supreme court discovers the right to bring a gun into your brunch
The Supreme Court’s conservative justices, seen here workshopping the constitutional right to bring a Glock to Applebee’s.
The Supreme Court’s conservative supermajority is once again gathered to do what it does best: turn the Second Amendment into a golden idol and every other right into a suggestion. In Wolford v. Lopez, three Maui residents and a local gun group — backed by Donald Trump’s administration, because of course they are — are asking the justices to strike down Hawaii’s rule that says you can’t bring a gun onto private property open to the public unless the owner actually wants guns there. You know, basic property rights and consent, which conservatives only care about when it’s corporations or zygotes.
Justice Sam Alito complained that Hawaii was treating the Second Amendment as a “second-class right,” because nothing says “first-class freedom” like forcing every coffee shop, beach bar, and corner store to be a potential crossfire zone unless they put up a sign begging people not to show up strapped. Chief Justice John Roberts helpfully compared asking for votes at someone’s door to showing up with a concealed weapon, because in this court’s universe, canvassing and concealed carry are basically the same thing.
Meanwhile, Hawaii — which has some of the strictest gun laws in the country and, shockingly, one of the lowest firearm death rates — is in the absurd position of having to argue that maybe, just maybe, property owners should get to decide whether random armed strangers can waltz into their businesses. Sonia Sotomayor asked where exactly the Constitution guarantees a right to carry guns onto private property; the challengers said it does, because why not, we’re just making up a new tier of rights now. In other words, the Trump-built court is inching toward a world where your right to carry a gun trumps everyone else’s right to feel safe on their own property — but sure, tell us more about how it’s the liberals who hate freedom.
#killing-democracy#lawlessness
judge to trump doj: if your fake prosecutor is 'in office,' why is there a help wanted ad?
Artist’s rendering of the Eastern District of Virginia posting a LinkedIn ad to inform Trump’s DOJ that their imaginary U.S. Attorney does not, in fact, exist.
The Eastern District of Virginia just put up a public job posting for "Interim U.S. Attorney" because Chief Judge M. Hannah Lauck has decided that, minor detail, the office is actually vacant — despite Trump’s Justice Department still insisting that loyalist Lindsey Halligan is totally, definitely, legally in charge. In other words, the judiciary is now subtweeting the executive branch with a USAJobs listing.
Halligan, you’ll recall, was already ruled to be unlawfully serving in the role, which led a judge to toss her politically motivated cases against top Trump enemies James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James. Since then, the Trump administration has tried — and failed, and then failed again — to get a grand jury to indict James on flimsy mortgage charges, a remarkable achievement given that grand juries usually indict ham sandwiches, not presidents’ political targets.
In the meantime, a senior EDVA attorney was fired for not being sufficiently enthusiastic about re-indicting Comey over 2020 testimony that is now past the statute of limitations, because nothing says "law and order" like firing career prosecutors when the calendar and the Constitution get in the way. Yet DOJ still refers to Halligan as "United States Attorney and Special Attorney," citing some secret OLC memo as if internal fan fiction trumps a federal court order. The judge has now invited literally anyone with a law license to apply for the job, because at this point, random LinkedIn applicants are more legitimate than Trump’s handpicked, experience-free hatchet woman.
#killing-democracy#lawlessness#corruption
trump fights antisemitism by… demanding a list of jews
Federal civil-rights lawyers heroically marching into court to demand the one thing history has always shown keeps Jews safest: a government-ordered list of where they live.
The Trump administration has discovered a bold new way to "protect" Jews from antisemitism: order the University of Pennsylvania to compile and hand over a government-ready list of Jews, complete with personal contact information and addresses. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission — you know, the agency that’s supposed to prevent discrimination — actually sued Penn to force compliance when the university refused to help the feds build a 21st-century registry. Because nothing says "never again" like recreating one of history’s favorite tools of persecution.
The demand is so grotesque that everyone from Penn Hillel and Meor to the ADL, AJC, Jewish Federation, AAUP-Penn, the Association for Jewish Studies, ACE, and PEN America are all on the same side for once, united in a single, horrified "absolutely not". They seem to have noticed that in an era where Trump-world openly flirts with white supremacy, traffics in antisemitic tropes, and platforms Nick Fuentes fanboys, handing over a neat spreadsheet of Jewish students and faculty might not end well. The authors point out that history is full of examples — like Dutch Jewish census data used by Nazis — where "protective" data magically transformed into a deportation and extermination aid kit.
