The Trump Presidency Timeline
Documenting the chaos since day one. 1606 entries and counting.
killing democracy
board of peace, brought to you by the guy who tried to overthrow an election
Israeli soldiers in Hebron, presumably waiting for guidance from Trump's new Board of Peace™, the international governance equivalent of a timeshare pitch.
Donald Trump has launched a brand-new "Board of Peace" — because nothing says respect for international law like trying to spin up your own off-brand U.N. Security Council in Florida between golf rounds. Invitations are flying out to everyone from Israel to Russia to Belarus to the EU, with zero clarity on what this thing actually does, who runs it, or how you square "global peace" with putting Vladimir Putin and Alexander Lukashenko on the guest list.
France, understandably not thrilled about burning down the existing international order just to flatter Trump's ego, is "holding off" for now. In response, Trump threatened a 200% tariff on French wine and champagne to pressure Emmanuel Macron into joining, because in this administration, "peace" is apparently enforced via trade war cosplay and petty economic blackmail. Meanwhile, Morocco, Vietnam, Kazakhstan, Hungary, and Argentina have already signed on, while Israeli officials and far-right minister Bezalel Smotrich are publicly wondering why they should trust a board that claims to oversee a Gaza ceasefire they're actually a party to.
In other words, Trump is trying to build a rival power structure to the U.N., staffed with assorted strongmen and opportunists, run on vibes, tariffs, and his personal grudges. But sure, tell us again how this is all about "a bold new approach to resolving global conflict" and not about one guy who lost the popular vote twice trying to cosplay Secretary-General of Planet Earth.
France, understandably not thrilled about burning down the existing international order just to flatter Trump's ego, is "holding off" for now. In response, Trump threatened a 200% tariff on French wine and champagne to pressure Emmanuel Macron into joining, because in this administration, "peace" is apparently enforced via trade war cosplay and petty economic blackmail. Meanwhile, Morocco, Vietnam, Kazakhstan, Hungary, and Argentina have already signed on, while Israeli officials and far-right minister Bezalel Smotrich are publicly wondering why they should trust a board that claims to oversee a Gaza ceasefire they're actually a party to.
In other words, Trump is trying to build a rival power structure to the U.N., staffed with assorted strongmen and opportunists, run on vibes, tariffs, and his personal grudges. But sure, tell us again how this is all about "a bold new approach to resolving global conflict" and not about one guy who lost the popular vote twice trying to cosplay Secretary-General of Planet Earth.
#killing-democracy#imperialism
killing democracy
totally normal to war-game against your own president
Gretchen Whitmer at the Detroit Auto Show, calmly explaining why it’s perfectly rational to prep for the president maybe using federal forces to mess with elections — just another day in the best democracy money and tariffs can buy.
In a thriving democracy, governors spend their time cutting ribbons, fixing potholes, and maybe arguing about school funding. In Trump's America, Gretchen Whitmer is doing tabletop exercises on how to stop the White House from using federal muscle to screw with elections. Because nothing says "land of the free" like state leaders quietly gaming out how to respond if the president decides his immigration crackdown troops would look great stationed near ballot boxes.
Whitmer, sitting in front of a shiny red Cadillac Escalade at the Detroit Auto Show — the same venue where pro-Trump protesters tried to shut down vote counting in 2020 — politely explained that it's not "paranoia" to worry Trump might turn his deployed federal personnel into an election control squad. In other words: when someone has already tried to overturn an election once, maybe you don’t give them the benefit of the doubt the second (and third) time.
She also took a sledgehammer to Trump's latest round of "very smart" tariffs, noting they've taken a "terrible toll" on U.S. auto manufacturing and helped contract the very industry he pretends to be rescuing. Auto companies say they got hammered for billions, the union brass says they love tariffs, and rank-and-file workers get to enjoy job losses and higher prices. But sure, tell us more about how this is all 4D chess for the working man.
Meanwhile, Whitmer is out here trying to figure out why Democrats are bleeding male voters and whether the country is ready for a woman president, all while planning for the possibility that the commander-in-chief might point federal agents at the ballot box. Totally normal, healthy republic stuff — just your average day where governors prep for hurricanes, blizzards, and potential federal election subversion from the White House.
Source: npr.org
#killing-democracy#fascism
oligarchy
landlord-in-chief discovers wall street landlords are bad now
Behold: an aerial view of America’s future—rows of houses no one can buy, all lovingly owned by a Delaware LLC and managed by a call center three time zones away.
Donald Trump, America’s most overleveraged landlord cosplay billionaire, has decided that Wall Street-backed landlords are the problem with housing. On Truth Social, he’s now promising to "ban large institutional investors" from buying up single-family homes, because nothing says serious housing policy like a caps-locked post from the guy whose entire brand is slapping his name on luxury towers and casinos that go bankrupt.
