trump discovers a bold new way to fight fraud: starve poor kids
Trump officials bravely stand up to fraud by cutting off childcare for poor kids, because nothing says ‘law and order’ like punishing toddlers for a YouTube video.
The Trump administration has discovered an innovative new approach to combating alleged fraud in social programs: freeze $10 billion in childcare and basic-needs funding and see how many poor families you can push off a cliff before anyone finds the receipts. HHS abruptly blocked California, Colorado, Illinois, Minnesota, and New York from accessing money from three core safety net programs—CCDF, TANF, and the Social Services Block Grant—because they supposedly harbor “widespread fraud,” a claim helpfully inspired by a YouTube rant from an “independent journalist.” In other words, federal social policy is now being set by the comments section.
The catch: Trump officials are demanding extensive new documentation that states were never previously required to collect. If they can’t magically produce it on command, hundreds of thousands of families lose childcare within weeks. Experts are describing the impact as “catastrophic,” but sure, tell us more about fiscal responsibility while you detonate funding that keeps 1.4 million kids in care and helps millions more eat, dress, and survive. And just to make it extra punitive, every other state is being hit with new paperwork demands too—a de facto national freeze dressed up as an audit.
Childcare providers are staring down mass layoffs and closures because nothing says “pro-family” like forcing parents—mostly mothers—out of the workforce when their subsidized daycare vanishes overnight. Centers that already save empty paper towel rolls for art projects are now supposed to absorb a federal tantrum over unverified YouTube allegations about Somali-American daycares in Minnesota. The result: chaos, fear, and the potential collapse of childcare systems in multiple states, all because the administration decided that punishing blue states and low-income families is more urgent than, say, verifying basic facts.
So to recap: a right-wing outrage video, racialized fraud panic, and a White House that treats poor children as collateral damage in its ongoing war on Democratic governors. It’s not oversight; it’s governing by hostage-taking—and the hostages are kids who just needed somewhere safe to go while their parents work.
#killing-democracy#forever-grifting
america the beautiful, foreigners the billable
Behold the new ‘America the Beautiful’ pass: George Washington, and the guy who tried to overthrow his republic, sharing top billing on your mandatory loyalty card.
The Trump administration has discovered a bold new way to say "go home" to the rest of the planet: a surprise $100 per person surcharge on foreign visitors at 11 major national parks, on top of normal entrance fees. Rangers are now doing citizenship checks at trailheads, cars are getting hit with $600 bills, and tourists are literally turning around at the gate. Because nothing says "welcoming democracy" like a paperwork checkpoint between you and the Grand Canyon.
Environmental groups point out that this fun new xenophobic cover charge is also probably illegal, since current rules don’t actually allow fees based on nationality and the bill to change that hasn’t become law. Minor detail the administration handled in the traditional way: by ignoring it. The Center for Biological Diversity is suing, arguing that the US is now marketing its parks as "world-famous landscapes, now with added grift." Even better, the rushed rollout has no signage, not enough passes, and staff so burned out they’re working multiple jobs — which is what happens when you gut a quarter of the agency and then hand it a border checkpoint cosplay at the park gate.
And because this is the Trump era, the new annual "America the Beautiful" pass now features a big, glorious portrait of Donald Trump next to George Washington. If you put a sticker over Trump’s face, the pass is invalidated — a perfect metaphor for the regime: the access you already paid for is contingent on visibly respecting the leader’s image. The image was supposed to be chosen by photo contest, but the actual winning photographer got tossed aside so Trump’s mug could go on the card instead. In other words: pay more if you’re foreign, obey the propaganda rules if you’re not, and hope the court notices that none of this is remotely legal.
#anti-immigration#forever-grifting
trumprx: now with 90% more press release than savings
Trump announcing his TrumpRx ‘savings’ program, flanked by drug executives who somehow don’t look terrified of losing any actual money.
Trump has discovered a bold new way to fix America’s drug pricing crisis: announce a bunch of secret deals, slap his name on a website, and hope nobody notices that almost no one will actually save money. Since Sept. 30, the White House says it’s struck deals with 14 drugmakers, trading tariff relief for "most favored nation" pricing on a mystery list of drugs and some cash discounts through a new self-pay platform called TrumpRx—because nothing says serious health policy like a QVC-sounding brand extension.
