trump, tech bros, and the ai panopticon industrial complex
Artist’s rendering of American democracy being cooled by 40 million gallons of water a day so a Trump-aligned AI can generate better deepfakes of it dying.
The sequel to Citizens United is here, and this time it runs on GPUs. Since Trump’s 2024 inauguration turned into a VIP tech-bro meet-and-greet, the administration has been shoveling billions in subsidies and contracts at already-loaded AI firms like it’s a clearance sale on democracy. Regulation? That’s for hair salons and burrito shops. AI companies get the honor system and a direct line to Trump, plus a bonus package of NDAs and backroom land deals to quietly carpet the country with data centers.
Meanwhile, the supposed ‘jobs of the future’ mostly involve no actual jobs in the places hosting these gigantic electricity-sucking, water-guzzling server barns. Locals from red Indiana counties to tribal nations in Oklahoma to blue-ish New Jersey towns are looking at their soaring utility bills, decimated water tables, noise pollution, and the prospect of AI-powered surveillance and job-killing algorithms and saying: actually, no, we don’t want to help build the authoritarian cloud. So they’re blocking and stalling tens of billions in projects, because that’s the only point in the process where ordinary people get a vote that isn’t paywalled.
Naturally, the respectable commentariat has arrived to explain that resistance is ‘myopic’ and ‘elitist.’ A Jacobin academic and Palantir executives somehow land on the same talking point: if we don’t let Trump-aligned surveillance giants build limitless infrastructure for deepfakes, predictive policing, and autonomous weapons, the poor will suffer. Yes, the real working-class heroes are the billionaires wiring the planet for permanent monitoring. As Palantir’s CEO openly muses about ‘deep societal upheavals,’ we’re told the only way to avoid elite domination is to trust the elites building the domination machines.
So while Trump-world merges MAGA politics with an unregulated AI panopticon, the only people doing anything resembling democratic governance are the ones chaining themselves to zoning boards and demanding moratoriums. The administration’s position is clear: AI infrastructure should be fast-tracked with secrecy and subsidies, and any guardrails are a ‘distraction.’ The people fighting the data centers aren’t just NIMBYs; they’re the last half-functional circuit breaker in a system that’s otherwise content to let Trump, xAI, Meta, Blackstone and Palantir turn the country into a fully automated compliance-testing environment.
#oligarchy#killing-democracy#forever-grifting
pint-sized rasputin brings maga cosplay to california
David Cameron and George Osborne posing with Steve Hilton, the man who looked at Downing Street and thought, "too functional, needs more chaos".
California, long mocked by the right as a socialist hellscape, is now apparently flirting with putting a British Trump whisperer in charge. Steve Hilton – the self-styled "disruptor" who once tried to sell David Cameron on scrapping maternity leave and literally state-owned cloud busters – is suddenly a frontrunner for governor. His friends say he "knows how to wind people up like Trump" and boasts that he has Trump "on speed-dial", which is less a qualification and more a cry for help.
Former colleagues describe him as a tantrum-prone ideologue who hates details, compromise, and the basic mechanics of governing – so naturally he’s running to manage the fifth-largest economy on Earth. Allies insist this isn’t a lurch from cuddly Cameron modernizer to hardcore MAGA, just the same old chaos repackaged as "Califordable" and climate-conscious disruption. Polls now show him tied in the primary, because the lesson of the Trump years is that if you loudly promise to blow up the system while calling yourself an environmentalist, someone will absolutely hand you the detonator.
So a "pint-sized Rasputin" with a history of failed big ideas, open contempt for process, and a bromance with Trump might soon be running California. The conservative movement has apparently moved from "government is the problem" to "government is a performance art piece" and Hilton is here to workshop his new show on the whole state. What could possibly go wrong?
#killing-democracy#fascism
tennessee solves black representation problem by deleting the district
Tennessee lawmakers bravely defend white minority rule from the terrifying threat of Black voters armed with… ballots.
Tennessee Republicans have finally cracked the code on how to deal with a Black-majority, Democratic congressional district: kill it with cartography. The GOP legislature rammed through new maps that slice up Memphis — a majority-Black city and cradle of the civil rights movement — into three comfy Republican-leaning districts, erasing the state’s lone Democratic, Black-majority seat long held by Rep. Steve Cohen. All nine of Tennessee’s seats are now GOP-friendly, because nothing says "vibrant democracy" like ballot choices that range from Republican to slightly different Republican.
