trump loses to fish, again
Artist’s impression of the Trump administration being outperformed by a salmon swimming upstream against both dams and deregulation.
The Trump administration just got out-lawyered by salmon. A federal judge in Oregon ordered the government to change how it runs eight Columbia and Snake River dams after Trump tore up a painstakingly negotiated, $1bn salmon recovery agreement and declared it “radical environmentalism” — which is MAGA for “we read the science and didn’t light it on fire.”
Instead of following the Resilient Columbia Basin Agreement, which would have helped replace dam hydropower with new clean energy while keeping salmon alive, Trump’s team marched back into court armed with what Judge Michael Simon politely described as evidence that contradicted the scientific record and was basically manufactured for the lawsuit. This, on top of the administration yanking a 2024 Interior Department report that admitted the dams had hammered the river and Native American tribes — you know, the people whose treaty rights the government is supposedly required to honor, not delete.
The judge restored last year’s flow and reservoir levels with some modest boosts for fish, calling out a "disappointing history of government avoidance and manipulation" instead of actually fixing the problem. Tribes, states, and conservation groups are treating the ruling as emergency triage to keep salmon from disappearing completely, while Trump’s people tried and failed to sell "putting people over fish" as a serious policy framework rather than a bumper sticker for dismantling environmental protections and treaty obligations.
#killing-democracy#forever-grifting
trump turns ice into cosplay cops and a personal pardon hotline
Future of American higher education: get a dorm, buy textbooks, hope federal agents don’t fake a missing child to drag you out in handcuffs.
Columbia student and influencer Elmina Aghayeva was yanked out of her university housing after ICE agents allegedly showed up with fake NYPD badges and a heartwarming story about a missing 5-year-old girl, which is apparently what passes for "standard operating procedure" in Trump's second term. Campus housing/security reportedly let them in, thinking they were helping a child in danger, not assisting a federal sting operation on a student whose visa issue dates back to 2016.
While ICE and DHS now swear they would never pretend to be NYPD and that their totally real badges were visible the whole time, New York officials say the agents misrepresented themselves to access the dorm. Meanwhile, Columbia's president politely describes it as "misrepresentations" instead of what normal people call it: lying your way into a student's home. All this to grab a foreign student whose great crime is a lapsed visa in a country where Jared Kushner still walks free.
The punchline: Aghayeva is released not because a judge reviewed the case, not because due process was followed, but because New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani was literally at the White House and got Trump to personally pick up the phone and say she’d be freed "imminently." Immigration enforcement has now been downgraded from a legal system to a customer service hotline where outcomes depend on whether your mayor can get face time with Dear Leader and bring a list of other detained, pro-Palestinian students as a side quest.
As New York politicians scramble to propose laws to keep ICE out of "sensitive locations" like schools and dorms, Trump’s federal crackdown on immigration keeps scooping up university students while the administration insists everything is perfectly normal. Just ignore the fake badges, the phony missing-child story, and the fact that your civil liberties now depend on whether your local official can get a same-day appointment with the president.
#killing-democracy#anti-immigration#lawlessness
historic landmark to be replaced by trump's ego with chandeliers
President Trump smiles, presumably imagining the East Wing replaced with a 1,000-seat shrine to his own reflection.
The federal judiciary has graciously informed America that Donald Trump’s plan to partially gut the East Wing of the White House for a $300 million, donor-funded mega-ballroom can keep rolling for now. Trump immediately took to Truth Social to announce that the judge had "completely erased" the pesky effort to stop him, which is a bold interpretation of an opinion that explicitly invited the plaintiffs to come back and argue that the president is acting beyond his legal authority. Reading comprehension remains, as ever, an optional feature in this administration.
The National Trust for Historic Preservation is suing because Trump decided to tear into a national landmark and pass the hat to private donors like it’s a Mar-a-Lago expansion, not the actual White House. Judge Richard Leon didn’t say the scheme is legal; he said the lawsuit needs a procedural tune-up and practically begged them to refile with a sharper claim that Trump is exceeding his statutory authority. The Trust, noting the judge agreed they have standing, says they’ll do exactly that. So the bulldozers get a head start while the lawyers reword the obvious: the president is not supposed to treat the People’s House like a GoFundMe for his event-planning fantasies.