And this isn’t a one-off; it’s part of a wider project. The administration has been weaponizing allegations of antisemitism and "wokeness" to attack universities, threaten research funding, enforce ideological conformity, harass international students with disfavored views, and even demand lists of patients receiving gender-affirming care. In other words, the Penn subpoena isn’t about safety; it’s a test case to normalize the government’s power to compel ideological and identity-based lists — Jews today, other religious, immigrant, or "unpatriotic" groups tomorrow. But sure, tell us again how this is all about protecting civil rights.
#fascism#killing-democracy
trump’s ‘big beautiful bill’ buys a little secret police time
Kristi Noem explains that if Congress can’t see inside the detention camps, that actually proves how transparent the system is.
The Trump administration just scored a temporary win in its ongoing campaign to turn ICE facilities into oversight-free black boxes. A federal judge in DC ruled that DHS can keep demanding a week’s notice before members of Congress inspect immigration detention camps — the same policy she blocked last month — because this time it’s funded with money from Trump’s so-called “big beautiful bill.” In other words: same authoritarian policy, new checking account, so now it “facially differs.” Because nothing says checks and balances like “try filing a whole new lawsuit if you want to see what we’re doing to people in cages.”
While they were busy lawyering congressional oversight into oblivion, DOJ lawyers were also in Minnesota arguing that the state has no right to stop what its own attorney general calls a federal “invasion” — including warrantless racist arrests, targeting courts, churches, and schools, and the killing of an unarmed US citizen, Renee Good, by an ICE agent. The feds dismissed Minnesota’s lawsuit as an “absurdity” that would make the supremacy of federal law “an afterthought to local preferences,” which is a very polite way of saying: we get to terrorize your residents and you’re supposed to say thank you.
On top of that, the administration is appealing an injunction that told ICE and friends to stop doing a few tiny things like pointing guns at protesters, pepper-spraying crowds, and arresting observers in retaliation. Homeland Security secretary Kristi Noem has already walked back her denial that chemical agents were used, now insisting they were necessary to “establish law and order” — because nothing screams “law and order” like lying about gassing people and then demanding the right to keep doing it. So to recap: block Congress from seeing the camps, tell Minnesota to sit down and enjoy the occupation, and fight in court for the constitutional right to menace protesters with weapons. But sure, tell us again how this is all about security and not about building a little domestic police state on layaway.
#killing-democracy#fascism
trump orders another loyalty purge, gop salutes
Bill Cassidy smiles politely while the party he served hands his career a blindfold and a cigarette.
Bill Cassidy made the unforgivable mistake of treating the Jan. 6 coup attempt like it was bad, so naturally the Republican Party is now trying to remove him from public life like a virus Trump’s immune system finally noticed. Rep. Julia Letlow has launched a primary challenge in Louisiana, armed with a fresh endorsement from the twice-impeached, coup-curious ex-president himself, who screamed "RUN, JULIA, RUN!!!" on social media like Forrest Gump with fewer brain cells and more indictments.
Cassidy — who voted to convict Trump after the Capitol riot, back when some Republicans briefly pretended to care about sedition — is now facing a fully Trump-branded firing squad in a newly closed GOP primary, because nothing says "healthy democracy" like changing the rules and then purging anyone who once suggested overthrowing the government might be bad. State Treasurer John Fleming, a proud alum of Trump’s first administration, and state Sen. Blake Miguez are already in the race, turning the primary into a contest over who can pledge louder that they will never again let silly things like the Constitution get between them and Dear Leader.
Meanwhile, Cassidy insists he’s running as a "principled conservative who gets things done," which is adorable given that the only principle that matters in today’s GOP is unquestioning loyalty to Trump. Of the Republicans who dared vote to impeach or convict him, most are retired, resigned, or otherwise vanished from the party like witnesses in a mob movie. In other words, this isn’t just a Senate race — it’s another public execution of dissent, live from the Trump GOP, where the platform is simple: obey, forget January 6 ever happened, and never, ever cross the guy who tried to stay in power after losing.