House Speaker Cameron Sexton swears the maps were drawn based on "population and politics, not racial data," which is a fascinating way of saying "we didn’t check the race column while surgically dismantling Black voting power we know is there." State Rep. Justin Pearson called the maps "racist tools of white supremacy" done at the behest of Donald J. Trump, who somehow manages to keep franchising his brand of white grievance politics into every statehouse that can still find a Sharpie.
This little cartographic coup comes on the heels of the Supreme Court’s Callais v Landry decision, which helpfully shredded big chunks of what was left of the Voting Rights Act so Republican-run states could go full Jim Crow 2.0 without pesky federal oversight. Tennessee is just the early adopter; Republicans in Louisiana, Alabama, and South Carolina are already lining up to copy the model. The civil rights gains of the last half-century are being reverse-engineered by a bunch of guys with map software and lifetime-appointed justices nodding approvingly from Washington. Why bother banning people from the polls when you can just make their votes mathematically irrelevant?
#killing-democracy#racism
injured dictator flails, demands his name on the money
Artist’s rendering of a deeply normal president: shirtless in the reflecting pool, fist raised, name on the money, Justice Department on speed-dial.
Robert Reich walks us through the late-stage Trump presidency, where the Iran fiasco, $4.50 gas, and the prospect of Democrats retaking Congress have combined into one giant, fragile-ego Chernobyl. Unable to win abroad or at the pump, Trump is doing what any totally normal, stable leader would do: posting AI-generated thirst traps of himself, JD Vance, Marco Rubio, and Doug Burgum as shirtless Avengers in the Lincoln Memorial reflecting pool, while calling Hakeem Jeffries a "THUG" and "danger to our Country" over a baseball bat image.
The foreign policy side is going great too. After Germany’s chancellor notes the US is being "humiliated" by Iran, Trump responds like a statesman: he yanks 5,000 troops from Germany and slaps 25% tariffs on European cars because nothing says "NATO unity" like revenge taxes on Volkswagens. Meanwhile, his justice department is busy launching yet another criminal case against James Comey for an Instagram photo of seashells spelling "86 47", and he’s demanding renewed criminal investigations into Jerome Powell and Mark Milley for the high crime of existing on his enemies list.
Domestically, the dominance cosplay gets even more on the nose. He orders the Treasury to put his own signature on US paper currency — the first time a sitting president’s name will be on circulating cash — turning the dollar into a Trump-branded coupon. Senate Republicans are shoveling another $1 billion at his fantasy ballroom that was supposed to "cost taxpayers nothing" while he dreams up ever-more grotesque monuments, a kind of dictator starter pack of arches, "gardens of heroes", and gold coins. And because there’s always room for one more culture war, his Education Department opens a "civil rights" investigation into Smith College for enrolling trans students, and he demands Hakeem Jeffries be charged with "INCITING VIOLENCE" over an attempted shooting Trump simply decides to blame on a redistricting speech.
Reich’s point: this isn’t just policy failure, it’s an authoritarian meltdown. A president who already tried to nullify an election is now staring down defeat in Iran, possible Democratic control of Congress, and the end of his second term — and responding by weaponizing law enforcement, punishing critics at home and abroad, and building a personality cult you can literally spend at the grocery store. Lame-duck presidents usually fade away; lame-duck would-be dictators, history suggests, tend to get dangerous on the way out.
#killing-democracy#fascism
trump uses oval office to run an international coup rehab program
Two presidents smile for the cameras while quietly discussing how much democracy they can afford to look the other way on.
Donald Trump invited Brazil’s President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva to the Oval Office, rolled out the red carpet, and then skipped the traditional joint press conference — because nothing says "healthy democracy" like keeping your hardest questions off camera.
Behind those closed doors, Trump reportedly pushed Lula to drop charges against Jair Bolsonaro, the former Brazilian president who was convicted of an attempted coup and handed 27 years in prison. So the sitting President of the United States is leaning on a foreign government to go easy on a man who tried to overturn an election. Totally normal alliance-building, if your foreign policy doctrine is "Impunity for Friends of Authoritarianism".
Officially, the two sides are "far apart" on crime and trade, and Washington is worried about being accused of interfering in Brazil’s upcoming elections — which is why Trump is apparently focusing on the really delicate issue: whether Brazil should keep punishing the guy who tried to destroy their democracy. Experts politely call Trump’s foreign policy "experimental" and "trial and error". Everyone else calls it what it is: a U.S. president using American power to protect a fellow coup enthusiast while pretending that just avoiding public tension counts as a diplomatic win.
