npr bravely wonders if arson slows down the fire
A contemplative Washington pundit, bravely asking whether the tornado is interfering with today's picnic schedule.
NPR's Steve Inskeep sits down with Jonah Goldberg to ponder the eternal question of the Trump era: do the president's many controversies interfere with his legislative agenda, or are they just the agenda dressed up in a clown wig? Rather than dwell on the whole "undermining democracy, obstructing oversight, and governing via tantrum" thing, the conversation politely frames it as a scheduling issue, like the problem is time management and not the guy taking a chainsaw to the rule of law.
So we get the usual Beltway translation: corruption becomes "controversy," constitutional demolition becomes "distraction," and the central concern is whether Trump can still push bills through while setting everything on fire. The building is collapsing, but the panel would like to know if it might delay the infrastructure vote.
#killing-democracy#full-stupid
trump’s lawyer promoted to attorney general of client
Acting AG Todd Blanche, moments after realizing his client just offered him the entire Justice Department as a retainer bonus.
Donald Trump’s acting attorney general, Todd Blanche, says he’s “honored and humbled” that Trump plans to nominate him to run the Justice Department permanently — which is a very polite way of saying, “I’m thrilled to turn the nation’s top law enforcement agency into my client’s legal defense fund.”
This is the same Blanche who has been serving as Trump’s personal criminal defense attorney, now auditioning to be America’s top cop while his boss is the most indicted man in U.S. political history. The separation between Trump’s legal problems and the federal government’s prosecutorial power is now down to a polite press gaggle and whatever’s left of Blanche’s conscience, so: nothing.
Honored and humbled is one way to describe being tapped to oversee investigations into the guy who signs your checks. Another word is "corruption." A few more: "banana republic," "personalist regime," and "why does DOJ’s letterhead now say ‘Client Confidential’ at the top?”
#corruption#killing-democracy#lawlessness
trump preemptively screams fraud at california for counting votes
Trump, live-posting from his bunker of wounded ego, bravely exposes the crime of California counting legally mailed ballots as if they were votes.
Donald Trump is back on his favorite hobby horse: declaring elections illegitimate whenever math stops liking Republicans. Shortly after midnight, the president jumped on Truth Social to announce, without evidence and with his usual 3rd-grade spelling, that "Dumocrats" are "trying to STEAL" the California governor and Los Angeles mayoral primaries from "two great Republican candidates" by, you’ll never guess, counting mail-in ballots in a state that has used them for years.
Not content with just yelling "STEAL," Trump also casually dragged the justice department into his fantasy, claiming the US attorney’s office in Los Angeles is investigating this imaginary fraud. The US attorney’s office responded with the diplomatic version of an eye-roll: "no comment" on a probe that does not appear to exist. The article is very clear that Trump has presented no substantive basis whatsoever to question the election’s legitimacy, but why let that get in the way of another attempt to pre-delegitimize any result where his endorsed guy, Steve Hilton, might end up in third place like a normal losing candidate.
California’s jungle primary plus slow-but-legal mail ballot counting is a known feature of the system, not a conspiracy. Election experts and even Gavin Newsom have been warning that long counts create a vacuum for exactly this kind of disinformation. Trump, ever the opportunist, sees a civic vulnerability and treats it like a business opportunity: flood the zone with lies, claim secret DOJ investigations, and dare institutions to stop him. It’s the same 2020 playbook—attack the process, insist the vote is rigged, and then act shocked when faith in democracy erodes—now beta-tested on California’s primaries.
#killing-democracy#lawlessness
trump admin suddenly loves regulation when it helps them skip juries
John Roberts carefully explaining that it’s not really a problem if the government acts like judge, jury, and PR department, as long as you can theoretically complain about it later.
The Supreme Court just handed the Trump administration a tidy little win, backing the FCC’s in-house fining system against a challenge from AT&T and Verizon. The carriers argued that having an agency levy big-money penalties without a jury trampled their constitutional rights. Trump’s Justice Department, newly rebranded as a huge fan of federal power when it means keeping things in-house, rushed to defend the FCC’s authority.
In an 8–1 decision written by John Roberts, the Court said the FCC’s setup is fine because companies can still challenge the penalties later in court. That’s cold comfort when the agency has already announced you as a privacy-violating villain to the world, but sure, the reputational damage is just a fun early-access perk. Clarence Thomas, of all people, was the lone dissenter – apparently even he thought this particular flavor of bureaucratic quasi-court might be a bridge too far.