Meanwhile, in the actual world, families like Ashley Maxwell’s are getting steamrolled by all-cash offers from institutional investors who treat starter homes like Pokémon cards. In Fishers, Indiana, the (Republican!) mayor is watching neighborhoods creep toward 35–38% investor ownership and is literally having city employees beg homeowners via letter to sell to humans instead of hedge funds. They passed a 10% rental cap per neighborhood, and immediately the real estate lobby lost its mind, shrieking about property rights—by which they mean Wall Street’s right to turn your kid’s future house into an asset class.
So now we have this surreal moment where Trump and some Democrats are allegedly on the same side against corporate landlords, while business groups and outside money swarm local councils to kill even the mildest protections. In other words: Trump is pretending to fight the very investor class that bankrolls his universe, cities are desperately trying to keep homes from becoming BlackRock Monopoly pieces, and the housing market is still treated as a casino first and shelter second—but sure, tell us again how this is all about “freedom” and “the invisible hand.”
#oligarchy#forever-grifting
killing democracy
authoritarianism but make it hr-compliant
Trump and Chief of Staff Susie Wiles arrive at the White House, where the dress code is business casual and the hiring requirement is unconditional fealty.
Trump’s second-term White House is being hailed as a model of stability because the staff turnover rate has dropped from a record-shattering dumpster fire to merely a routine inferno. According to Brookings’ Kathryn Dunn Tenpas, senior staff turnover is down from 35% in 2017 to a totally normal-for-a-banana-republic 29%. For context, past presidents averaged around 10%, but sure, let’s call this progress because nobody got fired by tweet this week.
The real innovation isn’t less drama, it’s better casting: out with the conflicted adults-in-the-room, in with the fully housebroken loyalists. Trump’s people openly credit the new ‘stability’ to hiring based on loyalty above all else—not expertise, not experience, just unwavering devotion to the guy at the Resolute Desk cosplay set. Promotions like Trump hype-man Sergio Gor becoming ambassador to India are described as wins, because nothing says serious foreign policy like rewarding your staffing czar with a diplomatic posting.
Instead of public meltdowns starring Reince Priebus, Steve Bannon, Sean Spicer, and the 11-day wonder Anthony Scaramucci, the exits this time are lower-profile apparatchiks quietly shuffled around the board. Less public chaos, more disciplined consolidation of power. In other words: the clown car is now a sealed bus, everyone on it has signed a loyalty oath, and the driver has stopped pretending there’s a brake pedal.
Source: npr.org
#killing-democracy#fascism
corruption
trump turns the pardon office into a wealth management firm
Changpeng Zhao, freshly upgraded from "money laundering enabler" to "official victim of Biden" by the Trump White House’s new Premier Platinum Pardon Program.
One year into Term 2 and Donald Trump has discovered a bold new use for presidential clemency: debt relief for rich crooks. Over half of his 88 individual pardons are for white‑collar crimes — money laundering, bank fraud, wire fraud — and about half of the lucky winners are business execs or politicians. Together, this year’s 87 people and one corporation had been ordered to cough up more than $298 million in fines and restitution, which Trump helpfully vaporized, because nothing says "law and order" like telling victims and taxpayers to get bent.
Among the VIPs walking out of the accountability store with a zero balance: Binance founder Changpeng Zhao (money-laundering enabled crypto king), billionaire insider trader Joe Lewis, and banker Julio Herrera Velutini, who was waiting to be sentenced for campaign finance crimes before Trump decided that was actually a feature, not a bug. Also on the list: HDR Global Trading (hit with a $100 million AML fine), Zhao’s own $50 million tab, and Devon Archer, ordered to pay back most of the $60 million he helped siphon from the Oglala Sioux Tribe. Toss in siblings who sold millions of counterfeit 5‑Hour Energy — one of whom Trump already commuted once — and you’ve got a presidential tradition now known as recidivist rewards.
The White House insists there’s a "very thorough review process" and that Trump is merely rescuing people "abused" by a "weaponized" Biden DOJ. Trump himself told CBS he had "no idea" who Zhao is, but was assured he’s a fellow "victim" of Biden, and that he’s "not concerned" about the appearance of corruption — he just wants America to be "No. 1 in crypto." In other words, the official standard for a pardon is: rich, connected, or useful to Trump’s vibes. Meanwhile, Democrats and watchdogs point out that his second-term pardons have already wiped out more financial penalties than his entire first term, and orders of magnitude more than Obama or Biden ever did. But sure, tell us again how he’s draining the swamp while he turns the pardon power into a concierge service for oligarchs and fraudsters.
Source: nbcnews.com
#corruption#forever-grifting#crypto
killing democracy
trump discovers chagos on a map, demands full tantrum rights
Donald Trump and Keir Starmer smiling politely, back when the plan was to manage US-UK relations with diplomacy instead of whatever Trump’s thumbs felt like that morning.
