arc de trump: because democracy needed a boss battle gate
Artist’s rendering of the Arc de Trump, seen here heroically blocking the view of actual history.
The Trump administration has apparently decided that the real problem with American democracy is insufficiently gigantic golden arches. Not the McDonald's kind—those at least come with fries—but a 250-foot "triumphal arch" celebrating... the United States, technically, but very much not coincidentally nicknamed the "Arc de Trump." One foot for each year since independence, which is an elegant way of saying, "What if we turned the entire history of the republic into a scale model for my ego?"
Placed to loom across from the Lincoln Memorial, this thing would be more than twice as tall, because of course it would. Why honor the president who saved the Union when you can build the world's tallest victory arch to the guy who tried to overturn an election? It's less a monument and more a gold-plated subtweet at every existing symbol of shared national history. Authoritarians usually wait a bit before they start designing their own triumphal architecture; Trump just skipped to the "build me a pharaoh-sized souvenir" phase.
The BBC politely calls the plan "controversial." That’s one way to describe an administration floating a mega-arch of personal glorification in the capital of a supposed constitutional republic. Another is: ah yes, the classic strongman starter pack—giant gold thing, visible from everywhere, dedicated to "the nation" but mysteriously shaped like one guy’s brand.
#fascism#killing-democracy
dhs turns a murder into a campaign ad
Markwayne Mullin, freshly installed at DHS, peers solemnly at a tragedy and sees what really matters: an opportunity to tweet about citizenship vetting.
A horrifying string of attacks in the Atlanta area leaves two women dead and a homeless man in critical condition. One victim, 34‑year‑old DHS inspector general staffer Lauren Bullis, was killed while walking her dog. It’s a human tragedy, so naturally the Trump administration’s first instinct is to weaponize it for the immigration panic industrial complex.
Homeland Security secretary Markwayne Mullin rushes out a statement, not to provide clear facts, but to hint darkly that the 26‑year‑old suspect, British‑born Olaolukitan Adon Abel, somehow slipped through the citizenship process in 2022. He catalogs alleged past crimes, carefully avoids saying whether any of them happened before naturalization, then brags that since Donald Trump’s glorious return, USCIS has been heroically making sure people with criminal histories don’t become citizens. Small problem: U.S. law has already barred most violent felons from naturalizing for a very long time. Details, schmeetails.
When pressed for basic information about what DHS knew and when, the department suddenly develops a severe case of we-refuse-to-comment-itis and sends reporters back to a generic condolence post. So we get the full political talking point about the dangers of immigrants and the strongman’s promise that Trump alone can fix it, but none of the transparency that might show whether this was a bureaucratic failure, a loophole, or just Mullin using a grieving family’s nightmare as a backdrop for his boss’s reelection brand.
It’s a grimly familiar formula: a brutal crime, a devastated community, a murdered civil servant remembered by friends and family for her kindness and decency — and an administration that looks at all that pain and sees a chance to tighten the fear screws a little more. Policy by hashtag, governance by dog whistle.
#killing-democracy#anti-immigration
vought discovers new budget category: mass death
Russell Vought explains that laws, like HIV meds, are more of a suggestion than a requirement.
Russell Vought, Trump’s budget arsonist-in-chief, finally wandered into a House hearing and got greeted by AIDS activists chanting the radical slogan "please don’t let millions of people die for your culture war." Protesters interrupted the hearing twice, yelling "Pepfar saves lives – spend the money" and holding signs like "Vought cuts kill people with Aids" because when the administration slow-walks and blocks already-approved HIV funding, that’s not a metaphor – that’s a body count.
Congress appropriated $4.6bn for PEPFAR this year, but the Trump team is letting it out in a drip-feed, like a sadistic game show where the prize is "maybe your clinic can pay staff next month." Nearly all USAID funding was already gutted, a $400m rescission request for PEPFAR was shot down, and Vought just… kept slow-walking the money anyway. The GAO has already said the funds were illegally impounded in violation of the Impoundment Control Act, but Vought assured lawmakers he "fully complied" with the law while also declaring they’re "not fans" of that law and Trump "ran against it" – bold strategy, telling Congress their power of the purse is optional now.