Meanwhile, Trump’s dream ballroom — 1,000 seats of pure, taxpayer-adjacent opulence — glides through “oversight” bodies now stuffed with his loyal appointees. The Commission of Fine Arts signed off despite not having seen the final design, and despite public comments running roughly 99% against the project. When nearly the entire public says "absolutely not" and the handpicked commission says "rubber-stamped," that’s not governance, it’s a zoning board cosplay of authoritarianism. Next up is the National Capital Planning Commission, also dominated by Trump allies, because if you’re going to reconfigure a historic democratic symbol to host bigger inauguration parties, you may as well have your own people holding the clipboards.
Trump promises the ballroom will host future inaugurations and large state visits, be ahead of schedule and under budget, and "stand long into the future as a symbol to the Greatness of America!" Which is one way to describe a privately financed, legally dubious expansion of the White House pushed through by captured boards over the near-unanimous objections of the public. The rest of us might call it a monument to the era when a president tried to turn the seat of government into a branded events venue, and the system’s checks and balances responded: "Please resubmit your complaint in the correct format."
#corruption#killing-democracy
tim kaine keeps speed‑dialing the constitution
Tim Kaine, politely asking Congress to try this new thing called 'doing its constitutional duty' before Trump starts another forever war from his phone.
Sen. Tim Kaine is once again trying the radical idea that the branch of government actually empowered to declare war should maybe, possibly, have a say before President Trump starts lobbing missiles around like he's rage‑tweeting with explosives. On NPR, Kaine talks about his latest war powers resolution, because the last several decades of bipartisan abdication apparently weren’t enough of a constitutional bonfire.
Congress, having outsourced its war‑making authority to whichever president last found the launch codes, is now shocked that Trump treats the military like his own private security firm with nukes. Kaine’s resolution is an attempt to drag the legislative branch back into its job description, clawing back some oversight from an executive who thinks "checks and balances" means making sure the Sharpies work on the nuclear football. The bar is now so low that “follow the Constitution” counts as bold resistance.
#killing-democracy#imperialism
golden age of american carnage
Trump delivers a State of the Union that’s half campaign rally, half horror podcast, while Congress pretends this is just another Tuesday in a functioning republic.
Trump’s latest State of the Union was billed as a "golden age of America" but played more like a Netflix true-crime marathon directed by Steve Bannon. The president spent his time on national television lovingly narrating blood loss, shredded limbs, and slashed throats, then stapling those images to his favorite campaign prop: immigrants. The country is apparently thriving, yet also a crime-ridden hellscape that only Trump’s iron fist can tame. Very normal democratic rhetoric.
Rather than talk policy like a functioning head of state, Trump turned the House chamber into a snuff-adjacent rally, complete with graphic play-by-play of a National Guard member’s shooting and a Medal of Honor recipient’s "blood flowing back down the aisle" of a helicopter. Then he took a real murder in North Carolina and falsely claimed the suspect came through "open borders" — a lie local reporting quickly torched. The White House’s response? Silence, of course. Why correct the record when the fear is doing exactly what it’s supposed to do?
The through line of the whole spectacle was simple: exploit individual tragedies, selectively omit timelines that make him look incompetent (like declaring D.C. crime "solved" right before Guard members are ambushed), and insist that Democrats are to blame for every horror because they won’t rubber-stamp his mass-deportation agenda. Trump wrapped it all up by chastising Democrats for not backing his crackdown, as if refusing to clap for weaponized xenophobia is the real scandal. Welcome to the "golden age" — where the president narrates carnage to justify state cruelty, then calls it strength.
#killing-democracy#anti-immigration
anti-war president bravely considers starting new war
Trump explains that he was always against stupid wars, right up until he needed a smart one with no evidence and a really big troop deployment.
Donald Trump, the guy who swore he was elected to end "these ridiculous endless wars", is now assembling the biggest invasion force since Iraq and refusing to tell anyone what he plans to do with it. Democrats emerged from a classified Iran briefing with Marco Rubio – yes, that foreign policy heavyweight – to warn that something massive might be coming, while also carefully avoiding the one clear sentence available: "No, you cannot start another Middle East war on vibes and Fox hits."
Instead, we get a familiar Bush-era remix: first Iran is bad because of its crackdown on protesters, then because of its nuclear program, then because of missiles, then because Trump claims – without evidence – that Tehran is building rockets that can soon hit the US. This is all happening after last summer’s "Midnight Hammer" strikes that Trump said had already "obliterated" Iran’s nuclear program, which apparently has Schrödinger’s enrichment facilities: simultaneously destroyed forever and such an urgent threat we might need a full-scale war.
