new jersey turns an ice hunger strike into a bipartisan police riot
Bravely standing up for the right of corporations to profit off human misery, a man in a MAGA hat explains that *actually* the real victims are ICE agents not being cheered loudly enough.
Inside Delaney Hall, immigrants have been on a hunger and labor strike for nine days asking for such outrageous luxuries as medical care and for their cases to actually be processed. Guards, working for private prison giant Geo Group, responded by pepper-spraying detainees who tried to stop them from disappearing the one guy helping translate. America’s unique blend of due process and chemical weapons continues apace.
Out on the sidewalk, the morality play writes itself: protesters backing the strikers on one side, a sad little cluster of Trump fans and Proud Boys on the other, chanting their support for ICE like it’s a beloved sports team instead of a deportation machine. New Jersey governor Mikie Sherrill stepped in to take policing around the facility away from ICE, then immediately proved nothing really changed by sending in state troopers with horses, pepper balls, and teargas to "manage" the protests and build a "protected speech zone" — also known as a First Amendment timeout corner.
Over at DHS, Secretary Markwayne Mullin jumped on social media to thank the Democratic governor for helping "restore law and order" and to assure everyone that the administration totally supports the right to peacefully protest, as long as no one objects too loudly to people being gassed, caged, or starved in a for-profit detention center. Meanwhile, the strikers’ top demand — a meeting with the governor — went unanswered; she was literally turned away at the door of the prison she’s now proudly helping secure. Authoritarian synergy achieved.
#killing-democracy#anti-immigration#fascism
trump’s balkans pipeline of pure grift
Nothing says "serious energy consortium" like your billion‑dollar pipeline team posing in Sarajevo like they’re on a Maga study-abroad program.
In a charming Sarajevo backstreet, past the graffiti and weeds, sits the registered "office" of AAFS Infrastructure and Energy, a company with roughly the same track record in major infrastructure as Eric Trump has in coherent thought. This tiny outfit is somehow on the verge of scoring more than $1bn in contracts to build a strategic gas pipeline across the Balkans that U.S. officials are aggressively pushing Bosnia to approve.
The secret sauce isn’t engineering expertise; it’s Maga pedigree. AAFS’s Washington address is literally the office of Jesse Binnall, the Trump lawyer who spent 2020 yelling that Trump actually won after you "account for the fraud" and then defended the Trumps over January 6. His partner in this Balkan adventure? Joe Flynn, brother of disgraced former national security adviser Michael Flynn, another charter member of the coup cosplay club. Both men went from trying to overturn U.S. democracy to selling gas pipelines in a region where a badly handled power play can destabilize the fragile peace that ended a genocidal war.
Meanwhile, the local front man is Amer Bekan, a would‑be politician accused of gaming Bosnian elections for personal gain (he denies it), now promising that his once-obscure firm is about to blossom into a 100-employee powerhouse. U.S. diplomats have made it crystal clear to Bosnia’s leaders what the Trump administration wants: greenlight this no‑history company that just happens to be welded to Trump’s legal and political inner circle. It’s a textbook example of how the presidency has been turned into an international cash machine for the ruling family and their hangers-on, with Balkan stability and global energy politics as collateral damage.
#forever-grifting#corruption#killing-democracy
trump discovers women’s sports now that football money is at risk
Donald Trump, lifelong champion of women’s athletics, moments before remembering that Title IX doesn’t have a Mar-a-Lago membership tier.
Donald Trump has signed an executive order to "save" college sports, which is a bit like putting the arsonist in charge of the fire department because he really, really likes watching flames. The order frets that big-time college football might rip itself away from the NCAA money trough and stop subsidizing women’s and Olympic sports, and calls on Congress to act before anyone notices that the real problem is the system that treats unpaid athletes as walking billboards.
The catch: this sudden concern for women’s sports is coming from the same guy whose Education Department made sure NIL money didn’t have to be equitably distributed under Title IX, weakening the very law that built women’s college athletics in the first place. Now Trump wants to "go exactly back to what we had and ram it through a court"—which apparently means rolling back athlete compensation while pretending to protect the sports his own policies helped endanger. Women and Olympic athletes might get a side benefit, but the priority is crystal clear: keep the football plantation intact, toss a few reporting requirements on top, and call it reform.
