trump’s $22m man discovers discovery
Chris LaCivita, moments before realizing that suing a news outlet means they get to ask questions under oath about the $19.2 million.
Trump 2024 co-campaign manager Chris LaCivita has quietly dropped his big, tough-guy defamation lawsuit against the Daily Beast — the one he launched after they reported that his firm took in over $20 million from the campaign. You may remember his legal strategy slogan, “Fuck around and Find Out,” which has now been updated to “Actually, never mind.” The Daily Beast didn’t retract, didn’t apologize, and didn’t pay him a cent, which is a bold move for a media outlet facing a guy whose campaign literally called him the “$22m man.”
LaCivita had claimed the reporting created a “false impression” that he was personally profiting excessively from Trump’s campaign, insisting the multimillion-dollar figure referred to gross ad spending through his consulting firm, not his own pockets. The Beast even tweaked its story — down to $19.2 million and clarifying the money went to his firm — and he still pressed on, demanding damages he said would cost “millions” to repair his reputation. Cut to ten months later, and suddenly the man who was “really looking forward to making my case in front of a jury” has decided maybe the whole discovery-and-cross-examination thing isn’t as fun as it sounded on the plane with Trump egging him on to “sue those bastards.”
In other words, the Trump orbit once again tried the classic move: use defamation suits as a political pressure washer to blast the press into silence over inconvenient facts about where the money goes. And once again, when it came time to actually prove anything in court, the tough talk turned into a quiet withdrawal. But sure, tell us again how the real threat to democracy is mean journalists asking where the campaign cash ended up.
#forever-grifting#corruption
congress discovers contempt, still avoiding the mirror
James Comer bravely investigates everyone connected to Epstein except the administration actually sitting on the Epstein files.
House Republicans have discovered a bold new innovation in governance: pretend to investigate Jeffrey Epstein while aggressively not investigating the guy who actually controls the files. James Comer and friends subpoenaed Bill and Hillary Clinton for testimony on Epstein, then clutched their pearls when the Clintons said they wouldn't play along with the Mar-a-Lago Kangaroo Court Cinematic Universe. The response? Threaten them with criminal contempt of Congress — because nothing says "serious child exploitation probe" like using it as a campaign content farm for Fox and Truth Social.
Meanwhile, the actual Trump administration sits on the Epstein files like it's the nuclear codes, infuriating even their own supporters. A pro-Trump podcaster is now publicly raging that he "voted to get these damn files released" and instead got the usual Trump special: promises, conspiracies, and zero transparency. Autoworkers are heckling Trump as a "pedophile protector," which is not exactly the Rust Belt branding reboot his team was hoping for.
So the White House and its congressional appendages are trying to rerun 2016: slap the word "Clinton" on everything, scream "Epstein" a lot, and hope no one notices who's actually in charge of the documents. They blast out old photos of Bill with Epstein and Maxwell, dangle contempt charges, and posture as crusaders for justice — all while slow-walking or stonewalling the full release of the files. In other words: maximum theater, minimum truth.
The punchline is that outside the MAGA Cinematic Universe, nobody worships the Clintons the way the base worships Trump. If the Clintons did something wrong, most Democrats are not going to storm the Capitol over it. But holding them in contempt while hiding key Epstein records just broadcasts the real message: this isn’t about victims, or justice, or transparency. It’s about power, distraction, and protecting the guy in charge — a government so steeped in bad faith it’s now in open contempt of the public, not just Congress.
#killing-democracy#lawlessness#forever-grifting
nationwide coffee break from fascism
Americans briefly stop working to protest the government that keeps trying to work them over—Wall Street calls it a disruption, the rest of us call it Tuesday under Trump.
On the anniversary of Trump’s inauguration, the Women’s March organizers are helpfully beta-testing what happens when a country briefly stops pretending everything is normal. They’re calling it the “Free America Walkout,” a coordinated weekday action where people walk out of schools, offices, and businesses to protest the administration’s escalating attacks on immigrants, gender-affirming care, and healthcare, plus the casual deployment of National Guard troops in US cities — because nothing says “totally healthy democracy” like soldiers in the streets and ICE at the door.
