most anti-union president heroically saves corporations from workers
Donald Trump gestures proudly while standing in front of workers whose wages, rights, and lungs his administration is quietly repossessing.
Donald Trump, self-declared Champion of the Working Man™, has spent his second term speedrunning every anti-worker policy Republicans used to at least pretend to be embarrassed about. OSHA inspections are down 20%, the silica dust rule protecting coal miners from black lung is on indefinite "we'll get to it" status, and the administration is actively trying to strip 1 million federal workers of collective bargaining rights in what AFL-CIO president Liz Shuler calls “the largest single act of union-busting in our history.” Truly a golden age for the people who sign paychecks, and a respiratory hazard for the people who cash them.
The National Labor Relations Board, formerly a labor agency, is now a corporate customer service desk after Trump fired pro-union chair Gwynne Wilcox — the first time a president has ever canned an NLRB member for being insufficiently anti-worker — and replaced her with a stable of business-friendly loyalists. Meanwhile, the White House is busy cutting the minimum wage for federal contractors from $17.75 to $13.30, rescinding overtime expansion for 4.3 million workers, and proposing to yank minimum wage and overtime protections from 3 million home care workers who look after seniors and disabled people. Because if there’s one group that’s clearly been living too large, it’s the women of color changing bedpans for $14 an hour.
On the PR front, the administration points to “historic” middle-class tax cuts, no tax on tips, and a little break on overtime taxes, while carefully not mentioning that inflation — juiced by Trump’s tariffs and his fun little Iran war — is eating wage gains alive. At the same time, they’re making it far easier for employers to classify workers as “independent contractors,” conveniently freeing companies from paying minimum wage, overtime, Social Security, Medicare, or unemployment insurance. It’s not wage theft if you legally redefine the workers out of existence.
And just to round out the dystopia, Trump is working to gut Biden’s proposed extreme heat protections so employers won’t be burdened by frivolous luxuries like water, shade, and rest breaks as the planet cooks. Job growth is lagging Biden’s numbers, manufacturing has shed 35,000 jobs, and Trump is loudly cheerleading AI and datacenters while young workers scramble for whatever’s left. Yet the White House still insists he “puts American workers first” — if by “first” you mean first on the chopping block in the ongoing sacrifice to shareholder value.
#oligarchy#killing-democracy
hhs discovers supporting trans kids is ‘authoritarian,’ loving trump is just science
The Department of Health and Human Services, where peer review goes to die and propaganda gets a federal letterhead.
The Trump Department of Health and Human Services has decided its core public health mission is now: publishing an unpeer‑reviewed, methodologically garbage screed claiming that supporting trans people is linked to “left-wing authoritarianism” and political violence. The report, which was too flimsy for an actual scientific journal but somehow good enough to slap a federal seal on, measures “gender ideology” with statements like “People should be supported in expressing their transgender identity” and then triumphantly concludes that kindness is basically domestic terrorism.
Experts who still remember what science is – epidemiologist Gideon Meyerowitz-Katz and law professors Daniel Aaron and Craig Konnoth – point out that the study is pseudoscience, likely violates federal information-quality rules requiring peer review for influential scientific information, and isn’t even remotely health-related. HHS apparently moonlighted as a third-rate political science department just to attack every mainstream medical group that says gender-affirming care is standard care. The survey questions mostly boil down to “are you a Democrat?” and define “political violence” as bad things happening only to conservatives, which is a bold way to design your data so it hugs your conclusion.
Naturally, this junk report doesn’t appear in a journal, doesn’t release the actual numbers, and only reports correlations that just happen to smear trans supporters as budding brownshirts. This comes on top of the administration pressuring hospitals into dropping pediatric gender-affirming care, cutting off access for Medicaid and government-insured patients, and proposing to defund any health system that treats trans people properly. So HHS, once tasked with protecting Americans’ health, is now cranking out regulation-dodging propaganda to justify stripping care from trans kids and punishing anyone who follows real medical guidelines. Authoritarianism? They found it. They just pointed the microscope the wrong way.
#anti-science#trumps-america#killing-democracy
make baseball white again, one tilted hat at a time
MLB umpire Doug Eddings bravely defends America from the existential threat of a slightly crooked hat.