The result is a gloriously incoherent Trump 2.0 college sports agenda: Title IX is undermined, NIL is partially re-stuffed into the toothpaste tube, schools are ordered to count things they were already legally required to count, and everyone prays the courts will rescue the old order from the radical threat of players being paid. If women’s sports survive this, it’ll be as an accidental byproduct of the administration’s real mission—protecting the cash flow of the most powerful programs while blaming "wokeness" when non-revenue teams get cut.
#killing-democracy#forever-grifting
trump’s senate fight club: indicted guys, nazi tattoos, and a prayer
Ken Paxton, freshly crowned GOP Senate nominee, practices his new campaign slogan: “Indicted, Impeached, Endorsed by Trump – what could go wrong?”
Democrats are suddenly feeling frisky about the Senate because Republicans, under Trump’s spiritual guidance, keep nominating people who look like they were cast by central booking. Texas Republicans dumped John Cornyn for Ken Paxton, the attorney general best known for his impeachment, fraud indictments, and alleged affair. Naturally, Trump blessed him, because if your rap sheet doesn’t need a table of contents, are you even a MAGA candidate? Paxton will face Democrat James Talarico, a young pastor and lawmaker whose main scandal appears to be "reading bills before voting on them".
Elsewhere on Planet Stable Genius, Trump is busy reshaping the GOP bench into a loyalty cult with ballot access. In North Carolina, Thom Tillis – a Republican who occasionally remembered laws exist – is out, replaced by Trump-endorsed former RNC chair Michael Whatley, whose chief qualification is treating Trump like a constitutional branch of government. New Hampshire’s Republican field is a nostalgia tour of ex-senators and Sununus racing to see who can hug Trump the tightest, while in Georgia, the GOP primary is basically a proxy war between Trump and Brian Kemp over who gets to own Jon Ossoff’s mentions.
The real circus tent goes up in Maine, where Democrats are trying to oust Susan Collins with Graham Platner, an oyster farmer and self-styled anti-oligarchy populist who has already had to explain away controversial social media posts and a tattoo linked to Nazis that he now says he didn’t really understand. Truly nothing captures the current health of American democracy like choosing between a Republican who keeps pretending to be "concerned" about authoritarianism and a Democrat who has to issue a press release clarifying his relationship to Nazi iconography. Meanwhile in Michigan, outside money and Gaza politics are tearing Democrats into factions while Republicans quietly line up behind Mike Rogers, hoping to flip the seat and give Trump a more obedient Senate to rubber-stamp whatever constitutional bonfire he dreams up at 3am.
So yes, Democrats suddenly have a path to a majority – they just have to hold every blue seat, flip multiple red ones, and hope that voters in places like Texas, Ohio, and Alaska decide that indicted AGs, Trump vassals, and Nazi-adjacent tattoos might be a bit much. The fate of checks and balances now hinges on whether the country is tired enough of open corruption and creeping authoritarianism to vote for the candidates who don’t need a criminal defense fund or a cover-up appointment at the tattoo parlor.
#killing-democracy#fascism
art of the squeal: trump starts a war with iran, then tries to bargain his way out at $4.50 a gallon
Trump studies a map of the Middle East, searching for the ‘Any Key’ that returns everything to how it was before he touched it.
Trump, lifelong deal genius and part-time reality show extra, started a US–Israeli war with Iran to topple the regime and prove he was tougher than Obama’s 2015 nuclear agreement. Instead, he killed Ayatollah Khamenei, failed to collapse the government, and handed Tehran a golden opportunity to weaponize the Strait of Hormuz. Iran shut down a fifth of the world’s oil supply, smashed regional energy infrastructure, and sent gas prices in the US soaring by 50% while the stable genius frantically checked the midterm polls.
The White House then did what it does best: flail. Trump skipped Don Jr’s Bahamas wedding and a golf weekend because he thought he’d have a Camp David victory summit to announce his big peace deal. That got quietly downgraded back to the White House once it became apparent that Iran, which kept about 70% of its missiles and 75% of its launchers, had more leverage than the guy who wrote The Art of the Deal (with a ghostwriter). Now the “emerging deal” is about reopening a shipping lane that was open before Trump’s war, lifting a US blockade he created, and unfreezing $12bn in Iranian assets, while all the scary stuff he used to justify the war — nukes, missiles, Hezbollah, Hamas, Houthis — remains gloriously unresolved.