Meanwhile, the underlying conduct is its own little horror show: the FCC hit AT&T with $57m, Verizon with $47m, T-Mobile with $80m, and Sprint with $12m for selling customer location data without consent. So the Trump administration that spent years screaming about the “deep state” and “unelected bureaucrats” is now proudly defending those same bureaucrats’ power to run their own mini-courts and slap corporations around, as long as it keeps executive power nice and swollen. Authoritarian vibes with a side of consumer protection—a regime that can punish the telecom giants today can do a lot worse to everyone else tomorrow.
#killing-democracy#lawlessness
trump deletes consumer protection, starts with the receipts
Russell Vought, seen here auditioning for the role of "acting director of the shredder" at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau just quietly nuked at least 2,200 webpages from existence, because if there’s one thing the Trump administration hates more than regulations, it’s evidence those regulations helped anyone. Gone: years of press releases, consumer advisories, congressional testimony, and speeches dating back to 2010 — basically the entire paper trail showing the CFPB worked and that Wall Street hated it for that exact reason.
Instead of protecting consumers, Trump’s handpicked hatchet man Russell Vought — the Project 2025 guy who literally wanted the agency abolished in writing — is running the bureau like a foreclosure mill. He’s ordered staff to stop all work, tried to fire most of them (blocked by a judge, inconveniently), dropped enforcement cases, and now is busy erasing the historical record. The agency that returned over $21 billion to consumers is being turned into a ghost office with a website that mostly says: "We used to do stuff. We don’t anymore. Please hold while your bank robs you."
Among the deleted material: advisories on what to do when your home insurance costs explode, know-your-rights pages for servicemembers, and testimony that CFPB directors are legally supposed to give to Congress — which Vought appears to have just skipped, because law is for the little people. Also scrubbed: Elizabeth Warren’s early CFPB speeches, so the agency’s founding story can be replaced with a new narrative where protecting people from junk fees is "anti-innovation" and letting JPMorgan and Wells Fargo look the other way on Zelle fraud is the bold future of American finance. The Trump administration isn’t listening to consumers; it’s hitting backspace on them.
#killing-democracy#corruption#forever-grifting
bolton learns classified law is for trump’s enemies only
John Bolton, seen here discovering that mishandling classified documents is only a problem if you’re not the guy hoarding them at a golf resort.
John Bolton, former mustachioed warmonger-in-chief of the National Security Council, is reportedly set to plead guilty to mishandling classified documents — finally proving that in Trump’s America, the Espionage Act is less a law and more a loyalty test. The Justice Department, which somehow found the time to prosecute a high-profile Trump critic while still pretending the Mar-a-Lago Document Warehouse & Golf Club was a normal thing, nailed Bolton for one count of illegal retention of sensitive national security documents.
Bolton will also cough up a more than $2 million fine, which is a fascinating new pricing guide for classified mishandling, assuming you’re not named Donald Trump or happen to own the Republican Party’s base in bulk. The charges landed in October 2025, right in the middle of a magical season when Trump critics mysteriously kept catching indictments like it was flu season for dissenters. Trump, naturally, claimed he knew nothing about it while helpfully noting Bolton was a “bad guy” — the closest this administration ever gets to a probable cause affidavit.
Court records say Bolton will be back in court on 26 June to make it official, while every remaining Trump loyalist who ever waved classified folders around for a Fox News hit continues to enjoy total impunity. Rule of law is still on an extended vacation, but selective prosecution? That’s working overtime and billing double.
#lawlessness#killing-democracy
treasury guy explains how cutting treasury will totally fix war inflation
)
Scott Bessent explains that if you squint hard enough, gutting Treasury during a war somehow looks like a responsible economic plan and not a slow-motion demolition of competent government.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent shuffled up to the House Ways and Means Committee to defend Trump’s fiscal 2027 budget, where the big, bold economic vision is: slash Treasury’s domestic programs by 12 percent while inflation and affordability concerns are spiking during an Iran war. Because when a conflict is driving up prices, what you really want is fewer tools, less capacity, and a weaker department in charge of the country’s finances. Very "tighten your belts, peasants, the donors are thirsty" energy.