Keir Starmer spent a year speed‑running the Tony Blair DLC: be the good ally, flatter the US president, brag that your special relationship is specialer than everyone else’s, and sell last year’s tariff deal as proof that hugging Trump close was a genius move. In return, Trump called him a friend, praised him in public, and Washington even officially welcomed the UK–Mauritius agreement over the Chagos Islands — the one designed to protect the Diego Garcia base from legal challenges while finally acknowledging that maybe, just maybe, 1960s‑style imperial land grabs aren’t a great look in 2026.
Now Trump has apparently discovered Chagos on a globe and is firing off ALL‑CAPS rage posts about the very deal his own State Department endorsed. Because nothing says "stable superpower" like reversing strategic policy by social media outburst months after the fact, and casually threatening the viability of a key intelligence and military hub because he woke up mad at a Labour prime minister. The UK government is left insisting the agreement still secures the base and that, yes, the US did like it before Daddy got bored and changed his mind.
And this may just be the warm‑up act. With a decision looming on a new Chinese embassy in London — and Washington already twitchy about the UK looking too cosy with Beijing — everyone’s bracing for the next presidential temper flare. In other words: Starmer built his foreign policy around not getting publicly torched by Trump, and Trump is now publicly torching him. But sure, tell us again how tying your national security strategy to the whims of a man who governs by caps lock is the mark of a serious, grown‑up administration.
Now Trump has apparently discovered Chagos on a globe and is firing off ALL‑CAPS rage posts about the very deal his own State Department endorsed. Because nothing says "stable superpower" like reversing strategic policy by social media outburst months after the fact, and casually threatening the viability of a key intelligence and military hub because he woke up mad at a Labour prime minister. The UK government is left insisting the agreement still secures the base and that, yes, the US did like it before Daddy got bored and changed his mind.
And this may just be the warm‑up act. With a decision looming on a new Chinese embassy in London — and Washington already twitchy about the UK looking too cosy with Beijing — everyone’s bracing for the next presidential temper flare. In other words: Starmer built his foreign policy around not getting publicly torched by Trump, and Trump is now publicly torching him. But sure, tell us again how tying your national security strategy to the whims of a man who governs by caps lock is the mark of a serious, grown‑up administration.
Source: bbc.com
#killing-democracy#imperialism
killing democracy
speaker johnson flies to london to explain that america is only *kind of* a rogue state now
Keir Starmer welcomes Mike Johnson to Downing Street, bravely pretending that a quick photo-op can offset the fact that Trump is out here LARPing as a 19th-century empire with nukes.
Mike Johnson marked 250 years since American independence by traveling to London to reassure Parliament that the United States is not, in fact, being run by a guy trying to buy Greenland at gunpoint. He told President Trump his mission was to "calm the waters"—because nothing says stable democracy like having to personally reassure your closest ally that the commander in chief probably won’t invade Denmark over real estate.
While Johnson waxed poetic about the "spiritual birthplace" of the American nation, the actual president was busy on Truth Social threatening tariffs and refusing to rule out military action to seize a semi-autonomous territory of a NATO ally. At the same time, Trump reversed himself on the U.K.’s decolonization deal over the Chagos Islands—where the U.S. has a key base on Diego Garcia—calling it "great stupidity" and "total weakness." In other words: London is trying to unwind a colonial-era theft under international pressure, and Trump’s mad they’re not clinging harder to the empire we park our bombers on.
British leaders, from Speaker Lindsay Hoyle to Prime Minister Keir Starmer, are doing their best "no, this is fine" routine—cracking jokes about the Boston Tea Party while quietly scrambling to manage a White House that treats allies like tenants and territories like Monopoly properties. Johnson gets history-making honors as the first House speaker to address Parliament; Trump gets history-making honors as the first U.S. president to seriously float invading Denmark and scolding Britain for not being colonial enough. But sure, tell us again how this is all about "shared values."
Source: nbcnews.com
#killing-democracy#imperialism#national-security
imperialism
manifest destiny but make it ice
Trump stares at a map and decides the problem with U.S. foreign policy is not enough real estate acquisitions.
Donald Trump is once again threatening to "take over" Greenland, because nothing says "serious global power" like a twice-impeached, multiply-indicted ex-president fantasizing about buying other countries' territory like it’s a foreclosure auction in Atlantic City. A former U.S. Ambassador to Denmark now says these little annexation daydreams are causing "extreme anxiety" in the region—apparently people get nervous when a guy who tried to overthrow his own government starts talking about acquiring more land.
The Greenland stunt is Trumpism in miniature: imperial ambitions, zero homework, and total disregard for the people who actually live there. Instead of treating Greenland and Denmark as allies, he treats them like reluctant timeshare prospects, while his surrogates go on TV to explain that Greenland "can only be defended if it is part of the U.S."—in other words, the same old great-power logic that’s gone so well for, checks notes, every colonial power in history.
