doj discovers investigation was only needed until tuesday
Jerome Powell contemplates the exciting new Fed mandate: full employment, stable prices, and not annoying the president.
The Justice Department has heroically concluded that its criminal investigation of Jerome Powell can be safely dropped now that it has served its real purpose: softening up the Fed chair while Trump tries to swap him out for a more obedient money printer. Jeanine Pirro, apparently moonlighting from cable yelling to run the DC US attorney’s office, announced on social media that she’s closing the probe into renovation cost overruns at the Fed — a scandal so dire it mysteriously evaporated the instant Kevin Warsh’s confirmation needed a boost.
Powell already said the quiet part out loud back in January: the probe was a pretext to intimidate the Fed into cutting rates on Trump’s political timetable. Economists call that "destroying central bank independence"; Trump calls it "Tuesday." Even Republican senator Thom Tillis briefly located a spine, openly telling Warsh during his hearing, "Let’s get rid of the investigation so I can support your nomination." Subtle. It’s less a justice system than a Groupon for targeted prosecutions: one investigation per confirmation vote, some restrictions apply.
Warsh, a former investment banker and Fed governor, reassured everyone by signaling that yes, he shares Trump’s deep belief that interest rates should be set by the president’s re-election calendar. Meanwhile, the Supreme Court still has to decide whether Trump’s firing of Fed governor Lisa Cook was constitutional, because nothing says "independent central bank" like the president purging governors he doesn’t like and dangling criminal charges over the chair’s head. Economists say a nonpolitical Fed is essential for stability; the Trump White House seems far more interested in a Fed that knows what happens to people who forget who’s boss.
#killing-democracy#lawlessness
epstein survivors keep talking, elites keep hiding the files
Survivor Lisa Phillips stands outside the Capitol demanding the Epstein files, while somewhere a very nervous collection of billionaires and ex-presidents prays those boxes stay sealed forever.
Survivors of Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell are back on Capitol Hill, demanding the release of the still-mysterious Epstein files – the documents that somehow manage to incriminate half of elite society yet never quite make it all the way into the sunlight. For once, networks like NBC and ABC carried their testimony live, which is a refreshing change from the years where the only time Epstein hit prime time was when someone needed b-roll of Donald Trump at a party pretending he’d never met the guy he’s on tape hanging out with.
The women credit #MeToo – the movement, not the 2017 viral hashtag that corporate HR departments used as a branding opportunity – with giving them the courage and infrastructure to keep pushing. Tarana Burke and Me Too International have spent years doing the unglamorous work of treating sexual violence as the massive public health crisis it is, while the political and media class largely treated Epstein as a lurid true-crime podcast with a Mar-a-Lago guest list. Survivors like Lisa Phillips are done being quiet: they’re explicitly saying that the only way to crack powerful abusers and their protectors is to band together, get loud, and refuse to let the files stay buried.
So we now have a country where survivors of a global trafficking ring can finally get live coverage, but the actual documentary record of who flew on which plane, who visited which island, and who helped shut this down for years is still conveniently locked away. The lesson of #MeToo, apparently, is that if you’re a survivor you have to bare your soul on national television to be believed, but if you’re a rich man whose name might be in those files, you get privacy, discretion, and a legal system that suddenly develops a chronic case of the vapors whenever transparency is mentioned.
#lawlessness#killing-democracy
pope announces trump is not god, trump takes it personally
Artist’s impression of Donald Trump discovering that the pope has a boss who isn’t named Donald Trump.
Donald Trump has discovered, to his evident shock, that the pope does not actually report to the White House. Pope Leo XIV – also known as Bob from the south side of Chicago, lifelong White Sox fan and inconveniently admired American – has been publicly condemning Trump’s greatest hits: the Iran war, mass deportations, and the general policy of "bomb a whole civilization back to the Stone Age" as if that’s a normal thing for a president to say. Trump responded in the only way he knows how: insisting Leo was basically elected to flatter him, screeching that the pope is "WEAK on Crime", and whining that he doesn’t want a pope who criticizes the Dear Leader because he’s just doing what he was elected to do "IN A LANDSLIDE".
