more Russian oil flow so Americans don’t get mad at him over a few extra cents at the pump.
Meanwhile, Ukraine is allegedly hunting Russian tankers in the Med, Belgium is sending special forces onto shady ships, and investigative reporters are tracing a booming shadow market of foreign-made cars reaching Russia through China. Allies are trying—clumsily, inconsistently, but trying—to enforce the sanctions regime. And Trump? He’s out here punching holes in the tourniquet to keep Putin’s arteries pumping hard currency, all to protect his approval rating from the terrifying specter of mildly higher gasoline prices. It’s not foreign policy, it’s a coupon-clipping service for oligarchs.
#killing-democracy#imperialism
fda discovers bold new category: generally recognized as who-knows
The FDA carefully reviewing yet another self-certified "safe" food chemical by staring at the label and hoping for the best.
The FDA, America’s favorite regulatory security blanket, has apparently been doing vibes-based food safety, with more than 100 substances in everyday foods, drinks, and supplements never actually reviewed by the agency. Thanks to the "generally recognized as safe" (GRAS) loophole from 1958 — originally meant for boring things like salt and vinegar — companies now just pat themselves on the back, declare their own chemicals safe, and quietly pump them into Capri Sun, organic broths, snack bars, and whatever passes for health food at Whole Foods and Trader Joe’s.
The Environmental Working Group dug through federal records and found 111 mystery ingredients of unknown safety being used across major brands, including things like aloe vera extract — which is linked to cancer when ingested and banned in some medicines — plus a whole buffet of extracts whose health impacts range from "we don’t really know" to "liver, kidney, brain, and fetal damage, but enjoy your wellness shot." Companies can legally skip telling the FDA anything, hire a handful of friendly scientists, and call it a day, while the agency just waves from the sidelines like an understaffed hall monitor at a chemical rave.
The report politely calls this a “wake-up call,” which is adorable, since we passed "wake-up call" about three poisonings and one Four Loko ago. Even better, Health and Human Services secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr — Mr. "Make America Healthy Again" himself — promised to close the GRAS loophole, then turned around and proposed a weaker fix that leaves the basic scam intact. So yes, the government absolutely could require real safety reviews before chemicals hit your kid’s lunchbox. It’s just choosing not to. Regulation for the people? No. Regulation for the marketing department.
#corruption#forever-grifting
dea runs nuclear weapons cosplay, accidentally finds real plutonium
Artist’s rendition of global nuclear security: one Geiger counter, several warlords, and a DEA agent LARPing as an Iranian general.
American law enforcement just reenacted every neocon fever dream: an undercover DEA agent pretended to be an Iranian general in charge of Tehran’s nuclear weapons program, and a Japanese "Yakuza boss" – who may actually just be a garden-variety conman – tried to sell him heroin, meth, rocket launchers, and, oh right, weapons-grade plutonium. Because when you picture nuclear proliferation, you obviously think: Myanmar rebels, Golden Triangle drug routes, and a guy who calls uranium and meth "cake and ice cream" like he’s running a cursed Baskin-Robbins.
The US calls this a "resounding success" in nuclear security, which is one way to describe discovering that insurgent groups in Myanmar are apparently mining uranium while porous borders, weak customs, and nonexistent radiation detection let nuclear material wander around the planet like it’s backpacking through Europe. Experts are now stuck asking the fun question: if this random drug-smuggling side-hustler had weapons-grade plutonium samples, where did they actually come from, and how much more is out there? The official answer so far is: ¯\(ツ)/¯, but with more footnotes.
Meanwhile, the DEA’s sting relied on the classic Washington script: pretend Iran is buying nukes, then point to Iran to justify endless war talk about Iran’s nuclear program… while the real problem is unsecured material leaking from everywhere else. So yes, we’re bombing and sanctioning one country over a program it denies, while weapons-grade plutonium is apparently available via insurgent WhatsApp in Myanmar. Strong work, global nuclear order.