#killing-democracy#fascism
trump’s ai-powered culture war faceplants in federal court
The Department of Government Efficiency, moments before asking ChatGPT which books count as thoughtcrime today.
The Trump administration decided that the real threat to America wasn’t corruption, oligarchy, or climate collapse, but Jewish short fiction and history conferences. So they had DOGE — the Department of Government Efficiency, because satire is dead — cancel more than $100 million in congressionally approved humanities grants, mostly those tainted by the unforgivable sin of diversity, equity and inclusion. A federal judge has now explained, slowly and with footnotes, that the First and Fifth Amendments are still things, and that the executive branch doesn’t get to vaporize disliked ideas because Donald got mad at DEI on Fox.
The ruling torches the whole operation as a “textbook example of unconstitutional viewpoint discrimination” and notes that DOGE used ChatGPT to help identify which grants to kill — then tried to argue that if the censorship was done by a chatbot, it somehow didn’t count. The judge, regrettably forced to address this in a real federal opinion, replied that no, you can’t outsource your unconstitutional behavior to an AI and call it a day. Among the projects flagged as DEI: an anthology called “In the Shadow of the Holocaust: Short Fiction by Jewish Writers from the Soviet Union.” Truly, the radical woke agenda strikes again.
McMahon permanently barred the administration from terminating the grants, reminding the White House that a new president may change priorities, but “has no license to suppress disfavored ideas.” Groups like the Authors Guild, the American Historical Association, and the Modern Language Association celebrated the ruling as a rare moment where the Constitution wins a round against the algorithmic culture war. Congress’s 60-year commitment to funding the humanities, it turns out, can’t just be shredded because DOGE and Trump decided the marketplace of ideas should be cleared out like a clearance rack at Mar-a-Lago.
#unconstitutional#killing-democracy#forever-grifting
hostage-taking, but make it tariffs
Trump explains international trade to the EU: ‘Nice car industry you’ve got there. Shame if something… 25 percent happened to it.’
Donald Trump has decided that the best way to celebrate the United States’ 250th birthday is by threatening its closest trading partners like a mob boss running a Fourth of July protection racket. The EU has until 4 July to ratify a trade deal or face “much higher” tariffs, Trump announced on Truth Social, because nothing says stable global order like turning the anniversary of independence into a deadline for an economic hostage note.
The deal, struck in Scotland last year and already partially moving forward, set most European goods at 15% tariffs, with cars cut to 15% as well. That still wasn’t theatrical enough for Trump, who’s now vowing to jack EU car and truck tariffs up to 25% while insisting the agreement promised tariffs would be cut to zero – a fascinating reinterpretation of reality not reflected in the actual, you know, text of the deal. This all comes after the US supreme court ruled in February that he had exceeded his authority with his earlier tariff binge, forcing the administration to slap on a “temporary” 10% duty while they search for new, more durable ways to cosplay a trade war president without immediately tripping over the Constitution again.
EU lawmakers have already given conditional approval to the deal but, because Europe still bothers with process, member states actually have to sign off before it takes effect. Trump’s response is to treat that as betrayal rather than basic governance, declaring he has been “waiting patiently” — which is an interesting phrase for a man who measures time only in cable segments and rally applause breaks. As Cyprus tries to maintain “positive momentum” in talks, Trump is back to his favorite move: threatening allies, ignoring legal limits, and using America’s economic power as a blunt instrument for domestic political theater. Trade policy by tantrum remains very much in effect.
#trade-war#killing-democracy
saudi arabia discovers it’s actually the commander-in-chief
Trump’s Middle East strategy team, pictured here: one map, zero spine, and a speakerphone permanently set to Riyadh.
American foreign policy continues its exciting new pilot program: outsourcing decisions to whichever oil monarchy yells loudest. Trump reportedly had a plan to reopen the Strait of Hormuz – a crucial global shipping artery and not, as one might assume from this administration, a new Trump-branded golf water hazard – but then Saudi Arabia weighed in and suddenly the plan went the way of his oath of office.
So instead of a coherent U.S. strategy in the Gulf, we get the Crown Prince Customer Rewards Program, where Riyadh calls, Trump folds, and the Pentagon pretends this is all part of some 4‑D chess “maximum pressure” scheme. Meanwhile, global energy markets hang on the whims of a guy who once held up U.S. weapons sales charts on live TV like a QVC host for cluster bombs.