JD Vance, Rubio, and real estate developer-turned-envoy Steve Witkoff are out insisting this totally isn’t Iraq 2.0, while literally recycling the Iraq 1.0 script about a "clear and present danger" and weapons that can strike us any minute now (evidence to follow, never). House Democrats, after "tumultuous internal deliberation" – also known as checking the polls – are bravely planning to force Trump to come explain his war plans to Congress, which they describe as potentially "unconstitutional" without authorization, as if the administration hasn’t been sprinting past constitutional guardrails for years. The president who ran against foreign wars is now edging toward starting a new one, and Washington’s main concern seems to be making sure the paperwork looks tidy on the way to the next disaster.
#killing-democracy#imperialism
first lady cosplay: melania to chair un security council
Melania Trump practices wielding the UN security council gavel, presumably after clearing it with the board of peace legal department at Mar-a-Lago.
The United States has taken over the rotating presidency of the UN security council, so naturally Donald Trump has handed the gavel to the most qualified person he could find: his wife. Melania Trump will preside over a formal session of the 15‑member body on "Children, Technology, and Education in Conflict," because nothing says functioning democracy like turning the world’s top security forum into a family side gig. The White House is proudly touting this as the first time a sitting first lady has chaired the council, which is a bit like bragging that you’re the first person to perform brain surgery because you once watched a YouTube video about it.
Normally, these meetings are run by UN ambassadors or senior cabinet officials – you know, people whose job description includes "diplomacy" instead of "Christmas décor and cyberbullying slogans." But while Melania gavels in the session, Mike Waltz and the rest of the actual diplomats will sit politely and pretend this is all very normal, as the administration wraps foreign policy, child abductions in Ukraine, and global security in a glossy PR bow.
All of this is happening while Trump is busy attacking the UN as "ineffective," withdrawing the US from WHO and the UNFCCC, cutting aid to Palestinian refugees, and trying to build his own knockoff alternative, the "board of peace" – a kind of wish.com United Nations run out of his ego. So on one track, he’s gutting multilateral institutions; on the other, he’s using what’s left of them as a stage set for the Trump brand. The message to the world is clear: US institutions are now props, and the presidency is a family business – global security council included.
#killing-democracy#oligarchy
trump calls nyc mayor a communist, also his new best friend
Trump explaining that the communist mayor he totally likes, totally hates, and totally controls with tunnel money is actually proof the system is working beautifully.
Donald Trump has once again invited New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani to Washington, because nothing says "functioning democracy" like the president publicly branding you a communist while privately insisting you’re "a very rational person" and "a nice guy." Republicans are still screaming that Mamdani will destroy New York City, while Trump’s over here doing the political equivalent of, "He’s terrible, I love him, we talk all the time, don’t worry about it."
The White House won’t say what this meeting is actually about, but we do know Trump just thawed $127 million in previously frozen federal funds for the Hudson River tunnel project after weeks of railing against it and swearing the feds wouldn’t cover cost overruns. So the president is simultaneously attacking critical infrastructure on TV, quietly turning the money spigot on and off, and keeping his chats with the mayor "private" while announcing from the State of the Union podium that he speaks to Mamdani "a lot." Totally normal, very transparent, not at all a guy using federal cash and access as a personal patronage system.
So Mamdani flies to D.C. again to "focus on bettering New York City," while Trump gets to play mob landlord of the tri-state area: insult you in public, dangle tunnel money in private, then brag about how often you call. American federalism has apparently been replaced with vibes-based infrastructure and whatever Trump thinks after his third Diet Coke.
#killing-democracy#money
state department rolls out red carpet for britain’s bargain-bin fascist
Tommy Robinson tours the State Department, where "America First" visa policy means extremists enter, students exit, and the rule of law is held at passport control for questioning.
The Trump administration has decided that what American democracy really needs is an imported thug with a fraud conviction and a fake passport habit, so naturally the State Department welcomed UK far-right activist Tommy Robinson (Stephen Yaxley-Lennon) like he’s Václav Havel instead of a street-brawling bigot. Senior State adviser Joe Rittenhouse – self-branded architect of an "America First visa policy" – proudly paraded Robinson around Foggy Bottom, calling him a "free speech warrior" and declaring that "no one" has been more on the front lines for free expression. Bold claim for a guy whose CV reads like a Crown Prosecution Service greatest hits compilation: fraud, violence, drug possession, and an earlier attempt to sneak into the US on a false passport.