#killing-democracy#fascism
rfk jr ends war on saturated fat, opens new front against the amazon
RFK Jr’s revolutionary new food pyramid, scientifically optimized to maximize saturated fat, methane emissions, and donor satisfaction.
The Trump administration’s health department has released a new "inverted" food pyramid that looks less like nutrition guidance and more like a Golden Corral vision board. Under Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr, the official US dietary guidelines now urge Americans to eat way more meat and dairy, nearly doubling protein intake and proudly "ending the war on saturated fats"—because nothing says "public health" like state-sponsored clogged arteries and a side of methane.
Experts point out that even a 25% bump in meat-based protein would require about 100 million extra acres of agricultural land—roughly the size of California—plus hundreds of millions of tons of additional climate pollution. That land has to come from somewhere, which in practice means more forests razed, more pressure on the Amazon, and more rivers and groundwater marinated in manure, hormones, and nitrates. In other words, the administration has managed to turn the food pyramid into a deforestation plan.
The fun twist: RFK Jr himself used to warn that factory meat production was a bigger threat than Osama bin Laden and had "polluted thousands of miles" of rivers and "sickened and killed thousands" of Americans. Now, as Trump’s health secretary, he’s ignoring an independent scientific panel that recommended emphasizing plant-based proteins and instead is boosting the very industry he once called an environmental menace. So the new message from the guy who used to sue polluters is: eat more beef, burn more forests, and don’t worry, the planet was overrated anyway.
#anti-science#killing-democracy
humanities declared 'not monetizable,' democracy shrugs and dies a little
Student delivers eulogy for the humanities, which universities and the Trump administration have thoughtfully buried next to 'civics' and 'basic critical thinking.'
Universities across the US are holding a quiet little wake for the humanities, and the invited guests are hedge fund consultants, Republican legislators, and Trump’s budget axe. Montclair State students literally staged a mock funeral for their humanities and social sciences departments, because nothing says healthy democracy like consolidating English, classics, languages and Latino studies into one mega-unit called "human narratives and creative expressions" – a phrase that sounds less like a college and more like an AI prompt.
It’s not just one campus. Indiana Republicans forced public universities to kill or mash together roughly 400 degree programs – mostly humanities and social sciences – by law. At UT Austin, faculty are bracing for the inevitable hit on African studies, Latina/o studies, and gender studies, while UNC plans to shutter centers for the Study of the Americas and Middle East and Islamic Studies. The University of Chicago’s solution? Just stop admitting grad students in most humanities fields altogether. If you were hoping for people who understand history, languages, or how fascism works, the market has spoken: “just not monetizable.”
Driving this train off the cliff: years of deliberate public disinvestment in higher education and a rightwing crusade against any field that might produce someone who can read a budget, a treaty, or, God forbid, a propaganda poster. The piece explicitly notes Trump administration cuts of billions in federal research funding to universities that don’t toe the ideological line – because nothing screams "small government" like using federal dollars to enforce political loyalty on campuses. Meanwhile, university admins hide behind corporate consultants and emails about “maximizing faculty impact” and “enhancing student success,” which is administrator-speak for "we’re stripping faculty power and turning your education into a subscription product."
In other words, the country that once bragged about the liberal arts as a pillar of civic life is now systematically defunding anything that teaches critical thinking, history, or non-US perspectives, while pouring cash into whatever can be turned into a patent or a defense contract. But sure, let’s keep asking how authoritarianism sneaks up on a society where students literally hold funerals for the disciplines that teach them how to recognize it.
#killing-democracy#forever-grifting
board of peace, brought to you by the guy who tried to overthrow an election
Israeli soldiers in Hebron, presumably waiting for guidance from Trump's new Board of Peace™, the international governance equivalent of a timeshare pitch.
Donald Trump has launched a brand-new "Board of Peace" — because nothing says respect for international law like trying to spin up your own off-brand U.N. Security Council in Florida between golf rounds. Invitations are flying out to everyone from Israel to Russia to Belarus to the EU, with zero clarity on what this thing actually does, who runs it, or how you square "global peace" with putting Vladimir Putin and Alexander Lukashenko on the guest list.