Instead of just weekend rallies that let Republicans call protesters “unemployed Antifa,” organizers are going for weekday disruption: no shopping, no working, no commerce — in other words, a one-day simulation of what happens if the people this government is steamrolling decide to hit pause on propping it up. Over 600 local events are planned, from walking into lawmakers’ offices in Houston to mutual aid, teach-ins, and chats with groups like Leaving Maga, where former cult members explain that yes, it really is that bad.
The walkout is being treated as a “stress test” of the democracy Trump is busy stress-fracturing, with American University sociologist Dana Fisher tracking participation like it’s a national EKG. Women’s March director Rachel O’Leary Carmona calls it movement muscle-building to “drive fascism back away from American democracy” — a nice, polite way of saying that when your government is raiding schools, gutting healthcare, and targeting trans people, maybe it’s time to do more than post a sad Instagram story and vote for “norms” every four years.
And based on sign-ups, this is the most engagement the organization has ever seen, which is both inspiring and deeply bleak: the good news is people are “ready to lace up our boots and get out in the street”; the bad news is they have to do it because the president is basically running a live-action authoritarianism pilot and seeing how much he can get away with before the credits roll.
#killing-democracy#fascism
trump takes a sledgehammer to the consumer watchdog
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, seen here right before the Trump administration tries to turn it into a WeWork for payday lenders.
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau just had what polite people call an “exceptionally turbulent year” and what normal people call “being pushed down the stairs by a government that works for the banks now.” The Trump administration has been busy trying to deny the agency funding and lay off most of its staff, because nothing says “populist champion of the little guy” like kneecapping the only federal office whose entire job is stopping financial companies from robbing you in broad daylight.
In other words, the CFPB’s mission is to protect consumers from predatory lenders, junk fees, and fine-print scams — which makes it a natural enemy of an administration whose donor class really prefers the “predatory” part of capitalism without all that annoying “enforcement” and “laws” stuff. So the plan is simple: starve the watchdog, fire the people who know what they’re doing, and then act shocked when Wall Street starts treating the country like its own personal ATM again. But sure, tell us more about how this is all about “reining in the deep state” and not just another gift basket for the financial industry.
#killing-democracy#corruption#oligarchy
america turns politics into draftkings for fascism
Young American replaces day job with betting on Trump’s verbal diarrhea, proving once and for all that in this economy the only stable career path is monetizing the collapse of civic norms.
In the most on-brand development for late-stage Trumpism, 25-year-old former risk analyst Logan Sudeith now clocks 100 hours a week betting on whether Donald Trump will say specific phrases at press conferences, who Time will pick for Person of the Year, and how many times a sports announcer will say "air ball." He made $100,000 last month lying in bed with a laptop, DoorDashing every meal, and treating American political collapse like a particularly stupid Bloomberg terminal. Because nothing says healthy democracy like turning the president’s brain worms into a high-frequency trading strategy.
Sudeith insists he’s “not a fan of Trump,” he just spends “most of [his] day listening to him and tracking what he is doing” so he can scalp a few thousand dollars when the president blurts out "drill baby drill." In other words, Trump’s endless stream of nonsense is now a literal financial instrument. Even better, Sudeith openly says he might become a single-issue voter based on which candidate is nicest to prediction markets. Forget policy, rule of law, or basic human rights: the real constitutional principle now is whether Logan in Atlanta gets to keep betting on the next authoritarian tantrum.
Meanwhile, platforms like Kalshi and Polymarket are booming by letting people monetize every twitch of the news cycle, from elections to Google search trends, turning civic life into a 24/7 speculative arcade. Regulation, conflicts of interest, the small matter of people with inside information? Don’t worry about it, bro, the market will sort it out. Trump turned the presidency into a reality show; the prediction markets just added a sportsbook and called it innovation.
#forever-grifting#killing-democracy#money
trump cures autism (by terrifying pregnant women about tylenol)
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. explains cutting-edge fetal medicine to Donald Trump, who nods along like a man who just discovered the word ‘acetaminophen’ this week.