Meanwhile, the numbers are what you’d expect when you put a Fox News comments section in charge of global health: an estimated 780,000 people dead in the first year of cuts, with a Lancet study projecting 14 million deaths by 2030, including 4.5 million children. Vought bragged about dismantling USAID because too much money was going to NGOs that "don’t share this administration’s perspective" – which, according to whistleblower Nicholas Enrich, includes appointees who thought USAID was basically an overseas abortion dispenser and demanded Barney-style presentations. So yes, the world’s leading HIV program is being strangled because the president’s guys think global health is a satanic PBS cartoon.
Health advocates describe the administration’s approach as "sabotaging the program" and "defying the will of Congress," measured in preventable deaths and resurgent epidemics. The tools to fight HIV are literally "in the cupboard gathering dust" while the virus spreads – not because the science failed, but because Trump, Rubio, and Vought decided the real emergency was that NGOs helping poor people didn’t vote for them. American soft power, global health leadership, and millions of human beings have all been reassigned to the same budget line: expendable.
#killing-democracy#lawlessness#forever-grifting
white house speedruns crypto deregulation before the polls close
Scott Bessent, seen here preparing to onshore 'the future of finance,' which coincidentally looks a lot like the last bubble with better branding.
The Trump White House has discovered a new emergency that must be addressed before the midterms: not healthcare, not climate, not democracy — crypto market structure. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, White House crypto whisperer Patrick Witt, and former AI/crypto czar David Sacks are all out doing PR for the CLARITY Act, a bill designed to finally decide which federal agency gets to not regulate digital snake oil.
They already rammed through the GENIUS Act last year — a stablecoin law lovingly crafted for the narrow slice of the industry that wants to pretend its casino chips are just digital dollars — but the real prize is this broader market structure bill. The administration is now leaning on Senate Republicans to "hold a markup" and hustle it to Trump’s desk, because nothing says responsible governance like rushing complex financial legislation in the final months before an election while your donor class is heavily invested in the outcome.
The Council of Economic Advisers has even produced a handy report telling the banking industry to stop whining and accept its new crypto overlords. Banks complain about systemic risk; the White House complains that the U.S. might "lose financial leadership" if it doesn’t let a bunch of venture-backed tokens cosplay as the future of money. The core dispute isn’t about protecting consumers or financial stability — it’s about which set of oligarchs gets to clip the coupons from the next bubble.
So as Trump posts AI images of himself being hugged by Jesus, his economic team is busy hugging the crypto lobby, racing to lock in a deregulatory framework that will be very convenient for industry players — and very awkward for taxpayers when it all inevitably blows up. Truly, a CLARITY Act: we’ve never been clearer on whose side this White House is on.
#forever-grifting#money#crypto
thom tillis discovers the real problem is *everyone* around trump
Thom Tillis bravely explains that the arsonist-in-chief is only dangerous because his matches keep giving him bad advice.
Republican Sen. Thom Tillis went on TV to perform the classic MAGA magic trick: separate Trump from the consequences of Trumpism. The new script is that the president isn’t the problem, it’s just a few naughty Cabinet secretaries giving him bad advice — as though the guy who demands loyalty oaths, purges anyone who says "no," and governs by Truth Social post is actually a helpless victim of his own handpicked yes‑men.
This is the updated "adults in the room" fantasy, except now the adults are the villains and the man signing the executive orders is a wide‑eyed bystander. Instead of confronting the obvious — that the chaos, abuses of power, and authoritarian lurches are features, not bugs — Tillis helpfully offers up a couple of scapegoats in the Cabinet, like a company blaming middle management for the CEO driving the business into a volcano.
What we’re really watching is the party trying to launder responsibility for every disastrous policy and norm‑shredding stunt: blame the staff, protect the boss, and hope voters never notice that Trump personally hired, fired, and publicly humiliated these same people on a rotating basis. The message from Tillis: the system isn’t broken because of Trump’s behavior; it’s just suffering from a few bad influencers. Democracy will be fine once the emperor’s entourage gets a light refresh.