Major League Baseball is out here proving that while the calendar says 2026, the vibes are stubbornly stuck on 1926. Ronald Acuña Jr dares to enjoy a home run like a human being and suddenly Zack Wheeler and Don Mattingly are acting like he burned an American flag on the mound. Jazz Chisholm steals a couple of bases in a blowout and a Red Sox radio guy helpfully recommends that someone just drill a random Yankee as punishment. You know, the good old "unwritten rules" where someone has to suffer so white feelings can feel safe.
Then we get the Doug Eddings experience: a veteran white ump stops the game to police Cardinals rookie Hancel Rincon’s hat angle — not a rule violation, just a violation of "his game" on "his field" — slaps the team with a time violation when the manager complains, ejects said manager, and then blows a call at the plate for good measure. The players of color are the problem, of course. The white guy melting down over millimeters of brim tilt? Just enforcing "tradition." Playing the game the right way turns out to be code for "stop acting Black or Latino where I can see you."
And because this is Trump’s America, the culture war doesn’t stop at the foul line. When some players hijack Pride Night with Bible verses on their caps, MLB gives them a warning and suddenly the Department of Justice is threatening to investigate whether Christians are being oppressed by… being asked not to turn a league promotion into a homophobic sermon. So Black and Latino players get policed for joy, style and body language, while straight white grievance gets the full backing of federal law enforcement. If you were wondering what "Maga country" looks like in sports form, it’s umps losing their minds over tilted hats while the DOJ rushes to defend the real victims: guys whose religious freedom apparently requires publicly punching down on queer fans.
#racism#killing-democracy
trump rushes to stop the mail before democracy gets delivered
Trump stares at a stack of mail-in ballots like they’re subpoenas personally delivered by Satan.
Donald Trump is back at the Supreme Court drive‑thru window, ordering another emergency to-go serving of voter suppression. After a federal judge extended an order blocking his latest stunt to restrict mail-in voting, the administration is begging the justices for the third time to let them jam new rules into place right as states are already sending out ballots. Nothing says "free and fair elections" like trying to rewrite the rules while the envelopes are literally in the mail.
The executive order at issue would bar the Postal Service from delivering ballots to anyone not on a shiny new federal "eligible voter" list curated by the Department of Homeland Security. So yes, the plan is: let DHS and USPS decide whose ballot gets to exist, and everyone else can enjoy their disenfranchisement from home. Voting rights groups and states call this unconstitutional chaos; the administration calls it "commonsense measures"—because when you keep losing the popular vote, the sensible thing is to shrink the electorate.
Solicitor general John Sauer warns that every day the injunction stays in place "risks sowing confusion and chaos" because states aren’t being forced to comply yet. Apparently the real danger isn’t the federal government trying to seize control of who even gets a ballot; it’s the horrifying possibility that people might still be allowed to vote by mail like they did before Trump lost in 2020 and decided that method was Satan’s dropbox. Meanwhile, USPS cheerfully says it "stands ready" to implement the crackdown if the courts give the green light—because nothing completes the authoritarian starter pack like weaponizing the mail.
#killing-democracy#lawlessness#unconstitutional
trump team meets putin while john kennedy auditions for a rambo reboot
Sen. John Kennedy explains his nuanced Russia policy: say something violently macho on TV while the Trump team brings Putin a fruit basket.
While the Trump administration quietly meets with Vladimir Putin, GOP Sen. John Kennedy pops up on TV to announce that the U.S. needs to "choke [Putin] to death." American foreign policy, brought to you by mixed signals and a head injury.
Instead of asking why the White House keeps treating a hostile autocrat like a misunderstood business partner, Kennedy goes full action-movie monologue on national television while the administration conducts yet another round of polite chats with the guy who invaded neighbors, meddled in U.S. elections, and generally treats democracy like a suggestion box. Public bloodlust plus private appeasement is now apparently the official GOP doctrine.
So on one channel, you've got a Republican senator describing economic pressure like a bar fight, and on the other, you've got Trump-world still trying to find the friendliest possible way to handle the man they keep insisting they’re very tough on, please ignore all available evidence. Strong, consistent leadership: shout "choke him" into the camera while your party’s president keeps asking Putin what he wants for dessert.