So after six weeks of bombing, a global energy shock, and a potential worldwide recession, Trump’s big win is: maybe we can get back to where we were before he blew up the Obama deal in 2018. Iran’s regime is more entrenched, its regional clout intact, and Washington is crawling back to the table to fix a crisis it manufactured. Call it the Trump Doctrine: start a war, strengthen your adversary, torch the global economy, then demand applause for negotiating your own mess down from a five-alarm fire to a four-alarm one.
#imperialism#killing-democracy
trump bombs iran, discovers jcpoa was cheaper
Donald Trump stares at a map of Iran, searching for the button that says “undo Obama but also not lose.”
Trump kicked off his Iran war announcing he’d eliminate “imminent threats,” topple the regime, inspire an uprising, destroy Iran’s nuclear program, wipe out its missiles and proxies, and accept nothing short of “unconditional surrender.” Months, thousands of dead, and a wrecked global economy later, he’s now racing to sign a peace memorandum that… might end up looking a whole lot like the 2015 JCPOA he shredded in 2018 so he could feel taller than Obama.
The war’s big strategic achievement? Iran briefly closed the Strait of Hormuz, kneecapped 20% of the world’s oil supply, helped spike U.S. gas and fertilizer prices, and then watched as Trump, self-styled master of dominance, begged his way to a ceasefire mediated by Pakistan and Qatar. Tehran now enjoys more leverage, a reopened strait will operate under a new Iran-favored system, and Iran still sits on enough highly enriched uranium for up to 10 bombs—uranium it only managed to stockpile because Trump tore up the deal that had been keeping it in check.
Hawks like Lindsey Graham, Ted Cruz, Roger Wicker, and Mike Pompeo are suddenly horrified that the White House is staggering toward a compromised enrichment deal they spent years denouncing as appeasement when Obama did it. Meanwhile, reporting suggests Iran’s military capabilities were nowhere near as “obliterated” as Trump claimed—something like 70–80% of its missiles and drones are still intact, the regime survived even after Israel killed Ali Khamenei, and his successor is promising Israel’s destruction by 2040. So now the man who promised transformation is being forced into the same transactional diplomacy he mocked, trying to sneak out the back door while Robert Kagan helpfully labels the whole thing what it is: a strategic defeat he hopes Americans are too distracted by gas prices to notice.
#killing-democracy#imperialism
white house doctor declares dear leader ‘excellent’ again, science shrugs
Trump departs Walter Reed after another ‘perfect’ checkup, bravely surviving an advanced imaging session and a bruised hand from allegedly too much patriotism-related handshaking.
The White House has once again wheeled out its most important piece of medical equipment — the presidential physician’s letterhead — to announce that Donald Trump is in “excellent health” and “fully fit” to be commander-in-chief. Cardiac function? Great. Lungs? Great. Neurological exam? A perfect 30 out of 30, which Trump will now brag about like he just cured polio rather than correctly identifying a rhinoceros and remembering five nouns.
We’re told the only issues are “slight lower leg swelling” from chronic venous insufficiency and a bruised hand from too much handshaking while he takes more aspirin than his doctors recommend. Yes, the same man whose schedule largely consists of rallies, golf, and posting in all caps on Truth Social is apparently shaking so many hands he’s giving himself blunt-force trauma. Totally normal, absolutely not the kind of thing that might warrant a more candid explanation when you’re 79 and making life-or-death decisions for 330 million people.
The memo arrives three days after the actual Walter Reed visit and after yet another round of visible drowsiness and mystery bruises that the press keeps rudely noticing. Last year it was a “routine checkup” that somehow included a heart and abdomen CT scan to “make the most of the President’s time” — because when you go in for a physical, your doctor also casually tosses in advanced imaging just for kicks. Every time questions arise, the answer is the same: everything is “perfectly normal,” absolutely no abnormalities, and any contradictions are just your lying eyes and failing memory.
So the official line is that Trump, the oldest person ever to assume the presidency, is in robust, radiant health, up to date on all screenings, and just needs a little more exercise and weight loss. In other words, the federal government has once again certified that the man who can’t stop rage-posting at 2 a.m. is medically cleared to keep pushing the limits of both his cardiovascular system and the Constitution.