Experts point out that the deals mostly help people on Medicaid (who already pay next to nothing at the counter) and the uninsured, while doing basically nothing for the vast majority of Americans with private insurance or Medicare. Even then, the headline-grabbing cuts—like taking Epclusa from about $25,000 to $2,425 cash—still leave people paying thousands out of pocket. Those “cheaper” weight-loss drugs Wegovy and Zepbound? We’re still talking $250–$350 a month, i.e., unaffordable for a lot of the people Trump claims to be rescuing.
There’s also the tiny problem that almost none of this exists on paper. Brookings’ Richard Frank notes there are "virtually nothing" but press releases, no full drug list, no real contracts we can see, and a decent chance these are just old discounts rebranded as Trump’s historic victory over Big Pharma. Meanwhile, drugmakers quietly hiked prices on more than 350 brand-name medicines, health insurance premiums are spiking as ACA subsidies expire, and millions can’t afford coverage at all. In other words: Trump gets the photo ops, pharma keeps the profits, and Americans get a Trump-branded coupon site that still leaves them choosing between insulin and rent—but sure, tell us again how the deals are "the largest developments" in drug pricing reform.
#forever-grifting#healthcare
congress briefly remembers it exists
The U.S. Capitol, where lawmakers occasionally remember they’re allowed to say no to Trump before immediately apologizing for the inconvenience.
House Republicans accidentally help people, immediately apologize to leadership
Seventeen House Republicans temporarily broke from the "let them get medical debt" caucus and joined Democrats to pass a three-year extension of enhanced ACA subsidies — over the explicit objections of Speaker Mike Johnson. Because nothing says "functioning democracy" like having to use a once-rare discharge petition to force a vote on whether your constituents get health insurance or not. Johnson and leadership spent weeks blocking the bill, so members had to literally yank power out of the Speaker’s hands just to stop millions from seeing their premiums spike.
Meanwhile, the Senate rediscovers that Congress is supposed to declare wars
While the House was busy doing CPR on Obamacare subsidies, the Senate took a baby step toward acting like a co-equal branch of government, advancing a resolution that would require Trump to get authorization from Congress before escalating military action in Venezuela. Five Republicans joined Democrats to say, "Hey, maybe the guy who thinks foreign policy is a TV pitch meeting shouldn’t have a blank check for war." The vote was 52–47 — not exactly a landslide, but in Trump’s America, any pushback on imperial cosplay counts as a full-blown rebellion.
Legislating by hostage crisis, as usual
All of this is happening while Congress sprints toward a Jan. 30 government funding deadline, frantically passing spending bills to keep basic functions running — Justice, Interior, EPA, science, all the things the Trump orbit alternates between ignoring and trying to dismantle. In other words: lawmakers are simultaneously trying to keep Americans insured, stop an unauthorized foreign adventure, and avoid a shutdown, while the Trump White House and House GOP leadership do their level best to block health care and hoard war powers. But sure, tell us again how the real threat to democracy is people being mean about it on social media.
#killing-democracy#lawlessness
commander in cheat: now with impossible math
Tamara Keith, bravely attempting to apply actual math to a presidency powered entirely by vibes and lies.
President Trump has discovered a bold new frontier in statistics: numbers that do not, and cannot, exist. NPR notes that Trump "loves to use figures and percentages" even when they are mathematically impossible — which is a very polite way of saying the guy in charge of the nuclear arsenal treats arithmetic like it's fake news.
In other words, the president isn't just lying about crowd sizes or poll numbers anymore; he's upgraded to a kind of quantum math where 200% of people support him, 150% of women love him, and 0% of his followers ever stop to ask, "wait, is that even how numbers work?" Because nothing says "stable genius" like repeatedly citing statistics that would get a middle-schooler sent back to pre-algebra.