Layer this on top of the same news cycle featuring Trump’s DOJ being defended for poking at Fed independence and the Pentagon prepping troops for possible deployment to Minnesota, and you get the full picture: Trump’s America is a place where the president toys with domestic military deployments, menaces allies, and flirts with land grabs—but sure, tell us again how he’s the one restoring law, order, and respect on the world stage.
Source: nbcnews.com
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#imperialism#killing-democracy#full-stupid
killing democracy
trump tries to repossess the fed
Lisa Cook, apparently under the impression that a 14-year Fed term means 14 years, not "until Trump needs a new scapegoat for interest rates."
Jerome Powell is headed to the Supreme Court because in Trump’s America, even setting interest rates now requires a legal defense team. The Court is hearing arguments on whether Donald Trump can just yoink Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook out of her 14‑year term because he got mad about mortgage-fraud allegations that bank documents inconveniently contradict. The Fed Act says presidents can only remove governors for cause; Trump says, essentially, "I’m the cause."
Meanwhile, Powell is openly saying the quiet part out loud: the grand jury subpoenas and threatened criminal indictment over a $2.5 billion Fed building renovation are "pretexts" for one thing—punishing the Fed for not cutting rates fast enough for Dear Leader’s political needs. In other words, follow the president’s preferences or face prosecution, because nothing says "independent central bank" like DOJ breathing down your neck every time you don’t goose the stock market on command.
Trump has already announced he was firing Cook back in August, citing a referral letter and vibes, which her lawyer Abbe Lowell correctly translated as "you absolutely cannot do that." The Supreme Court already had to step in once to keep her in place while it thinks about whether the president can just casually decapitate monetary policy whenever Fox & Friends says the Dow looks sad. Cook’s term runs to 2038; Trump would prefer it run until the next time he gets bored on Truth Social.
So Powell will sit in the gallery and watch nine justices decide whether the Federal Reserve is still a semi-independent institution or just another Trump cabinet meeting where the choices are "praise the boss" or "get indicted." But sure, tell us again how the real threat to the rule of law is student loan forgiveness.
Source: nbcnews.com
#killing-democracy#lawlessness#forever-grifting
imperialism
trump invents a new un to manage gaza, forgets to invite palestinians
Artist’s impression of Trump’s Gaza ‘Board of Peace’: a conference table made of rubble, a golden statue in the middle, and not a single Palestinian within 100 miles.
Donald Trump has unveiled his "Board of Peace" for Gaza, which is a bit like calling a casino a church. Not a single Palestinian gets a seat, but Trump will sit as chair "in an individual capacity" — in other words, he’s decided to be Emperor of Gaza on his own time. The guest list reads like a war-crimes alumni newsletter: Tony Blair (Iraq’s reconstruction expert, according to no one), Viktor Orbán, Vladimir Putin, Jared Kushner the aspiring Gaza waterfront realtor, an Israeli billionaire, and a US private equity ghoul. Because nothing says "peace" like a table full of oligarchs, ethno-nationalists, and guys who think bombed-out cities are just "undervalued assets".
The draft charter doesn’t even mention Gaza, which is a nice touch for the thing allegedly set up to "govern" Gaza. Instead, it looks like a prototype for an alternative to the UN — a private, Trump-branded global power tool where he reportedly controls the billions that countries must pony up for permanent membership. So it’s neocolonialism-as-subscription-service: pay $1bn to sit at the table while Trump and his developer friends turn a genocidally devastated strip of land into a luxury resort with a giant golden statue of himself, and maybe "relocate" the surviving Palestinians somewhere more convenient. It’s not peace, it’s a pilot project for a new world order where foreign policy is just another Trump property play.
Source: theguardian.com
#imperialism#forever-grifting
trade war
markets shrug while trump plays tariff chicken with nato
Traders watch calmly as Trump juggles NATO, Greenland, and the global financial system with the grace of a man tweeting from a golf cart.
Global markets have officially entered the "this is fine" stage of Trump’s second-term trade roulette. The FTSE barely twitches as Trump threatens new tariffs on eight European countries, including the UK, because investors have learned the core rule of Trumponomics: the louder the threat, the likelier it is he’ll forget about it by next week. After his last "liberation day" tariff stunt turned into a buying opportunity, traders now treat presidential economic brinkmanship like a seasonal sale rather than the slow dismantling of the postwar order.
Meanwhile, in the background, the actual stakes are slightly higher than a red day on the Footsie. We’re talking about the potential breakup of Nato, the US president fantasizing about annexing part of a fellow Nato member, and Europe quietly reminding Washington that it owns about $8tn of US bonds and equities. As Deutsche Bank’s George Saravelos notes, once you start weaponising capital instead of just trade flows, you’re not in "tough negotiating" territory any more – you’re in "let’s see how fast we can melt the global financial system so Trump can LARP as 19th‑century empire" land.