Donald Trump and Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. told pregnant women to "fight like hell" not to take Tylenol, because nothing says sound medical practice like a twice-impeached game show host and America’s most famous antivax crank freelancing as fetal medicine experts. They loudly implied a link between acetaminophen and autism that, at the time, wasn’t backed by strong evidence. Actual scientists then did what this administration treats as a hate crime: a rigorous, large, gold-standard evidence review. Their conclusion? No link between Tylenol use in pregnancy and autism, ADHD, or intellectual disability.
The researchers specifically said they launched the review to clean up the confusion and panic caused by Trump’s statements, which had pregnant women flooding clinics with calls because they were suddenly afraid to treat fevers — which actually do endanger mothers and babies. After sifting thousands of studies, tossing the junk, and focusing on high-quality data (including sibling comparison studies), they landed on the same answer every time: acetaminophen doesn’t cause the neurodevelopmental disorders Trump and RFK Jr. have been fear-mongering about. In other words, the science is fine. The politics are the disease.
Naturally, the Trump HHS response was to accuse the Lancet team of bias and "engineering" the result by insisting on basic scientific standards, which is now apparently suspicious behavior in Trump’s America. They clung to an older, thinner review they liked better because it supported their narrative, while ignoring the far more comprehensive analysis that demolished it. Trump, undeterred, is still on Truth Social warning pregnant women about Tylenol like it’s asbestos in a bottle, while the FDA’s own written advisory quietly admits acetaminophen remains the safest OTC option and calls the supposed link an "ongoing area of scientific debate" that autism researchers now say is basically settled. But sure, let’s keep rewriting federal health guidance around whatever Donald Trump thinks he heard on a podcast.
#anti-science#killing-democracy
trump names jared, rubio & tony blair to run gaza, what could go wrong
Trump, Jared, Rubio, and Tony Blair posing as a 'board of peace' like a particularly cursed WeWork leadership team for occupied territory.
The White House has announced a shiny new colonial cosplay project: a "board of peace" to oversee the reconstruction and transitional administration of Gaza. Chairing this enlightened exercise in 21st-century imperialism? Donald Trump himself, naturally. Joining him on this freedom-scented venture are Secretary of State Marco Rubio, failed Iraq peace enthusiast and former UK prime minister Tony Blair, and, because this is still the Trump Show, son-in-law-for-life Jared Kushner.
According to the statement, the US will manage this "transitional framework" in "close partnership" with Israel and "key Arab nations"—you know, all the people who aren’t actually Gazans. They did toss in Ali Sha’ath, a former Palestinian Authority official, to head the wonderfully titled National Committee for the Administration of Gaza (NCAG), so they can say there’s a local involved while the real power sits in Washington, Tel Aviv, and whatever private jet Jared is on. In other words: Palestinians get the committee, Trump gets the board.
To really drive home that this is about control, not peace, Trump also tapped Aryeh Lightstone and Josh Gruenbaum as senior advisers to run "day-to-day strategy and operations"—because nothing says self-determination like a US-appointed management team handling your daily life. The whole thing is marketed as reconstruction and stability, but looks a lot more like a test run for a franchise model of occupation: "Gaza™ — Now Under New Management, No Democracy Required."
#imperialism#killing-democracy
trump expands frequent felon rewards program to puerto rico
Wanda Vázquez Garced, moments after receiving confirmation that in Trump’s America, the real campaign finance reform is having a pardon on speed dial.
Donald Trump has once again logged into his favorite app, Presidential Pardon, this time to bail out former Puerto Rican Gov. Wanda Vázquez Garced, who was accused in a federal bribery scheme and then actually pleaded guilty to a campaign finance crime. In other words: she admitted to a felony, so naturally she qualifies for VIP status in Trump’s Second-Term Crooks & Cronies Club.
The White House line is that this was all just "political prosecution" that magically started 10 days after she endorsed Trump in 2020. Because nothing says "totally innocent" like getting indicted under a different administration, cutting a plea deal with Trump’s own DOJ, and then getting rescued at the last minute by the guy you publicly supported. According to the pardon materials, there was "no bribery at all"—it was just a politician and a banker "agreeing on policy" while she ran for office and needed money. You know, the classic "not a quid pro quo, just a quid near a pro" defense.