#killing-democracy#full-stupid
house discovers consequences, immediately faints
Democrat explains that Congress has ‘zero room’ for abusers of power, while broadcasting from a building that’s basically an open-plan office for them.
Eric Swalwell resigns from Congress over sexual misconduct allegations, and California Democrat Robert Garcia appears on TV to announce there is "zero room for anyone who abuses their power" in the House. Bold words from an institution that spent the Trump years treating abuse of power like a networking opportunity and a fundraising strategy. Apparently the new standard is: if you get caught this loudly, you finally have to go.
Garcia leans hard into the "accountability" framing, insisting the House must be a safe workplace and that abusing power is disqualifying. Meanwhile, the same building still contains a thriving ecosystem of alleged harassers, insurrection cheerleaders, and people who think ethics is a type of salad. But sure, today we’re drawing a bright red line — right through the one guy who already resigned.
The kicker is the retroactive tough talk: another Democrat insists Nancy Pelosi would have "decimated" Swalwell if she'd known about the allegations earlier, as if the real tragedy here is depriving Pelosi of the chance to personally vaporize a member on live TV. The broader lesson from all this? Congress will absolutely crack down on abuse of power — once it’s politically safe, media-saturated, and someone else has already taken the fall.
#lawlessness#killing-democracy
supreme court governs by sticky note to help trump
Ketanji Brown Jackson politely explaining that the Supreme Court is not supposed to be Trump’s emergency suggestion box.
Ketanji Brown Jackson went to Yale Law School and basically told the country that the conservative justices have turned the Supreme Court into a late-night fax machine for Trump. She called their pro-Trump emergency orders “scratch-paper musings” and “back-of-the-envelope” impressions, which is a very polite way of saying: the highest court in the land is now issuing policy-changing rulings with the intellectual rigor of a napkin at a steakhouse.
The pattern is simple and bleak: Trump’s second administration files 34 emergency applications; the conservative 6–3 majority quietly hits the green button most of the time; lower courts that actually looked at the law say the policies are probably illegal; the Supreme Court shrugs and lets them go ahead anyway. These supposedly “short-term” orders then function as de facto policy, greenlighting anti-immigrant crackdowns and steep funding cuts while the merits cases crawl through the system. Judicial review, but make it express lane for the president.
Jackson’s core point is devastating: the Court is not only issuing these thin, barely explained orders, it’s demanding that lower courts treat these sketches as binding guidance, while pretending that abstract “harm” to the president’s agenda outweighs the very real harm to actual humans. As she put it, the president “certainly isn’t harmed if what he wants to do is illegal” — a concept that used to be basic civics, not controversial judicial philosophy. Yet here we are, with the Trump-boosted majority repeatedly grabbing the third rail of every divisive policy fight and calling it neutral law.
She, Sotomayor, and Kagan keep dissenting, but dissents don’t stop deportations or funding cuts. So Jackson is now saying the quiet part very loudly in public: the conservative bloc has discovered a handy tool for helping Trump sidestep legal obstacles, off the regular docket, without full briefing or argument. The shadow docket was meant for true emergencies; under Trump’s Court, the emergency is apparently that his agenda might have to follow the law.
#killing-democracy#lawlessness
trump’s ai jesus fan cam presidency
When you can’t walk on water, but you can ask Midjourney to make it look like you did.
Trump has discovered a new favorite presidential power: not the veto, not the pardon, but the Generate button. The White House and Trump’s own accounts are now a nonstop firehose of AI fan art depicting him as a doctor, a king, a pope, a Nobel laureate, a Sith lord, and, most recently, a kind of off-brand Jesus beaming holy light into a patient’s skull. When called out for the Christ cosplay, he insisted it was just him as a humble medical professional, healing the masses with… divine head lasers.
The AI worship doesn’t stop at theology. The administration is systematically pushing these images as political messaging: Trump as Superman, Trump roaring with a lion, Trump as a football star, Trump as an Apocalypse Now tough guy. Fact-checkers have already noted that this “slopaganda” isn’t just cringe; it’s designed to rally the base and drown out reality with glossy, fabricated hero shots. Why bother governing when Midjourney can just render you into greatness?