#national-security#killing-democracy
trump’s justice department discovers courts are optional
Trump administration officials carefully reviewing a stack of federal court orders before depositing them directly into the nearest shredder.
Federal Judge Patrick Schiltz just dropped a 210-count indictment of vibes on the Trump administration, cataloguing hundreds of times where ICE and friends simply treated court orders like unsubscribe emails: annoying, ignorable, and definitely not binding. His Minnesota opinion lays out 210 orders in 143 cases that the administration shrugged off, often without even bothering to invent a fake legal excuse. Meanwhile, Judge Jeffrey Bryan is over here scheduling show cause hearings because the government couldn’t manage the complex legal task of ‘give the person’s stuff back like I told you’.
Trump, naturally, has decided that court rulings – like elections – only count if he wins. After the Supreme Court smacked down his unconstitutional tariffs, he accused the justices of being "very unpatriotic" and controlled by "foreign interests," because nothing screams devotion to the Constitution like attacking the branch whose job is to interpret it. Attorney General Pam Bondi joined the tantrum, branding Virginia federal judges "rogue" for noticing that the administration’s appointment of Lindsey Halligan as U.S. attorney was, minor detail, illegal.
Legal scholars call this strategy "legalistic noncompliance" – using the language of law as camouflage while ignoring the actual orders. Judges threaten contempt, then mostly blink, turning Article III into an elaborate suggestion box. The rare time someone like Judge James Boasberg found probable cause for criminal contempt over deportation flights, an appeals court rode in to rescue the scofflaws. Yet when Judge Laura Provinzino slapped a $500-a-day contempt fine on a U.S. attorney until an immigrant detainee got his ID documents back, the government miraculously complied within 24 hours. Turns out the executive branch can obey the law; it just prefers not to unless the alternative is paying cash.
For centuries, courts have had the power to jail or fine people – including government officials – who treat their orders like spam. The Trump team has essentially bet that judges won’t use that power against them, and so far, they’re mostly winning. If the judiciary doesn’t stop playing polite debate club with an administration openly testing how much law it can break before anyone does anything, we’re going to find out the hard way what a constitutional system looks like when one branch decides the rules are optional and the referees are too scared to throw a flag.
#lawlessness#killing-democracy
billionaire tries to buy georgia, offers free trump cosplay with purchase
Trump greets an overflow crowd while his would-be mini-mes back in Georgia fight over who gets to carry his golf bag into the governor’s office.
Georgia’s GOP primary for governor was already a MAGA-themed demolition derby, and then billionaire health care executive Rick Jackson showed up, dumped a promised $50 million on the track, and asked voters if they’d like a second helping of 2016 Trump with slightly worse branding.
Jackson has spent nearly $16 million in a month introducing himself as a "straight-talking, Trump-supporting self-made outsider" who "doesn’t owe anybody anything" — a fun line from a man attempting to purchase the governor’s mansion with couch-cushion change. He launched his campaign by descending in a glass elevator to evoke Trump’s golden escalator entrance, because if you’re going to cosplay as an authoritarian-adjacent cult leader, you might as well commit to the bit.
While Trump has already endorsed Lt. Gov. Burt Jones, Jackson is running a delicate little fanboy operation: he’s not touching Jones, but he is airing an ad calling Brad Raffensperger — the Republican who refused Trump’s request to help steal Georgia in 2020 — a "Judas" who "turned on his own kind." That spot conveniently aired in D.C. and West Palm Beach media markets, just in case a certain Florida resident needed his ego stroked between indictments.
The result: a billionaire oligarch trying to buy a governorship, a Trump-endorsed candidate, the state’s top law enforcement officer, and the secretary of state who once defended basic democracy all clawing for the same MAGA base. Georgia Republicans aren’t just running a primary; they’re holding auditions for who can best punish the guy who wouldn’t help Trump overturn an election — and who can spend the most to do it.