Diplomacy, in theory, is about balancing American interests, allies, and stability. Under Trump, it’s about checking which autocrat last rented an entire hotel floor, then reverse‑engineering national security to match the receipt. The Strait of Hormuz may be narrow, but the gap between U.S. sovereignty and Saudi leverage is getting impressively wide.
#imperialism#oligarchy#national-security
white house declares mark hamill prime threat to presidential safety
Luke Skywalker stands accused of radicalizing the galaxy by sharing a cursed AI JPEG of Emperor Palpatr— sorry, President Trump’s tombstone.
The Trump White House has identified the true danger to the republic, and no, it’s not the guy who actually opened fire outside the White House Correspondents’ Dinner. It’s Mark Hamill, space farm boy turned number one menace to presidential security, who reposted an AI image of Trump lying in a grave with a headstone reading “1946–2024.” Hamill’s caption? That Trump should live long enough to lose the midterms, be held accountable for his “unprecedented corruption,” and be humiliated in the history books. So: explicitly not a death wish, which naturally got turned into a national security meltdown.
The administration’s rapid response team thundered onto X to declare this “exactly what has inspired three assassination attempts in two years against our President” and labeled Hamill “one sick individual.” Fascinating how a Bluesky meme apparently has more causal power than years of Trump telling his fans the press is the enemy of the people, judges are illegitimate, and political opponents are traitors. The guy charged with attempting to assassinate Trump? Mentioned, then promptly shoved offstage so the White House can focus on its real priority: criminalizing criticism via vibes.
Hamill later clarified that he was, in fact, wishing Trump the opposite of dead and apologized if the image was “inappropriate,” helpfully editing his own post to emphasize the part about Trump living long enough to be held accountable for his crimes. The White House, meanwhile, is busy laundering the idea that harsh political speech equals attempted murder, which is a convenient doctrine for a president whose legal exposure could fill a bookshelf. Turns out the real “war on terror” is the war on people who say mean things about Donald Trump online.
#killing-democracy#fascism
billionaire president shocked to discover things are expensive
President Trump, famous for gold-plated toilets, expresses deep concern that World Cup tickets might be too pricey for the common man.
The sitting president of the United States, a man who literally charges donors six figures to eat rubber chicken at his golf clubs, has discovered that World Cup tickets might cost $1,000 and bravely announced that he "wouldn't pay it either". Bold stance from the guy who turned the federal government into a Mar-a-Lago rewards program but draws the line at pricey soccer tickets.
Fifa is openly running a cash vacuum: dynamic pricing for group games, a resale platform that jacks prices up even more, and a 30% skim on every ticket – 15% from buyer, 15% from seller. Trump’s contribution to this corporate shakedown? Saying he’d be "disappointed" if the good people of Queens and Brooklyn – specifically "the people that love Donald Trump" – can’t afford to go, while still calling the whole thing an "amazing success". Nothing says "populist champion" like admiring the grift while your own voters are priced out of the event your country is co-hosting.
He doesn’t promise to regulate it, pressure Fifa, or use the bully pulpit for anything beyond a wistful "I’d like my voters to go". Just vibes, branding, and a casual shrug at a global sports cartel monetizing patriotism. The message is clear: if you can’t afford $1,000 to watch USA–Paraguay, maybe you should’ve invested in a few more condos and a family political dynasty.
#forever-grifting#money
pentagon tries to court‑martial the first amendment
Mark Kelly outside the courthouse, explaining that yes, in America you’re still allowed to tell soldiers not to commit crimes — at least until Pete Hegseth finishes rewriting the manual.
The Trump administration has discovered a bold new theory of American government: if a senator reminds troops they don’t have to follow illegal orders, you just demote him and dock his pension until the Constitution taps out. Unfortunately for Pete Hegseth’s cosplay junta, a three-judge panel on the DC circuit spent an hour basically asking the Pentagon’s lawyer: "Have you met the First Amendment?"
Defense secretary Hegseth moved to sanction retired Navy captain and current Arizona senator Mark Kelly after Kelly appeared in a 2025 video criticizing Trump’s domestic National Guard deployments and lethal strikes on suspected Latin American drug boats, and uttered the unforgivable phrase: “Our laws are clear: you can refuse illegal orders.” The administration now claims that retired officers are still in uniform enough to be punished, but somehow not American enough to say the exact thing they literally teach at West Point.