British MPs, who still remember what rule of law is supposed to look like, are calling this a "wake-up call" and want the US added to the UK’s inquiry into foreign interference. Meanwhile, the same State Department crew that bent rules to get Robinson in has been yanking visas from pro-Palestine students and people deemed insufficiently sad about Charlie Kirk’s assassination, all while "moving mountains" to bring back rightwing influencers whose media ventures were caught bathing in Russian money. So the message from Trump’s Washington is crystal clear: if you’re a violent far-right crank or Kremlin-adjacent propagandist, the door is open; if you’re a student protester, enjoy your deportation.
All of this unfolds against a Trump national security strategy that literally aligns US interests with European far-right politics, turning American foreign policy into a kind of international white grievance exchange program. Robinson, ever the opportunist, is using the trip to hit MAGA media, court donors, and scope out a potential relocation and asylum bid, because nothing says "persecuted truth-teller" like trying to cash in on the same country whose immigration system you once tried to scam with a fake passport. The State Department insists this was just an "unofficial" visit, which is a cute way of saying: we’re absolutely using the machinery of the US government to mainstream extremists, we’d just prefer not to file the paperwork honestly.
#fascism#killing-democracy
trump slaps sanctions on free speech, gets sued by the bill of rights
The First Amendment, seen here being routed through OFAC before it's allowed to speak.
The Trump administration has discovered a bold new interpretation of the First Amendment: you’re free to speak, and they’re free to financially strangle you and your family if they don’t like what you say. Francesca Albanese, the UN special rapporteur on human rights in the occupied Palestinian territories, was sanctioned by the US for describing Israel’s Gaza campaign as genocide and for criticizing US support. Now her husband and minor child – including their American daughter – are suing the White House, arguing that maybe, just maybe, the government isn’t supposed to ruin your life because it fears your persuasiveness.
The lawsuit details how the sanctions have wrecked the family’s ability to live and work in Washington, right down to accessing their own home, because nothing says "land of the free" like using financial warfare against a UN investigator for her reports. Washington had already thrown a tantrum at the UN trying to get Albanese fired; when that failed, the administration simply slapped sanctions on her, branding her work a "campaign of political and economic warfare" – which is rich coming from the people literally weaponizing the US sanctions regime against a critic.
Albanese, an Italian human rights lawyer, has continued issuing reports accusing Israel of genocide and outlining what she calls a "genocidal economy" in the Palestinian territories, while Israeli UN ambassador Danny Danon accused her of turning the word "genocide" into a weapon. The US, meanwhile, is busy turning the Treasury Department into a speech-policing squad, casually testing whether they can punish a foreign official and her American family for saying things the president and his friends don’t like. It’s less "shining city on a hill" and more "petty authoritarian HOA with nukes."
#killing-democracy#lawlessness#imperialism
trump’s ‘cheap energy’ plan: export the gas, jack the bills
Energy Secretary Chris Wright patiently explains that exporting your gas and raising your bills is actually a huge win—for his donors.
Democrats and progressives are politely pointing out that the Trump administration’s latest miracle of "America First" energy policy mostly puts Americans last on the billing list. Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, and seven other senators just sent Energy Secretary Chris Wright a letter explaining basic supply and demand to a government that prefers campaign checks to math: when you ship record amounts of liquefied natural gas overseas, there’s less left at home and—wild concept—people’s heating and power bills go up.
Under Biden, LNG exports boomed; under Trump 2.0, they strapped on a jetpack, jumping 26% in 2025 with another 8% hike expected this year. The US became the first country ever to export more than 100 million metric tons of LNG in a year, which the White House is bragging about like it’s a humanitarian accomplishment instead of a giant "we sold your gas to someone else" banner. Meanwhile, Americans’ electricity costs rose 6.7% in 2025, a funny outcome for a president who promised to cut bills in half. Turns out the only thing he slashed was the distance between your paycheck and your utility’s "past due" notice.