The Trump White House even helpfully compared her case to Alexander Sittenfeld, another public official Trump pardoned after corruption charges, because if there’s one thing this administration believes in, it’s pattern recognition—specifically, identifying politicians indicted for bribery and campaign finance violations and turning them into martyrs. Trump has now granted clemency to hundreds of people, including a growing collection of campaign finance violators and bribery enthusiasts, all under the banner of fighting "political" prosecutions. But sure, the message to every official in America isn’t "loot now, plead later, get pardoned if you’re loyal." That would be cynical.
#forever-grifting#corruption#killing-democracy
versaille cosplay vs. trump tower: dc edition
Artist’s rendering of Trump’s new East Wing: half historical landmark, half casino banquet hall, 100% pay-to-play.
Donald Trump is very mad about government renovations — specifically the Federal Reserve’s multibillion-dollar building overhaul — while he is literally bulldozing a historic chunk of the White House to build himself a giant party room. Because nothing says fiscal responsibility like screaming about Jerome Powell’s construction budget while you personally go marble-shopping in Florida for your new thousand-seat presidential rave cave.
The Fed’s project, now over $2.4 billion, is being paid for by the Fed itself — not taxpayers — and involves boring things like asbestos, toxic soil, and agency reviews. Trump’s East Wing demolition, meanwhile, has already doubled from a $200 million ballroom to a $400 million ballroom, which he insists is still "under budget" because in Trump math, if the number is higher but he likes it more, that’s a savings.
The punchline: Trump swears his mega-ballroom is costing taxpayers "zero" because it’s funded by private donors — including Amazon, Apple, Google, Meta, and Comcast — many of whom are allowed to remain anonymous. In other words, the president is turning the White House into a luxury naming-rights project for corporations and mystery billionaires, and we’re just supposed to trust that no one’s buying influence, access, or policy. But sure, the real scandal is the Fed fixing asbestos in its basement while Trump builds Versailles on Pennsylvania Avenue with a secret donor list.
#corruption#forever-grifting#money
trump solves housing crisis by eating your retirement
Trump explains how raiding your 401(k) to buy into an overheated housing market is actually ‘winning so much you’ll get tired of losing your retirement.’
The Trump White House has discovered a bold new way to fix the housing crisis: let you raid your retirement to buy an overpriced house in a bubble he’s frantically trying to re‑inflate. National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett went on Fox Business to tease a plan where you pull cash out of your 401(k) for a down payment, then pretend some of your home equity is an "asset" in that same 401(k) so it can "grow over time" — because nothing says sound retirement planning like turning your nest egg into a roulette wheel tied to the housing market.
Trump will roll this final plan out at Davos, naturally, where billionaires gather to discuss how regular people should tighten their belts. The White House won’t explain the tax implications, but we can safely assume the answer is: you take the risk, Wall Street takes the fees. Even Redfin’s chief economist politely notes that draining retirement accounts for down payments could leave people screwed if home prices fall — in other words, it’s fine as long as the bubble never pops. What could go wrong?
Meanwhile, Trump is playing central banker with other people’s institutions, ordering Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to hoover up $200 billion in mortgage bonds to push rates down, and bragging when 30‑year mortgage rates dip below 6% — "and that’s not with the help of the Fed," he crows, as if commandeering government-backed entities to prop up the market is just good clean fun. Economists warn the move may not lower rates much in the long run and could jack up volatility, but sure, let’s crank the subsidy machine and hope no one remembers 2008.
To round out the performance, Trump is also vowing to ban big corporate investors from buying single-family homes, a popular-sounding promise that analysts say probably won’t move prices much — but does make a great campaign line while he shovels hundreds of billions through the mortgage complex. So the plan is: keep housing unaffordable, then tell voters the solution is to torch their future retirement security to climb aboard the bubble. It’s not a housing policy, it’s a liquidation sale on the American middle class.
#forever-grifting#money
trump doj demands a national voter database, judge replies: absolutely not
Bill Barr’s Justice Department, seen here trying to speedrun the ‘how to build a federal voter surveillance state’ tutorial before the midterms.