Kelly sued, won a preliminary injunction from Judge Richard Leon, and is now arguing that the Pentagon’s demotion-and-pay-cut stunt is textbook retaliation against disfavored political speech. The government is insisting this is about a "pattern" of conduct, not one statement, which is a very legalistic way of saying "he criticized Dear Leader’s use of force and we got mad." When a federal appeals court has to remind the Pentagon that telling soldiers not to commit war crimes is protected speech, the problem isn’t Mark Kelly. It’s an administration that hears "refuse unlawful orders" and immediately reaches for the punishment ledger.
#killing-democracy#fascism#lawlessness
ceasefire™: now with 800% more bombing
The Board of Peace hard at work, carefully measuring how many airstrikes you can fit into a ceasefire before the word loses all meaning.
Apparently under the Trump-era Board of Peace, "ceasefire" now means "we'll keep killing you, but with better branding." Israel agreed to stop attacks in Gaza, pull back to a so‑called yellow line, and let aid in. Instead, it has killed more than 800 people since the truce, expanded its zone of control to cover most of the strip, and turned water into a weapon. Médecins Sans Frontières calls it collective punishment; Trump world calls it Tuesday.
The US‑led Board of Peace, featuring a senior US official and longtime Trump-world fixer Aryeh Lightstone, has helpfully clarified that Israel doesn’t actually have to honor its phase‑one commitments – no real halt to attacks, no guaranteed aid – unless Hamas signs off on a disarmament plan. So the occupying power’s obligations under international law are now contingent on whether the besieged population’s rulers say the magic word. Rule of law has left the chat.
While Gaza’s children are described as feeling "like the living dead," hospitals are rubble, and people in tents are battling rats and disease, Trump is reportedly focused on just one thing: Iran, and how it plays with his base. Gaza only matters to him if a renewed Israeli offensive might screw up his exit strategy from his very own Iran adventure. Europe, meanwhile, issues stern press releases while keeping the trade deals humming along with a state that’s still flattening homes under a fake ceasefire.
So yes, the genocidal war that followed the 7 October 2023 Hamas atrocities has been downgraded in the global consciousness to a "graphic content" warning, while Israel manages to swiftly punish soldiers for insulting statues of Jesus but can’t seem to find the time to prosecute people for torturing, disappearing, or killing Palestinians. Trump’s Washington looks at this hierarchy of outrage and thinks: finally, a justice system that gets our priorities.
#killing-democracy#imperialism
fcc chair discovers new legal standard: hurt trump’s feelings, lose your license
Brendan Carr carefully weighing the First Amendment against one (1) Jimmy Kimmel punchline and finding the Constitution wanting.
Brendan Carr, Trump’s favorite FCC lawn gnome, has decided that ABC’s TV licenses need to be renewed two to six years early because… the network hurt the president’s feelings and also, sure, something-something DEI investigation. Eight ABC-owned stations that weren’t up for renewal until between 2028 and 2031 now have to scramble by the end of May, because nothing says "independent regulator" like panic-filing paperwork after the president throws a tantrum about a Jimmy Kimmel joke.
A pack of Senate Democrats, led by Ed Markey, Chuck Schumer, Maria Cantwell, and Ben Ray Luján, responded with a letter politely translating this stunt into legalese: “extraordinary abuse of power”, "egregious abuse of power," and a "clear violation of the First Amendment." They also helpfully reminded Carr that the FCC is not supposed to be “President Trump’s roving censor” or a taxpayer-funded Yelp reviewer for late-night monologues. The senators want answers on who Carr talked to, what process existed beyond "Trump got mad on TV," and whether any lawyer looked at this without immediately bursting into flames.
While Carr insists there was "no pressure from the outside" and this was just an in-house decision based on "enforcement matters"—totally unrelated to the president and First Lady demanding ABC fire Kimmel the day before—the FCC just happens to have two other open probes into ABC: one about its 2024 debate moderation and another about whether The View gave too much time to a Senate candidate. So the pattern is: if your coverage of Trumpworld isn’t sufficiently worshipful, the federal government suddenly discovers exciting new compliance questions. Regulatory capture has evolved into something bolder: regulatory retribution.
#killing-democracy#fascism
trump’s pardon program continues to pay dividends
Kodak Black, proud graduate of the Trump School of Consequences Don’t Matter, arriving for yet another episode of ‘Why Did We Pardon This Guy Again?’