While Trump rage-posts through the night about Pope Leo and invents unverified death tolls in Iran by the tens of thousands, the AI content mill keeps churning. By Wednesday morning he was reposting yet another image of Jesus literally embracing him from behind, proudly announcing that the “Radical Left Lunatics” won’t like it—but he thinks it’s “quite nice.” Authoritarian aesthetics 101: blur the line between leader and messiah, flood the zone with fake visuals, and hope no one notices that the only thing getting resurrected is his poll numbers.
#killing-democracy#fascism
trump rediscovers his love for spying on americans
Trump and Congress bravely defend America from the terrifying threat of unchecked government power… by expanding unchecked government power.
Donald Trump has heroically overcome his deep constitutional principles and personal grievances to once again embrace warrantless mass surveillance. After spending years screaming that FISA was a deep state plot to spy on his 2016 campaign and should be “KILLED,” he’s now demanding an 18‑month, no‑changes extension of Section 702 because it’s suddenly an “effective tool” that’s “extremely important to our military” during the war in Iran. Turns out, when the spying machine might work for you instead of on you, it starts to look pretty patriotic.
Inside the House, the show is even better. A bipartisan blob of security-state enthusiasts is frantically trying to ram through a clean renewal, while a weird alliance of progressive Democrats and far‑right Republicans is yelling “maybe get a warrant before you dig through Americans’ emails?” Speaker Mike Johnson, channeling his inner J. Edgar Hoover, refuses any amendments because reform would “jeopardize its passage” – which is Washington‑speak for: the abuses are a feature, not a bug. This is despite the FISA court itself saying FBI compliance problems are “persistent and widespread,” and despite agents using 702 to rummage through the communications of protesters, journalists, a state judge, political commentators, and even members of Congress.
The FBI proudly reports only 7,413 queries on Americans last year, while privacy advocates point out that a handy new “filtering tool” just means a lot of searches don’t get counted at all – a bold innovation in the field of creative accounting for civil liberties violations. Meanwhile, surveillance can keep running through March 2027 thanks to secret court certifications, even if Congress pretends to have a debate or accidentally does its job. The intelligence agencies swear warrants would be too “burdensome” because some queries wouldn’t meet legal standards, which is a remarkably honest way of saying: if we followed the Constitution, we couldn’t do half of what we’re doing now.
So Trump gets to posture as Commander in Chief of Safety, the security state keeps its favorite toy, and Americans get the same deal they always get under this crowd: perpetual fear, perpetual war, and a government that insists it loves freedom so much it has to read your messages to protect it.
#killing-democracy#lawlessness
bernie tries to unplug trump’s bomb subscription box
Bernie Sanders attempts the dark Washington art of ‘listening to voters’ while the Senate checks with AIPAC to see if that’s allowed.
Bernie Sanders is once again wandering into the Senate chamber with the radical, fringe idea that maybe the United States shouldn’t keep mailing 1,000lb bombs and demolition bulldozers to Benjamin Netanyahu like it’s an arms-themed Birchbox. This time he’s trying to block a $151.8m shipment of 12,000 bombs and another $295m in bulldozers that have a well-documented habit of turning homes, neighborhoods, and international law into dust and legal footnotes.
Democrats, who have spent years deeply concerned about Israel’s conduct while voting to fund every missile that concern requires, are now facing voters who have noticed that “ally” apparently means “we underwrite whatever Netanyahu and Trump dream up in Gaza, Lebanon, and Iran.” Sanders is framing the vote as a chance to stand up to AIPAC, the super-PAC that has been carpet-bombing US elections with cash so senators can bravely represent the views of their wealthiest constituents. As he politely suggests they try listening to actual voters, groups like Indivisible, MoveOn, J Street, and Jewish Voice for Peace are outside reminding Democrats that supporting mass displacement and annexation might not be the electoral slam dunk AIPAC’s checks implied.