#oligarchy#forever-grifting#killing-democracy
president scholarship-trust-fund declares war on paid athletes
Trump solemnly explains that paying athletes for their own names will end higher education, while a room full of very well-paid men in suits nod gravely and wonder how big their next media-rights check will be.
Donald Trump, a man whose entire life is a monument to unearned advantages, gathered a roomful of college sports power brokers at the White House to mourn the real victims of the NIL era: not the unpaid athletes who finally clawed back a sliver of their value, but the universities and conferences that have to share a few dollars from their billion‑dollar TV deals. He warned that letting players get paid for their own names and faces will "destroy" not just college sports, but the entire US higher education system – a bold prediction from someone who already tried to destroy it with Trump University.
Instead of inviting any of the NCAA’s 550,000 athletes, Trump packed the East Room with commissioners, lobbyists, and political allies to brainstorm how to save the industry from players getting money. The consensus solution: give the NCAA a nice little antitrust carve‑out, preempt those pesky state laws, and maybe pool media rights so the same people who signed the "horrible" court settlement can squeeze out another $6bn while pretending this is all about "students losing scholarships". Ted Cruz showed up to cry about a looming "travesty" if programs disappear – not because of chronic exploitation, of course, but because the gravy train might slow down.
Trump promised an "all-encompassing" executive order within a week, explicitly designed to provoke a lawsuit and drag the issue back into a court system that already ruled, 9–0 in NCAA v Alston, that the cartel can’t just collude to keep players broke forever. He ranted about a "radical left" judge who approved the settlement that the NCAA, conferences, and athletes themselves agreed to, then feigned surprise when told the conservative‑stacked Supreme Court helped unleash this. Meanwhile, Olympic and women’s sports were trotted out as human shields – the first budgets administrators admit they’ll slash, then blame on those greedy 19‑year‑olds who finally get a cut of the TV money. It’s a perfect Trump-era civics lesson: when the courts and athletes modestly rebalance power, the White House, Congress, and university suits rush in to restore the natural order where everyone gets paid except the labor.
#killing-democracy#oligarchy
trump announces 'uber for cyberwar' strategy
Trump, moments before announcing that cyberwar will now be handled by the same people who brought you Terms of Service nobody reads.
The Trump administration has unveiled its National Cybersecurity Strategy, a brisk seven-page pamphlet that basically says: what if we privatized cyberwar? Instead of keeping offensive cyber operations inside the pesky constraints of government, Trump wants to "unleash" private companies to "disrupt adversary networks" — because nothing says responsible use of force like handing it to contractors whose main constitutional commitment is to quarterly earnings.
The document manages to talk about U.S. cyber threats while conspicuously tiptoeing around China and Russia, the two countries that have spent the last decade turning American infrastructure into a digital Airbnb. Prior strategies named them directly; Trump’s reads like it was focus-grouped in Moscow and edited in Beijing. But it does find room for the usual buzzwords — streamlined regulation, AI to "detect, divert, and deceive" threat actors — all wrapped in a strategy that’s about 32 pages shorter than Biden’s, presumably because detailed rules and oversight might get in the way of the really important goal: creating a free market for semi-deniable cyberattacks.
So we now have a president openly proposing that private firms play a more active role in cyberwarfare, raising a minefield of legal, ethical and constitutional questions about who’s actually authorized to wage war in America’s name. Think Blackwater, but with root access and an options package. What could possibly go wrong?
#lawlessness#forever-grifting
trump’s forever war gets a sequel, now with global assassination side quests
Trump staring at a map of the Middle East like it’s a restaurant menu, somehow surprised that ordering the Suleimani special came with a side of assassination plots and regional war.