Donald Trump’s presidential pardon loyalty program is really aging beautifully. Kodak Black, the Florida rapper whose three-year federal gun sentence got wiped away in Trump’s final-day clemency spree, is back in court on a felony MDMA trafficking charge after police say they found a pink party pill and $37,000 in cash in a bag with his name on it near a children’s safety center. Truly the Founders’ vision for the pardon power: reality TV casting for future indictments.
The alleged setup reads like a deleted scene from a very stupid crime show: gunshots reported by a kids’ educational building, two luxury SUVs, the smell of weed, and a pink bag containing a pink pill, paperwork with his name, and enough cash to make a banker nervous. According to the warrant, Kodak first denied the bag was his, then asked officers to hand him the money because that part was apparently all business. The charge carries a mandatory minimum three-year sentence and up to 30 years, which is awkward, given that he already burned his get-out-of-jail-free card on Trump’s farewell celebrity clearance sale.
His lawyer insists the case has a “weak legal basis” and that any fingerprint is just from a totally normal bottle of prescription cough medicine, not from the fun candy that tested positive for MDMA. The defense line is basically: yes, that’s his bag, yes, that’s his fingerprint, yes, that’s his money, no, those are not his drugs, and also he wasn’t even in the car. Somewhere, Trump is probably nodding along and wondering if he can retroactively claim this as criminal justice reform.
Trump’s last acts in office included pardoning Kodak Black and Lil Wayne, loudly marketed as outreach to Black voters and hip-hop culture. Years later, one of those headline-grabbing pardons is back in the news attached to alleged drug trafficking near a children’s facility. Stellar vetting, impeccable judgment, and a perfect reminder that when you treat the pardon power like a fan-service cameo reel, the sequel tends to look a lot like this.
#corruption#forever-grifting
little marco discovers vertical video democracy
Marco Rubio pauses between dismantling norms and meeting the Pope to film a vertical audition tape for President of Whatever’s Left of This Republic.
Marco Rubio, current secretary of state and former Trump chew toy, has apparently decided that the best use of his taxpayer-funded day job is to turn White House press briefings into B-roll for a glossy, campaign-style hype reel. The video splices his official remarks, jets over the White House, and a patriotic slideshow of stock-photo America into a minute-long audition tape for 2028, all wrapped in a “hopeful vision” that bears no resemblance to the administration he works for.
Naturally, the court flatterers swoon. Laura Loomer calls it a possible launch video, Elon Musk silently boosts it like a bored oligarch tapping the “like” button on a new yacht, and a rotating cast of C-list conservatives and random influencers declare Rubio “presidential” because he can form sentences without threatening civil war. Even some Trump skeptics line up to praise his eloquence, as if the content of the speech matters more than the minor detail that he’s serving a president who is busy shredding the very “laws, norms, and dreams” Rubio name-checks.
Outside the fan club, a few people remember how selling your soul works. Joe Walsh and Garry Kasparov point out that Rubio’s soaring rhetoric about an America where you’re not limited by the color of your skin is being delivered on behalf of a White House that has spent years governing on exactly the opposite premise. Rubio isn’t resisting that project; he’s branding it. The administration gets a friendly, articulate face to front its attacks on democracy, and Rubio gets a slick vertical ad for his next promotion. Everyone wins, except, unfortunately, the country.
#killing-democracy#forever-grifting
john roberts discovers politics don’t count if you wear a robe
John Roberts explaining that the Supreme Court isn’t political, it just repeatedly rules in ways that entrench minority rule by sheer coincidence.
Chief Justice John Roberts went to Hershey, Pennsylvania — fitting, since the court’s credibility is melting faster than a chocolate bar on asphalt — to reassure everyone that the Supreme Court is “simply not part of the political process.” This, mere days after the court helpfully took a chainsaw to what’s left of the Voting Rights Act so GOP legislatures can crack apart Black districts and lock in minority rule for another decade or two. Totally not political, just nine neutral wizards reading vibes off the Constitution.
Roberts grudgingly conceded that, sure, some decisions might be “unpopular,” like gutting abortion rights, inventing presidential immunity so Trump can treat the Oval Office like a crime-friendly Costco, and using the shadow docket to fast-track mass deportations and the dismantling of federal agencies. But don’t confuse systematically empowering one party and one guy with politics, you peasants — that’s just the law, or at least what five to six conservative justices say the law is at 2am on an unsigned order.