When moral authority refused to bend the knee, Trump went to work with the tools of state power. The administration yanked a federal grant from a Catholic charity in Miami that was ministering to immigrant children, helpfully underlining that this isn’t a culture war metaphor – it’s an actual government choosing cruelty to kids as a pressure tactic on the Church. Meanwhile, Trump’s white evangelical base and their Christian nationalist friends are still lighting prayer candles to Maga Jesus. At a White House prayer breakfast, Trump compared his reception to Jesus entering Jerusalem and bragged, "They call me king now," while Paula White-Cain, chair of the White House faith office and January 6 warm-up act, likened his indictments to the Passion of Christ. Separation of church and state has been replaced with a merger: the Church of Trump, fully tax-funded.
Trump briefly posted an AI image of himself in a white robe healing the sick, surrounded by angels, a devil, and a jet fighter – because why not throw in a little holy airstrike cosplay? – then tried to claim he was just a doctor, not Christ. Conservative writer Rod Dreher, who helped midwife this whole religious-political Frankenstein, now says Trump is channeling the "spirit of Antichrist" and calls him "batshit crazy", which is about as close as you get to a formal theological diagnosis on Truth Social. The upshot: the most despised American in the world is locked in a public tantrum against the most admired American in a white cassock, and the presidency is being used as a stage for a leader cult that demands religious fealty, punishes dissenters, and treats criticism from Rome like treason against the state.
#killing-democracy#fascism
make the lake great again (with your tax dollars)
Bison contemplate whether the Great Salt Lake or U.S. environmental policy will disappear first.
Donald Trump has discovered the Great Salt Lake, which is impressive for a man who once thought raking forests was sound wildfire policy. After years of Utah leaders shrugging at overuse and climate change while the lake evaporated into an "environmental nuclear bomb," they’ve now arrived at their favorite conservative solution: beg Washington for a $1 billion bailout while still cosplaying as rugged, small-government pioneers.
Trump, of course, is thrilled. On Truth Social he declared the lake an urgent “Environmental hazard” and closed with the legally required campaign slogan pun: “MAKE ‘THE LAKE’ GREAT AGAIN!” Because if there’s one thing a collapsing saline ecosystem needs, it’s a branding exercise. The supposed moonshot here is restoring a terminal salt lake — something no country has ever done — but the more familiar storyline is federal money sluicing toward a GOP state that helped create the problem, now rebranded as visionary stewardship because the president noticed a new backdrop for rallies.
Scientists like BYU ecologist Ben Abbott talk about a world-first rescue of a critical ecosystem; Trumpworld hears “massive construction contracts, endless ribbon cuttings, and naming rights opportunities.” Utah gets to keep draining rivers for development and agriculture while the feds pick up the tab, and Trump gets to pose as the savior of a lake his party’s environmental policies helped kill. It’s disaster capitalism, but with more brine shrimp.
#anti-science#money
trump dhs sees dead dad, grieving kid, smells opportunity
DHS reviewing this photo and concluding the real national emergency is that this woman still lives with her U.S.-citizen child in Baltimore.
The Francis Scott Key Bridge collapsed, killed six immigrant construction workers, and left a 7-year-old U.S. citizen without her dad. The Biden administration responded by offering limited immigration protections to about 30 people closely connected to the victims. The Trump administration saw that and thought: "What if we did the exact opposite, but meaner?"
Now DHS is trying to deport 48-year-old Zoila Guerra Sandoval, the Guatemalan mother of that U.S.-citizen child, whose co-parent, José Mynor López, was the last victim recovered from the wreckage. Under Trump's "everyone is a priority" doctrine, the mother of a grieving American child is treated the same as someone convicted of "the most heinous crimes," because nothing screams law and order like using federal power to rip apart the family of a kid whose father died fixing American roads at 3 a.m.