The Trump show has officially gone international syndication. A Pakistani man, Asif Merchant, has been convicted in New York of plotting to kill Donald Trump, Joe Biden, and Nikki Haley at the direction of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, as payback for Trump’s 2020 assassination of Qassem Suleimani. You remember that one: the bold, galaxy-brain strike that was absolutely not going to spark years of spiraling retaliation or turn US officials into walking targets worldwide. Flawless strategic foresight, as always.
The plot never got off the ground because someone Merchant tried to recruit did the thing the Secret Service wishes more Trump staffers would do: called law enforcement. Merchant claims he only joined the IRGC scheme to protect his family in Tehran, while Iran officially denies it targeted Trump or any US officials. Meanwhile, the trial conveniently kicked off just as Trump ordered a joint assault on Iran with Israel, which has already killed at least 1,332 Iranian civilians and wiped out a chunk of the country’s leadership, according to Tehran’s UN ambassador. Six US service members and at least 10 Israeli civilians are also dead, because the Forever War doesn’t do refunds, just sequels.
So we’ve got: Trump’s first-term drone assassination of Suleimani; Iran-linked plots to assassinate Trump and other US leaders on US soil; and now a region-wide war with a mounting civilian body count. But sure, tell us again how blowing up senior officials in foreign countries is a tidy, contained policy tool and not a long-term subscription to global vendetta politics. The only thing transcending national boundaries here is the sheer volume of terrible decisions.
#imperialism#national-security#killing-democracy
america holds a funeral, trump holds a tantrum
Three ex-presidents attend a funeral and still manage to show more respect for democracy than the guy actually in office.
Chicago hosted something Washington hasn’t seen in a while: three former presidents in the same room talking about protecting democracy instead of stress-testing how much of it can be shredded by executive order. Barack Obama, Joe Biden, and Bill Clinton gathered with thousands to honor civil rights icon Jesse Jackson, while Obama gently noted that "each day we wake up to some new assault on our democratic institutions" — a line so clearly about Trump that you could almost hear the Truth Social posts drafting themselves.
The service doubled as a reminder that there was once a time when "reverend" meant marching with Martin Luther King Jr, organizing for voting rights, and founding Rainbow PUSH, rather than livestreaming from a gold-plated golf club about how the Constitution is being mean. Clinton reminisced about Jackson standing by him during impeachment, Biden praised his tenacity, and Jennifer Hudson sang — a full tableau of people who, whatever their flaws, at least pretend democracy matters.
Meanwhile, the current occupant of the White House was present only as a ghost in Obama’s speech: an unnamed, lumbering threat to the institutions Jackson spent a lifetime trying to strengthen. America buried a civil rights legend while its sitting president kept proving why those rights and those institutions still need defending from the guy who’s supposed to be guarding them.
#killing-democracy#fascism
trump’s anti-vax clown car loses a wheel. again.
FDA headquarters, where vaccine policy is decided by a fight between biotech lobbyists and Trump’s in-house anti-vax evangelist.
The Trump administration’s vaccine chief, Dr Vinay Prasad, is being launched out of the FDA for the second time in under a year, which is what passes for a stable regulatory environment in Trumpworld. FDA commissioner Marty Makary told staff that Prasad will "return" to his academic job at UCSF, a polite way of saying: congratulations, you’ve been promoted back to a real institution.
Prasad’s brief career as vaccine czar has been one long collision between science, biotech lobbying, and the Trump–RFK Jr anti-vax fanfiction universe. He helped Makary push faster, easier drug reviews for companies, then turned around and slapped extra warnings and study requirements on some biotech drugs and, of course, Covid vaccines — the sacred hate-totem of health secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr, who spent years attacking vaccines before being put in charge of, checks notes, national health policy.
Last July, Prasad was already forced out once after annoying biotech execs, patient groups, and Trump’s conservative allies, only to be yanked back into the building less than two weeks later with RFK Jr and Makary riding to his rescue. Now he’s out again, leaving behind an FDA where drug approvals are simultaneously sped up for industry and politically kneecapped for vaccines. Regulatory science has been replaced with a choose-your-own-adventure written by lobbyists and anti-vaxxers, and the punchline is public health.