This isn't harmless exaggeration; it's the whole point. If Trump can make up percentages with the same confidence he makes up election fraud, it trains his base to accept any claim he delivers with enough volume and grievance. Once you've normalized impossible math from the podium, fudging job numbers, pandemic death stats, or vote counts becomes just another "alternative fact" in the great MAGA spreadsheet of make-believe. But sure, tell us more about how he's a savvy businessman who "really understands the numbers."
#killing-democracy#full-stupid
trump tries to fire the portrait gallery by tweet
The Smithsonian, moments before being diagnosed with "race-centered ideology" and prescribed one Lindsey Halligan and a gallon of whitewash.
Donald Trump woke up one morning, looked at the Smithsonian, and apparently decided the real threat to America wasn’t corruption, climate, or coups – it was a museum director who likes diversity. From his panic room on Truth Social, he "hereby terminates" National Portrait Gallery director Kim Sajet for the crime of being a "strong supporter" of inclusion, helpfully ignoring the tiny constitutional snag that the president doesn’t actually control Smithsonian personnel. But sure, separation of powers is for losers.
This tantrum is part of a bigger project: the brilliantly named executive order “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History”, which translates to purging anything that admits racism happened. Trump and VP JD Vance hand cultural control of the Smithsonian to Lindsey Halligan – an insurance attorney with zero arts background, because nothing says "guardians of national memory" like someone whose main qualification is loyalty to the dear leader. The order accuses the museums of pushing a “divisive, race-centred ideology,” i.e., mentioning Black people and oppression in a way that isn’t a Fox News segment.
#killing-democracy#fascism#full-stupid
america officially rage-quits the world
Trump signs the "America First, Planet Last" order while aides explain that if you leave all the climate meetings, the climate can’t be a problem anymore.
Donald Trump has signed an executive order yanking the US out of 66 international organizations and agreements, because nothing says "global leadership" like rage-quitting the group chat. The casualties include the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change—the core treaty that underpins the Paris agreement—and the UN population agency that provides sexual and reproductive health services worldwide. In other words: less climate cooperation, less healthcare, more fossil fuels, more forced births, and a lot of chest-thumping about "sovereignty" from the guy who thinks weather is climate.
The State Department helpfully explained that these institutions are "redundant", "mismanaged", or a "threat" to US sovereignty—translation: they sometimes tell rich polluters and authoritarian creeps "no", and that simply will not do. Having already kneecapped the WHO, Unrwa, the UN Human Rights Council and Unesco, the administration is now speedrunning isolationism, forcing UN program cuts and shuttering projects around the world, all while pretending this is some bold new efficiency drive rather than petty, ideological vandalism.
Meanwhile, Trump insists he still sees the "potential" of the UN—just in the handful of technical bodies where Washington wants to arm-wrestle China over standards, while torching everything involving climate, labor, or human rights as "woke". Experts warn that pulling the world's largest historical emitter out of the core climate treaty gives every other government a handy excuse to stall, but sure, let's call it a win for "freedom" as megafires, floods, and heatwaves rack up the body count. The US is now that guy who refuses to pay dues, trashes the committee, and then demands to run it anyway.
So add it to the list: capture a foreign leader, threaten to annex Greenland, gut foreign aid, and now tear up the legal architecture for global climate talks and reproductive health programs. It's not diplomacy, it's geo-political arson—but at least the fossil fuel lobby and the Christian nationalist crowd are getting everything they paid for.
#killing-democracy#fascism#anti-science
ice discovers 'shoot first, paperwork never' immigration policy
ICE agents stand around in tactical gear, bravely defending America from pastors, legal observers, and anyone unlucky enough to be near their latest "extraordinary enforcement operation."
Federal immigration agents have apparently decided that if you're going to run an authoritarian crackdown, you might as well lean all the way in. Under Trump’s expanded immigration dragnet, ICE and other federal officers have been linked to 14 shootings and a total of 28 gun-related incidents in just a few months, according to data compiled by The Trace. That’s on top of 13 documented uses of so-called “less-lethal” weapons—rubber bullets, pepper balls, and other fun toys—10 of which were used on protesters, including two pastors who were shot with pepper balls while leading prayers. Because nothing says "law and order" like gassing clergy during a vigil.