#national-security#killing-democracy#full-stupid
impeachment is not a fetish, it’s just trump’s warranty service
Artist’s rendering of Trump’s constitutional theory: a bulldozer, a crown, and a very nervous East Wing.
Jamie Raskin goes on “Meet the Press” and calmly explains that impeachment isn’t some Democratic kink, it’s the only remaining fire extinguisher in a building where President Trump has literally bulldozed the East Wing. When the guy in charge is playing SimCity with a historic landmark, you start to understand why the Founders wrote in a recall option.
Raskin rattles off the highlight reel: going to war without congressional approval, stealing Congress’s spending power, treating appropriations like a personal checking account, and presiding over what he calls the most massively corrupt presidential administration in American history. Other presidents decorate the White House; Trump appears to be testing how much of it he can demolish before someone notices the separation of powers has been buried under the rubble.
Meanwhile, Democrats keep insisting their top priority is healthcare and affordability, not just adding a third impeachment trophy to Trump’s mantle of shame. Hakeem Jeffries and Jim Clyburn are out there saying, "We’re focused on making life more affordable," while Raskin politely reminds everyone that a lawless president who thinks he’s a king can also make life very unaffordable, very fast. Trump, for his part, is telling supporters that Democrats will just "find a reason" to impeach him again — as though war without authorization, wholesale looting of the Treasury, and casual White House demolition are quirky personality traits, not a running list of felonies in search of a committee hearing.
#killing-democracy#corruption#lawlessness
let data grift reign
Local GOP official Dawn Vogel bravely takes the radical position that humans should have drinking water before Meta gets another discount server warehouse.
Donald Trump has discovered his new favorite culture war: screaming at Americans to love data centers they very clearly do not want. From Nebraska to New Jersey, voters are staring down gigantic concrete server barns that drink water like a Vegas pool party and spike local utility bills, and politely responding: "Yeah, no." Even in deep-red Buchanan County, Iowa — which backed Trump 63%-35% — Republican county supervisor Dawn Vogel helped pass a moratorium on data centers because, minor detail, people would like to still have water.
Trump, naturally, sees a different issue: insufficient groveling before corporate overlords. On Truth Social he announced that the "only" reason communities wouldn’t want data centers is if they want to be "backwards and poor," before declaring, with all the subtlety of a late-night infomercial, "let Data Reign." Translation: shut up about your aquifers and power grid, the donors need their AI sweatshops. Meanwhile, voters from both parties complain that these projects jack up their utility costs while the rich get tax breaks so generous they might as well arrive with a bow on them.
The political class is suddenly discovering that helping Big Tech hoover up public resources is shockingly unpopular. Ohio’s Sen. Jon Husted, who once cheerleaded data centers like they were the Second Coming of Amazon HQ2, is now pushing a bill to make operators pay their actual power and water costs — a wild, radical idea otherwise known as "basic math." Democrats like Gov. Josh Shapiro are also backpedaling into new regulations after previously rolling out the red carpet. When even Republican voters are 57% opposed to these things in their own communities, you know the grift has finally gotten so obvious that not even a bipartisan coalition of consultants can spin it.
So as Trump bellows that opposing data centers is a sign you hate prosperity, a giant cross-partisan bloc of Americans is quietly forming around a simpler concept: maybe the federal government shouldn’t be an unpaid utilities concierge for AI billionaires. The populists got one right — when the choice is between drinking water and subsidizing Mark Zuckerberg’s next GPU farm, most people are choosing not to die of thirst for the glory of "innovation."
#forever-grifting#oligarchy
trump’s $10 million paxton rehab tour hits texas
Ken Paxton at a Trump rally, proudly displaying the confidence of a man who knows a nine-figure super PAC is standing by to airbrush his impeachment out of existence.
MAGA Inc., Trump’s personal slush fund with better stationery, is dropping $10 million on TV and digital ads in Texas to prop up Attorney General Ken Paxton — a man so ethically radioactive the Republican-led Texas House impeached him for alleged bribery and abuse of public trust. After the state Senate graciously decided that ‘abuse of office’ is just a fun personality quirk, Paxton beat John Cornyn in the GOP primary, because the modern Republican Party will always choose the guy under investigation over the guy who occasionally reads a briefing.