#anti-science#healthcare#killing-democracy
trump turns the kennedy center into a hostage situation
The Kennedy Center, seen here moments before being rebranded as the Trump Memorial Anti-Woke Entertainment Complex.
Jean Davidson, executive director of the National Symphony Orchestra, has decided that maybe she doesn’t need to stick around and watch Donald Trump convert the Kennedy Center into a monument to his ego and victim complex, so she’s heading back to Los Angeles. She politely cites “external forces” beyond her control, which is a very diplomatic way of saying: this place is now run by Richard Grenell and a Trump-loyalist board trying to staple Dear Leader’s name onto everything that doesn’t move fast enough.
Trump, who barely noticed the Kennedy Center his first term, has now decided the country’s flagship performing arts venue is a front in his war on “woke” culture. He ousted the old leadership, installed a hand-picked board that promptly tried to rename it the Trump Kennedy Center—a move legal scholars keep pointing out requires Congress, not a fan club. Artists like Renée Fleming, Philip Glass, and Béla Fleck are canceling, the Washington National Opera has packed up after decades, and Trump is now threatening to close the whole place for a two-year “construction” shutdown. So yes, America’s national arts center is being slowly converted into a culture-war demolition site, because nothing says “strong democracy” like the president trying to rebrand the Kennedy Center as his personal casino lobby.
#killing-democracy#fascism
gotta grift ’em all: white house turns pikachu into state propaganda
Beloved children’s mascot Pikachu, moments before being conscripted into unpaid service for the world’s thirstiest propaganda department.
The Trump White House has apparently decided that if you’re going to run an authoritarian meme regime, you might as well drag Pikachu down with you. The administration posted an official meme using Pokémon imagery and a mini Pikachu to sell "Make America Great Again," prompting Pokémon Company International to clarify that no, actually, they did not sign up to be the cutesy mascot of ethnic cleansing and endless culture war. Spokeswoman Sravanthi Dev stressed that the brand’s mission is to bring people together, which is a bold contrast to an administration whose mission is to bring people together at ICE facilities.
This isn’t even their first offense. The same 30-year-old franchise already had to slap the Trump team’s hand for using the "Gotta catch ’em all" slogan over footage of border patrol arrests, because nothing says "family entertainment" like turning a deportation dragnet into a marketing crossover event. Now they’re apparently ripping art from the new game Pokopia, complete with MAGA text in a similar font, because why pay for ad creatives when you can just loot Nintendo like it’s a federal disaster fund?
White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson proudly calls this "engaging posts and banger memes" that communicate Trump’s "extremely popular agenda"—which currently includes splicing war footage from Iran with stolen Call of Duty clips on official channels. Artists, comedians, and even Trump-friendly podcaster Theo Von are publicly telling DHS and the White House to stop using their work for deportation propaganda unless they’re going to, at minimum, cut a check. The administration, predictably, seems to believe that intellectual property law—like ethics rules, subpoenas, and international norms—only applies to other people.
#lawlessness#forever-grifting#killing-democracy
white house justice promo stars corrupt lawyer, meth kingpin, foreign freedom fighter
The White House communications team, moments before discovering that Breaking Bad is not actually a documentary about responsible governance.
The Trump White House has released a 42-second Hollywood-themed "justice the American way" hype reel for its Iran policy, and it’s basically a fan cam made by a 14-year-old who just discovered torrenting. The official @WhiteHouse account stitched together clips of Robert Downey Jr’s Iron Man, Russell Crowe’s Gladiator, Mel Gibson’s Braveheart, Tom Cruise’s Top Gun fighter jock, Keanu Reeves’ John Wick, and—why not—Jimmy McGill/Saul Goodman, the corrupt lawyer who helps a meth manufacturer build an empire. Nothing says "rule of law" like centering your justice message around a cocaine buffet of war movies and a guy who launders drug money.