The latest escalation came in Minneapolis, where federal agents fatally shot a woman during a massive immigration raid involving about 2,000 agents. Representative Ilhan Omar says the victim was a legal observer, which really drives home the new Trump doctrine: if you can’t stop the abuses, they’ll just shoot the witnesses. This "extraordinary enforcement operation" is allegedly tied to fraud allegations involving Somali residents, but what it mostly looks like is a federally sponsored occupation of a US city with a convenient ethnic target.
Meanwhile, Trump’s first year of his second term is turning ICE detention into a combination of warehouse, pressure cooker, and morgue. The administration has jacked up the ICE detention population by nearly 50% to more than 65,000 people, while arresting over 328,000 and deporting nearly 327,000. Facilities are massively overcrowded, conditions are abysmal, and 32 people died in ICE custody in 2025—the deadliest year in more than two decades, matching the previous high set in 2004. Advocacy groups say deaths are being driven by overcrowding, medical neglect, mental health crises, and now, helpfully, gunfire.
In other words, Trump promised a "crackdown" and delivered a sprawling, militarized detention-and-deportation machine that shoots protesters, kills observers, and packs tens of thousands of people into lethal conditions. But sure, tell us again how this is just "border security" and not a slow-motion state-sponsored assault on basic human rights.
#killing-democracy#anti-immigration#lawlessness
people live in homes, not corporations, says guy who is a corporation
Trump, America’s most famous landlord, bravely defending regular homeowners from the scourge of… other landlords.
Donald Trump has discovered that housing is expensive and, in a stunning break with the last 40 years of Republican orthodoxy, has decided that maybe Wall Street shouldn't own the entire starter-home market. On Truth Social, the president announced he is "immediately" taking steps to ban large institutional investors from buying single-family homes and will be asking Congress to codify it — because nothing says "serious policy" like a vague threat posted on your failing social network before a photo op in Davos.
Trump blamed "Record High Inflation" on Joe Biden, naturally, while ignoring that institutional investors hoovering up whole neighborhoods was a bipartisan, private-equity fever dream years in the making. Now, the guy whose entire life has been one long real estate shell game is rebranding himself as the defender of the American Dream: people live in homes, not corporations, says the walking LLC. Whether this turns into actual legislation or just another campaign-style stunt to yell about in the Swiss Alps remains to be seen — but sure, the man who turned the federal government into a family business is suddenly drawing a hard line on corporate ownership of housing.
In other words: Wall Street might get lightly scolded on social media while lobbyists and donors quietly carve out loopholes in the background. But for now, Trump gets to posture as a populist housing warrior at the World Economic Forum, the annual retreat where billionaires gather to discuss how best to save the world from problems they created, over canapés.
#forever-grifting#trumps-america
trump slaps his name on a dead president’s memorial, calls it unity
Workers proudly pose in front of the newly installed Trump branding on a JFK memorial, because in 2026 even the buildings have to swear loyalty.
Donald Trump has finally achieved his lifelong dream of co-headlining with a dead Democrat: the Kennedy Center is now the "Donald J. Trump and John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts," because nothing says living memorial to a fallen president like stapling the branding of a twice-impeached coup enthusiast on top of it. Trump fired members of the arts institution’s board last year, installed himself as chair via Truth Social, and then the newly compliant board helpfully voted to rename a monument that federal law explicitly designated as a memorial to John F. Kennedy. In other words: separation of powers is out, Dear Leader signage is in.
The move is already being challenged in court, with the Kennedy family pointing out the obvious: you can’t just executive tantrum your way into renaming a congressionally created memorial any more than you can wake up and decide the Lincoln Memorial is now the Elon Musk Freedom Portal. But while lawyers sort out whether this is technically illegal or just extremely authoritarian cosplay, artists are voting with their feet. Banjo legend Béla Fleck is the latest to cancel his performances, joining a growing list of musicians and composers who would prefer not to play backup for the Trump Monument Rebranding Project.