France’s Emmanuel Macron is already floating the EU’s anti-coercion tool to restrict US companies’ access to the single market, because nothing says "Western alliance" like the two pillars of it edging toward a financial knife fight over Greenland. Markets may be calm, but that’s less a sign of stability and more a collective decision to pretend that an American president threatening allies, NATO, and the dollar’s status as the world’s reserve currency is just another headline. In other words: the fire alarm is blaring, but the traders have noise‑canceling headphones on.
Meanwhile, in the background, the actual stakes are slightly higher than a red day on the Footsie. We’re talking about the potential breakup of Nato, the US president fantasizing about annexing part of a fellow Nato member, and Europe quietly reminding Washington that it owns about $8tn of US bonds and equities. As Deutsche Bank’s George Saravelos notes, once you start weaponising capital instead of just trade flows, you’re not in "tough negotiating" territory any more – you’re in "let’s see how fast we can melt the global financial system so Trump can LARP as 19th‑century empire" land.
France’s Emmanuel Macron is already floating the EU’s anti-coercion tool to restrict US companies’ access to the single market, because nothing says "Western alliance" like the two pillars of it edging toward a financial knife fight over Greenland. Markets may be calm, but that’s less a sign of stability and more a collective decision to pretend that an American president threatening allies, NATO, and the dollar’s status as the world’s reserve currency is just another headline. In other words: the fire alarm is blaring, but the traders have noise‑canceling headphones on.
Source: theguardian.com
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#trade-war#killing-democracy
forever grifting
trump’s oligarchy delivers 18,000% returns (for everyone but you)
Donald Trump grinning in front of his billionaire fan club, otherwise known as the board of directors of the United States.
Rashida Tlaib is out here rudely pointing out that when Donald Trump promised to "drain the swamp," what he actually meant was drain the Treasury into billionaire bank accounts. Tech oligarchs had front-row seats at his inauguration, and it’s been a VIP cash bar ever since. Tlaib’s new bill calls for ending the political and economic dominance of billionaire oligarchs, cutting off their subsidies and tax gifts, and maybe—controversial take—spending money on the people who actually live in this country.
Our Revolution crunched the numbers and it turns out Trump’s donors weren’t donating, they were just making the smartest investments of their lives. Crypto bros, oil barons, and deportation profiteers spent about $700m to get Trump back in office and shore up MAGA world, and in return got an estimated $172.5 billion in benefits. That’s an 18,000% return, because nothing says "populist movement" like turning the federal government into a private equity fund for Peter Thiel and friends.
Oil and gas tycoons dropped $443m and got roughly $153bn in tax breaks, gutted climate rules, and a war on renewables—about a 33,443% ROI. Private prison and deportation giants like GEO Group and CoreCivic tossed in under $5m and stand to rake in revenues over $5bn as Trump’s 2025 budget aims to quadruple expulsions, turning human misery into an 11,050% return. Meanwhile, Palantir and Peter Thiel lurk in the background, ready to cash in on expanded surveillance of immigrants and, eventually, anyone who looks at Trump funny.
The crypto crowd, furious that Biden tried to regulate their casino after the FTX implosion, poured tens of millions into Trump and were rewarded with deregulation, enforcement rollbacks, and a White House pledge to make America the "crypto capital of the planet." Nine major donors, including Brian Armstrong, Marc Andreessen, and future commerce secretary Howard Lutnick, turned $212m into a $19bn wealth surge—an 8,862% return. In other words, Trump’s "big, beautiful bill" and policy agenda are working exactly as designed: the poor get austerity, the middle class gets a eulogy, and the billionaire oligarchs get the keys to the country—and a personal ATM in the Oval Office. But sure, tell us again how he’s fighting for the forgotten man.
Source: theguardian.com
#forever-grifting#oligarchy#killing-democracy
killing democracy
trump admin bravely declares war on the concept of shelter
Shawn Pleasants, living proof that housing-first works, posing in front of city hall while HUD works overtime to make sure the next Shawn never gets a key, just a cot and a lecture.
The Trump administration has discovered a bold new strategy to fight homelessness: create more of it. After nearly two decades of bipartisan, evidence-based "housing first" policy that actually kept over 100,000 people in permanent housing, HUD decided the real problem wasn’t people sleeping on sidewalks – it was people getting apartments. So they moved to yank federal Continuum of Care funds away from permanent housing and dump them into temporary shelters, slashing what could be spent on real housing from ~90% to 30%. Internal HUD documents warn this could push 117,000 people back onto the streets, so naturally the administration’s response is: sounds perfect.
Because nothing says "serious policy" like calling a legally codified, data-backed strategy a "Biden-era slush fund" and replacing it with mandatory treatment, punishment for jurisdictions that use harm reduction, and penalties for recognizing trans and gender-diverse people – all groups disproportionately affected by homelessness. In other words, it’s not a homelessness plan, it’s a culture-war fever dream with a side of mass eviction. The chaos has been so bad that courts had to step in, forcing HUD to process 2025 projects while the administration clings to its right to keep sabotaging the system that works.