It keeps getting more on-brand. The video also features Bryan Cranston’s Walter White growling "I AM the danger!"—a line from a series about a suburban dad who becomes a mass-murdering meth kingpin—and then caps it all off with a "flawless victory" from Mortal Kombat stamped over "The White House." So the administration’s official messaging on Iran is: we’re a vengeful video game boss, advised by a crooked lawyer, spiritually guided by a Canadian assassin, and visually curated with footage from actors who publicly despise Trump. It’s less "American justice" and more "Discord mod gets access to the nuclear codes."
As a bonus, the whole thing may be built on yet another round of copyright roulette. The White House won’t say whether it cleared any of these clips, which would track with its long tradition of using songs and images from artists like Beyoncé, Springsteen, ABBA, and the Rolling Stones until the lawyers show up with cease-and-desist letters. This is the same operation that digitally altered a protest photo to make a woman look like she was crying, and that proudly embraces AI "slopaganda"—including a video of Trump literally dumping feces on protesters. The message is clear: the law is something you broadcast about in Marvel fonts, not something you follow.
#forever-grifting#killing-democracy
trump’s illegal tariffs come with a $175,000,000,000 refund policy
Trump studies a customs form, confidently declares himself World Tariff Emperor, accidentally invents a $175bn refund program.
A US trade judge is now holding the world’s least-fun raffle: deciding how to refund up to $175bn in Trump’s illegally collected tariffs to more than 300,000 importers. The Supreme Court already ruled that Trump’s so‑called "liberation day" tariffs weren’t actually liberated from the law, just from any statutory basis whatsoever. Turns out a 1977 emergency law doesn’t let you just slap global tariffs on everything because you woke up mad at the trade deficit.
Judge Richard Eaton has politely informed Customs and Border Protection that yes, they will be giving the money back, and yes, they already have a system to do it, and no, it doesn’t require a four‑year study or a blockchain. CBP "liquidates" entries and issues refunds every day; now they just have to do it for hundreds of billions of dollars they vacuumed up for Trump’s vanity trade war. One test case, Atmus Filtration, alone paid about $11m in illegal tariffs, and could end up being the template for unwinding as many as 2,000 other lawsuits.
While the courts are busy calculating interest on Trump’s unlawful tax hike, the White House is speed‑running the sequel: a brand‑new 15% tariff on all imports under a different law, because learning from constitutional faceplants is for losers. Twenty‑four Democratic attorneys general and governors, led by New York’s Letitia James, are now suing over this fresh attempt to unilaterally jack up consumer prices. As James put it, Trump is once again ignoring the law and the Constitution to effectively raise taxes on Americans. The administration keeps calling it tough trade policy; the courts keep calling it what it is: illegal.
#lawlessness#trade-war
trump breaks the job market, hasn’t even finished breaking iran yet
A lonely "Now Hiring" sign, patiently waiting for the part of the Trump war cycle where the economy magically improves through sheer presidential yelling at the Fed.
The US shed 92,000 jobs in February, right before Donald Trump decided the global economy needed an extra thrill ride via a US-Israel conflict with Iran. Unemployment ticked up to 4.4%, economists were expecting gains, and the Bureau of Labor Statistics quietly confirmed that 2025 was the weakest year for job growth since Covid. So yes, we’ve now reached the "Make America 2020 Again" phase of the Trump sequel.
Job growth in 2025 was basically a first-half-only special, with the back half of the year losing 45,000 jobs even before the new war cosplay. Now the Fed has to decide in mid-March whether to keep rates steady while inflation still lurks, or cave to Trump, who has been aggressively pushing for cuts so the economy looks less like his Twitter feed and more like a campaign ad. Federal Reserve officials, like Cleveland Fed president Beth Hammack, are signaling an extended pause, which is adorable given that the president treats independent monetary policy like a customer service line he can yell at until a manager appears.