Kennedy Center president and professional grievance amplifier Richard Grenell responded by accusing Fleck of "caving to the woke mob" while insisting the newly christened Trump Kennedy Center just wants performers who "aren’t political"—a bold position from a guy running a building that literally just got renamed after the sitting president over the objections of the dead one it was supposed to memorialize. The stated mission is an apolitical home for free artistic expression; the actual mission is slapping Trump’s name on as many American institutions as possible before the courts or Congress remember how laws work. But sure, it’s the musicians who are making it political.
#killing-democracy#fascism
trump floats 'invade to buy' greenland plan
Pictured: the giant chunk of ice that Trump thinks comes with a complimentary deed if you park enough warships nearby.
In a development that sounds less like U.S. foreign policy and more like a rejected Command & Conquer expansion pack, the White House is now saying that using the U.S. military is "an option" to acquire Greenland. Because nothing says peaceful alliance between democracies like casually suggesting you might send in the troops if the real estate deal falls through.
This is where we are: Trump couldn’t bully Denmark into selling Greenland the first time, so now the brain trust is workshopping the idea that maybe the Pentagon can play foreclosure agent. International law, Danish sovereignty, NATO ally—all just speed bumps on the road to turning the Arctic into a Trump-branded golf-and-rare-earth-minerals complex. In other words, it’s 19th-century colonialism with 21st-century stupidity.
The message to the world is clear: if you’ve got strategic value, minerals, or a coastline that looks good on a campaign poster, congratulations—you’re now a line item in America’s shopping cart, and the "Buy Now" button is attached to the U.S. military. But sure, tell us again how this is all about "national security" and not a senile fantasy about buying countries like condos and sending in the Marines when escrow gets complicated.
#imperialism#national-security#killing-democracy
trump epa to science: you had your turn, now die quietly
The Trump EPA, bravely defending Americans from the grave threat of updated carcinogen data.
The EPA once did a wild, radical thing called "reading science and updating rules accordingly." That’s how we got stricter limits on ethylene oxide after the agency figured out in 2016 that the stuff is about 30 times more carcinogenic than previously thought, causing lymphoma and breast cancer for the unlucky people living next to chemical plants and sterilizer facilities. In 2024, updated rules were set to slash cancer risk for tens of thousands of people — cutting the number of residents facing "unacceptable" cancer risks from 90,000 to 3,000. You know, actual lives saved.
Naturally, the chemical industry hated this. The American Chemistry Council and Louisiana Chemical Association suddenly discovered a deep, spiritual devotion to the "plain text" of the Clean Air Act, arguing that once EPA does its first risk review, that’s it — no do-overs, even if new data shows a chemical is way more lethal than anyone realized. In other words: we got our weak rule in 2003, you don’t get to fix it just because we’re poisoning half a million people.
Enter Trump’s EPA, which is now "reconsidering" whether the agency even has the legal authority to tighten hazardous air pollution standards after the first review. This is despite the Bush EPA saying it did have that authority, and even Trump’s own inspector general telling the agency to use its discretion to do new reviews when fresh science shows greater toxicity. But sure, when the choice is between updated cancer data and the profit margins of petrochemical giants, guess which one Principal Deputy Assistant Administrator and former oil and gas lobbyist Abigale Tardif is going to lean toward.
So the agency in charge of protecting people from hazardous air pollutants is flirting with the idea that it should stop considering new evidence that those pollutants are killing people. The EPA claims it’s still committed to the "gold standard of science" while quietly entertaining an interpretation of the law that would lock in outdated, industry-friendly rules forever. Because nothing says "clean air for all Americans" like deciding you’re legally not allowed to notice when the air is giving them cancer.
#anti-science#killing-democracy
woman continues to larp as u.s. attorney after judge says 'absolutely not'
Lindsey Halligan, seen here shortly before a federal judge informed her that "U.S. attorney" is a job, not a vibe.
Lindsey Halligan, Trump’s favorite cosplay prosecutor, has been ordered by a federal judge to explain why she’s still calling herself the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia after another federal judge already ruled her appointment unconstitutional. In other words, a court said, "you never had this job," and Halligan’s response was, "that’s cute, anyway…"—and the Trump DOJ is still helpfully labeling her "U.S. attorney" in official filings, because why stop the pretend game now.