Meanwhile, Ketanji Brown Jackson had the audacity to point out that the court is “unshackling itself” from precedent and restraint to grab power in the Louisiana redistricting case, which prompted Sam Alito — joined by Clarence “Luxury RV” Thomas and Neil “Originalism, But Make It Cruel” Gorsuch — to call her concerns “trivial” and “insulting.” Translation: how dare you notice the power grab while we’re in the middle of it. Roberts keeps insisting the court isn’t political, but the decisions keep looking like a Federalist Society wish list stapled to Trump’s second-term agenda.
Every now and then they slap down one of Trump’s tariffs to prove they’re totally independent, like a cartel occasionally burning a drug shipment for the cameras. The structure remains the same: a captured court, busily hollowing out voting rights, reproductive autonomy, and checks on executive power, while the chief justice goes on tour to explain that your lying eyes are the real problem.
#killing-democracy#fascism
trump calls nato a paper tiger, then lights the match
Trump explains NATO strategy to Europe: a Sharpie, a map, and a threat to go home if they don’t clap hard enough.
Donald Trump has apparently decided that the best way to keep Europe safe from Russia is to scream at NATO, start a war in Iran, side with Putin on Ukraine, and then threaten to yank US troops out of Germany. He’s calling NATO a "paper tiger" and European governments "cowards" because they didn’t want to lend their territory to Operation Epic Fury — which sounds less like a military campaign and more like a Monster Energy flavor. For extra spice, the Pentagon is floating sanctions on allies who refused to turn their countries into Trump’s personal launchpad.
European leaders, who used to politely pretend this was all just a phase, are now gaming out the scenario where the US president simply shrugs at Article 5 while Putin nibbles on a Baltic border town. Germany is busy trying to become Europe’s biggest conventional army by 2039 (comforting timeline for a crisis that could start next week), while France is quietly offering an extended nuclear umbrella to non-nuclear EU states. When Donald Tusk is out loud wondering whether Washington will actually honor its NATO obligations, you know confidence in the "leader of the free world" has reached the "please don’t hang up on us" stage.
Meanwhile, the Iran war has drained US weapons stockpiles, leaving Europe told to expect years-long delays for crucial air defense and munitions. European arms makers are already maxed out, so the continent now enjoys the worst of all worlds: fewer US guarantees, no fast-track rearmament, and a NATO summit in Ankara where leaders are afraid to even mention their vulnerability in case Trump storms off in a huff. The alliance is reduced to hoping they can keep a US Supreme Allied Commander in place as a kind of nuclear emotional-support animal while they quietly design a backup security system behind his back.
So the "post-American" security debate in Europe is no longer an academic seminar; it’s a live-fire drill triggered by a US president who treats alliances like failed reality shows. NATO used to be about deterring Moscow. Under Trump, it’s about deterring Trump from detonating the alliance on camera. Strong work from the guy who ran on "America First" and ended up as Europe’s leading arms-control risk.
#killing-democracy#national-security#imperialism
if you delete the data, the cancer doesn’t count
A handy map of hazardous chemical facilities, which the Trump administration would prefer you replace with a blindfold and a prayer.
The Trump administration has discovered a bold new public policy innovation: if the numbers make you look bad, just erase the numbers. From environmental hazards to public health to climate risk, agencies are quietly ripping out tools, datasets, and staff so that Americans can no longer easily find out whether their air will give them cancer, their neighborhood is about to flood, or their kids are going hungry. Apparently "small government" now means a government too blindfolded to notice what – and who – is dying.
Instead of typing your zip code into an EPA tool to see if you live next to one of 12,000 hazardous chemical facilities, you can now enjoy the authentic 1950s experience of driving to a handful of EPA "reading rooms" to flip through paper records – assuming you even know they exist, can take time off work, and speak bureaucrat. Black, Latino, and low-income communities who disproportionately live by these plants are being told, in practice, that their "right to know" is optional when it annoys petrochemical donors. If data is how a democracy sees itself, this is the government gouging out its own eyes and sending the bill to the public.
Experts warn that dismantling the country’s data infrastructure will cripple everything from FEMA’s extreme weather response to tracking deadly drugs to getting food to hungry families. Which is the point: if you can’t measure infant deaths, pollution, or climate disasters, you don’t have to fix them – and you certainly don’t have to admit they’re worst in the very communities Trump’s people label "woke." Federal data touch every corner of American lives, but the administration has decided some lives – and some facts – are just too inconvenient to count.