Over in the House, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ro Khanna have committed the unpardonable Washington sin of saying the quiet part out loud: if Israel wants Iron Dome, it can buy it with its own money instead of siphoning more from US taxpayers to underwrite an endless Trump–Netanyahu foreign-policy fanfic. Meanwhile, Senate Democrats are also pushing a war powers resolution to stop Trump from continuing his wildly unpopular hostilities against Iran — a symbolic gesture Republicans will kill so the president can keep playing commander-in-chief with other people’s lives and other countries’ cities. American democracy: where public opinion is advisory, bombs are mandatory, and the real war is making sure AIPAC never feels ignored.
#killing-democracy#imperialism
cms now stands for coke, miracles & soda
Trump contemplates advanced cancer therapy on Air Force One, also known as a warm Fanta in a Styrofoam cup.
The president of the United States, a man with the nuclear codes and a permanent McDonald’s coupon book, apparently believes diet soda might kill cancer cells because it can kill grass. This revelation comes courtesy of Mehmet Oz — now somehow running the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services — who cheerfully recounted how Trump defended chugging Fanta on Air Force One by declaring, “this stuff’s good for me – it kills cancer cells,” and then suggested it was basically health food because it’s made with “fresh squeezed” orange juice from concentrate. America, your tax dollars are sponsoring a live-action YouTube misinformation reel.
Not to be outdone, Don Jr. nodded along and floated the idea that maybe his dad is “on to something,” citing Trump’s “energy, recall, stamina” as if surviving on Diet Coke and grievance were a peer-reviewed clinical trial. Meanwhile, actual doctors are sprinting to social media to remind people that diet soda does not, in fact, cure cancer — though Trump’s logic does raise the exciting possibility that bleach is a superfood. Physicians have to publicly debunk the commander-in-chief’s lawn-care-based oncology theories while the same health department he controls is re-writing US nutrition guidelines to emphasize “real food.” Sure, real food — as long as it comes in a fountain cup and melts a dandelion.
This is the same brain trust that once mused about injecting disinfectant and shining “powerful light” inside the body, now effectively crowdsourcing public health policy from late-night infomercials and whatever pops into Trump’s head when he sees a commercial. With Dr. Oz at CMS and Trump treating sodas like chemo in a can, the line between federal health guidance and a daytime talk show segment has fully disintegrated. The only thing getting killed here isn’t cancer — it’s scientific credibility.
#anti-science#healthcare#full-stupid
rfk jr runs cdc like a facebook comments section
Robert F Kennedy Jr studies vaccine policy the way most people read YouTube comments: confidently, incorrectly, and with catastrophic consequences.
The Trump administration’s second-term health strategy is finally clear: if you can’t beat infectious diseases, legally disable the people who know how. A federal judge just hit pause on all the vaccine "work" done by the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) — the one hand‑picked by HHS secretary and professional anti-vaxxer Robert F Kennedy Jr — and in the process vaporized official CDC recommendations for current flu shots, Covid boosters, and a new RSV shot for babies. So yes, the world’s richest country has managed to stumble into respiratory virus season with a vibes-based vaccine policy.
Instead of fixing the mess, the administration has produced a fresh one. There’s no confirmed CDC director, ACIP is legally radioactive, and Kennedy technically could issue recommendations himself, assuming he can stop suing vaccines long enough to read the court order. Health officials might also just ignore the judge entirely — a move that, to be fair, is now standard operating procedure for Trump-world whenever the judiciary gets fussy about laws and due process.
States are splintering off, insurers aren’t sure what they’ll cover, pharmacists don’t know what they’re allowed to give, and professional medical organizations are scrambling to fill the void with guidelines based on whatever data they can legally see. Meanwhile, the administration’s big reform is a new ACIP charter that gives more power to groups that treat PubMed like a Deep State psy-op. Public trust in vaccines and the CDC is circling the drain, and experts say the genie of confusion and mistrust is already out of the bottle. Perfect timing, as always, for the next pandemic roll of the dice.
#anti-science#healthcare#killing-democracy
workers attempt democracy, trump’s nlrb files hostile workplace complaint
Attendees at the Union Now rally in New York display the extremely controversial idea that workers should have power too, prompting immediate concern from Trump’s NLRB about this obvious threat to shareholder feelings.