#killing-democracy#full-stupid
pentagon discovers color film, keeps same old extrajudicial killings
The US Navy demonstrates its bold new strategy of blowing up distant specks on the ocean and calling it a war on terror.
The Trump administration has apparently decided that if you just declare war on Latin American drug cartels, you can skip all the boring parts like evidence, due process, or Congress. US Southern Command announced yet another strike on a small boat in the eastern Pacific, killing three more people and nudging the death toll from these floating executions to 202. As usual, they insist the vessel was "engaged in narco-trafficking" and tied to a terrorist group, and as usual, they provided exactly zero proof beyond "trust us, we blew it up".
This time, though, the Pentagon upgraded the snuff film: the video is in color now. The clip shows a tiny boat in the middle of the ocean, then an explosion, then debris and packages bobbing in the water. So congratulations to the US military on bringing its months-long campaign of alleged unlawful extrajudicial killings into the 21st century of cinematography, if not the 18th century of basic legal norms.
Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International are calling the strikes what they look like—unlawful executions carried out under a made-up "armed conflict" with cartels. The ACLU is even blunter, calling the administration’s claims "unsubstantiated, fear-mongering" nonsense. Meanwhile, Gen Francis L Donovan, the top US commander in Latin America, both ordered the strike and found time to meet Cuban military officials near Guantánamo Bay, that famous shrine to due process. America’s global message under Trump remains consistent: we don’t need courts, treaties, or proof—just a target, a drone, and a really nice color filter.
#imperialism#lawlessness
dear leader discovers the money printer
Pictured: early concept art for the "In Trump We Trust" note, legal tender in Mar-a-Lago and certain friendly oligarch yachts.
The Trump administration is reportedly gearing up to slap Trump's face on a brand-new $250 bill, because when you’re running a soft autocracy, why wait for history to judge you when you can just mint the verdict yourself? Minor hiccup: federal law explicitly bars putting living people on U.S. currency. So naturally, the White House is treating that as more of a whimsical suggestion than a statute.
Officials are said to be exploring ways to "reinterpret" the law so Dear Leader can stare back at you every time you buy groceries, assuming groceries still exist by the time they’re done with the economy. Think of it as a commemorative note honoring the moment America decided that personality cults and legal compliance are mutually exclusive concepts.
This isn’t just tacky, it’s textbook strongman behavior: use the apparatus of the state to brand the nation with your own face, then dare the courts and Congress to stop you. If they pull this off, the $250 Trump note will be the perfect currency for this administration: legally dubious, inflationary, and backed by nothing but ego and vibes.
#fascism#killing-democracy#lawlessness
trump’s $38 billion concentration mall goes on clearance
Artist’s rendering of Trump’s immigration policy: a half-empty mega-warehouse, a luxury deportation jet, and a giant FOR SALE sign paid for by taxpayers.
The Trump administration spent an estimated $38 billion buying eleven mega-warehouses so ICE could detain up to 100,000 immigrants at once, then suddenly discovered that maybe building a nationwide archipelago of human storage units was a tad much. Under former DHS Secretary Kristi Noem, they went on a detention-space shopping spree so aggressive that one Georgia town says ICE paid more than five times the property’s assessed value. Now DHS under Secretary Markwayne Mullin is pondering whether to sell off some of these monuments to cruelty and fiscal malpractice, and hoping no one asks too many questions about how any of this made sense in the first place.
The pivot is being sold as a “cultural shift” and a commitment to being a “good steward of taxpayer dollars,” which is a bold line to deploy after lighting tens of billions on fire for empty warehouses and a government-owned deportation fleet that includes a luxury Boeing 737 Max 8. Communities that never wanted these facilities, from Maryland to Mississippi to Social Circle, Georgia, are now stuck in legal fights over detention centers they tried to block from the start, while the DHS inspector general investigates whether this was all even remotely cost-effective. So yes, Trump may now want a “softer touch” on immigration — presumably the kind where you still terrorize immigrants, just with slightly fewer luxury planes and abandoned prisons dotting the countryside.