Lawmakers also revisited Bessent’s adorable past beef with Federal Housing Finance Agency Director Bill Pulte — a man Trump just decided should be acting Director of National Intelligence, because who better to oversee America’s spy agencies than a housing guy with Twitter drama and a direct line to the president’s ego. The appointment has sparked backlash from people who still vaguely remember the concept of "qualifications," but the White House appears focused on its real priority: consolidating power in loyalists while pretending austerity is fiscal responsibility, not just another way to make ordinary people pay for Trump’s forever-war cosplay.
#killing-democracy#forever-grifting
trump declares congress unpatriotic for reading the constitution
Trump, outraged that Congress tried to use war powers like it’s still in the Constitution, furiously explaining that patriotism now means never saying no to him starting a war.
Trump is once again furious that the legislative branch insists on existing. After the House passed a war powers resolution 215–208 to make him either withdraw U.S. forces from the war in Iran or, radical thought, get congressional approval, he ran to Truth Social to denounce the vote as "meaningless" and the lawmakers as "unpatriotic". Because nothing says I deeply respect America like attacking Congress for trying to follow Article I.
The White House, never one to miss an opportunity to get the Constitution backward, is calling this an "unconstitutional" attempt to restrict presidential power, which is a bold take on a document that literally hands war-declaring authority to Congress. This is the fourth time the House has tried to rein in Trump’s war powers, while the Senate Republicans sit on their hands and occasionally pretend to remember checks and balances between fundraisers.
Four Republicans — Thomas Massie, Brian Fitzpatrick, Tom Barrett, and Warren Davidson — briefly escaped the cult and voted with Democrats, earning themselves the coveted "GRANDSTANDERS!" label from Dear Leader. Barrett even said, "Congress alone declares war" on camera, like he’d just discovered a forbidden text. Public opposition to the Iran war is growing, gas prices are spiking, and Trump’s response is to demand more blank checks for endless conflict and fewer questions from that annoying co-equal branch of government that keeps harshing his commander-in-chief cosplay.
#killing-democracy#imperialism
trump discovers infrastructure, immediately builds triumphal arch to himself
Artist’s impression of Washington, D.C., after Trump finishes "renovating" it into a personality cult theme park.
Trump has apparently decided that if he can’t rewrite the Constitution, he’ll just rewrite the skyline. The White House is pushing ahead with a grand "renovation" of Washington, D.C., centered on a triumphal arch project straight out of the Strongman Starter Kit, and veterans groups are now suing to stop it. Because when you think "honor service and sacrifice," you obviously think, "let’s bulldoze some history and put up a giant marble participation trophy for Donald J. Trump."
The lawsuit argues that the administration is steamrolling federal preservation rules, veterans’ memorial protections, and basic democratic process to rush through a monument that looks less like civic improvement and more like a campaign logo you can see from space. While Trump world sells it as patriotic beautification, critics note it’s really about branding the nation’s capital with one man’s ego, on public land, with public money, for political gain. Authoritarian aesthetics, now available in taxpayer-funded jumbo size.
So instead of fixing VA wait times, housing, or mental health services, this White House is fighting veterans in court for the right to build a victory arch for a culture war. It’s a perfect distillation of the Trump era: maximum spectacle, minimal governance, and an endless search for new surfaces to engrave his name on—even if it means turning the capital into a discount version of Rome with worse lawyers.
#fascism#killing-democracy#forever-grifting
rfk jr uses junk science, trump admin rewrites reality anyway
RFK Jr explains vaccine policy using a stack of retracted papers, while measles does the actual peer review outside.
The Trump administration’s war on reality has hit the peer-review phase. Three anti-vaccine papers that RFK Jr and friends used as the scientific backbone for gutting US vaccine policy are now being retracted, removed, or formally investigated by the journals that published them. These were the studies Team RFK waved around to claim vaccinated kids are sicker, to prop up his 2023 book "Vax-Unvax: Let the Science Speak" (subtitle: "After We Strangle It"), and to persuade the CDC to walk back its long-standing position that vaccines don’t cause autism – a position still held by, you know, actual science.