American workers are doing something truly radical under Donald Trump: trying to have some power over their own lives. Union leaders have launched "Union Now", a nonprofit designed to boost union density in a country where about 70% of workers say they want a union and only 10% are allowed to have one – a ratio that would make any self-respecting corporation drool, but somehow is considered "freedom" when it’s about paychecks instead of phones.
Sara Nelson and other organizers are trying to build a war chest to help workers withstand bosses who fire people illegally during organizing drives, stall first contracts for years, and generally behave like they read the National Labor Relations Act and thought it was a list of suggestions. Meanwhile, Trump’s newly re-rigged NLRB has swiveled from watchdog to corporate HR department, making it even easier for employers to drag out negotiations until workers either quit in despair or die at their second job.
Former labor secretary and current NYC deputy mayor Julie Su politely calls these endless delays a "form of union busting," which is a very professional way of saying: companies are breaking the law and the federal agency in charge of stopping them is now cheering from the luxury box. Union membership is down from 21 million in 1979 to 14.7 million today, even as the population has grown by over 100 million, but don’t worry – billionaire wealth is doing great. Trump’s America: collective bargaining for CEOs, bootstraps for everyone else.
#killing-democracy#forever-grifting
trump sells you ‘tax relief’ and sends the savings to raytheon
A lonely taxpayer stares at their refund check, wondering how much of it got rerouted to bomb Iran instead of paying for their insulin.
American taxpayers just found out what their 2025 "tax receipt" actually bought, and spoiler: it wasn’t healthcare, food, or a functioning planet. The Institute for Policy Studies crunched the numbers and the average household shelled out about $4,049 for military-related spending, up from $3,707 the year before. Of that, roughly $1,870 went straight to Pentagon contractors, because Lockheed Martin’s yachts don’t upgrade themselves. Meanwhile, a majestic $31 per filer went to substance abuse and mental health programs. Good thing no one in power seems to have issues with either of those.
While people are drowning in living costs, Trump is pushing a ~40% increase in defense spending and cutting other programs by 10%. Medicaid for 68.5 million Americans clocks in at $2,492 per filer, Medicare at $2,207, food assistance at $396, disaster relief at $179, and the Environmental Protection Agency gets a generous $131 to hold back climate collapse with duct tape and vibes. But don’t worry, nuclear weapons get $130 all on their own, because priorities. And this tax breakdown doesn’t even include the US-Israeli war with Iran, which burned through an estimated $11.3bn in the first six days like it was kindling for Trump’s reelection bonfire.
Polls show around 60–70% of Americans think their taxes are too high and that the rich aren’t paying enough, but Republicans tossed out some shiny tip-income exemptions and senior deductions so a few people get slightly bigger refunds while war-driven inflation eats it all back at the gas pump. Trump calls it strong leadership; the receipts call it a transfer program from your paycheck to the Pentagon and its contractors, with a tiny side of social spending so no one can technically say they got nothing for their money. Congratulations, you helped fund a war, a weapons lobby, and maybe half a therapy session.
#forever-grifting#killing-democracy
memphis ‘safe’ task force mostly just pulls people over
America’s finest: turning a strip mall parking lot into a checkpoint so we can bravely protect Memphis from the menace of people driving while immigrant.
Trump ordered a law-and-order surge in Memphis to crush violent crime, then showed up to take a victory lap for a 30% drop in serious violence. Tiny hitch: Memphis Police Department data shows crime had already fallen to a 25-year low before his Memphis Safe Task Force rolled in with the National Guard and a small army of agencies. But why let reality get in the way of a campaign rally about how only Donald J. Broken Windows can save America?
Once you pop the hood on this "violent crime" crackdown, it’s just a traffic-stop factory with a deportation side hustle. Of the more than 5,200 arrests in the first four months, only about a quarter were for violent crimes, and most of those were from old warrants. The task force did manage to nab over 800 immigrants deemed unlawfully present, though — and only 2% of those were even accused of violent crime. Being undocumented is a civil offense, but the Memphis Safe Task Force treats it like the city’s gravest threat, especially in Parkway Village, a majority Black, rapidly growing Hispanic neighborhood where 81% of arrests are for nonviolent offenses.