#forever-grifting#anti-immigration#money
reality tv president to decide fate of actual nuclear deal
Trump stares thoughtfully into the middle distance, presumably trying to remember which country the nuclear deal is with before deciding whether to blow it up.
Trump is teeing himself up to make a “final determination” on the Iran nuclear deal, because nothing reassures the world about nuclear nonproliferation like handing the detonator to a man whose foreign policy experience consists of yelling at TV and retweeting memes. The agreement that took years of multilateral diplomacy to craft is now being treated like an Apprentice contract he can rip up on camera for ratings.
All the usual hawks are circling, whispering about ‘strength’ and ‘maximum pressure,’ while the basic reality — that walking away from constraints on Iran’s nuclear program makes an actual bomb more likely — is politely escorted out of the conversation. Allies who helped negotiate and enforce the deal get to watch, again, as Washington signals that U.S. commitments last only until the next press gaggle.
So global security, oil markets, and the credibility of every future U.S. treaty are now props in Trump’s ongoing performance art piece about owning Obama. The White House calls it decisive leadership; the rest of the planet calls it gambling with a nuclear file like it’s a Trump Casino chip — which, historically, has ended badly for everyone involved.
#killing-democracy#national-security#imperialism
trump signs executive measles order
Trump, flanked by science-deniers, signs an executive order and effectively gives measles its own White House internship.
Donald Trump has now put the weight of the presidency behind every Facebook aunt’s favorite medical journal: vibes. He signed an executive order telling the CDC and its vaccine advisory panel to "realign" the childhood vaccine schedule with a new HHS memo that – what a coincidence – already reduced the number of recommended shots for kids. The White House framed this as aligning with "scientific evidence" and "peer, developed countries", which is a poetic way of saying: we found just enough cherry-picked data to justify doing what the anti-vax base has been screaming for since 2015.
Instead of the CDC and ACIP setting evidence-based schedules and defending them from conspiracy theorists, the order nudges them to be "flexible" for parents and doctors on timing and sequencing. Translation: if you want to stretch out shots until your kid is a walking petri dish, the federal government is now enthusiastically here for your "choice". Public health gets quietly downgraded to a suggestion, while the administration gets another culture-war trophy. After dismantling pandemic protections, they’re now coming for the basic childhood immunization schedule. What could possibly go wrong, besides everything we already know from the last 100 years of epidemiology?
#anti-science#healthcare
trump sues himself, settles with himself, accidentally alerts an actual judge
President Trump, presumably wondering why the judge isn’t applauding his bold new concept of suing the government as a side hustle.
President Trump’s $10 billion vanity lawsuit against his own I.R.S. just came back from the dead, because Judge Kathleen M. Williams looked at the ‘settlement’ and essentially said: absolutely not, what is this clown show. After Trump quietly dropped the case, the Justice Department swooped in with a pair of "extraordinary" agreements that magically turned a fake legal fight into a very real $1.8 billion fund for supposed victims of Democratic "weaponization" — a.k.a. a taxpayer-financed grievance piggy bank for MAGA friends and influencers.
The cherry on top: the deal also showered Trump, his family, and his businesses with "lucrative" tax benefits. So the president sued his own government, then used his own Justice Department to settle with himself in a way that hands his allies cash and gives him a personal tax windfall. Subtle. A bipartisan group of 35 former federal judges saw this cartoon heist in progress, filed papers begging the court to reopen the case, and Judge Williams obliged — citing "grievous allegations" of deception and concerns about Trump’s "candor toward the court" and manipulation of the judicial system.
Now the judge wants to dig into how this all went down, which could drag in the Justice Department officials who signed off on the slush fund — acting attorney general Todd Blanche and No. 3 Stanley Woodward Jr. If the inquiry moves forward, we may get the rare Washington spectacle of DOJ leaders trying to explain, under oath, how using federal litigation to build a $1.8 billion "weaponization" fund for the president’s political allies is totally normal and not, say, textbook authoritarian self-dealing.
#forever-grifting#corruption#killing-democracy
trump to legal immigrants: thanks for following the rules, now get out
USCIS headquarters, where lifelong plans are now revised by memo and hope is processed under "individualized circumstances".