#killing-democracy#anti-science#forever-grifting
marco rubio sent to yell at the pope for not loving trump’s holy war
Pope Leo arrives to say Mass in Cameroon, presumably pausing between hymns to be "weak on crime" by suggesting maybe we *don’t* nuke Iran off the map.
Marco Rubio, now somehow Secretary of State in this expanded universe fanfic of American decline, has been dispatched to the Vatican to "have a frank conversation" with Pope Leo — translation: explain why the Vicar of Christ is being so rude about Trump’s U.S.-Israeli war on Iran and his occasional threats to wipe out an entire civilization. Relations between Washington and the Holy See are at a low point because the Pope has committed the unforgivable sin of saying war is bad and nukes are worse, while Trump has responded by calling him "weak on crime," "terrible for foreign policy," and accusing him of being basically pro–nuclear Iran.
The Pope, an actual Catholic, has patiently repeated that the Church opposes all nuclear weapons and that his calls for peace are, wildly enough, based on the Gospel. Trump, an occasional Bible prop-holder, has countered by going on right‑wing radio to insist Leo is "endangering a lot of Catholics" by not cheering on the bombing, because nothing says "defender of the faith" like escalating a regional war and threatening annihilation. Rubio is left to translate this into diplomat-speak, explaining that the president’s fear for "places that have a lot of Catholics" just happens to align perfectly with his desire to keep the Iran war humming along.
Pope Leo, for his part, says he has "no fear of the Trump administration" and is not interested in a public debate — which is fair, given that Trump’s idea of theology is posting a social media image depicting himself as Jesus Christ, then quietly deleting it when people notice he’s gone full messiah LARP. Leo has been touring Africa denouncing the "delusion of omnipotence" driving wars and calling Trump’s threat to destroy Iranian civilization "truly unacceptable," which is about as close as a Pope gets to "this guy is a danger to humanity" in diplomatic Latin.
Rubio will also meet Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, a Trump ally who nonetheless defends the Pope, because even Europe’s hard right can tell the difference between "conservative Catholic" and "nuclear-armed cult of personality." Trump, naturally, is furious that his European friends aren’t sufficiently excited about his Iran adventure. So the state of American diplomacy in 2026 is: the Secretary of State shuttling between a nationalist prime minister and a Chicago-born Pope, trying to sell a forever war as Christian duty while his boss screams online that the Bishop of Rome just "likes crime, I guess." Totally normal superpower behavior.
#killing-democracy#fascism
trump’s immigration policy: now with extra tear gas for kids
Nothing says ‘homeland security’ like a federal agent yelling “Fuck yeah” while a cloud of gas rolls over a crowd with seven visible kids in it.
Trump’s Department of Homeland Security has discovered a bold new frontier in "border security": gassing children on their way to school. ProPublica identified at least 79 kids across the country who wound up wheezing, coughing, and in some cases struggling to breathe after ICE and CBP agents enthusiastically sprayed tear gas and pepper balls near homes, schools, cars, and protests. One CBP officer helpfully narrated the moment, cheering "Fuck yeah" and "Woo!" on body cam as white clouds rolled over a crowd that visibly included multiple children. Truly the measured professionalism you’d expect from an agency with near-military power and less oversight than a public pool lifeguard.
Judges in multiple cities have looked at this and basically said: this is excessive force and shows "deliberate indifference" to kids’ safety. Unfortunately, their power stops at city limits, so while a few courts tried to fence in the worst abuses, DHS just kept rolling the tear gas carnival into the next town. The agency’s policies are looser than many local police departments, its own inspectors general have flagged undertraining, and yet DHS insists everything is fine and that the real culprits are "agitators" and parents who dared to bring their kids near public space. When a 1-year-old was hit with pepper spray in a car and struggled to breathe, DHS called it a "disgusting pepper spray hoax"—a narrative that collapsed instantly under the weight of, you know, video evidence and sworn testimony.
Medical experts point out that children are especially vulnerable to these chemicals—smaller airways, faster breathing, closer to the ground where the gas pools—basically the canaries in Trump’s great law-and-order coal mine. The scale is so extreme that the closest comparison researchers can find is the chronic gassing of Palestinian refugees in the West Bank. So while DHS communications insist they "do NOT target children" and that officers use the "minimum amount of force necessary," the real-world record looks more like: tear gas first, blame the parents later, and hope no one notices the kids gasping for air through the patriotic haze.
#killing-democracy#lawlessness#anti-immigration