Immigrants did the dangerous, underpaid work that keeps the country running; when disaster struck, they became human headlines for a week. Two years later, the Trump DHS is painstakingly undoing the narrow protections they were offered, just to prove a point: in this government, your value ends the minute your body stops being useful to the economy. The bridge collapsed, but the real structural failure is the immigration system now being gleefully weaponized against the survivors.
#anti-immigration#killing-democracy
trump appoints himself king of britain, still can’t find ukraine on a map
Donald Trump explains that he speaks for the UK, NATO, and probably Narnia, while Prince Harry selfishly limits himself to speaking for… himself.
Donald Trump, a man whose grasp of the UK begins and ends with his golf courses and Nigel Farage’s phone number, has announced that he speaks for Britain "more than Prince Harry" after the Duke of Sussex urged the US to honor its obligations to Ukraine. Harry, a veteran who actually went to war zones on purpose, gave a serious, detailed speech at the Kyiv Security Forum about defending Ukraine after four years of Russian invasion.
The US president’s response? Declare that he is the real voice of the UK, casually overwrite what 67 million British people and their elected government might think, and then tack on a "but I appreciate his advice" like he’s grading a student presentation. Harry never claimed to speak for the UK, but Trump certainly claimed it for himself, because nothing says "respect for allies" like a reality TV landlord deciding he outranks an entire country.
So on one side: a former soldier traveling to a war-torn country to push the US to live up to its commitments. On the other: a president whose main contribution to the Ukraine conversation is publicly role‑playing as Britain’s unelected spokesman while doing the diplomatic equivalent of subtweeting a prince. The special relationship has officially entered its gaslighting era.
#killing-democracy#fascism
trump shares 'hellhole' rant, discovers new way to insult key ally
Donald Trump, moments before logging onto Truth Social to test how much foreign policy damage a single repost can do.
The President of the United States woke up, opened Truth Social, and decided the best way to manage a rocky relationship with India was to amplify a four-page rant calling India and China "hellholes" that are gaming American birthright citizenship. The screed, courtesy of podcaster and professional grievance machine Michael Savage, claims that people from these countries are abusing the 14th Amendment to sneak in entire families, because nothing says "serious policymaking" like reposting talk-radio paranoia as foreign policy.
India's foreign ministry, apparently still clinging to the idea that diplomacy should involve adults, called the remarks "uninformed, inappropriate and in poor taste"—which is diplomatic code for "what is wrong with this guy." Opposition leaders in India labeled the comments "extremely insulting and anti-Indian" and demanded that Narendra Modi actually say something to his orange pen pal about it.
This Truth Social tantrum lands on top of Trump's tariff war on India, his pressure campaign over Russian oil, and his administration’s hard pivot into anti-immigrant maximalism—complete with an executive order trying to kill birthright citizenship and a sustained attack on H-1B visas that overwhelmingly affect Indian workers. While the State Department sends Marco Rubio to "reset" relations, Trump is busy boosting a guy who insists high-tech jobs in California are secretly run by an Indian-Chinese shadow cabal, backed by exactly zero evidence and 100% white grievance.
So the US-India relationship, once billed as a strategic partnership of "mutual respect," is now being managed by: tariffs, sanctions whiplash, and the president reposting a podcast transcript that calls your country a hellhole. Truly a golden age of diplomacy.
#anti-immigration#fascism#killing-democracy
trump turns ‘western alliance’ into protection racket, europe takes the hint
Anu Bradford, calmly explaining that Europe needs strategic autonomy because relying on Donald Trump for security is like relying on Elon Musk for workplace stability.
Europe, we are told, is in a "profound state of crisis"—which is what happens when you’re wedged between Putin’s invasion hobby, Xi’s authoritarian tech empire, and Donald Trump treating NATO like his personal timeshare upsell. After 80 years of assuming the US would be the adult in the room, Europeans are now discovering that the "backstop" for their security is a guy who thinks Article 5 is a subscription he can cancel if he doesn’t like your trade policy.
The experts interviewed for the film Why Europe Matters politely describe the US as "increasingly hostile" and "weaponising" Europe’s military dependence. Translation: Trump has turned collective security into a protection racket—nice little continent you’ve got there, shame if something happened to it unless you buy more US gas and stop regulating Big Tech. The result? Europe is frantically trying to build its own defense capacity, deepen the single market, and sign trade deals with anyone who isn’t currently screaming about tariffs on TV.