France, understandably not thrilled about burning down the existing international order just to flatter Trump's ego, is "holding off" for now. In response, Trump threatened a 200% tariff on French wine and champagne to pressure Emmanuel Macron into joining, because in this administration, "peace" is apparently enforced via trade war cosplay and petty economic blackmail. Meanwhile, Morocco, Vietnam, Kazakhstan, Hungary, and Argentina have already signed on, while Israeli officials and far-right minister Bezalel Smotrich are publicly wondering why they should trust a board that claims to oversee a Gaza ceasefire they're actually a party to.
In other words, Trump is trying to build a rival power structure to the U.N., staffed with assorted strongmen and opportunists, run on vibes, tariffs, and his personal grudges. But sure, tell us again how this is all about "a bold new approach to resolving global conflict" and not about one guy who lost the popular vote twice trying to cosplay Secretary-General of Planet Earth.
#killing-democracy#imperialism
totally normal to war-game against your own president
Gretchen Whitmer at the Detroit Auto Show, calmly explaining why it’s perfectly rational to prep for the president maybe using federal forces to mess with elections — just another day in the best democracy money and tariffs can buy.
In a thriving democracy, governors spend their time cutting ribbons, fixing potholes, and maybe arguing about school funding. In Trump's America, Gretchen Whitmer is doing tabletop exercises on how to stop the White House from using federal muscle to screw with elections. Because nothing says "land of the free" like state leaders quietly gaming out how to respond if the president decides his immigration crackdown troops would look great stationed near ballot boxes.
Whitmer, sitting in front of a shiny red Cadillac Escalade at the Detroit Auto Show — the same venue where pro-Trump protesters tried to shut down vote counting in 2020 — politely explained that it's not "paranoia" to worry Trump might turn his deployed federal personnel into an election control squad. In other words: when someone has already tried to overturn an election once, maybe you don’t give them the benefit of the doubt the second (and third) time.
She also took a sledgehammer to Trump's latest round of "very smart" tariffs, noting they've taken a "terrible toll" on U.S. auto manufacturing and helped contract the very industry he pretends to be rescuing. Auto companies say they got hammered for billions, the union brass says they love tariffs, and rank-and-file workers get to enjoy job losses and higher prices. But sure, tell us more about how this is all 4D chess for the working man.
Meanwhile, Whitmer is out here trying to figure out why Democrats are bleeding male voters and whether the country is ready for a woman president, all while planning for the possibility that the commander-in-chief might point federal agents at the ballot box. Totally normal, healthy republic stuff — just your average day where governors prep for hurricanes, blizzards, and potential federal election subversion from the White House.
#killing-democracy#fascism
landlord-in-chief discovers wall street landlords are bad now
Behold: an aerial view of America’s future—rows of houses no one can buy, all lovingly owned by a Delaware LLC and managed by a call center three time zones away.
Donald Trump, America’s most overleveraged landlord cosplay billionaire, has decided that Wall Street-backed landlords are the problem with housing. On Truth Social, he’s now promising to "ban large institutional investors" from buying up single-family homes, because nothing says serious housing policy like a caps-locked post from the guy whose entire brand is slapping his name on luxury towers and casinos that go bankrupt.
Meanwhile, in the actual world, families like Ashley Maxwell’s are getting steamrolled by all-cash offers from institutional investors who treat starter homes like Pokémon cards. In Fishers, Indiana, the (Republican!) mayor is watching neighborhoods creep toward 35–38% investor ownership and is literally having city employees beg homeowners via letter to sell to humans instead of hedge funds. They passed a 10% rental cap per neighborhood, and immediately the real estate lobby lost its mind, shrieking about property rights—by which they mean Wall Street’s right to turn your kid’s future house into an asset class.
So now we have this surreal moment where Trump and some Democrats are allegedly on the same side against corporate landlords, while business groups and outside money swarm local councils to kill even the mildest protections. In other words: Trump is pretending to fight the very investor class that bankrolls his universe, cities are desperately trying to keep homes from becoming BlackRock Monopoly pieces, and the housing market is still treated as a casino first and shelter second—but sure, tell us again how this is all about “freedom” and “the invisible hand.”
#oligarchy#forever-grifting
authoritarianism but make it hr-compliant
Trump and Chief of Staff Susie Wiles arrive at the White House, where the dress code is business casual and the hiring requirement is unconditional fealty.