The Trump Justice Department tried to collect a national treasure trove of sensitive voter data from California—full voter list, dates of birth, last four of Social Security numbers—because nothing says "protecting democracy" like building a centralized federal database of everyone who votes. California said, "you can look, but you can’t copy everything," and the DOJ responded in classic Trump-era fashion: by suing, then copy-pasting the same stunt into lawsuits in 23 other states and DC.
US district judge David Carter took one look at this and essentially wrote, are you kidding me in 40 pages of legalese. He ruled the DOJ isn’t entitled to the data, called the scheme a threat to democracy, and pointed out the obvious: centralizing this info would chill voter registration, suppress turnout, and conveniently help the feds compare voter rolls with DHS immigration databases. In other words, it’s not about "election integrity"; it’s about building a federal voter surveillance machine and dressing it up as law enforcement.
The Trump administration even tried to weaponize the 1960 Civil Rights Act—a law meant to protect Black voters in the Jim Crow South—as cover for mass data collection that could be used to kick people off the rolls. Carter was not amused, noting that civil rights laws are supposed to protect voting rights, not become tools for dismantling privacy and state election authority because the White House wants better spreadsheets. Meanwhile, DHS has already run 50 million voter records and found maybe 10,000 potential noncitizens—about 0.02%—but sure, let’s build an authoritarian database over that.
Carter spelled out the bigger picture: democracy doesn’t disappear in one coup; it gets "chipped away piece by piece" until there’s nothing left. This case, he said, is one of those cuts. The Trump DOJ calls it "compliance" with the National Voter Registration Act; the court calls it what it is: a pretextual power grab to hijack state-run elections and normalize federal control over who gets to vote. But hey, if you’re planning future voter purges and intimidation campaigns, having everyone’s partial Social Security number in one handy place is a huge time-saver.
#killing-democracy#fascism#lawlessness
nothing to see here, just trump’s doj kneecapping the fed
Jerome Powell, apparently guilty of the high crime of not cutting interest rates fast enough for Donald Trump’s reelection spreadsheet.
Kevin Hassett, Trump’s top economic adviser and totally not conflicted frontrunner to replace Jerome Powell as Fed chair, went on Fox Business to assure everyone there is “nothing to see here” while the Trump justice department runs a criminal investigation into Powell. The supposed crime? How the Fed handled a renovation of its own building and whether Powell was perfectly precise about asbestos and scope in congressional testimony. Because nothing says "serious rule of law" like turning construction cost overruns into a federal case when the central bank won’t slash rates on command.
Every living former Fed chair and a global lineup of central banks have basically lit the “this is how banana republics do it” sign, warning that prosecutorial attacks on central banks wreck economies and jack up the cost of living. Meanwhile, DC US attorney Jeanine Pirro insists it’s all about “the merits”, and Trump swears he had no idea his own DOJ was going after the man he’s been publicly threatening for months. Hassett helpfully adds that if he were Fed chair, he’d demand more “transparency” and “independence” from the job he’s auditioning for on live TV, while the current guy is under the gun. In other words: weaponize the justice department against an independent institution, then have your handpicked successor go on cable to say it’s all very normal and there’s absolutely nothing to see.
#killing-democracy#fascism#corruption
ice calls it ‘medical distress,’ coroner calls it ‘possible homicide’
Donald Trump proudly displays someone else’s Nobel medal like a participation trophy for regime change, fresh off ordering a presidential kidnapping. Peace through abduction, what a brand.
ICE said a 55‑year‑old Cuban man at its Fort Bliss tent camp "experienced medical distress." The medical examiner, being less fluent in government euphemism, reportedly called it “asphyxia due to neck and chest compression” and now the death of Geraldo Lunas Campos may be investigated as a homicide. Because nothing says law and order like people mysteriously dying in federal custody while DHS brags they’re the "worst of the worst."
Lunas Campos was locked up at Camp East Montana, one of those sprawling, pop‑up detention villages the government keeps insisting are totally humane and definitely not concentration camps, why would you even say that. ICE’s statement boils down to: he got sick and then he got dead, who can really say what happened, please move along.