USCIS has discovered an exciting new use for printer paper: dropping a memo that casually tells thousands of people who followed every rule to pack up their lives and go "apply from home" if they want a green card. Adjustment of status — the long-standing process that let people already living, working, and paying taxes in the US get permanent residency without detonating their entire existence — is now being quietly kneecapped so that Trump can complete his pivot from demonizing "illegal" immigration to sabotaging legal immigration too.
A spokesperson insists this is just "reasserting" congressional intent, which is a cute way of saying: if you make enough money or are deemed a nebulous "national interest" asset, you might be spared. Everyone else? Enjoy rolling the dice with consular processing, job loss, forced home sales, separated families, and the ever-present possibility you won't be allowed back. People who invested hundreds of thousands of dollars into EB-5 visas, married US citizens, or built careers on H‑1Bs are now discovering the American rule-of-law promise is actually a subscription service that can be canceled at any time, without notice.
The stories are bleakly consistent: an Indian software engineer who dumped his life savings into the EB-5 program now faces losing his job and home; a mixed-status couple in Oregon is afraid to visit family abroad because the government might just move the goalposts again; an architectural designer from Hong Kong wonders why the "stable" US legal system is being run like a late-stage crypto exchange; a grad student in Seattle is being nudged toward marriage not by love, but by USCIS policy roulette. The message from Trump’s America is loud and clear: following the rules doesn’t protect you — it just makes you easier to track before they yank the floor out.
So while the administration brags about restoring order, what it’s actually doing is ruling by memo, bypassing Congress, and turning immigration status into a constant panic attack. The government once sold itself as a place where laws were predictable and procedures transparent; now it’s more like dating an unstable ex — one day you’re "welcome contributor to the economy," the next day a PDF drops and you’re shopping for one-way tickets. This is what happens when xenophobia meets executive power and discovers it doesn’t need new laws, just a new interpretation.
#anti-immigration#killing-democracy
fox-ifying the white house: john solomon edition
John Solomon, seen here auditioning for the role of Official State Conspiracy Curator, gestures toward the part of the Constitution he hasn’t read.
The Trump White House is apparently so short on in-house conspiracy theorists that it’s now looking to import them. John Solomon, the journalist who made a second career out of casting doubt on the Russia investigation and spoon-feeding Trump-friendly narratives, proudly announced he’s being vetted to become a “special government employee” — Washington-speak for part-time loyalist with a laminated badge. Historically that status is for outside experts; in the Trump era it’s for anyone who can say “deep state” without laughing.
Rather than pretending this is about policy, an administration official says Solomon would likely lead a "transparency" task force, where he and a handpicked crew would decide which documents to "liberate" for public consumption. Translation: find anything they can rip out of context to smear investigators, rewrite the history of the Russia probe, and launder Trump’s grievances about 2020 and China through the seal of the Executive Branch. Some members of the task force will have security clearances; whether Solomon gets one is apparently still a question, which is adorable given that his brand is yelling on TV about classified material he wants dumped on the internet.
The White House, naturally, declined comment, but two officials confirm this has been in the works for weeks. Trump has been boosting Solomon’s work on his social media site, especially anything targeting James Comey and the Russia investigation that first made Trump so enamored with him. So the man who spent years undermining faith in federal law enforcement from the outside is now being invited inside to help decide what the public gets to see. Call it what it is: not "transparency," but a taxpayer-funded content operation for the guy who still thinks the real victim of 2016 is Donald J. Trump.
#killing-democracy#forever-grifting
trump turns america’s 250th into a state-sponsored fan convention
Young MC, seen here moments before discovering his supposedly ‘non-partisan’ gig was actually the pre-show for a Trump personality cult rally.
The Trump White House helped launch Freedom 250, a supposedly non-partisan nonprofit whose CEO was handpicked by Trump, and whose big "Great American State Fair" on the National Mall is now mysteriously… a Trump-branded political event. Shockingly, a bunch of artists noticed that “non-partisan” apparently meant “surprise MAGA rally” and began stampeding for the exits. Young MC, Morris Day, the Commodores, Bret Michaels, and Martina McBride all said they were misled about the political nature of the gig and would prefer not to soundtrack the soft launch of Dear Leader’s 250th Birthday Cult Experience.