While households are choosing between heat and groceries, Cheniere Energy and Venture Global are having a fantastic time. The top LNG exporters posted big earnings, their executives donated to Trump’s re-election effort, attended a fundraiser where he reportedly asked the fossil fuel industry for a casual $1 billion, and in return the administration keeps promising to "double the natural gas exports." It’s less an energy policy than a loyalty program: you give Trump cash, he gives you the country’s fuel supply and sends the bill to everyone else.
The senators are now asking Wright to reconsider this little oligarch enrichment scheme and provide a written response on how he’ll reduce consumers’ utility bills. Given this administration’s track record, the reply will likely be a press release celebrating "historic energy dominance" and a fresh photo op of Trump hugging a pipeline while your thermostat stays at 62 degrees.
#forever-grifting#money
homeland security discovers bold new mission: paying trump’s campaign staff
Kristi Noem and Corey Lewandowski bravely defending the homeland from the grave threat of insufficiently subsidized Trump consultants.
The Department of Homeland Security, traditionally tasked with things like "security" and "homeland", has decided its real priority is cutting a $250,000 check to a brand-new Trumpworld consultancy whose main qualification is being extremely MAGA on TV. The contract was posted, bids were due the next day, and the work description literally demanded that the winner have a “track record of promoting Trump administration policies in the media.” Federal procurement rules say contracts must be awarded with “complete impartiality and preferential treatment for none,” so DHS helpfully wrote the violation directly into the posting, just to save investigators some time.
Four days later, the money lands with American Made Media Company, a fresh-off-the-assembly-line Republican political consulting shop run by Trump campaign veterans Sean Dollman, Nick Trainer, and Justin Clark – the same Justin Clark who helped Trump fight Congress’s attempts to get January 6 records. The firm has no real history of government work, but it does have a deep history of getting paid by Trump; Dollman previously ran the shell company that quietly processed $782m in 2020 campaign spending. Now these guys will be paid with your tax dollars to provide “strategic counsel” to Kristi Noem, pick media outlets that are “aligned with DHS priorities,” and craft talking points for border crackdowns and immigration enforcement. So yes, the federal government is now openly financing the propaganda arm of Trump’s political machine.
Overseeing this very normal, not-at-all-corrupt arrangement: Corey Lewandowski, now Kristi Noem’s chief adviser and apparently the department’s unofficial contracts czar. According to FEMA and DHS officials, six-figure contracts now flow through the secretary’s office, where Noem and Lewandowski get a much bigger say than is standard. Watchdogs and procurement experts are practically blinking in Morse code for "this is corrupt as hell": a 31-hour bid window, an obviously preselected winner, and a written requirement that the contractor be pro-Trump. One expert called it a “blazing red flag” and said she’d never seen anything this brazen in 20 years. The DHS spokesperson, meanwhile, assures everyone that the process reflected “transparency” and “maximum competition,” which is an interesting way to describe a contest where the rules were basically: must love Trump, must be friends with Corey, must enjoy long walks on the beach and light violations of federal acquisition regulations.
#forever-grifting#corruption
octagon of democracy: ufc moves into the white house
The People’s House, now available as an octagon rental—founders not included, terms and conditions apply.
The Founders dreamed of a noble republic, and 250 years later we’ve arrived at: cage fights on the South Lawn. Donald Trump is celebrating America’s semiquincentennial by turning the White House into a UFC pop-up venue, complete with 5,000 live spectators on the lawn and another 80,000 people watching from the Ellipse, because nothing says "stable democracy" like turning the executive mansion into the world’s tackiest pay-per-view backdrop.
TKO president Mark Shapiro swears the UFC won’t "profit" from the reported $60m extravaganza, calling it a "long-term investment" in earned media—which is a poetic way of saying they’re using the presidency as a marketing campaign while corporate sponsors pick up half the tab. Trump, of course, promises the "biggest" fights ever, because if there’s one constant in this administration, it’s that everything is the biggest, greatest, and most historically important branding opportunity in human history.
While Jon Jones, Conor McGregor, Amanda Nunes, and others angle for a spot on the card, the real main event is the slow-motion TKO of basic norms: the White House as set piece, the presidency as ring announcer, and American independence repackaged as a cross-promotion between a sitting president and his billionaire fight-promoter pal. Checks and balances are out; cage and canvas are in.
#killing-democracy#forever-grifting
trump proves autocracy is a choice, not a fate
Donald Trump, heroic freedom fighter against the tyranny of counting all the votes.