While measles and whooping cough make their glamorous comeback tour across the US, scientists have been pointing out for years that these papers were methodological garbage: bad data, bad analysis, and conclusions reverse-engineered to fit the "vaccines are evil" narrative. Naturally, that made them perfect for Trump’s HHS, which happily used them to justify "controversial" policy changes that just happen to align with RFK Jr’s decades-long anti-vax crusade. An anti-vaccine lawyer and RFK ally, Aaron Siri, even cited all three at a federal vaccine advisory committee meeting and now calls the journals’ scrutiny a "targeted assassination" – because nothing says "robust evidence" like collapsing the moment someone actually reads the methods section.
Journals are finally slapping expressions of concern and retractions on the studies, years after pediatricians and researchers begged them to do something while anti-vax activists harassed critics into anonymity. Meanwhile, HHS won’t say a word about whether RFK Jr plans to update his book now that its "crucial pillar" is wobbling like a Jenga tower in an earthquake. So the Trump administration used debunked, fringe studies to rewrite national vaccine policy, helped tank immunization rates, and fueled outbreaks of preventable diseases. But sure, tell us more about how this was all about "letting the science speak" and not about turning public health into another partisan demolition project.
#anti-science#killing-democracy
cbs discovers the real enemy is… journalism
Scott Pelley, moments before discovering that at CBS the only unacceptable bias is toward the truth.
America’s most famous ticking stopwatch just got tossed in the trash because Scott Pelley made the mistake of treating CBS like it was still a news organization and not a subsidiary of the Trump 2028 Brand Management Committee. After three decades at the network and years as the public face of 60 Minutes, Pelley told management what everyone in the building already knew: Bari Weiss, handpicked by tech heir and Trump-praised owner David Ellison, is “murdering 60 Minutes” by demanding falsehoods and partisan spin in politically sensitive stories. Management responded to this bold act of honesty the way any healthy democracy-adjacent media conglomerate would: they fired him “for cause.”
This slow-motion execution of a storied newsroom didn’t start with Pelley. Weiss — whose broadcast experience could fit on a Post-it — has been busy purging respected reporters, yanking an investigation into brutal conditions at an El Salvador prison holding Venezuelans deported by the Trump administration (while CBS’s parent company had business before that same administration), and generally turning the show rightward until Donald Trump started praising the new ownership. When you’re getting rave reviews from the guy whose allies benefit from your corporate censorship, you’re not doing journalism; you’re running PR.
The staff literally stood up and applauded when Pelley called out Weiss and the new executive producer to their faces, which tells you how bad it’s gotten inside the building. Leadership’s takeaway from that moment of collective conscience was not “maybe we’re destroying an institution,” but “time to make an example of the guy with integrity.” So Pelley walks out as a symbol of what journalism used to be, while CBS News settles comfortably into its new role as a glossy, ad-supported reminder that when corporations and presidents need protection, truth is always the first budget cut.
#killing-democracy#oligarchy#forever-grifting
rubio discovers the 'easy-assimilating' refugee: they’re white
Marco Rubio, bravely explaining that it’s not about race while literally making it about race.
The Trump Administration has apparently solved the refugee crisis by the radical innovation of not admitting refugees and instead rolling out a special program for white South Africans. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, now fully evolved into his final form as a Heritage Foundation push notification, reassured Congress that this is fine because they supposedly "assimilate" more easily. By a wild coincidence, this new humanitarian priority just happens to exclude the overwhelmingly brown and Black people fleeing wars, famines, and dictators we helped arm.
Rubio’s “assimilation” line is the genteel Beltway version of saying the quiet part out loud: refugees are out, the right kind of immigrants are in. The administration has effectively turned U.S. refugee policy into a whites-only fast track while pretending it’s about culture, not color. Refugees from Syria, Sudan, or Central America get a closed door; white South Africans get a red carpet and a talking-point about how nicely they’ll blend in. America’s longstanding promise to protect the persecuted has been downgraded to a vibe check for maintaining the right aesthetic.
#racism#anti-immigration#killing-democracy
trump’s $1.8 billion feelings fund hits a speed bump
Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, seen here trying to convince Congress that a $1.8B MAGA slush fund is totally normal DOJ behavior and not at all a protection racket with letterhead.