Trump, stung that the people scheduled to entertain him are not legally obligated to worship him, jumped on Truth Social to call the departing artists "third rate" and floated replacing them with the only performer he truly believes in: himself. He’s now "ordering" his people to explore an "AMERICA IS BACK" rally at the same time and location, open only to "Great Patriots"—because nothing unites a country like explicitly excluding half of it from a taxpayer-backed national celebration.
While actual musicians flee, the lineup is now a time capsule of 1990s CD bargain bins: Vanilla Ice insists this isn’t political, Fab Morvan will perform as Milli Vanilli while the actual singers refuse to participate, and C+C Music Factory’s Freedom Williams says he’ll play even though he doesn’t support Trump. The result is a government-backed, Trump-branded quasi-rally featuring a lip-sync scandal act, a guy named after frozen water, and a president who thinks he’s the "Number One Attraction anywhere in the World"—all wrapped in a patriotic bow and sold as a unifying civic ritual.
The White House, meanwhile, is rolling out the full authoritarian theme park package: a UFC fight on the South Lawn, a Grand Prix race in DC, and limited-edition US passports with Trump’s portrait, because nothing says "constitutional republic" like turning your travel documents into campaign merch. But don’t worry, Freedom 250 swears this is a fair "that belongs to all Americans"—assuming all Americans are cool with their national anniversary being rebranded as TrumpCon 250.
#forever-grifting#killing-democracy
trump admin accidentally does a decent thing by missing a deadline
Markwayne Mullin heroically protects 11,000 Lebanese immigrants by forgetting to do his job on time.
The Trump administration has generously decided to let about 11,000 Lebanese people keep living and working in the US for another six months — by failing to do literally anything. The Department of Homeland Security missed the legal deadline to decide whether to extend Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for Lebanon, so the law just auto-renewed it. Compassion through clerical error: the new Ellis Island.
This accidental act of basic humanity stands out because the same crew has been busily hacking away TPS for people from 13 other countries, including Venezuela, Haiti, Nicaragua and Syria. Former DHS secretary Kristi Noem and current secretary Markwayne Mullin claim they were "unable to make an informed determination" by 28 March, which is a very fancy way of saying we didn’t do our homework and the statute bailed people out. Lebanese TPS holders now get to stay until 27 November 2026, courtesy of the only functioning part of this administration: the autopilot baked into federal law.
So while southern Lebanon is being shelled and Hezbollah and Israeli forces trade fire, the US response under Trump isn’t thoughtful policy, humanitarian leadership, or even consistent application of the law. It’s a missed calendar reminder. Somewhere, a DHS Outlook notification deserves a humanitarian award.
#not-awful#trumps-america
judge to trump: you can’t just sharpie your name on the kennedy center
The Kennedy Center, briefly threatened with a full Mar-a-Lago makeover, moments before a federal judge reminded Trump that federal law is not a naming-rights contract.
Turns out there’s one building in Washington Donald Trump can’t just rebrand like a failing casino. US district judge Christopher Cooper ordered the administration to strip Trump’s name off the Kennedy Center, ruling that the performing arts venue cannot be renamed without an actual act of Congress – you know, that pesky lawmaking thing presidents are not supposed to cosplay.
The court gave Team Trump 14 days to yank every last "Trump Kennedy Center" sign and scrub the branding from official materials, presumably including whatever gold-plated mockups were already headed to Mar-a-Lago for approval. After Trump had already announced he’d close the place for two years of "reconstruction," a judge now has to remind the government that the Kennedy Center isn’t a family billboard, it’s a federally chartered institution. Authoritarian vibes, meet statutory reality check.
So on today’s episode of "The Trump Presidency Is Going Great": the president tries to rename a national cultural landmark after himself, and the judiciary has to gently explain that the United States is not the Trump Organization, and federal property isn’t just available for a branding upgrade and a licensing fee.
#killing-democracy#fascism
trump picks fight with wildly popular chicago pope, loses the midwest catholic vote
Pope Leo XIV, Chicago’s most powerful export since the deep-dish pizza coma, listening politely as a US mayor explains that the president is threatening to send in the troops because he hates migrants and municipal autonomy.