Far-right nationalists are still busy trying to dismantle democracy from within, but even they just watched Viktor Orbán get tossed out by Hungarian voters, which is the geopolitical equivalent of a jump scare for aspiring mini-Trumps. Meanwhile, Trump’s protectionism has done what decades of white papers could not: convinced Europe that maybe tying your security, economy, and climate future to an impulsive strongman who rage-posts at 3am is…suboptimal. America First, global stability last.
#killing-democracy#imperialism
trump to fix american decline with $2m pool repaint
Trump, moments before explaining that 250 years of American history can be fixed with a fresh coat of pool paint and a no-bid contractor.
The president has discovered the true source of American decay: not corruption, not authoritarianism, not the courts on fire — the Reflecting Pool is kind of gross. So naturally, he’s swooping in as America’s least-qualified pool boy to coat the historic Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool in "American flag blue" using his own private contractors, because nothing says "respect for institutions" like turning one of the country’s most iconic civil rights sites into a patriotic hotel lagoon.
Instead of the $300 million, multi-year granite replacement proposed by, you know, professionals, Trump boasts that his people just scrubbed the 1922 stone, grouted it, and are now slapping on "an industrial grade swimming pool topping" for a bargain $1.5–2 million. He promises it’ll be ready "long before July 4" for the country’s 250th, so we can all celebrate the nation’s semi-quincentennial staring at MLK’s reflection in what amounts to a giant blue resort pool between the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial.
This is one project in a growing list of Trump’s capital redesign fantasies: a $400 million East Wing ballroom/bunker combo, a Kennedy Center facelift, and now the "flag blue" reflecting pool. Washington, D.C. isn’t a seat of government anymore; it’s becoming the world’s most expensive authoritarian theme park, where history is optional, taste is dead, and every public monument looks like it’s waiting for a DJ set and bottle service.
#killing-democracy#forever-grifting
dhs cosplay squad brings trump’s deportation circus to minneapolis
Markwayne Mullin, future head of America’s favorite unmarked paramilitary cosplay club, practices pointing at things instead of fixing them.
Trump’s latest hobby is turning American cities into live-action immigration war zones, and Minneapolis just got the deluxe package. The Department of Homeland Security proudly rolled out its largest operation in history, flooding a liberal Midwestern city with armed federal agents to impress the MAGA base and terrify everyone else. Homes, businesses, parking lots, schools, hospitals, courthouses – if people might be there, ICE is raiding it. Families are being shredded, people are dying in the streets and in detention, and the White House calls it "enforcement" like that makes it less grotesque.
The Guardian helpfully maps out who’s who in this federal cosplay convention, because on the ground it’s basically a grab bag of armed men in tactical gear, masks, and vague patches who refuse to identify themselves. ICE, Border Patrol, and assorted DHS extras are all deployed as Trump’s roaming interior deportation force, especially in Democratic-led cities whose local leaders explicitly don’t want them there. It’s less "public safety" and more "occupation with better branding".
Presidential loyalist Markwayne Mullin is now in charge at DHS, after Kristi Noem was fired for turning mass deportation into her own reality show – complete with cheerleading the removal of 200+ Venezuelans to a notorious El Salvador prison without due process, lying about a protester "brandishing" a gun before he was killed by immigration officers, and burning taxpayer money on personalized ads. Mullin promises to be more low-key, which apparently means keeping the same brutal machinery while cutting back on the Instagram influencer energy. The uniforms change, the masks stay on, and the rule of law keeps getting worked over like it’s an undocumented house cleaner.
#anti-immigration#killing-democracy
trump extends ceasefire, war continues unbothered
Trump, JD Vance, and Marco Rubio bravely take a break from setting the region on fire to congratulate themselves for briefly asking everyone to stop dropping matches.