The White House’s response is to crank the gaslight to stadium brightness. Spokesperson Abigail Jackson credits the "great work of President Trump’s task force" for falling crime, while refusing to explain why the supposed war on violent offenders looks suspiciously like a dragnet for immigrants selling shoes and tacos. The U.S. Marshals Service parrots the script, bragging that "calls for service are down 18%" — as if people terrified of calling the cops in a militarized crackdown is proof that crime vanished rather than that trust did. Memphis didn’t get a safety plan; it got a political stunt dressed up as public security, with immigrant families and Black neighborhoods paying the price for Trump’s campaign talking points.
#anti-immigration#killing-democracy#lawlessness
trump promises new iran talks to fix crisis he personally lit on fire
U.S. warship cruises the Strait of Hormuz while Washington pretends this is all a totally normal way to run foreign policy.
Trump is now signaling that new talks with Iran could start "soon," which is Washington-speak for, "after we’ve finished pretending the last eight years of diplomacy never happened." Having torched the JCPOA, slapped on maximum-soundbite sanctions, and helped crank regional tensions high enough to rattle oil markets and Navy commanders, he’s now floating himself as the indispensable dealmaker who will heroically negotiate us back to roughly where we were before he wandered in with a gas can.
Diplomats and military officials get to play minesweeper in the Strait of Hormuz while Trump chases a TV-ready handshake moment that he can brand as the greatest deal ever made, many people are saying. Iran, having watched the U.S. shred a signed agreement on a whim, is supposed to trust that this time the reality show host in chief really means it. American credibility takes another hit, global security gets treated like a campaign prop, and the rest of us are left hoping the next episode of "Art of the Nuclear Deal" doesn’t end with a carrier group on fire.
#imperialism#killing-democracy
save america by stopping americans from voting, naturally
Behold: quaint little "I voted" stickers from that brief era when casting a ballot didn’t require a document scavenger hunt and a DHS background check.
The "Save America" Act is back, and once again the plan to "save" democracy is to make sure fewer people can participate in it. This year's model bolts together strict documentary proof-of-citizenship requirements, a very tight voter ID regime, and the casual threat of criminal charges for election officials who don’t perfectly navigate this booby-trapped mess. As a bonus, states would have to hand their voter rolls over to the Department of Homeland Security on the regular, because nothing screams "free and fair elections" like running your local precinct out of a national security file cabinet.
Instead of just calling this what it is — a mass voter suppression bill built to lock in minority rule — the Trump orbit is selling it as "election integrity" while his supporters are still relitigating 2020 and the FBI is poking around Fulton County. Meanwhile, civil rights groups are in court trying to stop Trump from kneecapping mail-in voting, because the GOP finally noticed that when more people can vote, they tend to lose. The Guardian is politely inviting readers to ask questions about what this all means for November’s midterms and the future of American democracy. The short answer: if Trump gets his way, the future looks a lot like DHS-approved voter lists, terrified election workers, and a government that only trusts elections it has pre-rigged.
#killing-democracy#fascism
trump’s jan. 6 ‘patriots’ keep racking up child sex crimes
Future Trump martyr David Paul Daniel hydrating between assaulting cops and, as it turns out, starring in a federal child exploitation case.
The "law and order" president has done it again: another Jan. 6 rioter personally blessed by Donald Trump’s mass clemency program is now set to plead guilty to federal child sexual exploitation charges. David Daniel — who Trump helped scrub clean for assaulting police at the Capitol — has reached a plea deal over enticement of a child under 12 to produce sexual abuse images, plus another minor victim under 18. Truly the finest of people, the best people, the only people this movement ever seems to find.
Federal Judge Matthew Orso had to patiently explain that Trump’s Jan. 6 pardon does not magically extend to "child exploitation" because, astonishingly, raping children is not "conduct related to the events at or near the United States Capitol." This is not a hypothetical problem: Daniel is at least the third Trump-pardoned Jan. 6 rioter nailed in separate child sex cases. Daniel Tocci got four years for a child porn collection; Andrew Paul Johnson is doing life after trying to bribe a victim into silence with fantasy money from a supposed Trump Jan. 6 settlement. The movement that screams about "groomers" sure seems to have a recurring casting problem.