HUD insists it’s ending the "failed" system of "permanently warehousing the homeless at exorbitant taxpayer cost" – a bold claim they couldn’t back up with, you know, evidence when asked. Experts like Dr Margot Kushel, who has actually studied this for a living, call the move "silly, counterintuitive and dangerous" and point out that the root cause is… wait for it… a lack of affordable housing and wages that don’t cover rent. But sure, instead of fixing housing supply, minimum wage, or benefits, this administration is choosing the "more tents, more cops, more suffering" option – because in Trump’s America, stability is socialism and cruelty is the point.
Source: theguardian.com
#killing-democracy#trumps-america
killing democracy
welcome to trump’s world cup: bring cash, lawyers, and a strong passport
MetLife Stadium, soon to host the World Cup final and the world’s most expensive reminder that in Trump’s America, even watching football requires a private equity budget.
Fifa looked at American late-stage capitalism, Trump’s America, and the phrase “dynamic pricing,” and said: yes, that’s the vibe. Tickets for the 2026 World Cup have gone full hedge-fund, with prices for the final jumping up to nine times the cost of 2022 (inflation-adjusted, because even the spreadsheet has shame). The steepest hikes are on the cheapest seats, because nothing says “global festival of the people” like surgically targeting poor fans first. Fifa then graciously announced that a heroic 1.6% of tickets per match will stay at the $60 floor, which is basically the humanitarian-aid version of tossing a quarter at someone after you steal their wallet.
Fans are furious enough that ticket prices have spilled into actual elections, with New York City mayor Zohran Mamdani running on “maybe don’t price out everyone who isn’t a petrostate prince” and winning. Meanwhile, Fifa hides behind the usual PR line that all this cash will “develop soccer worldwide,” as if we haven’t seen this movie before, starring Swiss lawyers and offshore accounts. On top of that, some supporter groups are reportedly canceling over US domestic and foreign policy under Trump – immigration, security theater, and geopolitical tantrums don’t exactly scream ‘welcoming global party.’ In other words, the world’s biggest sporting event is being run like Ticketmaster married a border patrol checkpoint and moved into MetLife Stadium – but sure, tell us again how this is all about the beautiful game.
And this is all before you even get to travel: long-haul flights into a Trump-era America, four time zones, 16 cities, limited public transport to stadiums, and a visa regime overseen by an administration that thinks “globalism” is a slur. It’s less “World Cup” and more “Amazing Race: Authoritarian Edition,” where the challenge is just getting into the country, across it, and back out without being shaken down by either Fifa’s pricing algorithm or Trump’s border and security apparatus. The ball will eventually roll; the question is how many fans are left in the stands who aren’t oligarchs, sponsors, or whatever friends of Trump and Infantino got comped boxes.
Fans are furious enough that ticket prices have spilled into actual elections, with New York City mayor Zohran Mamdani running on “maybe don’t price out everyone who isn’t a petrostate prince” and winning. Meanwhile, Fifa hides behind the usual PR line that all this cash will “develop soccer worldwide,” as if we haven’t seen this movie before, starring Swiss lawyers and offshore accounts. On top of that, some supporter groups are reportedly canceling over US domestic and foreign policy under Trump – immigration, security theater, and geopolitical tantrums don’t exactly scream ‘welcoming global party.’ In other words, the world’s biggest sporting event is being run like Ticketmaster married a border patrol checkpoint and moved into MetLife Stadium – but sure, tell us again how this is all about the beautiful game.
And this is all before you even get to travel: long-haul flights into a Trump-era America, four time zones, 16 cities, limited public transport to stadiums, and a visa regime overseen by an administration that thinks “globalism” is a slur. It’s less “World Cup” and more “Amazing Race: Authoritarian Edition,” where the challenge is just getting into the country, across it, and back out without being shaken down by either Fifa’s pricing algorithm or Trump’s border and security apparatus. The ball will eventually roll; the question is how many fans are left in the stands who aren’t oligarchs, sponsors, or whatever friends of Trump and Infantino got comped boxes.
Source: theguardian.com
#killing-democracy#forever-grifting
imperialism
trump discovers foreign policy is just yelling 'new leadership' on tv
Live look at another country bracing for the consequences of whatever Donald Trump blurts out before his second coffee.
Iran is out here warning the U.S. not to launch a strike, while Donald Trump is on TV calling for “new leadership” in Tehran like he’s recasting a reality show instead of talking about a sovereign country with missiles and millions of people living in it. Because nothing says ‘serious statesman’ like treating regime change as a segment between weather and the cooking demo.