The February report doesn’t yet capture the "fun" knock-on effects of Trump escalating in Iran, but it’s already clear the labor market was wobbling before the bombs. So naturally, instead of focusing on stabilizing jobs, the White House is busy shaking the global economy like a vending machine and demanding cheaper money on top. Who could have guessed that permanent crisis governance isn’t great for employment?
#money#forever-grifting#killing-democracy
trump discovers the enemy within: americans existing in public
An MRAP idling in a quiet American town, bravely protecting residents from the imminent threat of a strongly worded protest sign.
America’s celebrating 250 years of independence by turning Main Street into Fallujah with better branding. Donald Trump has spent the past year shipping Pentagon castoffs and DHS toys to ICE, the National Guard, and every jumpy police department that can spell “terrorism grant.” Predator drones, flash-bang grenades, armored personnel carriers, MRAPs in towns that barely have a stoplight – all the comforts of a forever war, now available curbside in suburban Ohio.
Trump’s White House helpfully rebranded public dissent as an “
enemy within,” which really streamlines things: if everyone who complains is basically a terrorist, you don’t need to bother with that messy First Amendment stuff. Local governments are being muscled into “coordination” with federal armed forces, because nothing says
free society like MRAPs parked next to the farmers’ market and weaponized drones watching the protest you were technically allowed to hold.
Congress, having created the 1033 Program that turned the Pentagon’s junk drawer into your local sheriff’s personal war chest, is now being politely asked to maybe stop handing out grenade launchers, long-range acoustic devices, and weaponized drones to people whose biggest local threat used to be raccoons in the dumpster. Rep. Hank Johnson is reintroducing the Stop Militarizing Law Enforcement Act, which would block the worst of the hardware and try to walk back the whole “Americans are enemy combatants” aesthetic.
The founders worried about standing armies; they probably didn’t imagine the HOA president getting rolled on by an MRAP.
#killing-democracy#fascism
cuban elf upgrades embargo from 'cruel' to 'medieval siege'
Marco Rubio explains how cutting off fuel, food and medicine to 11 million people is actually a bold stand for 'freedom,' as Trump roleplays 1960s Cold War villain on hard mode.
Trump has apparently decided that the 60-year embargo on Cuba just wasn’t quite murderous enough, so on 29 January he declared the island an "unusual and extraordinary threat" to US national security and slapped on a full fuel blockade. Hospitals, schools, homes? Lights out. Food and medicine? Optional. Human rights? Adorable concept. And there’s Marco Rubio at State, proudly insisting this is all for "freedom" while helping starve the very people he claims to liberate.
For decades, the US has pretended the embargo was a minor inconvenience while secretly writing cables about making life so unbearable that Cubans would overthrow their own government. Trump, never one for subtext, has simply said the quiet part into a hot mic: "There’s an embargo. There’s no oil, there’s no money, there’s no anything" — said with all the nuance of a landlord turning off the heat in January. Meanwhile, a Florida-registered speedboat stuffed with rifles and Molotov cocktails just got intercepted off Cuba’s coast, because when Washington cranks up the pressure, some exiles hear it as an invitation to LARP Bay of Pigs 2.0.
The piece also notes something the administration would rather you ignore: younger Cuban Americans are organizing against this carnival of cruelty, demanding engagement instead of siege warfare conducted from Air Force One. They’re treating their heritage as something other than a prop for Rubio’s career and Trump’s imperial cosplay, insisting that "freedom" shouldn’t require your grandma to choose between insulin and candles. The choice on offer is clear: diplomacy and basic dignity, or an endless, bipartisan tradition of slowly strangling a neighboring country and calling it "democracy promotion".
#imperialism#killing-democracy
trump restores 'diplomacy' with the country he just bombed and looted
US officials smile for the cameras in Caracas while quietly measuring Venezuela for new pipelines, mine shafts, and a convenient democracy costume.