Trump’s second-term White House is being hailed as a model of stability because the staff turnover rate has dropped from a record-shattering dumpster fire to merely a routine inferno. According to Brookings’ Kathryn Dunn Tenpas, senior staff turnover is down from 35% in 2017 to a totally normal-for-a-banana-republic 29%. For context, past presidents averaged around 10%, but sure, let’s call this progress because nobody got fired by tweet this week.
The real innovation isn’t less drama, it’s better casting: out with the conflicted adults-in-the-room, in with the fully housebroken loyalists. Trump’s people openly credit the new ‘stability’ to hiring based on loyalty above all else—not expertise, not experience, just unwavering devotion to the guy at the Resolute Desk cosplay set. Promotions like Trump hype-man Sergio Gor becoming ambassador to India are described as wins, because nothing says serious foreign policy like rewarding your staffing czar with a diplomatic posting.
Instead of public meltdowns starring Reince Priebus, Steve Bannon, Sean Spicer, and the 11-day wonder Anthony Scaramucci, the exits this time are lower-profile apparatchiks quietly shuffled around the board. Less public chaos, more disciplined consolidation of power. In other words: the clown car is now a sealed bus, everyone on it has signed a loyalty oath, and the driver has stopped pretending there’s a brake pedal.
#killing-democracy#fascism
trump turns the pardon office into a wealth management firm
Changpeng Zhao, freshly upgraded from "money laundering enabler" to "official victim of Biden" by the Trump White House’s new Premier Platinum Pardon Program.
One year into Term 2 and Donald Trump has discovered a bold new use for presidential clemency: debt relief for rich crooks. Over half of his 88 individual pardons are for white‑collar crimes — money laundering, bank fraud, wire fraud — and about half of the lucky winners are business execs or politicians. Together, this year’s 87 people and one corporation had been ordered to cough up more than $298 million in fines and restitution, which Trump helpfully vaporized, because nothing says "law and order" like telling victims and taxpayers to get bent.
Among the VIPs walking out of the accountability store with a zero balance: Binance founder Changpeng Zhao (money-laundering enabled crypto king), billionaire insider trader Joe Lewis, and banker Julio Herrera Velutini, who was waiting to be sentenced for campaign finance crimes before Trump decided that was actually a feature, not a bug. Also on the list: HDR Global Trading (hit with a $100 million AML fine), Zhao’s own $50 million tab, and Devon Archer, ordered to pay back most of the $60 million he helped siphon from the Oglala Sioux Tribe. Toss in siblings who sold millions of counterfeit 5‑Hour Energy — one of whom Trump already commuted once — and you’ve got a presidential tradition now known as recidivist rewards.
The White House insists there’s a "very thorough review process" and that Trump is merely rescuing people "abused" by a "weaponized" Biden DOJ. Trump himself told CBS he had "no idea" who Zhao is, but was assured he’s a fellow "victim" of Biden, and that he’s "not concerned" about the appearance of corruption — he just wants America to be "No. 1 in crypto." In other words, the official standard for a pardon is: rich, connected, or useful to Trump’s vibes. Meanwhile, Democrats and watchdogs point out that his second-term pardons have already wiped out more financial penalties than his entire first term, and orders of magnitude more than Obama or Biden ever did. But sure, tell us again how he’s draining the swamp while he turns the pardon power into a concierge service for oligarchs and fraudsters.
#corruption#forever-grifting#crypto
trump discovers chagos on a map, demands full tantrum rights
Donald Trump and Keir Starmer smiling politely, back when the plan was to manage US-UK relations with diplomacy instead of whatever Trump’s thumbs felt like that morning.
Keir Starmer spent a year speed‑running the Tony Blair DLC: be the good ally, flatter the US president, brag that your special relationship is specialer than everyone else’s, and sell last year’s tariff deal as proof that hugging Trump close was a genius move. In return, Trump called him a friend, praised him in public, and Washington even officially welcomed the UK–Mauritius agreement over the Chagos Islands — the one designed to protect the Diego Garcia base from legal challenges while finally acknowledging that maybe, just maybe, 1960s‑style imperial land grabs aren’t a great look in 2026.