Meanwhile, at the White House, Donald Trump — who just ordered the abduction of Venezuela’s president like he’s running a side hustle in extraordinary rendition — is being handed a Nobel peace prize medal by María Corina Machado for his "unique commitment" to Venezuela’s freedom. The Nobel committee politely reminded everyone that medals can change hands but titles can’t, which is a very diplomatic way of saying: no, the guy who green-lit a kidnapping and runs death‑by-bureaucracy immigration camps is not a peace laureate.
In other words: a man may have been killed in a US detention camp while Trump collects peace swag in the Oval Office. But sure, tell us again how this is all about security and freedom.
#killing-democracy#lawlessness#fascism
the president is perfect, it’s just everyone around him that’s a fascist
Republican lawmakers bravely explaining that when Trump threatens central bank independence and talks about invading Greenland, he’s actually defending democracy — his staff just keeps doing it wrong.
Republicans have discovered a miraculous new constitutional doctrine: The President Is Never Wrong, Only Poorly Advised. Faced with Trump musing about invading Greenland, threatening to sue and remove Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, and cheering on an unprecedented DOJ criminal investigation into the supposedly independent central bank, the GOP’s bravest lions have decided the real villain here is… unnamed staffers. Because nothing says “co-equal branch of government” like insisting the commander-in-chief is basically a confused grandpa misled by the help.
Sen. Thom Tillis, who apparently wants partial credit for having a spine without actually using it, keeps blaming “bad advice” for everything from Trump’s Greenland cosplay to the Jan. 6 riot pardons. Rand Paul heroically declares that it’s not Trump who loves tariffs, it’s Peter Navarro’s fault for whispering protectionism into his delicate ear. Meanwhile, as Trump pressures Powell, threatens to fire him, and DOJ opens a criminal probe into the Fed’s building renovations, Tillis solemnly worries about the Justice Department’s “independence and credibility” — while insisting he’s not blaming Trump, who “knew nothing” about it. In other words: the abusive strongman is blameless; the institutions he’s attacking are the real problem.
House Speaker Mike Johnson and Sen. John Kennedy are out here assuring everyone that Trump doesn’t really plan to invade Greenland, even as Trump says that “one way or the other, we’re going to have Greenland.” Kennedy, who loves calling other people “weapons-grade stupid,” swears Trump and Marco Rubio aren’t that dumb — they’re just keeping the military invasion option on the table for fun. And when Trump’s own base gets mad that he suddenly likes more foreign workers on H-1B visas and wants across-the-board tariffs, the new MAGA line is that “America First is experiencing a hijacking” and the poor president is being “kept in a bubble.”
So the modern GOP position is clear: Trump has total power, zero responsibility, and infinite plausible deniability. He can threaten central bank independence, dangle pardons for insurrectionists, and fantasize about seizing foreign territory, and his party’s response is to squint very hard and insist he’s either joking, trolling, or tragically misled by bad advisers. Personal loyalty to the leader, blame-shifting to faceless underlings, and open contempt for institutional independence — but sure, tell us again how this definitely isn’t authoritarianism.
#killing-democracy#lawlessness
usda invents the google gulag for scientists
USDA scientists heroically defending the homeland by typing foreign names into Google and emailing them to a security office, because nothing protects corn yields like a low-budget loyalty purge.
The Trump USDA has discovered a bold new frontier in national security: making crop scientists moonlight as FBI informants with a Google search bar. Under a new directive, researchers in the Agricultural Research Service are ordered to investigate every foreign co-author on their papers for signs of "subversive or criminal activity" and send the names of anyone "concerning" to the agency’s Office of Homeland Security. Because nothing says cutting-edge agricultural research like turning your co-authors into case files.
Supervisors literally called the policy "dystopic" in a meeting, which, in the Trump era, is less a warning and more a product requirement. The order doesn’t just blacklist scientists from the usual "countries of concern" like China, Iran, and Cuba; it also forces staff to vet collaborators from places like Canada and Germany and ship their names off to a homeland security unit that works with federal intelligence agencies. No one will say what they’re doing with those lists, but sure, this is just about "protecting research," not building a handy little registry of foreign scientists who dared to work with Americans.