Judge David Novak, apparently tired of living in a live-action separation-of-powers stress test, issued his own three-page order demanding Halligan justify why her name and title shouldn’t be yanked off an indictment in a carjacking and bank robbery case. He also wants her to explain how identifying herself as U.S. attorney isn’t a "false or misleading statement" and gently hinted at possible disciplinary action—because nothing says "totally normal functioning justice system" like having to ask the government’s top local prosecutor whether she’s committing fraud on the court.
This all stems from Judge Cameron McGowan Currie’s November ruling that Halligan’s appointment violated the Constitution, nuking her politically convenient prosecutions of James Comey and New York AG Letitia James as "unlawful exercises of executive power." The decision is on appeal, but—minor detail—it hasn’t been stayed, meaning it’s still binding law. Other judges have resorted to putting an asterisk next to Halligan’s name on court documents, like a walking steroids-era home run record, with a note reminding everyone she "did not lawfully possess" the power she’s been flinging around. But sure, tell us more about how this administration is restoring "law and order."
#lawlessness#corruption#killing-democracy
trump discovers bribery indictments are for party-switching, not crime
Trump explains that pardons are sacred instruments of justice, right up until the moment the recipient forgets to join his fan club.
Donald Trump pardoned Democratic Rep. Henry Cuellar on federal bribery, wire fraud, and money laundering charges — and is now endorsing a Republican to take Cuellar’s seat because the guy he rescued from a 28-count indictment had the audacity to keep the same party registration. In other words, the former president is openly explaining that the price of a pardon is not innocence, but fealty.
Trump is backing Webb County Judge Tano Tijerina, a former Democrat who did the traditional MAGA conversion ritual — switching parties live on Fox News — and is now "honored" to have Trump's support to "take South Texas back." Meanwhile, Cuellar is out here thanking Trump for the pardon like a hostage reading a prepared statement, while Trump rants on Truth Social that Cuellar's decision to run as a Democrat is an unforgivable act of "disloyalty" and that he "should not be allowed to serve in Congress again." Because nothing says "rule of law" like the guy who just wiped your alleged $600,000 bribery scheme demanding you change teams or get politically destroyed.
Trump even posted letters from Cuellar’s daughters begging for pardons for their parents, then used them as Exhibit A in his case that the Justice Department was mean and political, while he, the man trading clemency for loyalty, is somehow the guardian of justice. He insists he’d still pardon Cuellar again — he just wants him "beaten badly" at the ballot box now that he’s failed the loyalty exam. So yes, the president is flatly admitting that pardons are personal favors, elections are punishment tools, and party affiliation is the only crime that really matters — but sure, tell us again how this is all about "weaponization" of justice by someone else.
#corruption#forever-grifting#killing-democracy
trump pre-confesses to future impeachments, blames democrats for noticing
Trump, mid-sentence, explaining that if he ever faces consequences again, the real crime will be that anyone noticed.
On the fifth anniversary of January 6, Donald Trump commemorated the occasion the only way he knows how: by warning that if Republicans lose the midterms, Democrats will "find a reason to impeach" him. In other words, the guy who tried to overturn an election, hoarded classified documents like Beanie Babies, and treats the Constitution as a suggestion is preemptively declaring that any attempt to hold him accountable would be pure political persecution.
This is the whole Trump project in a neat 30-second clip: elections are rigged if he loses, prosecutions are witch hunts if he’s charged, and impeachments are illegitimate if they’re aimed at him. It’s not a legal argument, it’s an immunity spell he keeps trying to cast on live TV. Because nothing says "I’m totally innocent" like constantly insisting that any future investigation is automatically corrupt before it even exists.
So as Congress returns to work on the anniversary of his last little coup attempt, Trump is already prepping the base: if voters hand Democrats power, and those Democrats dare use the impeachment clause that’s literally in the Constitution, that won’t be oversight — it’ll be treason. Normal presidents campaign on policy; this one campaigns on the premise that the law itself is unfair to him personally.