Republican leaders are now openly panicking that their scandal magnet might lose a general election, so they’re begging Trump to open his $400+ million MAGA Inc. war chest and carpet-bomb Texas with attack ads against Democrat James Talarico. Senate Majority Leader John Thune is on Fox News doing his best telethon host impression, explaining that Texas ads cost $8 million a week and that this is not a state they can afford to lose — which is a nice way of saying, “Dear Donald, please stop hoarding cash and start buying senators.”
Trump, ever the humble public servant, is bragging that he has “like, close to a billion dollars” in the super PAC and might spend up to $500 million to boost “good” Republicans — defined here as people who will defend him on TV and possibly face their own indictments later. He even assured reporters he’ll “work for Ken Paxton,” clarifying that you don’t have to like Paxton’s look or his disastrous TV presence, just his status as the “best attorney general in the country,” which is a fascinating way to describe a guy whose own party tried to throw him out of office.
So to recap: a Trump-aligned super PAC is preparing to light $10 million on fire in Texas to salvage the Senate prospects of an impeached attorney general while the GOP establishment begs their twice-impeached, multi-indicted standard-bearer to please spend some of his donor-funded fortune on saving their majority. American democracy: now with dynamic oligarchy pricing.
#oligarchy#forever-grifting
trump mints his own personality cult
President Trump admires the new coin bearing his face, finally uniting his two great loves: self-worship and legal tender.
President Trump has now achieved what every aspiring strongman dreams of: his own face on government-issued money while he’s still in office. Because when you’re busy hollowing out democratic norms, why not speedrun the whole Dear Leader starter pack? NPR notes he’s the first living president to pull this stunt, which is a nice, neutral way of saying, "We usually wait until presidents are done ruling — or at least done breathing — before turning the Treasury into their personal fan club."
At the same time, he’s “reshaping Washington in his image” and leaning hard into influencing the midterms, which is a polite euphemism for rigging the board before anyone gets to play. Consolidate power, slap your face on the money, then work the elections from the bully pulpit — it’s less ‘representative democracy’ and more ‘limited-time authoritarianism beta test.’ But sure, it’s just another week in politics, not the slow-motion branding of the capital — and the country — as a subsidiary of Trump, Inc.
#killing-democracy#fascism
trump breaks trans care in massachusetts without changing a single state law
Sign reading “Protect Trans Futures,” because apparently someone has to, and it sure isn’t the hospitals or the federal government.
Trans kids fled Texas and Missouri for Massachusetts thinking they were escaping the theocratic meat grinder, only to discover that Donald Trump and RFK Jr can wreck their healthcare from 400 miles away with a couple of executive orders and some menacing press releases. Gender-affirming care is still legal in Massachusetts, shield laws are on the books, and Democrats run the place, yet hospitals are quietly canceling youth programs and even adult surgeries because the Trump administration hinted it might yank federal funding someday. When your civil rights can be turned off by vibes-based compliance, that’s not a healthcare system, it’s a hostage situation.
So a bunch of young trans organizers with Protect Trans Futures did the unthinkable: they took their hormones in public, in the lobby of Attorney General Andrea Campbell’s office, and demanded the state actually enforce its own laws. They asked her to order hospitals to restore care or drag them into court for preemptively enforcing Trump’s agenda. Instead of a firm defense of civil rights, they got a belated offer of a meeting they’d already requested months ago and, eventually, state troopers and nine arrests. The AG’s office swears they had nothing to do with the arrests, which is always the most comforting thing to hear from the top law enforcement official in the state.
Meanwhile, Trump’s grand plan to "protect children" consists of threatening hospitals that follow the consensus of major American medical organizations, spooking blue-state institutions into cutting off life-saving care, and turning half the country into a no-go zone for trans youth. Fifty percent of trans teens now live in states where their doctors risk prosecution and their parents risk investigation; even hospitals in so-called safe states are getting subpoenas for old patient records. Officially, no Massachusetts hospital has actually lost federal money yet. Unofficially, Trump managed to strip care from legal adults in a deep-blue state just by waving the Medicaid stick around and letting risk-averse administrators do the rest.