Now Trump has apparently discovered Chagos on a globe and is firing off ALL‑CAPS rage posts about the very deal his own State Department endorsed. Because nothing says "stable superpower" like reversing strategic policy by social media outburst months after the fact, and casually threatening the viability of a key intelligence and military hub because he woke up mad at a Labour prime minister. The UK government is left insisting the agreement still secures the base and that, yes, the US did like it before Daddy got bored and changed his mind.
And this may just be the warm‑up act. With a decision looming on a new Chinese embassy in London — and Washington already twitchy about the UK looking too cosy with Beijing — everyone’s bracing for the next presidential temper flare. In other words: Starmer built his foreign policy around not getting publicly torched by Trump, and Trump is now publicly torching him. But sure, tell us again how tying your national security strategy to the whims of a man who governs by caps lock is the mark of a serious, grown‑up administration.
#killing-democracy#imperialism
speaker johnson flies to london to explain that america is only *kind of* a rogue state now
Keir Starmer welcomes Mike Johnson to Downing Street, bravely pretending that a quick photo-op can offset the fact that Trump is out here LARPing as a 19th-century empire with nukes.
Mike Johnson marked 250 years since American independence by traveling to London to reassure Parliament that the United States is not, in fact, being run by a guy trying to buy Greenland at gunpoint. He told President Trump his mission was to "calm the waters"—because nothing says stable democracy like having to personally reassure your closest ally that the commander in chief probably won’t invade Denmark over real estate.
While Johnson waxed poetic about the "spiritual birthplace" of the American nation, the actual president was busy on Truth Social threatening tariffs and refusing to rule out military action to seize a semi-autonomous territory of a NATO ally. At the same time, Trump reversed himself on the U.K.’s decolonization deal over the Chagos Islands—where the U.S. has a key base on Diego Garcia—calling it "great stupidity" and "total weakness." In other words: London is trying to unwind a colonial-era theft under international pressure, and Trump’s mad they’re not clinging harder to the empire we park our bombers on.
British leaders, from Speaker Lindsay Hoyle to Prime Minister Keir Starmer, are doing their best "no, this is fine" routine—cracking jokes about the Boston Tea Party while quietly scrambling to manage a White House that treats allies like tenants and territories like Monopoly properties. Johnson gets history-making honors as the first House speaker to address Parliament; Trump gets history-making honors as the first U.S. president to seriously float invading Denmark and scolding Britain for not being colonial enough. But sure, tell us again how this is all about "shared values."
#killing-democracy#imperialism#national-security
manifest destiny but make it ice
Trump stares at a map and decides the problem with U.S. foreign policy is not enough real estate acquisitions.
Donald Trump is once again threatening to "take over" Greenland, because nothing says "serious global power" like a twice-impeached, multiply-indicted ex-president fantasizing about buying other countries' territory like it’s a foreclosure auction in Atlantic City. A former U.S. Ambassador to Denmark now says these little annexation daydreams are causing "extreme anxiety" in the region—apparently people get nervous when a guy who tried to overthrow his own government starts talking about acquiring more land.
The Greenland stunt is Trumpism in miniature: imperial ambitions, zero homework, and total disregard for the people who actually live there. Instead of treating Greenland and Denmark as allies, he treats them like reluctant timeshare prospects, while his surrogates go on TV to explain that Greenland "can only be defended if it is part of the U.S."—in other words, the same old great-power logic that’s gone so well for, checks notes, every colonial power in history.
Layer this on top of the same news cycle featuring Trump’s DOJ being defended for poking at Fed independence and the Pentagon prepping troops for possible deployment to Minnesota, and you get the full picture: Trump’s America is a place where the president toys with domestic military deployments, menaces allies, and flirts with land grabs—but sure, tell us again how he’s the one restoring law, order, and respect on the world stage.
#imperialism#killing-democracy#full-stupid
trump tries to repossess the fed
Lisa Cook, apparently under the impression that a 14-year Fed term means 14 years, not "until Trump needs a new scapegoat for interest rates."
Jerome Powell is headed to the Supreme Court because in Trump’s America, even setting interest rates now requires a legal defense team. The Court is hearing arguments on whether Donald Trump can just yoink Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook out of her 14‑year term because he got mad about mortgage-fraud allegations that bank documents inconveniently contradict. The Fed Act says presidents can only remove governors for cause; Trump says, essentially, "I’m the cause."