Donald Trump got on Truth Social to announce that the Israel–Lebanon ceasefire will be extended by three weeks, which is adorable given that both sides have been lobbing rockets and airstrikes throughout the current ceasefire like it's more of a "vibes-based suggestion" than an actual agreement. From the Oval Office, flanked by JD Vance and Marco Rubio like two malfunctioning bobbleheads, Trump promised the U.S. would help Lebanon "protect itself from Hezbollah"—a bold statement from the same government backing the country currently occupying 10km of Lebanese territory and leveling southern villages.
The Lebanese and Israeli ambassadors dutifully praised Trump for his role in the talks, because that's the price of entry if you want a seat on the reality show formerly known as U.S. foreign policy. Meanwhile, UN figures say over a million people in Lebanon—one in five—have been displaced, more than 2,200 have been killed by Israeli attacks, and Israel keeps insisting there are "no serious disagreements" with Lebanon as long as everyone agrees Hezbollah should disappear and nobody asks awkward questions about war crimes, journalists getting killed, or that whole invasion-and-occupation part.
Trump, naturally, framed the whole thing as something that will be worked out "simultaneously with what we are doing in Iran," a casual reference to the U.S. and Israel having just killed Iran's supreme leader and ignited this round of chaos in the first place. So yes, the arsonist is now very proud to have negotiated a three-week pause in certain categories of fire, while the house continues to burn in the background.
#imperialism#national-security
trump fires navy secretary for failure to build his anime battleship
Navy Secretary John Phelan poses next to concept art for the U.S.S. Defiant, a ship that exists primarily in Trump’s imagination and on this poster.
Donald Trump’s latest defense innovation: firing his Navy secretary because reality refused to warp itself around his fantasy “Trump Class U.S.S. Defiant” battleship program. John Phelan, a billionaire Mar-a-Lago-adjacent investor whose main qualification appears to have been geographic proximity to the buffet line, was ordered to deliver the first of Trump’s mega-battleships by 2028. The ships, Trump promised, would be “100 times more powerful than any battleship ever built,” which is a very normal thing to say if your grasp of naval procurement comes entirely from video games and WWII fan art.
The tiny problem: physics, shipbuilding capacity, budgets, engineering, and that pesky thing called time. Phelan couldn’t conjure a functioning navy of Trump-branded Death Stars on the president’s campaign schedule, so Trump did what he always does when the con runs into reality: he fired the guy. The Pentagon, currently being treated like a reality show casting call by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, has already seen more than two dozen generals and admirals fired or sidelined in the past year, including the Army chief of staff. Now the first service secretary has been tossed overboard mid-war with Iran, because nothing says "serious commander in chief" like turning wartime military leadership into a revolving door of loyalty tests.
While Republicans and Democrats in Congress are quietly freaking out over the chaos at the Pentagon, the building itself isn’t answering questions, and Phelan is conveniently unreachable. So we’re left with this: a president at war, obsessed with slapping his name on a new class of fantasy battleships, purging anyone who can’t meet his impossible demands, and a defense secretary running promotions and command billets like a factional purge. America’s armed forces, brought to you by branding, ego, and total strategic malpractice.
#killing-democracy#national-security
trump starts a trade war, loses the liquor aisle
Mark Carney patiently explaining to the world’s largest economy that if you violate your own trade deal, you don’t also get to sell the whiskey.
Donald Trump has finally done it: he’s managed to turn Canadians against American booze. In retaliation for Trump’s latest round of USMCA-violating tariffs on steel, aluminum, autos and agriculture, Canadian provinces have yanked US liquor off store shelves. Ontario’s liquor control board – one of the biggest alcohol buyers on the planet – basically told Trump’s distillers: enjoy your freedom, somewhere else.
Prime Minister Mark Carney, apparently the only adult in this bar fight, is politely explaining that if Trump stops using tariffs as a campaign prop, Canada might consider letting Jack Daniel’s back across the border. Until then, Canada is happy to sit on its hands and watch Trump’s political support erode under the combined weight of an unpopular war with Iran and his ‘trade strategy’ of lighting free trade agreements on fire and calling it economic nationalism.