The result is a "trans great migration" where families uproot their lives to chase basic medical care, only to find that federal strong-arming and institutional cowardice follow them across state lines. Trump gets to posture as the defender of children while his policies increase suicide risk and mental health crises; Democratic officials get to issue supportive statements while their hospitals quietly fold; and a bunch of 20-year-olds are left chanting "Act up! Fight back!" in a lobby because the grown-ups in charge are terrified of the bully in Washington.
#killing-democracy#anti-immigration#forever-grifting
trump’s ice discovers a new way to torture people who skip lunch
ICE medical care: come for the detention, stay because we surgically installed the exit in federal court, without a lawyer.
Federal immigration officials, clearly bored with just locking people in cages, quietly got a Texas judge to sign off on surgically installing a feeding tube in a Cuban hunger striker’s stomach so they can pump food into him against his will. Not content with the usual nasal tube torture, ICE asked for – and received – permission to cut into his abdomen for a permanent "percutaneous endoscopic gastrostomy" tube, because nothing says "land of the free" like nonconsensual surgery on detained protesters.
The Cuban man, held at the privately run Montgomery ICE processing center (GEO Group, cashing checks as usual), is at least the 19th person since January 2025 to be targeted with "involuntary medical procedures" under Trump’s second term. Most records are sealed, lawyers are often mysteriously absent, and human rights groups are calling the whole thing what it looks like: torture dressed up as healthcare. DHS insists he "received due process" and that facilities provide proper food and basic services, which is an interesting spin on "we’ll hold you down and cut into your body for protesting conditions".
Judge Andrew Hanen keeps extending ICE’s authority to force-feed this man, while the administration pretends it’s all very routine and definitely not a horror show in a secretive parallel justice system. The government’s position is basically: he entered unlawfully in 1980, has old convictions, so obviously the correct response in 2026 is indefinite detention plus surgical punishment for engaging in a lawful hunger strike. Trump’s DHS originally pretended this wasn’t happening at all, then grudgingly admitted it once reporters produced the receipts – a perfect snapshot of this era: deny, torture, redact, repeat.
#fascism#anti-immigration
white house rolls out state-sponsored propaganda, but make it 8-bit
Coming soon from the White House: Press X to erode democratic norms, press Y to accept the Terms of Authoritarianism.
The Trump White House has apparently decided that if you can’t win over voters with policy, you can always try microtransactions. So they’ve launched video games designed to promote Trump’s agenda, because nothing says "healthy democracy" like the executive branch cranking out taxpayer-funded propaganda apps that double as campaign ads.
Instead of using federal resources for, say, governing, they’re building digital loyalty tests wrapped in cartoon graphics, targeting the one demographic they haven’t fully broken yet: kids and low-information voters who think a flashing leaderboard is the same thing as civic engagement. It’s Schoolhouse Rock, if Schoolhouse Rock had been produced by Steve Bannon and a focus group of Facebook uncles.
This is what happens when you fuse a personality cult with a marketing department: the state becomes a content studio, and public institutions turn into push-notification machines for the Dear Leader’s talking points. On the bright side, at least when historians write about the fall of American democracy, they’ll have a great appendix: Patch Notes for the Republic, Version 1.0.
#killing-democracy#fascism#forever-grifting
trump administration bravely declares war on 319 mexican wolves
Trump, flanked by smiling officials, ceremonially signs a memo asking if we’ve really tried just shooting the endangered species harder.
Donald Trump has signed an executive order telling the Interior Department to "consider" stripping gray wolves and Mexican gray wolves of Endangered Species Act protections — which is like telling a fox to "consider" how many hens it really needs to leave alive. The US Fish and Wildlife Service already tried to de-list gray wolves and got smacked down in court, so naturally Trump’s solution is to lean harder on the bureaucracy and see if they can paperwork their way around that pesky federal judge.
This isn’t just about wolves; it’s about gutting the ESA by turning science-based recovery standards into a vibes-based rancher wish list. Mexican gray wolves have barely hit 319 animals — the first year of a four-year recovery benchmark — and still face serious genetic problems, but the White House is already asking if we can speedrun them back toward extinction to "support America’s ranchers" and beef production. Environmental groups point out that Congress designed the ESA to be insulated from political whims; Trump’s order responds by telling federal agencies to actively pressure states to roll back their own protections and to "loosen" restrictions on killing wolves. Subtle.