Western democracy is having a midlife crisis, and Donald Trump is the guy it met on Facebook Marketplace who insists you don’t need brakes if you believe hard enough. Kenneth Roth points out that while Trump and his far-right pals across Britain, Germany, and France are busy normalizing contempt for elections, courts, and basic reality, the people who actually know what dictatorship feels like are in the streets risking prison and bullets to demand democracy.
Meanwhile, a chunk of the western working class, ground down by inequality and ignored by the political establishment, has decided that the answer to "no one listens to us" is "let’s back the guy who openly wants fewer checks on his power." Trump and his imitators offer them nothing material, but do provide an endless buffet of scapegoats: immigrants, minorities, "elites," anyone except the billionaires writing the checks. It’s a familiar Trump-era special: authoritarianism dressed up as anti-elite populism, then served with a side of tax cuts for donors.
Roth notes that in the global south, people who’ve actually lived under autocrats are busy toppling them — from Bangladesh’s Sheikh Hasina to Sri Lanka’s Rajapaksas, from Bolsonaro getting voted out in Brazil to Polish voters finally ejecting Law and Justice. While Trump whines that American democracy is "rigged" because it occasionally makes him lose, protesters from Hong Kong to Uganda are literally dying for the thing he treats as an obstacle to better TV ratings.
So no, autocracy isn’t "inevitable" — it’s a series of choices made by politicians like Trump who want power without accountability, and by parties too cowardly to confront them. The global south keeps proving people will fight for democracy. The question is whether the US will keep handing the car keys to the guy repeatedly trying to drive the Constitution into a wall.
#killing-democracy#fascism
blue states roll out 'no thanks, former ice goons' policy
ICE recruiters explain that joining Trump’s deportation surge is totally normal public service and definitely won’t haunt your résumé for the rest of your natural life.
Trump’s deportation army is having a bit of a PR problem. After Congress showered ICE with nearly $30bn via the "One Big Beautiful Bill Act" (subtle) and the agency went on a "wartime recruitment" binge complete with $50,000 signing bonuses and xenophobic memes, the country got what it paid for: masked agents, racial profiling, illegal detentions, family separations, and now people being shot in the street. Shockingly, some Democratic-led states have decided that if you sign up to be part of Trump’s mass-deportation cosplay, you don’t get to waltz back into a nice, respectable government job later like it was all just a quirky gap year.
New Jersey’s Ravi Bhalla wants anyone who joins ICE during Trump’s current term permanently barred from state and local government work. Maryland’s "ICE Breaker Act" would keep fresh ICE recruits out of state police, especially now that at least one Trump-pardoned January 6 rioter has landed a Justice Department job, because nothing says "public safety" like insurrection alumni and deportation enforcers with guns. California’s "Melt Ice" act goes further, telling would-be agents that if they sign up for Trump’s deportation surge, they can forget about becoming teachers or cops in the nation’s largest state. Republicans are clutching their pearls about "employment discrimination" while DHS insists ICE agents are "heroes"—a bold branding exercise for an agency currently associated with masked raids, street stops of "people who look undocumented," and a couple of very public shootings.
Meanwhile, Senate Democrats are holding up DHS funding until Republicans agree to the wild, radical notion that maybe armed federal officers shouldn’t roam around in masks, break into private property without warrants, or stop random people on the street because they look foreign. DHS has technically shut down, but the deportation machine keeps humming along on Trump’s giant pre-funded slush bill. So states are doing the only thing left in a system where federal accountability is a rumor: drawing a bright line that says, if you proudly sign up to carry out this administration’s civil-rights-abusing deportation crusade, don’t expect a soft landing in our schools, police forces, or civil service later. Actions, meet consequences.
#killing-democracy#anti-immigration#lawlessness
whirlpool loves trump’s tariffs so much it’s firing americans in two installments
Trump-era manufacturing policy in one photo: a "Buy American" banner hanging over a factory parking lot that’s mysteriously half-empty.
Whirlpool, once hailed by Trump as a "shining example" of buy American, hire American, is celebrating that legacy by firing American workers and hiring in Mexico. The company is axing 341 jobs at its Amana, Iowa plant — on top of 250 cuts last year — while quietly ramping up production at a shiny new Mexican facility it opened in 2025. The local workforce has been gutted from nearly 3,000 people to about 1,300, and union reps say more cuts are already scheduled. Seven small Iowa towns built around that plant? Collateral damage in the great MAGA manufacturing revival.