Meanwhile, the Trump DOJ has been tying itself in knots drawing magical lines around these pardons: guns seized during Jan. 6 raids? Sometimes pardoned. Child sexual abuse material uncovered during those same investigations? Not covered. One rioter, Dan Wilson, even got a second pardon to cover his gun conviction — because if there’s one thing this crowd takes seriously, it’s making sure the violent coup guys keep their firearms. And lawyers for alleged DNC/RNC pipe bomb suspect Brian Cole Jr. are now trying to cram bomb-planting under the Jan. 6 pardon umbrella too.
So the pattern is clear: Trump hands out mass pardons to insurrectionists like merch at a rally, a non-trivial number turn out to be accused or convicted child predators, and the courts are left sweeping up the wreckage while MAGA world still insists these are political prisoners and heroes. This is the movement that claims it’s saving America’s children.
#lawlessness#forever-grifting
white house stages heartwarming ad for poverty wages
Grandma delivers McDonald’s to the president while delivering talking points to the cameras—America’s economy, now available as a branded content partnership.
The White House rolled out its latest economic policy explainer by doing what this administration does best: staging a commercial and calling it governance. Enter "DoorDash grandma" Sharon Simmons, previously flown in to lobby Congress for Trump’s "no tax on tips" gimmick, now reappearing as a surprise McDonald’s delivery driver to the president. DoorDash eventually had to admit the whole thing was a pre-arranged stunt, complete with a carefully televised $100 tip, because nothing says serious tax policy like an influencer collab with the guy who almost ended democracy.
Then the propaganda machine really went for it. The Trump rapid response account blasted out a quote claiming Simmons had "saved" more than $11,000 in tips by "not having to claim" them on her taxes—promptly smacked down by a community note and basic math. The actual policy is a temporary deduction on up to $25,000 in tips, most tipped workers already pay little or no federal income tax, and her tips are still taxable in Arkansas anyway. Minor details, easily ignored when you’re busy turning a precarious gig worker into a mascot for a law that, according to researchers, gives a tiny tax break to some servers while gutting health care, energy, and food assistance to finance tax cuts for the ultra-wealthy.
Labor advocates pointed out that this isn’t worker empowerment; it’s a marketing campaign for poverty wages. The policy encourages more tipping instead of higher base pay, while Trump’s broader package shreds the safety net the same workers rely on to survive. As One Fair Wage’s Saru Jayaraman put it, the fact that "DoorDash grandma" is even a thing is a sign of societal failure, not a feel-good moment. But in Trump’s America, corporations pay workers so little they have to beg for tips, the government offers a tax gimmick instead of a raise, and then everyone gathers at the White House to film it like a heartwarming Super Bowl ad for late-stage capitalism.
#forever-grifting#killing-democracy
trump discovers minority rights are for losers
Mitch McConnell and Senate Republicans gazing lovingly at the filibuster, wondering if they should kill it now or wait until it can hurt them personally.
President Trump is once again staring at a guardrail of American democracy and asking, very sincerely, whether it would look better smashed through the windshield. This time it’s the Senate filibuster, which he wants to vaporize so he can shove the so‑called Save America Act through the chamber without the pesky inconvenience of needing more than 50 senators to agree.
Senate Republicans, however, are having a rare moment of semi-conscious thought. They’re reportedly nervous about detonating the filibuster because they understand that one day, they might not be the ones holding the gavel, and then Democrats could use the same no‑rules sandbox to pass things that aren’t handouts to donors and Christian nationalists. So we get the usual GOP dilemma: protect basic institutional norms, or hand Trump the matches and hope the fire only burns other people.
The filibuster has a long, ugly history — from civil-rights obstruction to routine gridlock — but it’s still one of the last speed bumps left between Trump and full‑tilt majoritarian rule dressed up as populist revolution. The fact that the future of a 200‑year‑old legislative norm now hinges on whether Senate Republicans are more afraid of Trump’s rage tweets than of someday being in the minority tells you exactly how sturdy American democracy is in 2026: held together with vibes, cowardice, and a parliamentary procedure nobody actually likes.
#killing-democracy#fascism