Meanwhile, Powell is openly saying the quiet part out loud: the grand jury subpoenas and threatened criminal indictment over a $2.5 billion Fed building renovation are "pretexts" for one thing—punishing the Fed for not cutting rates fast enough for Dear Leader’s political needs. In other words, follow the president’s preferences or face prosecution, because nothing says "independent central bank" like DOJ breathing down your neck every time you don’t goose the stock market on command.
Trump has already announced he was firing Cook back in August, citing a referral letter and vibes, which her lawyer Abbe Lowell correctly translated as "you absolutely cannot do that." The Supreme Court already had to step in once to keep her in place while it thinks about whether the president can just casually decapitate monetary policy whenever Fox & Friends says the Dow looks sad. Cook’s term runs to 2038; Trump would prefer it run until the next time he gets bored on Truth Social.
So Powell will sit in the gallery and watch nine justices decide whether the Federal Reserve is still a semi-independent institution or just another Trump cabinet meeting where the choices are "praise the boss" or "get indicted." But sure, tell us again how the real threat to the rule of law is student loan forgiveness.
#killing-democracy#lawlessness#forever-grifting
trump invents a new un to manage gaza, forgets to invite palestinians
Artist’s impression of Trump’s Gaza ‘Board of Peace’: a conference table made of rubble, a golden statue in the middle, and not a single Palestinian within 100 miles.
Donald Trump has unveiled his "Board of Peace" for Gaza, which is a bit like calling a casino a church. Not a single Palestinian gets a seat, but Trump will sit as chair "in an individual capacity" — in other words, he’s decided to be Emperor of Gaza on his own time. The guest list reads like a war-crimes alumni newsletter: Tony Blair (Iraq’s reconstruction expert, according to no one), Viktor Orbán, Vladimir Putin, Jared Kushner the aspiring Gaza waterfront realtor, an Israeli billionaire, and a US private equity ghoul. Because nothing says "peace" like a table full of oligarchs, ethno-nationalists, and guys who think bombed-out cities are just "undervalued assets".
The draft charter doesn’t even mention Gaza, which is a nice touch for the thing allegedly set up to "govern" Gaza. Instead, it looks like a prototype for an alternative to the UN — a private, Trump-branded global power tool where he reportedly controls the billions that countries must pony up for permanent membership. So it’s neocolonialism-as-subscription-service: pay $1bn to sit at the table while Trump and his developer friends turn a genocidally devastated strip of land into a luxury resort with a giant golden statue of himself, and maybe "relocate" the surviving Palestinians somewhere more convenient. It’s not peace, it’s a pilot project for a new world order where foreign policy is just another Trump property play.
#imperialism#forever-grifting
markets shrug while trump plays tariff chicken with nato
Traders watch calmly as Trump juggles NATO, Greenland, and the global financial system with the grace of a man tweeting from a golf cart.
Global markets have officially entered the "this is fine" stage of Trump’s second-term trade roulette. The FTSE barely twitches as Trump threatens new tariffs on eight European countries, including the UK, because investors have learned the core rule of Trumponomics: the louder the threat, the likelier it is he’ll forget about it by next week. After his last "liberation day" tariff stunt turned into a buying opportunity, traders now treat presidential economic brinkmanship like a seasonal sale rather than the slow dismantling of the postwar order.
Meanwhile, in the background, the actual stakes are slightly higher than a red day on the Footsie. We’re talking about the potential breakup of Nato, the US president fantasizing about annexing part of a fellow Nato member, and Europe quietly reminding Washington that it owns about $8tn of US bonds and equities. As Deutsche Bank’s George Saravelos notes, once you start weaponising capital instead of just trade flows, you’re not in "tough negotiating" territory any more – you’re in "let’s see how fast we can melt the global financial system so Trump can LARP as 19th‑century empire" land.
France’s Emmanuel Macron is already floating the EU’s anti-coercion tool to restrict US companies’ access to the single market, because nothing says "Western alliance" like the two pillars of it edging toward a financial knife fight over Greenland. Markets may be calm, but that’s less a sign of stability and more a collective decision to pretend that an American president threatening allies, NATO, and the dollar’s status as the world’s reserve currency is just another headline. In other words: the fire alarm is blaring, but the traders have noise‑canceling headphones on.