Jennifer Jones of the Union of Concerned Scientists called it a "throwback to McCarthyism" and a "classic hallmark of authoritarianism"—which is polite academic-speak for this is some straight-up police-state garbage. USDA staff say they’re worried this will put foreign students and postdocs—people here on temporary visas—in the administration’s crosshairs. Meanwhile, the agency’s own website still brags that international collaboration is essential to stopping crop diseases and boosting yields. So naturally, Trump’s agriculture secretary Brooke Rollins rolled out a policy that bans co-authoring papers with scientists from entire countries and frames international research as a national security threat that only "America First" surveillance can fix.
All of this slots neatly into the broader Trump second-term project of criminalizing foreign brains: a French scientist detained over anti-Trump messages on his phone, Chinese and Russian researchers locked out of NIH databases, and new moves to shorten how long foreign students can stay in the U.S. The message is clear: if you’re a foreign scientist, the United States would love your talent, your data, and your breakthroughs—just not your presence, your rights, or your name on a paper that hasn’t been cleared by the Google Stasi at USDA Homeland Security.
#fascism#killing-democracy#anti-science
the deportation squad meets the hype squad
Trump-branded influencers livestreaming next to a line of federal agents, because why just enforce policy when you can monetize it?
The Trump White House has apparently decided that if you can't make cruel immigration policy popular, you can at least slap a filter on it and add a promo code. So Minnesota is getting a double feature: a surge of federal agents and a caravan of Trump-friendly influencers, all dispatched as part of a coordinated communications strategy to justify whatever the administration wants to do to immigrants this week. Because nothing says 'serious policymaking' like pairing ICE raids with sponsored content.
Instead of, say, consulting legal experts, affected communities, or anyone who’s read the Constitution, the administration is investing in online content to manufacture consent for its immigration agenda. In other words, actual people’s lives and rights are being run through the same machinery normally used to sell energy drinks and sketchy crypto coins. Federal power on the ground, propaganda in your feed, and a President who thinks public policy is just another brand campaign—but sure, tell us again how this is all about 'law and order.'
#anti-immigration#killing-democracy
stop the steal, start the pipeline
Jesse Binnall, seen here contemplating whether pipelines or democracy denial has the higher profit margin this quarter.
The 2020 "stop the steal" all-stars have apparently moved on to a more traditional Republican pastime: foreign infrastructure grifts. Jesse Binnall – the lawyer who spent 2020 insisting democracy was a deep-state hologram – and Joe Flynn – brother of martial-law enthusiast Michael Flynn – quietly popped up in Bosnia this week, pitching a $200m gas pipeline deal. They're fronting for something called AAFS Infrastructure and Energy, a company so experienced it was literally born two months ago in Wyoming and has roughly the same public track record as Trump's health-care plan.
The scheme: build the Southern Gas Interconnection pipeline to wean Bosnia off Russian gas and hook it up to LNG from Croatia – and, oh look, American suppliers. Conveniently, after Trump returned to office, Bosnian authorities "agreed" that US companies would get to build and run the thing. Even more convenient: the US embassy in Sarajevo is cheerleading this brand-new mystery firm, dutifully posting photos of Binnall and Flynn with the chargé d’affaires like it's a Rotary Club mixer and not a soft-focus ad for monetizing a coup attempt.
Binnall insists there's no conflict of interest here and that embassy support is just "consistent with its mission to support American businesses operating abroad" – because nothing says standard commercial channels like election-denial lawyers and the brother of Trump's disgraced national security adviser parachuting into the Balkans with a shell company and a bald eagle logo. In other words, the Trump foreign policy shop has evolved: instead of merely attacking democracy at home, the old coup squad is now leveraging their White House access to carve out 30-year energy concessions overseas. But sure, it's about "energy security," not turning insurrection into a subscription business model.
#forever-grifting#corruption
say what you will about trump, he sure knows how to commit crimes with confidence
Donald Trump, confidently explaining that if the president does it, it’s not illegal — surrounded by people whose only response is to ask if he’s filed the correct paperwork.