This is all happening as Whirlpool keeps praising Trump’s tariff policies on Fox News like a grateful infomercial host. The same tariffs it once called a win "for American workers" have helped the US shed 83,000 factory jobs since Trump took office in 2025, jacked up appliance prices by an estimated $1.5bn a year for consumers, and — chef’s kiss — cost Whirlpool itself about $300m in 2025. Naturally, CEO Marc Bitzer is "very thankful" for this masterclass in paying more to sell less while still offshoring jobs.
Meanwhile, Whirlpool has hoovered up millions in state subsidies and tax credits in Iowa, then thanked taxpayers by shipping their jobs south of the border under the very USMCA deal Trump sold as the improved, job-saving NAFTA. Workers losing their jobs get no severance, lose health insurance immediately, and face shorter unemployment benefits after Iowa helpfully slashed eligibility in 2022. Corporate welfare stays generous, worker welfare gets shredded, and Trump’s America First manufacturing miracle turns out to be the same old corporate abandonment — just wrapped in a red hat and a tariff press release.
#forever-grifting#killing-democracy
oklahoma governor discovers 'integrity,' checks watch, realizes it's 2026
Kevin Stitt, bravely advocating for integrity while standing in the smoking crater of a party that spent a decade bulldozing it.
Kevin Stitt, governor of the state that handed Trump 66% of the vote, has looked around at the authoritarian cosplay, the mass-deportation talk, and the petty vendettas against offshore wind and decided the GOP should, quote, "get back to integrity." Bold stance, only ten years and several constitutional crises late. He calls Trump’s move to yank permits from an almost-finished Rhode Island wind project "un-American" — which is a polite way of saying "governing as personal spite," also known as the Trump administration’s core competency.
The governor then wanders into immigration heresy, asking the forbidden question: is the actual plan to deport every undocumented person in the country, or is Trump just yelling words again? Stitt suggests work visas for undocumented workers and complains about federal immigration raids trampling states’ rights, which is deeply offensive to an administration that views the law as a suggestion and the states as potential backdrops for campaign rallies.
As chair of the National Governors Association, Stitt also had to explain to Trump that if you only invite Republican governors to the White House, you can’t pretend it’s an NGA event representing all 50 states. After some public sulking and a phone call from Dear Leader, the White House grudgingly invited everyone — while still snubbing two Democrats from the formal dinner, because petty exclusion is now official governing strategy. Bipartisanship, but make it middle-school cafeteria.
And then there’s Stitt’s relationship with the Cherokee Nation: he celebrates his Cherokee heritage while fighting tribal sovereignty in court, opposing the Supreme Court ruling that affirmed tribal jurisdiction over "Indian country" and getting sued by multiple tribes over state enforcement of wildlife laws on tribal land. So yes, he’s against Trump’s federal overreach, but very into his own state-level overreach. The GOP’s post-Trump vision, apparently, is fewer wind farms, more lawsuits from Native nations, and a slightly nicer tone while they keep playing "who actually gets to have rights" on hard mode.
#killing-democracy#lawlessness
kash patel turns the fbi into trump’s hr department
Aerial view of the world’s most successful evidence-tampering crime scene, now with built-in presidential immunity and oceanfront classified storage.
Kash Patel, now running the FBI like Trump’s personal revenge startup, has fired at least six agents involved in the 2022 Mar-a-Lago search, plus several other staffers who made the unforgivable mistake of doing their jobs when the president was hoarding classified documents at his beach country club. The message is clear: investigate Trump, lose your job. Steal government secrets and refuse to give them back? That’s a staffing priority at this administration’s other Florida office.
This little loyalty purge lands the same day Patel loudly complained that the prior FBI leadership obtained his phone records and those of current White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles as part of the Trump investigations. Rather than dispute the legality, he just screams “outrageous” and then immediately starts firing the people connected to the probe. Independent law enforcement is so 2015; now we have an Official Enemies List Division.
The firings are part of a wider campaign to clear out anyone tied not just to the Trump cases but also to the Jan. 6 investigation that produced hundreds of charges against rioters. One of the previously fired officials, David Sundberg, is now running for Congress, presumably on the “I was punished for trying to uphold the law” ticket. Meanwhile, Patel is catching heat for chugging beers in the U.S. men’s hockey locker room at the Olympics, which is perfect: your federal police chief is too busy doing frat-house cosplay abroad to explain why the nation’s top law enforcement agency is being remodeled into Trump’s personal protection racket at home.