Trump’s line is the same tired Washington script: hint at just enough military action to look “tough,” then wrap it in the noble language of helping the Iranian people, as if U.S. bombs have ever been a reliable democracy-delivery system. In other words: we’re back to the ‘what if we tried war again, but this time for freedom?’ school of foreign policy.
Meanwhile, Iran is explicitly warning against a strike, which in a functional democracy would trigger a sober debate in Congress about war powers and authorization. Instead we get Trump freelancing regime-change rhetoric on morning TV, normalizing the idea that one guy’s ego and a news hit are all it takes to move the country one step closer to another Middle East disaster. But sure, tell us more about how this is all about ‘new leadership’ and not the same old imperial cosplay we’ve seen for decades.
Source: today.com
#imperialism#national-security#killing-democracy
lawlessness
trump doj discovers bold new legal doctrine: laws are just vibes
Ro Khanna and Thomas Massie politely explaining to Trump’s DOJ that ‘mandatory’ does not, in fact, mean ‘whenever you feel like it, plus redactions.’
Congress passed the Epstein Files Transparency Act with one very simple instruction for Donald Trump’s Department of Justice: give us the files. By 19 December 2025, no less. Instead, the Trump DOJ dumped a token 125,575 pages out of more than 2 million potentially responsive documents, then patted itself on the back while blowing past the deadline like it was a stop sign in Mar-a-Lago traffic.
Lawmakers Ro Khanna and Thomas Massie – a Democrat and a Republican, because apparently basic legality now requires a bipartisan intervention – are begging a federal judge to appoint a special master and independent monitor, since the DOJ has decided the Act is more of a mood board than a statute. The department is doing everything the law explicitly forbids: missing deadlines, hiding behind common-law privileges the Act doesn’t allow, and slathering on redactions that look suspiciously like an effort to protect “politically exposed persons”, which the law also explicitly bans. But sure, tell us again how this is the most transparent administration in history.
Just to round it out, Trump’s DOJ also ignored another requirement: a detailed report, due 15 days after the deadline, explaining what was released, what was withheld, and why. That report simply does not exist, leading the law’s co-sponsors to write, in diplomatic translation: these guys cannot be trusted with the keys to a filing cabinet, let alone the justice system. Survivors’ advocates say the delay isn’t just bureaucratic foot-dragging – it’s retraumatizing and yet another institutional failure to hold anyone with power accountable for Epstein’s years of abuse. In other words, the system is working exactly as designed.
Source: theguardian.com
#lawlessness#forever-grifting
killing democracy
marco rubio builds 66 new walls, calls it 'diplomacy'
Marco Rubio explains that 66 shredded treaties are just ‘America first,’ as the planet quietly updates its status to ‘America last.’
The Trump administration, now featuring Secretary of State Marco Rubio in his long-awaited role as cuban elf of isolationism, has yanked the U.S. out of 66 international treaties, conventions, and organizations in one go. Climate agreements, migration frameworks, cultural heritage protections, clean water, renewable energy, even rules on timber and minerals — all flushed as "contrary to the interests of the United States." Because nothing says "global leadership" like screaming "I got mine" and slamming the door on a burning planet.
Rubio helpfully explained that these long-standing efforts are "irrelevant" to U.S. interests, which is a bold stance in a world where wildfire smoke crosses borders faster than his talking points. As Anand Pandian points out, this isn’t just policy; it’s the logical endpoint of a culture that treats everything as a fortress: gated neighborhoods, armored SUVs, ring-fenced media bubbles, and a politics that defines freedom as the right to pretend no one else exists. In other words, Trumpism turned America into that neighbor who dumps toxic sludge upstream and then insists the dead fish are a hoax.
While Trump and friends are busy burning climate diplomacy for short-term fossil fuel applause lines, local activists like those in Newburgh, New York are trying to do the radical thing of not drinking forever chemicals and maybe having clean public water, transit, and housing. They organize around the idea that what happens upstream affects people downstream — a concept apparently too advanced for the White House, which prefers the more familiar doctrine of "If you want to go fast, go alone, and if you want to go fascist, convince everyone they’re alone." The administration’s message is clear: going it alone isn’t a bug, it’s the feature — and if democracy, the planet, and a few million people have to choke for it, well, that’s just freedom, baby.
Source: theguardian.com
#killing-democracy#imperialism
anti immigration
america’s largest police state operation is totally normal, says tv sheriff kristi noem
Kristi Noem, dressed for her favorite hobby: LARPing as a federal agent while other people’s families get destroyed off-camera.
Donald Trump’s Department of Homeland Security has decided the real threat in Minneapolis isn’t crumbling infrastructure or unaffordable housing, it’s immigrant families existing. So DHS rolled out what it proudly calls the largest immigration enforcement operation in its history, flooding a liberal city with armed federal agents over the objections of local leaders—because nothing says “states’ rights” like sending in a federally controlled street army to terrorize residents.