At the signing ceremony, Trump twice suggested people could now "take care of" wolves — including asking if they could be shot "as of today" — despite the minor detail that killing most gray wolves remains a federal crime. Agriculture secretary Brooke Rollins helpfully promised Interior secretary Doug Burgum would do "a little magic" to make it happen, because nothing says responsible governance like joking about conjuring away legal protections while the president publicly blesses behavior that’s still illegal. The rancher’s response — "If you say so, sir" — pretty much sums up the administration’s approach to the law: if Dear Leader says it, reality will just have to catch up.
#killing-democracy#anti-science
judge asks who built the jan. 6 gofundme with taxpayer money
Todd Blanche, bravely explaining that the $1.8 billion fund for pardoned insurrectionists doesn’t exist, it never existed, and if it did exist, it was definitely someone else’s idea.
Turns out when you quietly carve a $1.8 billion "anti-weaponization" slush fund out of a settlement between Donald Trump, his sons, their company and the IRS, a federal judge might eventually ask: so who exactly cooked this up? U.S. Magistrate Judge Ivan D. Davis has ordered the Trump administration to cough up the names of the geniuses who designed a fund that would shovel taxpayer cash to people who "suffered weaponization and lawfare" — which just so happens to include Jan. 6 rioters convicted of violent crimes and then pardoned by Trump.
The fund, born from a Trump–IRS deal that also tried to make Trump and several family members immune from IRS audits, was already on pause after a fired Jan. 6 prosecutor, a law professor the administration tried to sue into silence, and a group of horrified career IRS workers dragged it into court. Democracy Forward’s lawyers are now prying open discovery, because when the president uses the tax system as a personal legal defense fund for insurrectionists and himself, that apparently raises a few red flags.
Attorney General Todd Blanche, whose confirmation nearly imploded over this masterpiece, has since declared in writing that the fund "is rescinded" and that "there is no fund" — a very normal thing to have to say about a government program, like insisting your imaginary friend moved out. The problem is, the document he signed conveniently didn’t include the original agreement’s signatories, leaving a legal trapdoor through which the whole scheme could be revived later. Trump has pointedly refused to disown it, saying at a Cabinet meeting that the fund "is dead, but you know, I wish it weren’t," while openly musing about payouts to Jan. 6 defendants he insists were "horribly treated."
Just to complete the farce, Jan. 6 defendant Treniss Evans III — who wants a cool $1 million from this corpse-of-a-fund — posted a proud photo from Todd Blanche’s office this week. We’re told he didn’t actually meet with the attorney general, which is reassuring in the same way it’s reassuring to hear that the arsonist only got into the fire station, not the room with the gasoline. The "anti-weaponization" project is looking less like justice reform and more like the Trump administration’s dream scenario: a taxpayer-backed loyalty rewards program for coup enthusiasts and the guy who sent them.
#corruption#killing-democracy
trump’s secret courts for people he doesn’t think deserve rights
People politely lining up for hearings at the <i>old</i> immigration court, back when the government still admitted where the courtroom was.
The Trump administration has apparently decided that immigration courts were still too fair, so now we’re doing pop-up tribunals in mystery buildings. Immigrants with upcoming hearings in Maryland and Virginia are being quietly rerouted at the last minute to new, previously undisclosed locations in D.C. and Falls Church — including a FEMA-occupied building with no listed Justice Department affiliation, because nothing says “legitimate court” like “we swear it’s in there somewhere, just try a different door.”
Lawyers describe immigrants being ordered to show up in person at these off-the-books venues while the judge and prosecutor beam in remotely, like a dystopian Zoom call where only your deportation is guaranteed to arrive on time. Many people are given just days of notice — or no notice at all — despite DOJ regulations requiring at least ten days and “ample notice.” Conveniently, the targets appear to be unrepresented immigrants, the ones least likely to understand what’s happening before the government slaps them with an in absentia removal order for a hearing they never knew about.
EOIR’s official explanation is that it’s just “scheduling adjustments” to “ensure all cases are handled in a timely and lawful manner,” which is a poetic way of saying, “we’re speed-running deportations by booby-trapping the calendar.” This is not an immigration system; it’s a bureaucratic shell game where the prize is getting disappeared from the country because your notice got lost in the mail — or was never sent in the first place.