#killing-democracy#lawlessness
marjorie taylor greene discovers a conscience, film at 11
Marjorie Taylor Greene, seen here mid‑pivot from ‘burn it all down’ to ‘I have grave concerns,’ after discovering that blind loyalty to Trump doesn’t come with a corner office.
Marjorie Taylor Greene, formerly Congress’s QAnon cosplay ambassador, is suddenly auditioning for the role of ‘reasonable anti-war Republican’—because nothing says moral awakening like getting passed over for VP, DHS, and a Senate run. After five years as Trump’s most rabid hype woman, she’s now voting with Democrats to force release of the Jeffrey Epstein files, trashing Trump’s tariffs, Israel policy, crypto wobbling, and refusal to extend ACA subsidies during a shutdown, and denouncing his Caracas adventure as yet another liberation that mysteriously works out best for weapons contractors and oil companies.
Trump, naturally, responded to this outbreak of semi-honesty by calling her a traitor and yanking his endorsement—because in MAGA world, the real crime is noticing the Iraq–Libya–Venezuela pattern out loud. Greene, meanwhile, is busy doing the full reputation rehab tour on CNN, “60 Minutes,” Bill Maher, and “The View,” positioning herself as the MAGA base’s truth-teller rather than what she actually was: the avatar of that base’s worst instincts. As New Yorker reporter Charles Bethea notes, she’s selling a tidy conversion story centered on Christian principle and the murder of Charlie Kirk, while the boring timeline shows something else: she didn’t find Jesus so much as she found out Trump wouldn’t give her a better job.
Bethea politely calls it “reputational reframing”; everyone else might call it brand management. Once Trump showed her a poll where she was getting smoked by Jon Ossoff and quietly killed her higher-office dreams, Greene started discovering all kinds of problems with Trump’s foreign policy, AI policy, and Gaza—becoming the first Republican in Congress to call it a genocide. In other words, the self-proclaimed pure vessel of the MAGA base is now trying to surf the next wave away from Trump while pretending she’s bravely standing against the machine she helped build. But sure, let’s all pretend the canary in the GOP coal mine didn’t spend years joyfully swinging the pickaxe.
#killing-democracy#imperialism
trump doj heroically protects epstein’s powerful friends from the law
Pam Bondi explains that complying with federal law is very hard when so many powerful people might be inconvenienced by accountability.
The Trump Department of Justice has bravely managed to release less than 1% of the Epstein files it was legally required to disclose by December 19, because nothing says "rule of law" like openly blowing past a federal statute and then sending Pam Bondi to write a five-page "oops, we’re trying" note to the judge. Out of more than two million potentially responsive documents, the DOJ has coughed up 12,285 – heavily redacted, missing "all the key documents," and offering exactly zero new information on the 10 alleged Epstein co-conspirators. But don’t worry, Bondi, Todd Blanche, and Jay Clayton swear this is all about "protecting victims," which is a fascinating way to spell "protecting politically exposed creeps and government officials."
Chuck Schumer is on X yelling "What are they trying to hide?" while the department quietly ignores a legal requirement to give Congress an unredacted list of every "government official and politically exposed person" named in the files. It’s been 17 days since Trump’s DOJ first broke the law by missing the deadline, and 14 days since they bothered to release anything at all – but sure, it’s just that redactions are hard and they need "a few more weeks." Meanwhile, Reps. Ro Khanna and Thomas Massie are floating an inherent contempt lawsuit against Bondi, because when a bipartisan pair is talking about dusting off Congress’s most nuclear accountability tool, things are definitely going "all-hands-on-deck" in the best possible way.
The first trickle of documents confirms Epstein’s industrial-scale child abuse operation with Ghislaine Maxwell and features more allegations about Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor (formerly known as Prince Andrew) shopping for "friendly and discreet and fun" girls – but still no major new revelations about who in U.S. power circles knew what and when. In other words, the only people being aggressively protected by Trump’s DOJ are the exact people federal law was designed to expose. But sure, this is all about victim privacy, and not at all about keeping the names of powerful friends, donors, and officials buried under a mountain of redactions and missed deadlines.