Chicago’s progressive mayor Brandon Johnson flew to the Vatican to meet Pope Leo XIV, who, minor detail, is from Chicago and currently polling somewhere between "Taylor Swift" and "free healthcare" in American hearts. Johnson thanked him for his "courage" in calling out Trump’s Iran adventure, his immigration crackdowns, and the whole "delusion of omnipotence" thing powering the US‑Israel war on Iran. Apparently some people still think war and mass deportations are bad, even if the president yells "national security" loud enough.
Instead of kissing the imperial ring, Pope Leo is out here apologizing for the Catholic church’s role in slavery and backing reparations, which is awkward for an administration whose spiritual core is Stephen Miller’s RSS feed. Johnson is trying to leverage that moral cover for Chicago’s reparations task force and its effort to remain a sanctuary while Trump toys with "militarized immigration" raids and potential National Guard deployments like they’re just another campaign prop.
The pope, who asked "How’s Chicago?" like a neighbor checking on your lawn after a tornado, got briefed on the mass deportation push and ICE raids the city is resisting by executive order. Johnson brought him letters from detained families, a community ICE watch pin, and an "Immigrants Make America Greater" hat, which is about as subtle as you can get while still telling Trump to shove his red cap. Trump, naturally, responded by calling the pope "weak on crime" and "terrible for foreign policy", which is a bold critique from the guy who keeps losing arguments to NATO, Canada, and now the Bishop of Rome.
As Pope Leo releases encyclicals denouncing AI "slavery" and the normalization of war, he’s simultaneously becoming the de facto spiritual leader of the resistance to Trump’s deportation state. So on one side: a Chicago mayor, a Chicago pope, and most of the American public. On the other: a president trying to sic federal agents and maybe troops on cities while screaming about border caravans. Truly the stuff of stable democracies, and not at all the plot of a mid-tier dystopian streaming series.
#killing-democracy#anti-immigration#imperialism
trump’s “peacemaker” era: ethnic cleansing with better branding
Benjamin Netanyahu, currently auditioning for the role of ‘regional strongman who totally isn’t taking orders from Trump, except when Trump brags that he is.’
Donald Trump, self-styled Middle East peacemaker, is out here bragging that Benjamin Netanyahu will “do whatever I want him to do” regarding their illegal war on Iran, while simultaneously pretending to finalize a “deal – of sorts” with Tehran. As the chief funder, armorer, and diplomatic human shield for Israel, the US absolutely could rein in Netanyahu. Instead, Trump’s letting his favorite client state run wild: Israel has expanded far beyond the territory it agreed to hold in Gaza, is attacking Palestinians in a vague "zone" around its positions, and is now moving to seize 70% of the Strip, shoving over 2 million people into what’s left and calling it security.
Because this horror show apparently needed a marketing department, Defence Minister Israel Katz is rebranding forced displacement as “voluntary migration.” Homes and infrastructure obliterated, food and medicine scarce, constant military assault, and then a cheery offer to leave or face catastrophe – that’s not migration, that’s ethnic cleansing with a press release. While Netanyahu’s coalition eyes October elections and uses Gaza policy as campaign content, Trump’s handpicked "Board of Peace" envoy Nickolay Mladenov helpfully blames Hamas for the failed ceasefire, as if Israel’s land grab and ceasefire violations were just set dressing.
Internationally, the outrage is carefully curated. Western governments are furious about mistreatment of western activists on a Gaza flotilla, while Palestinian detainees get the silent treatment. Russia hits an apartment block in Romania and Europe erupts; Israel kills children in Gaza on the first day of Eid al-Adha and Berlin manages a sternly worded “concern” before going back to business as usual. Israel gets blacklisted at the UN over credible allegations of sexual violence in conflict, Hamas already on the list from 7 October, and its ambassador whines, but actual consequences? None.
Trump is reportedly worried about his “legacy” and wants to be remembered as a peacemaker, which is adorable, in the way that a cruise missile calling itself a dove is adorable. If he actually cared, he’d use US leverage to force compliance with his own Gaza plan, ensure Palestinians can live in peace, and start reconstruction instead of destruction. Europe, forever sermonizing about the "rules-based order," could also stop laundering this with tepid statements and start using real economic and diplomatic pressure. Until then, everyone gets to keep pretending this is a peace process and not a US-backed, poll-tested campaign of dispossession.
#imperialism#killing-democracy#lawlessness