ICE and Border Patrol, now functionally Trump’s personal interior police, are raiding homes, workplaces, parking lots, schools, hospitals, and courthouses. Agents often show up masked, heavily armed, and refusing to identify themselves, which is what you do when you’re super confident your actions are lawful and popular. The result: families ripped apart, people dying in detention, and shootings on city streets—but Trump’s base is thrilled, so clearly the system is working as designed.
At the center of the show is Homeland Security secretary Kristi Noem, who has reinvented DHS as her own reality series: Cop Cosplay: Fascism Edition. She tags along on raids in full tactical drag, switches out branded hats like she’s doing a merch haul, and famously posed to celebrate the removal of 200+ Venezuelans to a notorious El Salvador prison without due process. In other words, the US government is now openly outsourcing human-rights abuses to Bukele’s penal theme parks and calling it policy.
This is all built on the post-9/11 Homeland Security architecture and supercharged by Trump’s so-called One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which further welded “immigration” to “national security” and handed ICE and friends even broader powers. The alphabet soup of agencies, badges, patches, and masks is now so convoluted that it’s often impossible to tell who is actually arresting you—a neat little feature if your goal is an unaccountable, roaming federal force that can do whatever it wants, wherever it wants, to whoever it wants.
Source: theguardian.com
#anti-immigration#killing-democracy
killing democracy
project 2025: from 'never heard of it' to the official user manual
President Trump, seen here pretending he’s never heard of Project 2025 while flying on the plane that’s currently implementing it.
Donald Trump, the man who swore he had "nothing to do with Project 2025," has now basically turned it into the White House employee handbook. The 900-page Heritage Foundation fever dream that he once called "ridiculous" is suddenly looking very familiar in policy form: mass immigration crackdowns, dismantling the Department of Education, nuking diversity, equity and inclusion programs, and declaring in his inaugural address that the official policy of the United States is that there are only two genders. Because nothing says "limited government" like having the federal government legally define your identity for you.
In public, Trump and his campaign treated Project 2025 like a bad smell they couldn’t quite locate. Chris LaCivita whined that its organizers were a "pain in the a**" and insisted they didn’t get to "drive the issue set." In private, Trump did the obvious: he hired them. He tapped Project 2025 architect Russell Vought to run the Office of Management and Budget — a.k.a. the nerve center of the executive branch — and brought in other contributors to help speed-run the authoritarian wish list they totally weren’t coordinating on, no sir.
Meanwhile, Democratic state attorneys general, led by California’s Rob Bonta, treated the document like what it actually is: a confession. They combed through Project 2025 line by line, pre-wrote their lawsuits, and started blocking some of the fun stuff — like forcing blue states into Trump’s immigration dragnet, freezing domestic federal funding, and mass layoffs at agencies such as the Department of Education. In other words, the administration mailed them a roadmap to its own abuses of power, and the states responded with, "Thanks, we’ll file this under ‘Exhibit A.’" But sure, tell us again how Trump doesn’t know anything about Project 2025 while he reads it off the teleprompter.
Source: npr.org
#killing-democracy#fascism
forever grifting
trump slaps his name on the kennedy center, kills the vibe (and the opera)
Gianandrea Noseda at the Kennedy Center back when it hosted symphonies instead of serving as a test market for the Trump Memorial Branding Initiative.
The Kennedy Center used to be a bipartisan shrine to American arts; now it’s a mausoleum with Trump’s name duct-taped to the front. Within weeks of inauguration, Trump shoved himself in as chair, fired the seasoned executive director, and handed the keys to Richard Grenell, a guy whose arts experience begins and ends with knowing how to sit in a chair and clap on the wrong beat. Predictably, artists fled, audiences bailed, and even Hamilton pulled out — because nothing says "founding fathers" like turning a national arts center into a personality cult annex.
With ticket sales collapsing and patrons mailing back shredded season brochures labeled "orange menace", the Washington National Opera finally noped out and is taking its endowment fight to the lawyers. Grenell’s crackpot demand that every production be "net neutral" — fully funded in advance like some MAGA bake sale — made serious opera impossible, so the company is moving to universities and other venues that don’t require artistic directors to clear ideas with a reality TV landlord.
Then came the pièce de résistance: Trump literally stapled his name onto JFK’s memorial. Just before Christmas, the words "The Donald J Trump and" were bolted above "The John F Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts" in mismatched letters that look like they were sourced from the Four Seasons Total Landscaping gift shop. The legality of randomly renaming a congressionally designated memorial after yourself while you’re still alive is, shockingly, "disputed" — but sure, tell us more about how this is all about respecting history and tradition.
Now insiders say the place feels like a "funeral parlour" as cancellations pile up and the building’s new branding project — turning a national arts institution into a cult-of-personality billboard — meets the one force Trump can’t bully: everyone simply refusing to show up.
Source: theguardian.com
#forever-grifting#killing-democracy