#anti-immigration#killing-democracy
trump turns the falklands into a reality show revenge plot
Javier Milei and Donald Trump, seen here workshopping which 1980s war to reopen for ratings and revenge.
US foreign policy used to be based on things like treaties, principles, and occasionally even facts. Now it’s based on whether Donald Trump feels emotionally supported by the British prime minister. After the UK declined to join his excellent, totally‑legal war on Iran, Trump is “re‑evaluating” the long-standing US recognition of British rule over the Falklands, because nothing says "responsible superpower" like turning a 200-year sovereignty dispute into a spite-driven customer service complaint.
Argentina’s libertarian cosplay president Javier Milei, who treats Trump like a cross between Hayek and a QVC host, is thrilled. He’s on TV telling Argentines that "winds of change" are blowing because the US president is mad at Keir Starmer and thinks the Falklands are "a long way away"—which, geographically, is about as accurate as his inauguration crowd size. The actual Falkland Islanders, who voted almost unanimously to stay British, are once again learning that in Trump’s America, self-determination matters right up until it conflicts with his need for revenge content.
So a decades-old alliance, a prior shooting war, and the democratic wishes of a remote island population are all being tossed into the blender because Trump wants to punish the UK for not signing up for his last foreign policy disaster. The "Special Relationship" has officially been downgraded to "Did you clap loud enough for Dear Leader?" diplomacy.
#killing-democracy#imperialism
president chooses qatar party plane, treats cabinet as decoy flares
Artist’s impression of the presidential security plan: Trump in a catering truck, everyone else on the plane labeled "good luck."
Donald Trump is taking his Qatari-funded, $400m flying casino to Ireland, despite still not being able to say out loud whether it can actually stop a missile. The White House line is that they "don’t comment on specific upgrades", which is a very dignified way of saying: "trust us, the mystery plane is totally safe, probably". The official also insisted it's "the greatest presidential plane ever built", because this administration can no longer form a sentence without stapling a superlative to it.
Doubts about the jet’s defenses resurfaced after the now-legendary Turkey trip, where Trump was quietly smuggled onto an older aircraft via a catering truck while the Qatar jet took off as a decoy. On board the possibly targeted decoy: secretary of state Marco Rubio, treasury secretary Scott Bessent, senior aides, and the traveling press pool, who were thoughtfully instructed to keep their window shades closed and not told they might be starring in Final Destination 7: Executive Branch. The whole episode is now a Netflix mini-doc, because of course it is; when your foreign policy doubles as prestige content, something has gone extremely wrong.
Meanwhile, the public still has no idea what, if any, "upgrades" were actually made to the Qatar plane after Trump briefly claimed it would be grounded for a month. What we do know is that the administration is perfectly comfortable treating journalists and its own officials as expendable props in the presidential security theater, while a foreign-gifted luxury jet becomes the de facto Air Force One. Greatest plane ever built is doing a lot of work there.
#national-security#corruption#forever-grifting
labor secretary turns dol into hr-violations-on-ice
Lori Chavez-DeRemer, presumably wondering if the inspector general will also organize her closet.
Donald Trump’s former labor secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer apparently thought "labor" meant making her staff labor for her closet. According to a 38-page inspector general report, she turned the Department of Labor into a booze-soaked, strip-club-adjacent sorority hazing operation with federal funding. We’ve got drinking on the job, a bottle collection on federal property, and a staffer strong-armed into making it rain on a partially nude dancer while on a "personal" trip. Truly the blue-collar champion Trump promised.
The report lays out the rest of the greatest hits: an "inappropriate relationship" with a bodyguard, undisclosed gifts, at least thirteen taxpayer-funded family-and-vacation trips plus five Vegas jaunts, and luxury hotel stays blowing past reimbursement rates. Staff were ordered to do personal errands like organizing her bedroom closet during work hours, because why hire a personal assistant when you have the United States government?