The Trump administration’s latest innovation in public finance is the $1.8 billion “anti-weaponization” fund — a DOJ-crafted MAGA pity pot designed to shower taxpayer money on Trump allies who feel emotionally wounded by law enforcement. The fund emerged from a settlement between the IRS, Trump, the Trump Organization, and his two failsons after Trump agreed to drop a $10 billion lawsuit over his leaked tax documents. In a truly breathtaking coincidence, this government fund just happens to be tailored to reward the guy who’s been screaming “witch hunt” into a camera for eight years and the people who helped him.
A federal judge temporarily blocked the slush pile, DOJ told the court it would “abide” by the ruling, and Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche told Congress the department is “not moving forward with the fund, period” — but still refused to put that in writing, because nothing says totally aboveboard like a verbal promise from Trump’s handpicked criminal defense lawyer-turned-AG. Then Trump waddled into the Oval Office cameras to say he doesn’t actually know if the fund is dead and will have to “ask the lawyers,” before adding that the weaponization fund is “a beautiful thing” that he “loves.” Of course he does. It’s basically GoFundMe for authoritarian cosplay.
Both Democrats and a noticeable number of Republicans are recoiling from this thing, which was so corrupt that even the House GOP’s usual “back the blue, but also the people who beat the blue with flagpoles” caucus got squeamish when officials wouldn’t rule out using it to compensate pardoned Jan. 6 rioters who assaulted cops. Chuck Schumer is now pushing a vote to kill the fund permanently, and Ed Markey helpfully clarified that he is “not taking Blanche’s word for it,” which is D.C.-speak for: we’ve all seen this movie and it ends with Trump looting the set. The administration keeps trying to launder revenge politics through the federal budget, and the courts and Congress keep having to explain that the Treasury is not, in fact, Donald Trump’s emotional support wallet.
#corruption#killing-democracy#forever-grifting
trump’s war on boats continues to not find the drugs
US military vessel enforcing Trump’s new maritime policy: shoot first, never ask questions.
The Trump administration’s months‑long hobby of blowing up boats in the eastern Pacific racked up two more dead men, bringing the body count from these floating execution demos to at least 207. US Southern Command once again insisted the vessel was part of a drug smuggling route, and once again declined to provide any actual evidence of drugs, trafficking, or anything beyond "trust us, that speedboat looked sketchy." A video posted on X shows a boat, some water, and then a fireball – which, in the Trump era, apparently doubles as both probable cause and judicial review.
Trump has helpfully announced that the US is in "armed conflict" with Latin American cartels, a phrase that conveniently lets him treat the high seas like his personal Call of Duty server. The problem? The fentanyl crisis he claims to be stopping is largely driven by drugs crossing over land from Mexico, made with chemicals from China and India. So the administration’s grand strategy is: ignore the real supply chain, and instead vaporize random boats and call the dead "narcoterrorists" after the fact.
Legal scholars and some Democrats, still clinging to the quaint notion that laws matter, are pointing out that this might be wildly illegal. They were especially alarmed by the first strike back in September, when two survivors clinging to wreckage were killed in a second strike that the White House claimed was done "in self-defense" – from what, exactly, floating? Even military law experts say that would be illegal under basically any framework, armed conflict or not. The Pentagon’s inspector general has bravely stepped up to announce an evaluation of whether the military followed the proper six-phase targeting cycle – not whether the entire campaign is an extrajudicial, unconstitutional kill program run on vibes and presidential catchphrases.
So to recap: Trump unilaterally declares a new "armed conflict," the US starts killing people at sea with zero public evidence, survivors get bombed again, and the oversight mechanism is checking the PowerPoint process, not the war crimes question. American rule of law remains safely locked in the trunk while the commander-in-chief plays pirate.
#killing-democracy#imperialism#lawlessness
ceasefire, but make it missiles
U.S. foreign policy, now in convenient missile form: just add "self-defense" and stir.
The U.S. and Iran are thoughtfully honoring a "shaky ceasefire" by exchanging more attacks, because nothing says de-escalation like lighting a match in a fireworks factory. Washington calls it "defensive" and "targeted," which is Pentagon-speak for "we really wanted to blow something up and the lawyers found a comma in the AUMF we could abuse."
Iran fires, the U.S. fires back, and the civilians trapped in between get to be background characters in yet another episode of America’s forever-war spin-off series. Officials talk solemnly about preserving the ceasefire while simultaneously authorizing new strikes, like arsonists insisting they’re committed to fire safety as they hose the neighborhood down in gasoline.