#trade-war#killing-democracy
trump’s oligarchy delivers 18,000% returns (for everyone but you)
Donald Trump grinning in front of his billionaire fan club, otherwise known as the board of directors of the United States.
Rashida Tlaib is out here rudely pointing out that when Donald Trump promised to "drain the swamp," what he actually meant was drain the Treasury into billionaire bank accounts. Tech oligarchs had front-row seats at his inauguration, and it’s been a VIP cash bar ever since. Tlaib’s new bill calls for ending the political and economic dominance of billionaire oligarchs, cutting off their subsidies and tax gifts, and maybe—controversial take—spending money on the people who actually live in this country.
Our Revolution crunched the numbers and it turns out Trump’s donors weren’t donating, they were just making the smartest investments of their lives. Crypto bros, oil barons, and deportation profiteers spent about $700m to get Trump back in office and shore up MAGA world, and in return got an estimated $172.5 billion in benefits. That’s an 18,000% return, because nothing says "populist movement" like turning the federal government into a private equity fund for Peter Thiel and friends.
Oil and gas tycoons dropped $443m and got roughly $153bn in tax breaks, gutted climate rules, and a war on renewables—about a 33,443% ROI. Private prison and deportation giants like GEO Group and CoreCivic tossed in under $5m and stand to rake in revenues over $5bn as Trump’s 2025 budget aims to quadruple expulsions, turning human misery into an 11,050% return. Meanwhile, Palantir and Peter Thiel lurk in the background, ready to cash in on expanded surveillance of immigrants and, eventually, anyone who looks at Trump funny.
The crypto crowd, furious that Biden tried to regulate their casino after the FTX implosion, poured tens of millions into Trump and were rewarded with deregulation, enforcement rollbacks, and a White House pledge to make America the "crypto capital of the planet." Nine major donors, including Brian Armstrong, Marc Andreessen, and future commerce secretary Howard Lutnick, turned $212m into a $19bn wealth surge—an 8,862% return. In other words, Trump’s "big, beautiful bill" and policy agenda are working exactly as designed: the poor get austerity, the middle class gets a eulogy, and the billionaire oligarchs get the keys to the country—and a personal ATM in the Oval Office. But sure, tell us again how he’s fighting for the forgotten man.
#forever-grifting#oligarchy#killing-democracy
trump admin bravely declares war on the concept of shelter
Shawn Pleasants, living proof that housing-first works, posing in front of city hall while HUD works overtime to make sure the next Shawn never gets a key, just a cot and a lecture.
The Trump administration has discovered a bold new strategy to fight homelessness: create more of it. After nearly two decades of bipartisan, evidence-based "housing first" policy that actually kept over 100,000 people in permanent housing, HUD decided the real problem wasn’t people sleeping on sidewalks – it was people getting apartments. So they moved to yank federal Continuum of Care funds away from permanent housing and dump them into temporary shelters, slashing what could be spent on real housing from ~90% to 30%. Internal HUD documents warn this could push 117,000 people back onto the streets, so naturally the administration’s response is: sounds perfect.
Because nothing says "serious policy" like calling a legally codified, data-backed strategy a "Biden-era slush fund" and replacing it with mandatory treatment, punishment for jurisdictions that use harm reduction, and penalties for recognizing trans and gender-diverse people – all groups disproportionately affected by homelessness. In other words, it’s not a homelessness plan, it’s a culture-war fever dream with a side of mass eviction. The chaos has been so bad that courts had to step in, forcing HUD to process 2025 projects while the administration clings to its right to keep sabotaging the system that works.
HUD insists it’s ending the "failed" system of "permanently warehousing the homeless at exorbitant taxpayer cost" – a bold claim they couldn’t back up with, you know, evidence when asked. Experts like Dr Margot Kushel, who has actually studied this for a living, call the move "silly, counterintuitive and dangerous" and point out that the root cause is… wait for it… a lack of affordable housing and wages that don’t cover rent. But sure, instead of fixing housing supply, minimum wage, or benefits, this administration is choosing the "more tents, more cops, more suffering" option – because in Trump’s America, stability is socialism and cruelty is the point.
#killing-democracy#trumps-america