US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick is very upset that Canada is using alcohol as leverage, calling the boycott “disrespectful” — which is rich, given Trump is the one shredding the rules of the USMCA and threatening consequences like a mob boss with a worse vocabulary. Canadian business leaders are openly talking about using booze as a bargaining chip while they wait to see what other lopsided deals Trump cuts, betting that time and math (and the size of Canada’s metals and critical minerals exports) are on their side.
So the Trump administration has managed to weaponise tariffs, destabilise North American trade, and get Canadians to skip cross-border trips and US spirits, costing the US “tens of billions” by Ontario’s Doug Ford’s estimate. Hell of a legacy: making Canada the sober, strategic one in the relationship.
#trade-war#killing-democracy
war is good business and business is booming
Jim Taiclet lovingly explains that war might be hell, but it’s also a fantastic growth market if you structure the contracts right.
Lockheed Martin CEO Jim Taiclet hopped on an earnings call and basically announced that the Trump Pentagon is a “golden opportunity” — not for peace, stability, or human life, obviously, but for Lockheed’s revenue stream. With the Iran conflict as a handy backdrop, he bragged that this administration has created “more available resources for us” and praised “who’s in government” for being so eager to buy what Lockheed and its friends are selling. Translation: the revolving door is spinning so fast it’s generating its own power grid.
Instead of that old-fashioned "burden" of government contracting, Taiclet gushed about turning major weapons systems into a "commercial-like business model" — because why should missiles be treated like public obligations when they can be treated like Amazon Prime? The Pentagon is now thoughtfully adding a "recovery element" to contracts so Lockheed gets paid even if the government changes its mind later. Year five, year six, Congress balks, war winds down, public outcry grows — doesn’t matter. As Taiclet calmly assured investors: “We will not be harmed by that.” Nice to know someone in this country has universal coverage.
Meanwhile, the White House is pushing a $1.5 trillion Pentagon budget — a $445 billion jump — while proposing $73 billion in cuts to housing, health, and education. Trump reportedly told donors that the federal government can’t “take care of daycare, Medicaid, Medicare, all of these individual things” and that states can just figure it out. So the message is clear: no money for your kid’s daycare, but limitless cash to ensure Lockheed never has a bad quarter again. Welcome to Trump’s America, where social programs are "burdens" and war contractors get risk-free, taxpayer-backed, platinum-tier subscription plans.
#forever-grifting#oligarchy
larry ellison buys hogwarts, westeros, and probably cnn’s spine
A Warner Bros water tower and a U.S. flag, soon to be rebranded as ‘Property of Larry Ellison & Friends, LLC’.
Warner Bros Discovery shareholders have enthusiastically voted to let Paramount — backed by Oracle billionaire and Republican cash fountain Larry Ellison — swallow the whole studio for $111bn, giving one guy’s family a content empire that runs from Harry Potter and Game of Thrones to CNN and the Food Network. Because if there’s one thing democracy needed in 2026, it’s fewer companies controlling more of the information, entertainment, and sports you’re allowed to see.
While the Department of Justice is theoretically still reviewing this antitrust carnival, Ellison is hosting Donald Trump for a cozy little dinner at the U.S. Institute of Peace, which is now apparently available for rent as a "corruption gala" venue. Protesters — including Mark Ruffalo — are outside pointing out that maybe, just maybe, it’s a problem that the guy trying to buy CNN is also cutting huge checks to the man who has openly demanded CNN be sold and reshaped to his liking, after calling its current leadership "corrupt or incompetent." Subtle!
More than 1,400 actors and filmmakers are warning the merger will mean fewer jobs, less competition, and higher costs, while Elizabeth Warren is calling it an "anti-trust disaster" and promising a fight. Industry analysts, on the other hand, calmly predict Washington will just rubber-stamp the whole thing, outsourcing any actual scrutiny to European regulators. So the future of American media policy is now: billionaires buy everything, Trump shows up for the photo op, and the only real hope is Brussels.