It gets even more wholesome. Her top aides allegedly ran ritual "beatdowns" where employees were verbally shredded for sport, evaluated job applicants partly on looks and weight, and moved a worker’s desk because they didn’t want a "fat person" in the front office. One aide reportedly warned an employee not to cut her hair short so she wouldn’t "turn into a lesbian," and discouraged use of the DOL daycare because the staff were the wrong race for the children. Chavez-DeRemer, naturally, said nothing — because silence is complicity, and also the management style of this administration.
Her lawyer insists this all proves she "did not break any laws," which is a fascinating defense of a cabinet secretary accused of abusing staff, misusing funds, and retaliating against suspected leakers. Under Trump, that’s not disqualifying behavior; that’s basically the job description.
#forever-grifting#lawlessness
president forever-war sets gop on fire, complains about the heat
Donald Trump contemplates whether to bomb another country, rename another lake, or bulldoze another wing of the White House for a bigger ballroom — democracy not pictured.
Donald Trump, the man who ran on ending forever wars, has decided the best midterm strategy is to start a reckless war of choice with Iran, kill civilians at a wedding, spike gas prices, jack up borrowing costs, and then act confused when voters notice their mortgages suddenly look like a payday loan. Having learned nothing from the last time “Mission Accomplished” went well, he’s now busy turning the Middle East into a live‑fire campaign ad for the Democrats.
Not satisfied with one disaster, he’s also picked a fight with the geopolitical menace known as Canada, slapping on tariffs that triggered a dollar‑for‑dollar retaliation aimed squarely at Republican‑leaning farm states like Iowa, Michigan, and Ohio. So the party of business is now the party of ‘we destroyed your export market so Trump could rename Lake Ontario to Lake America and Apple and Google could dutifully lick the boot in their map apps.’
Back home, Trump has discovered yet another 80/20 issue and sprinted to the 20. Data centers are wildly unpopular across the spectrum, so naturally he logged on to Truth Social to inform Americans that if they don’t want one sucking up their water and power next door, they must want to be “backwards and poor.” Throw in his obsession with demolishing the East Wing for a ballroom and stamping his signature on the dollar, and you get a president whose top legislative priority is turning the federal government into a merch table at Mar‑a‑Lago.
The cherry on this authoritarian sundae: he keeps endorsing walking ethics violations like Ken Paxton, then shrugs at the prospect of losing Congress because he’s already figured out that subpoenas are just fancy stationery when you’ve got a compliant Supreme Court and zero respect for checks and balances. When you believe you can ignore oversight, launch vanity wars, and cash out the presidency as a branding exercise, who needs midterms? The voters are just background noise to the main project: ruling, not governing.
#killing-democracy#imperialism#forever-grifting
slumlord son-in-law and casino pal go to moscow
Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff, bravely bringing decades of luxury real estate experience to the small matter of European war and nuclear brinkmanship.
The Trump administration is once again speedrunning the "what if foreign policy, but as a family side hustle" experiment. Jared Kushner and real estate mogul Steve Witkoff – two men whose main qualifications are "being related to Trump" and "having his number" – are heading to Moscow and Kyiv to negotiate peace in a war that has killed hundreds of thousands of people. The State Department, career diplomats, and anyone with actual regional expertise will be playing their usual role in Trumpworld: background extras.
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky says he’ll meet them after they drop in on Vladimir Putin, because apparently this peace process is being run like a timeshare pitch: Russia gets the first presentation, Ukraine gets the follow-up. Putin, for his part, is still publicly demanding more Ukrainian territory while mumbling about "chances" for peace, which makes this less a negotiation and more an attempted surrender ceremony with better catering. Meanwhile, Trump’s envoys – who have already made multiple trips to Russia – are being treated as serious players, despite their combined diplomatic résumé consisting mostly of tax breaks, luxury condos, and Middle East photo ops.
The Kremlin is coyly hinting about "contacts" while Zelensky is literally asking both sides to guarantee airspace safety so Trump’s personal emissaries don’t get blown out of the sky. It’s a perfect encapsulation of the era: a brutal land war, maximalist imperial demands, and into the middle of it all, the guy who married into the family business and the guy who usually negotiates hotel deals. American foreign policy has been outsourced to the Mar-a-Lago LinkedIn network, and the rest of the world just has to hope the peace plan isn’t written on a cocktail napkin.
#oligarchy#killing-democracy