What started as a fragile pause in violence is now being carefully, methodically undermined by the same crowd that’s spent two decades redefining "self-defense" as "anywhere on Earth we feel like dropping ordinance." The ceasefire isn’t collapsing on its own; it’s being strangled with legal memos and precision-guided hypocrisy.
#imperialism#national-security#killing-democracy
trumpworld invents the tax-deductible insurrection fund
Trump, briefly pausing his pitch for a $1.8 billion taxpayer-funded hug for insurrectionists, while donors quietly build the tax-deductible version in the background.
An obscure little nonprofit with a very loud purpose, the "Lawfare Defense Fund," has quietly vacuumed up at least $36 million from Trump donors to bankroll lawsuits and legal defenses for people who think they've been wronged by the justice system — conveniently overlapping with the Venn diagram of "Trump allies" and "folks facing charges for doing crimes." It has no website, no public presence, and no transparency, which is exactly what you want from a group that plans to spray money at people suing the government for daring to prosecute them.
Trump just had to back away (for now) from his dream of a $1.8 billion taxpayer-funded compensation pool for the "unjustly prosecuted" — a category that, amazingly, was expected to include Jan. 6 rioters. So instead, his orbit has cooked up the private-sector version: a charity that sells the story of brave patriots persecuted by "lawfare" and then hands out grants for litigation, all while donors get a nice tax deduction for underwriting the counter-revolution. The group even converted itself this spring from a more openly political nonprofit into a full-fledged charity, trading advocacy restrictions for the sweet, sweet ability to let rich allies write off their contributions.
Charles Gantt — treasurer of the fund and frequent flier in Trump-adjacent money vehicles — naturally isn’t answering questions, but the IRS filings tell the story: Trumpworld is professionalizing its grievance-industrial complex. The administration couldn’t (yet) ram through a public $1.8 billion martyr fund, so the movement is building a private, tax-advantaged one in the shadows. Equal justice under law was fun while it lasted.
#forever-grifting#corruption
commander-in-cage match
The People’s House, now available in three finishes: gold leaf, poured concrete, and industrial fight cage.
Donald Trump has apparently looked at the White House – a public institution, paid for and maintained by taxpayers – and concluded that what it’s really missing is a permanent UFC octagon on the South Lawn. On TikTok, because of course it’s on TikTok, he compared the temporary UFC structure for his 80th birthday bash to the Eiffel Tower, implying that maybe, just maybe, the big steel cage for punching people in the face should also become a beloved national monument. Gustave Eiffel built a global landmark; Trump is building a 90-foot steel claw with cameras so Dana White can livestream from America’s front yard like it’s a Vegas parking lot.
The UFC is reportedly spending at least $60m on the whole spectacle – construction, fighter pay, fan events – while claiming it won’t even turn a profit, which is definitely reassuring and not at all the kind of thing you’d say about a giant in-kind branding exercise centered on the sitting president. Trump says the arena will seat 4,500 people, mostly military members, with up to 100,000 more watching from the Ellipse, because nothing says "healthy civil-military relations" like using service members as a live studio audience for your birthday cage fights. Public tickets? Don’t be ridiculous – this is Freedom 250, not democracy.
This UFC cage is just the latest installment in Trump’s ongoing HGTV special, Dictator Chic: White House Edition. Since winning reelection he’s slathered the Oval Office in gold, paved over part of the Rose Garden, and literally bulldozed the East Wing to install a ballroom, turning a historic seat of government into Mar-a-Lago: DC. Now he’s musing about never taking down a corporate-branded fight arena on the South Lawn. The Founders definitely envisioned the executive mansion as a cross between Versailles and a pay-per-view weigh-in stage; we just finally found the one guy shameless enough to go ahead and build it.
#fascism#forever-grifting
trump gets ‘a little bit perturbed’ about iran, foreign policy trembles
Trump explains his Iran strategy: if he gets ‘perturbed’ on the phone, that’s basically a sanctions regime.
Donald Trump went on TV to recount a tense call with Benjamin Netanyahu about Iran, describing himself as ‘a little bit perturbed,’ which is one way to frame casually escalating tensions in the Middle East like it’s a minor customer-service complaint. The discussion, centered on Iran policy, sounded less like coordinated diplomacy between allies and more like a vibes-based foreign policy seminar run by a guy whose main credential is yelling at cable news.