Aditya Chakrabortty looks at Keir Starmer’s big, bold governing agenda — color‑coded pothole maps and sternly worded ‘totally unacceptable’ statements — and contrasts it with Donald Trump’s approach of actually using state power… to do crimes. While Starmer threatens to maybe one day reconsider Elon Musk’s "right to self-regulate", other countries just suspend X. Meanwhile, Trump is out here ordering an illegal kidnapping of a foreign leader in Venezuela, because nothing says “America is back” like state-sponsored abduction.
The article points out that when Trump’s goons snatch a foreign head of state, House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries bravely responds by… filing a process complaint about congressional authorization. Not "this is kidnapping" or "this is deranged imperialism" — just "you didn’t fill out the right use-of-force form." Same with Trump’s harassment of Fed chair Jerome Powell and Lisa Cook: transparently political, authoritarian pressure on independent institutions, but the respectable center-left conversation is all about the sanctity of central bank independence, not the fact that the president is using the justice system as a blunt weapon to reward donors and punish enemies.
In other words, Trump openly treats the state as a personal wrecking ball — for himself, his family, and his funders — while the polite, rules-obsessed opposition clings to the rulebook as the house burns down. The right is busy perfecting authoritarian statecraft; the center-left is busy perfecting its shocked face at procedural violations. But sure, tell us more about that pothole dashboard.
#killing-democracy#imperialism#lawlessness
trump discovers nazi geopolitics, calls it 'america first'
Trump stares at a world map, circles the Western Hemisphere, and calls it "my Großer Golf Resort."
Donald Trump’s foreign policy is now being compared to the work of Carl Schmitt, the Nazis’ “crown jurist”, which is exactly the kind of name you want popping up in think pieces about your administration. Schmitt’s big idea was carving the planet into giant authoritarian "great spaces" (Großräume) run by dominant empires that keep out "spatially alien" powers. In other words: regional mob bosses with nuclear weapons and a theory degree.
Trump’s crew has already dusted off the Monroe Doctrine, raided Venezuela, rattled sabers over Greenland, Panama, Colombia, Mexico and Cuba, and tried to strong-arm Ukraine into coughing up territory. Meanwhile, his domestic doctrine of the "exception" politely suggests that constitutional rights are more of a seasonal item than a fixed feature. But we’re told not to worry: this isn’t fascism, it’s just good old-fashioned American hypocrisy with extra narcissism on top.
While Russia and China openly flirt with Schmittian "great space" ideology, Trump isn’t really interested in sharing the world with other spheres of influence. He’s busy nuking Iran’s capabilities, blowing up Russian air defenses in Venezuela, blocking Russian tankers in European waters, and greenlighting CIA-backed Ukrainian strikes on Russian oil infrastructure – all while supposedly being Putin’s best friend. Because nothing says "colluding puppet" like repeatedly kicking your alleged handler in the shins for domestic applause.
The punchline: Trump isn’t a Schmitt-reading fascist mastermind; he’s a Schmitt-confirming case study. He proves Schmitt’s point about Anglo-American "universalism" being a self-serving racket, while simultaneously refusing to let anyone else have their own imperial playground. Schmitt’s ghost is somewhere between horrified and smug, watching a reality TV host improvise his way through 1930s-style power politics with none of the reading and all of the ego.
#fascism#imperialism#killing-democracy
trump finally gets a nobel… cosplay medal, not the prize
Donald Trump, beaming like he just solved Middle East peace, holding someone else’s Nobel medal while the actual Nobel committee quietly screams into a pillow in Oslo.
Donald Trump has at long last gotten his tiny hands on a Nobel peace prize medal – someone else’s. Venezuelan opposition leader and actual laureate María Corina Machado theatrically "presented" her gold medal to Trump at the White House, declaring it a tribute to his "unique commitment" to freedom, because nothing says "independent democracy activist" like gifting your biggest patron a symbolic trophy he’s been publicly begging for since 2018. Trump rushed to Truth Social to announce that she gave him "her Nobel Peace Prize," conveniently skipping the part where Nobel officials immediately reminded the world that the title cannot be transferred, revoked, or retroactively assigned to a guy who tried to extort Ukraine and start a coup at home. A medal can change owners; the dignity cannot. Tough break.
#killing-democracy#forever-grifting