The Trump administration is very proudly announcing that the US and Venezuela are "restoring diplomatic ties" — which is a poetic way of saying: after bombing Caracas, killing around 100 people, snatching Nicolás Maduro and his wife off to New York for a drug trial, Washington is now ready to cash in. The State Department issued the usual soothing word salad about "stability", "economic recovery" and a "peaceful transition" to democracy, while quietly skipping the part where the transition was jump‑started by US airstrikes.
Doug Burgum — interior secretary and proud chair of the National Energy Dominance Council, which is definitely not the name of a Bond villain committee — just wrapped up a two-day trip to Caracas. He reports that interim president Delcy Rodríguez, conveniently elevated with Trump's blessing, is very eager to guarantee "security" for foreign mining companies and to open up the Orinoco Mining Arc, a region already crawling with armed groups. Washington now openly claims it "in effect runs Venezuela" and controls its vast natural resources, as long as Rodríguez keeps signing the right paperwork and rewriting oil and mining laws to let US firms strip-mine the place.
Energy secretary Chris Wright was there earlier to demand a "dramatic increase" in oil production and to rave about "tremendous opportunities" — for whom, he did not need to specify. Between the bombing raid, the regime change, the trial spectacle in New York, and the rush to lock in oil, gold, diamonds, and rare minerals, this isn't foreign policy so much as a live‑action corporate acquisition. Call it what it is: resource extraction with some consulates stapled on.
#imperialism#forever-grifting
doj ‘oopsies’ its way into releasing trump-epstein interview files
Attorney General Pam Bondi explains that crucial Epstein-Trump interview files were hiding in the DOJ’s very tall, very classy, totally duplicative filing cabinet.
The Justice Department has miraculously "discovered" 15 Epstein-related documents that were totally just mis-labeled as duplicates, among them FBI interview notes from a South Carolina woman who says Jeffrey Epstein abused her and that Donald Trump sexually assaulted her when she was between 13 and 15. For years, this material somehow failed to exist on the DOJ website, then popped back into reality once reporters compared the public releases to the evidence catalog from the Ghislaine Maxwell case. Government transparency, brought to you by Ctrl+Z.
These newly posted summaries detail how the woman says Epstein blackmailed her mother, trafficked her to New York or New Jersey, and delivered her to a "very tall building with huge rooms" where she alleges Trump assaulted her. The FBI interviewed her multiple times in 2019, decided the claims were important enough to keep talking to her, and then — as far as the documents show — just kind of vibed from there. The files are silent on whether agents found her credible or bothered to verify anything, but DOJ is very loud about insisting such claims are "unfounded and false" and would have been "weaponized" already if they had even "a shred of credibility." Always reassuring when the nation's top law enforcement shop sounds like Trump's Truth Social account.
Meanwhile, DOJ yanked 47,635 Epstein files offline for "victim concerns" and redactions, then swore on X that "ALL responsive documents" had been produced except for a few narrow categories. That statement aged like milk once NBC News and Rep. Robert Garcia noticed that some of the most politically sensitive files — including these Trump-related interviews — weren’t in the supposedly unredacted collection for Congress. Now, under the Epstein Files Transparency Act, DOJ is legally barred from hiding things just because they’re embarrassing to a "government official, public figure, or foreign dignitary," so the department has graciously agreed to let members of Congress read the "duplicates" in a special reading room, like a shame library for elite impunity.
The Republican-led House Oversight Committee just voted to subpoena Attorney General Pam Bondi over the whole mess, while Garcia is out here promising to end the "White House cover-up." So we have a sex-trafficking scandal, a former president named by an alleged victim, a DOJ that keeps discovering its own missing files like they fell behind the couch, and a transparency law that has to explicitly say, "you are not allowed to hide this just because it’s politically awkward." Truly, the system is working flawlessly.
#killing-democracy#lawlessness#forever-grifting