#oligarchy#killing-democracy#forever-grifting
trump tries 19th‑century empire, discovers it’s the 21st
Iran rolls out its missiles while Washington congratulates itself on a strategic masterclass that accidentally made them more important than ever.
Donald Trump’s big, beautiful Iran adventure — sold as a quick regime-change special with extra oil on the side — has instead turned Tehran into the discount regional hegemon he always claimed it already was. Iran didn’t collapse; it demonstrated it can squeeze the global economy any time it wants by threatening both the Strait of Hormuz and Bab al-Mandab, turning the world’s shipping lanes into a live-action reminder that maybe you shouldn’t let a guy who quotes “to the victor belong the spoils” run foreign policy.
US allies in the Gulf, having watched Trump treat security guarantees like expired casino coupons, are now frantically shopping around for new friends in Europe, China, India, Pakistan, Egypt, and Turkey. Meanwhile, the war that was supposed to weaken and topple the Iranian regime has instead strengthened the IRGC’s grip on power, produced a classic rally-round-the-flag effect, and buried whatever was left of Iran’s old doctrine of restraint. Trump keeps boasting he achieved regime change; he did — he just helped the hardliners win.
All of this flowed from Trump’s favorite combo: imperial nostalgia and institutional vandalism. After using Venezuela as a proof-of-concept for oil seizure, he convinced himself Iran would be just as easy, especially after hollowing out the State Department, Pentagon, and NSC so no adult could say “this is insane.” He openly framed the war as an imperial resource grab, bragging about territorial acquisition being “psychologically” important to him like a real estate developer who’s discovered airstrikes. The result: a pre-emptive war that shattered diplomatic norms, further aligned the US with autocrats, and accelerated what historians will politely call “the decline of American leadership” and less politely call “Donald Trump setting the postwar order on fire to see what happens.”
#imperialism#killing-democracy#lawlessness
trump celebrates women’s sports by hiding the women
Trump and five guys celebrate the historic achievement of standing in front of the women who actually won the championship.
The White House invited the University of Georgia women’s tennis team to celebrate their NCAA championship and then staged the photo like a 1950s corporate brochure: Trump and five male staffers up front, the 11 actual champions literally stuck on a riser in the back like human wallpaper. Press aide Margo Martin proudly blasted out the shot, apparently under the impression that the point of women’s sports is to create new backdrops for Donald Trump and whatever guys happen to be standing nearby.
It somehow got worse on video. Trump walks up, shakes hands with the five men, and then… just doesn’t bother with the women. The athletes. The reason everyone is there. Former legend Martina Navratilova summed it up with “a photo is worth a thousand words,” because when the picture already screams we respect men, tolerate women, there’s not much left to add.
The Georgia team’s official account still posted the image with a chipper “honor to represent” caption, which is how you know patriarchy is working as designed: the women get to be grateful props in their own celebration while the men physically and symbolically block them from view. It’s a perfect sequel to that 2017 classic where Trump signed an anti-abortion order surrounded entirely by dudes. Different day, same administration vibe: when women accomplish something, men get the front row.
#trumps-america#full-stupid
president launches pay-to-play casino, calls it a crypto conference
Mar-a-Lago, where the line between presidential duties and side hustle rug-pulls is as thin as the napkins at the crypto buffet.
Trump is throwing a Mar-a-Lago "crypto & business conference" that is, functionally, a presidential paywall. Only the top 297 buyers of his $TRUMP memecoin get in, and the top 29 get a special reception with the president himself, because nothing says "public servant" like selling proximity to your physical body via a speculative token that nuked billions in retail wealth.
The event is run through Fight Fight Fight LLC (subtle), which has already used similar dinners to vacuum up $148m from coin holders last year. Ethics experts like former Bush ethics lawyer Richard Painter are out here using phrases such as "dangerous conflict of interest" and "original understanding of bribery", while Trump’s lawyers cling to the magic incantation: the president technically can’t violate federal conflict-of-interest laws, so it’s fine that he’s literally monetizing access to his office like it’s a Patreon tier.