#killing-democracy#fascism
state of the union, state of the dumpster fire
Trump delivers the longest State of the Union in history, seen here testing how far you can stretch a speech before facts experience total organ failure.
Donald Trump’s record-long State of the Union was less a policy speech and more a two-hour hostage video for reality itself. He bragged that the economy is perfect, inflation is tamed, and a golden age is dawning, while Democrats responded with the traditional constitutional remedy for gaslighting: calling him a liar on national television. Ilhan Omar went a bit further, noting that Trump’s policies literally killed two of her constituents, which is a pretty strong review of the administration’s public safety record. Republicans, led by JD Vance, decided the real scandal wasn’t dead constituents, but Democrats not standing up on cue like trained seals.
The president then jumped on Truth Social to call Omar and Rashida Tlaib “low IQ” and threatened to “send them back from where they came from – as fast as possible,” which is a bold thing to say about two US citizens serving in Congress, and a neat little fascism speedrun in 17 words or less. While Trump was fantasizing about deporting elected officials, Capitol police arrested Omar’s guest Aliya Rahman – a US citizen previously dragged from her car by immigration agents – for the crime of… standing up during the speech. The message is clear: if you’re brown and not applauding loudly enough, the security state is happy to help you find the exit.
Out in the policy swamp, JD Vance helpfully announced the administration is “temporarily” halting over a quarter billion dollars in Medicaid reimbursements to Minnesota as part of Trump’s shiny new “war on fraud,” which coincidentally looks a lot like a war on poor people and blue states. A federal judge, apparently still dimly aware that laws exist, ruled Trump’s scheme of deporting immigrants to random “third countries” they have no connection to is unlawful and must be set aside – but generously gave the government 15 days to appeal, so they have time to brainstorm an even more creative way to break the law.
Meanwhile, Trump’s nominee for surgeon general, wellness influencer Casey Means, did her best impression of a Goop newsletter and dodged basic vaccine questions, just as more than a dozen states sued the administration for rolling back childhood vaccine recommendations. Public health is being run like a sponsored Instagram reel. Over at the FBI, whistleblowers say director Kash Patel’s personal travel and decision-making are sabotaging major investigations, because why have an independent law enforcement agency when you can have a road-tripping Trump loyalist kneecapping cases from 30,000 feet? And at DOJ, the antitrust chief Gail Slater was forced out under a cloud, prompting House Democrats to demand a briefing on why corporate power keeps winning and regulators keep disappearing. The State of the Union may be strong, but the state of the rule of law is on a ventilator.
#killing-democracy#anti-immigration
vance discovers new hobby: holding poor people’s insulin hostage
J.D. Vance explaining which children, seniors, and disabled people will be used as leverage today, purely out of fiscal responsibility of course.
J.D. Vance has apparently decided that the best way to demonstrate the compassion and moral seriousness of the Trump administration is to suspend federal Medicaid payments to Minnesota, because nothing screams "constitutional federalism" like cutting off healthcare money to millions of low‑income residents over a political fight with their state government.
This is not budget policy, it’s a hostage situation. The White House found a way to turn Medicaid — the basic safety net program for poor kids, disabled people, seniors in nursing homes, and low-wage workers — into a blunt-force political weapon. Minnesota elects a Democratic governor? Cool story, says Vance; enjoy explaining to your hospitals, clinics, and patients why Washington just kneecapped their funding. The message to every other state is clear: obey, or we’ll see how your ICU does without federal cash.
There’s barely even a pretense of legality here. Congress created and funds Medicaid, but Vance is standing in front of cameras acting like he personally owns the money and can flip the switch off whenever a state displeases Dear Leader. It’s the same old Trump formula: take a core function of government, break it on purpose, then brag to the base about how tough you are while people scramble to figure out whether grandma’s nursing home still gets paid next month.
So while Republicans on TV rave about the president’s "vision" and "unity" after the State of the Union, his vice president is busy testing how far they can go in turning federal benefits into a loyalty program. Health care as protection racket: nice Medicaid program you’ve got there, Minnesota. Be a shame if something happened to it.
#killing-democracy#healthcare