#lawlessness#corruption#forever-grifting
trump loses a 100% yes vote
Trump at the mic, turning a congressman’s death into a reminder that the real tragedy is losing another 100% loyalty vote.
Donald Trump announced that GOP Rep. Doug LaMalfa, a fourth-generation rice farmer and reliably obedient vote, died suddenly at 65. Trump’s tribute hit all the key points: LaMalfa was "great on water," a "defender of everybody," and, most importantly, "he voted with me 100% of the time"—because nothing says heartfelt eulogy like bragging that the deceased never once broke ranks with Dear Leader.
LaMalfa’s death, piled on top of Marjorie Taylor Greene’s resignation, shrinks the already razor-thin GOP majority to a situation where Mike Johnson can now lose basically two Republicans before everything collapses—so, you know, Tuesday. The seat will likely go to a special election under current lines, but California’s new maps kick in for the fall and make the district much harder for Republicans to hold. In other words, the party that’s been gerrymandering democracy to death is now getting a taste of "voters actually get to choose"—but sure, tell us more about how this is all a massive Republican "win."
#killing-democracy#losses
trump watches venezuela’s constitutional dumpster fire for tips
Delcy Rodríguez getting sworn in as "interim" leader in a country where nothing is interim except democracy.
Venezuela has sworn in Delcy Rodríguez as an "interim leader," because nothing says stable constitutional order like constantly needing a new interim anything. The country’s democratic institutions have been ground down so thoroughly that leadership transitions now look like a cross between a telenovela and a civics class taught by a coup plotter.
Naturally, this kind of chaos is catnip for Trump and his fan club, who love to hold up Venezuela as the ultimate "socialism gone wrong" cautionary tale while conveniently ignoring the part where the real problem is authoritarian power-hoarding and the systematic destruction of checks and balances. In other words: they break the system, you starve, and then they go on TV to blame "the left."
And while Caracas plays musical chairs with the presidency, you can practically hear Republicans in D.C. taking notes: sideline the legislature, pack the courts, declare whoever you like the "legitimate" leader, and call it all "constitutional" with a straight face. Because why respect term limits and separation of powers when you can just cosplay democracy and dare anyone to stop you?
#fascism#killing-democracy#imperialism
trump, bolton and the case of the mysteriously hijacked venezuelan gold
Behold: the Bank of England’s legendary 'rules-based international order'—40,000 gold bars for friends, zero bars for governments John Bolton doesn’t like.
Deep under London, in the Bank of England’s vaults, sits 31 tonnes of Venezuelan gold that Caracas can’t touch because Washington and Westminster decided democracy now means: whoever Trump and the Foreign Office like gets the money. The bullion, worth at least £1.4bn and now probably a lot more, has been frozen since 2018 after Venezuela’s disputed election, when Trump slapped on sanctions and the UK helpfully stopped pretending its central bank is independent.
Opposition figure Juan Guaidó claimed he, actually, was president; Nicolás Maduro said he, actually, was president; and the UK government solved this complex constitutional crisis the old-fashioned way: by doing what John Bolton asked. Bolton later cheerfully wrote in his memoir that the Foreign Office agreed to block the transfer of the gold at the request of the US – because nothing says sovereign monetary policy like the National Security Adviser of another country deciding who gets your reserves.
Venezuela sued in London to get the gold back – including to fund its pandemic response – while Guaidó’s camp also claimed control, turning the UK courts into an annex of Washington’s regime-change project. Years later, Guaidó is no longer recognised, Maduro’s been deposed and replaced by interim leader Delcy Rodríguez, and the legal case is still a mess. Meanwhile, the Bank of England clutches the bars like a geopolitical dragon, and Rodríguez calls it “blatant piracy.” In other words: the Trump administration helped weaponise Western financial plumbing so deeply that, long after he’s gone, a Latin American country’s reserves are still trapped in London because the US and UK can’t stop playing empire with other people’s gold.
But sure, we’re told this is all about defending democracy, not about rich countries deciding that if they don’t like your government, your assets are optional. Totally normal, very stable international order.
#imperialism#killing-democracy