Democrats are pointing out that while $TRUMP and $MELANIA coins have "erased" an estimated $4.3bn in retail wealth, a cozy set of 45 early wallets walked away with around $1.2bn, and Trump’s broader crypto empire has padded his net worth by at least $3bn. Conveniently, his administration has also turned the SEC into a see-no-evil fan club for the crypto industry, which has rewarded him with millions in donations and a booming market for presidential-themed scams. If Trump flakes on attending the bash, top investors will be compensated with a "limited edition Trump NFT"—because when you don't get the president you paid for, you get a JPEG of the grift instead.
#forever-grifting#corruption#money
trump does psychedelics, chooses wall street as his spirit animal
Donald Trump asks for a hit of ibogaine while signing an order to make sure the real trip is the psychedelic stock portfolio of whoever was standing just off camera.
Donald Trump spent Bicycle Day in the Oval Office slowly sounding out the word "ibogaine" like a kid at a spelling bee, then signed an executive order to supercharge psychedelic drug approvals and access. With Joe Rogan hovering behind him like a very on‑brand spirit guide, Trump joked "Can I have some, please?" about a drug known for 12-hour trauma flashback marathons. The order tells the FDA to fast‑track psilocybin and MDMA applications, sending psychedelic stocks into orbit while Trump pretends this is about "serious mental illness" and not a multibillion-dollar market high for investors.
The fine print? Trump wants investigational psychedelics available under "right to try" — a law supposedly for the terminally ill — even though the DEA says Schedule I drugs don't qualify. So now we get a turf war where the same administration that loves harsh drug laws is trying to bend those laws just enough to help pharma and its buddies, while people will still be prosecuted for the non-Wall-Street-approved versions of the exact same substances. The order even dangles rescheduling, with Trump whining that the DEA is "slow-walking" him, as if the real victim of the drug war is the guy in the gold-plated bathroom.
Meanwhile, Indigenous communities who stewarded these medicines for generations are watching the U.S. government do its usual routine: extract the plants, launder them through clinical jargon, and forget the people. The former chair of the Native American Church calls it "biopiracy dressed in clinical language," which is a very polite way of saying "classic colonial smash‑and‑grab." A Gabonese outlet notes that Americans for Ibogaine showed up for a conference and left without negotiating consent, royalties, or profit-sharing. So yes, veterans might finally get access to promising treatment — by way of an executive order that turns traditional medicines into patentable assets while the government keeps the cages, keeps the prosecutions, and hands the cash to biotech. Healing for some, looting for others, upside for shareholders.
#forever-grifting#killing-democracy
trump backs weed, forgets the people he helped lock up for it
Trump gazes thoughtfully at a pen, having just discovered you can tweak drug schedules without freeing a single person you helped put behind bars.
The Trump administration has finally dragged marijuana out of the "same as heroin" category and into Schedule III, where it can hang out with ketamine and your gym bro’s favorite steroids. Acting attorney general Todd Blanche signed the order, bragging on X that DOJ is "delivering on President Trump’s promise to improve American healthcare"—because nothing says serious reform like moving weed from one arbitrary box to another while leaving millions of lives and businesses stuck in the same legal minefield.
Trump, ever the policy visionary, reportedly bullied officials for months to stop "slow-walking" his rescheduling order, not to free people in prison or fix banking laws, but—per Roger Stone—because it’s "vitally important" to juicing the midterms with young and libertarian voters. Meanwhile, the reclassification pointedly does nothing for people already locked up on marijuana charges, doesn’t legalize interstate commerce, and keeps the same anti–money laundering traps that make cannabis businesses operate like legal gray-market pirates. Forty states have legalized in some form, there’s a "ganja glut," and the big breakthrough from Washington is… better paperwork for research.
Pam Bondi—who fought marijuana reform in Florida—was conveniently fired three weeks before the move and replaced by Blanche, who then discovered, after "conferring with stakeholders," that the thing Trump and Roger Stone publicly demanded should, shockingly, happen. The drug war’s wreckage stays intact, the banking nightmare stays intact, the criminal records stay intact—but the campaign talking points are now fully rescheduled.
#forever-grifting#killing-democracy