Instead of quiet, strategic talks, we get the president publicly narrating his irritation with a foreign leader as if he’s live‑blogging world events. Serious national security issues about Iran’s nuclear ambitions and regional conflict are reduced to Trump’s personal mood ring, where the big takeaway is how annoyed he felt on the phone. The message to allies and adversaries alike: U.S. policy is whatever Trump’s emotional weather report says it is that morning.
So once again, the country’s approach to one of the most volatile flashpoints on earth is filtered through Trump’s favorite metric: whether someone on the other end of the line sufficiently flattered him. Diplomatic strategy, deterrence, long‑term planning? Those are for suckers who don’t understand that the real cornerstone of global security is making sure the president doesn’t get ‘perturbed.’
#national-security#full-stupid
gop discovers there’s a limit to how much ballroom you can cram into a deportation bill
Artist’s rendering of Trump’s $400m East Wing ballroom: half Versailles, half ICE field office, all taxpayer-funded security perimeter.
Republicans have reluctantly abandoned their plan to stuff $1bn in "security upgrades" for Trump’s brand-new White House ballroom into a reconciliation bill that already shovels $70bn at his mass deportation machine. The Senate parliamentarian pointed out that maybe, just maybe, turning the East Wing into Trump Tower: DC Edition doesn’t quite fit in a budget maneuver meant for, you know, actual governance. So the ballroom cash quietly vanished from the revised text, like a hush payment on a different set of Trump books.
Democrats, led by Chuck Schumer, are taking a victory lap for killing the ballroom slush fund while correctly noting that the rest of the bill is still rotten: $13bn for Customs and Border Protection, $31bn for ICE, and $2.5bn for DHS, all ring-fenced for immigration enforcement. This is the GOP’s response to Democrats briefly cutting ICE’s allowance after federal agents killed two US citizens in Minneapolis: lock in a long-term pile of money so future Congresses can’t yank the plug on the deportation-industrial complex again. Accountability is for poor people and immigrants; ICE gets a multi-year trust fund.
The White House, naturally, insists this isn’t a retreat, just a technicality forced by the parliamentarian, while Trump still claims the $400m construction tab for his ballroom is covered by "private donors"—a phrase that in Trumpworld tends to mean oligarchs, dark-money groups, and whoever’s currently auditioning for a pardon. Meanwhile, Republicans started to notice that voting to bankroll Trump’s party palace while voters choke on high gas prices from his Iran war might not be the campaign ad of their dreams. So the ballroom goes on the back burner, and the deportation spree stays front and center. The grift can wait; the crackdown cannot.
#killing-democracy#anti-immigration#forever-grifting
trump admin discovers new ebola protocol: vibes
Health workers in full protective gear doing the job; somewhere far away, the Trump administration is doing the opposite of that.
The Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo is on track to become the largest on record, so naturally the Trump administration has responded by… shrugging aggressively and announcing that it will "not allow" Ebola into the United States, as if viruses are stopped by Marco Rubio yelling at a press conference. For decades, the plan for exposed Americans has been clear: fly them home to one of 13 specialized U.S. facilities built specifically for this situation. Instead, Trump’s team is pretending they can just magic away constitutional rights and international law by declaring Americans can’t come home if they’ve been near the wrong germs.
Public health experts point out a small problem with this tough-guy cosplay: the U.S. government cannot legally quarantine its own citizens in other countries and cannot bar them from reentering. So the administration is improvising a workaround where sick or exposed Americans get shipped to Germany and the Czech Republic like defective products, while the White House insists it’s being "strong" on disease. The grand plan was to build a 50-bed quarantine unit in Kenya for future cases, but a Kenyan court just slammed the brakes on that, leaving everyone to wonder what happens to the next aid worker or journalist who gets exposed.
So we have: an escalating Ebola outbreak, hundreds of Americans in the danger zone, a fully stocked domestic infrastructure ready to handle this, and a president whose administration is choosing optics over medicine and constitutional rights. Instead of using the existing system, Trump and Rubio are busy LARPing as border warriors against a virus, outsourcing our responsibilities to European hospitals and hoping no one notices that the "plan" is just don’t bring them here and pray. Public health, meet Trump-era governance: if it can’t be turned into a xenophobic talking point, it doesn’t exist.
#killing-democracy#anti-science
