The Trump Presidency Timeline
Documenting the chaos since day one. 2714 entries and counting.
killing democracy
global oil markets bet trump won’t tweet us into armageddon this week
A man calmly pumping gas while the price depends on whether Donald Trump wakes up feeling more ‘PEACE MOU’ or ‘FIRE AND FURY’ today.
Oil prices dropped and Asian markets cheered on Monday because traders are daring to believe that Donald Trump might, for a brief shimmering moment, not escalate a US‑Israel war with Iran. Brent crude slid about 5% after Trump announced, on his favorite courtroom‑exhibit social network, that he has a "Memorandum of Understanding pertaining to PEACE" basically worked out between the US, Iran, and a grab bag of Gulf monarchies — details to be provided sometime between "trust me" and "oops".
Instead of a formal briefing, Congress, allies, and the global economy are all getting their updates from Truth Social posts where the president alternates between insisting the deal will "absolutely" stop Iran from getting a nuclear weapon and then warning that "Both sides must take their time and get it right. There can be no mistakes!" Bold talk from the guy who treats nuclear brinkmanship like a real‑time ratings gimmick. Meanwhile, Iran’s foreign ministry is gently pointing out that the US position keeps changing, which is diplomatic for "your president is negotiating World War III like a timeshare".
The Strait of Hormuz — the narrow passage that normally carries about a fifth of the world’s oil and LNG — has been effectively shut since late February after US and Israeli strikes on Iran, followed by Iranian attacks on Israel and US‑aligned Gulf states. A ceasefire in April led to talks, and now a few vague Trump posts are enough to send Japan’s Nikkei 225 to a record high on the hope that he won’t torpedo the deal between golf rounds. Energy analysts warn that even best‑case peace means years of tight supply while facilities are repaired and stocks rebuilt. So global markets are now priced on the assumption that Trump can maintain focus long enough to finish a multi‑party nuclear‑adjacent peace deal without rage‑posting it into oblivion. Truly, a stable system.
Source: bbc.com
#killing-democracy#national-security
killing democracy
trump invents fake voter fraud, demands real purge lists
Trump proudly holds up the latest executive order to micromanage who’s allowed to vote, having been assured that yes, sir, the Constitution is probably just a suggestion anyway.
Trump has decided that if he can’t find the illegal voting he keeps screaming about, he’ll just build a rickety federal database and pretend it’s there. He signed a March executive order telling DHS to create state-by-state citizenship lists to determine who can vote, even as his own Justice Department sheepishly admitted in court that the lists would be unreliable for actually determining voter eligibility. So yes, the plan is explicitly: use bad data to decide who gets a ballot.
This is the sequel nobody asked for to his 2019 effort to weaponize the census with a citizenship question, after that scheme face-planted in court. Now he’s back with a national voter ID push and a demand that states feed on federal databases to sniff out "noncitizen voters"—a problem his administration has already failed to prove exists beyond the fever dreams of Fox & Friends. Democratic-led states and voting rights groups are suing, arguing that the Constitution doesn’t hand the president a magic "run all the elections now" button, but Trump’s still barreling ahead, because nothing says healthy democracy like unreliable federal lists deciding who’s allowed to vote.
Source: nytimes.com
#killing-democracy#fascism
anti science
trump’s epa literally waiting for the tank to fail
EPA chief Lee Zeldin thoughtfully observes the chemical tank that “will fail,” presumably checking whether the plume will interfere with Trump’s next golf weekend.
The Trump administration’s Environmental Protection Agency is facing a chemical tank in Orange County that officials say “will fail”, which is at least refreshingly honest branding for this White House’s approach to environmental protection. EPA chief Lee Zeldin, whose environmental policy background consists of being a Republican congressman who once saw a tree, went on CNN to calmly explain that the worst-case scenario is a chain-reaction explosion five miles from Disneyland. The best-case scenario is a “low-volume release” of dangerous chemicals. So either a toxic plume or a smaller toxic plume. Tremendous choices.
Roughly 50,000 residents have been evacuated because a tank holding 6,000–7,000 gallons of highly flammable methyl methacrylate at a GKN Aerospace facility started overheating after a leak. Fire crews are frantically dumping water on the tank and adding neutralizing agents while air monitors insist everything is “completely normal,” a phrase that has never once calmed anyone living next to an about-to-blow chemical vat. Meanwhile, local officials are trying to reassure people that the tank’s "potential crack" might actually help them make "educated decisions" about how to avoid a Michael Bay sequel.
Residents, who have enjoyed such premium Trump-era amenities as evacuation orders, noxious odors, and "fear of contamination," are now suing GKN Aerospace for turning their homes into an impromptu hazmat zone. And presiding over all this is Trump’s handpicked EPA chief with no environmental chops, leading an agency whose mission has been thoroughly reimagined from "protect human health and the environment" to "hope the tank doesn’t explode on live TV." Regulatory oversight, but make it reality disaster show.
Source: theguardian.com
#anti-science#forever-grifting
forever grifting
little marco goes to delhi to explain the nobel tantrum
Marco Rubio bravely attempts to explain that a 50% tariff tantrum over a missing Nobel nomination is actually a serious, grown-up trade policy.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio flew to New Delhi to assure India that the U.S.-India relationship "has not lost any momentum," which is a bold way to describe a partnership currently being used as a scratching post for Trump’s Nobel hurt feelings. Rubio insisted Trump’s 50 percent tariffs on Indian imports weren’t about India at all, just part of a big, serious, global rebalancing effort — which is an interesting claim given they showed up right after Narendra Modi declined to nominate Trump for a Nobel Peace Prize.
Diplomacy, under the Trump-Rubio brain trust, now consists of saying with a straight face that tariffs triggered by a bruised ego are actually sophisticated trade strategy. The article quietly notes that these tariffs are taxes paid by American companies, but sure, let’s call it tough-on-India policy while U.S. importers pick up the tab for Trump’s prestige cosplay. Rubio, meanwhile, dutifully reassures everyone that advanced tech cooperation and investment will continue, as if foreign governments can’t read a calendar and see that one man’s prize envy is driving U.S. economic policy.
So America’s top diplomat is now a traveling damage-control intern, explaining to a major ally that no, the president didn’t economically slap them because they wouldn’t help him win a shiny participation trophy for not starting World War III. The message from Washington is clear: strategic partnership is sacred — right up until it collides with Trump’s need to see his own name on literally anything.
Source: nytimes.com
#forever-grifting#killing-democracy
killing democracy
trump endorses mid-election, because why not pre-invalidate the vote
Trump, remote-controlling a Texas Senate race from his golf cart, helpfully informing voters who they meant to support all along.
Texas Republicans are having a runoff for U.S. Senate, which in a functional democracy would mostly be about, you know, the candidates. Instead, it’s about whether John Cornyn – a boring party man who occasionally remembers the Constitution exists – can survive a late-stage intervention from Dear Leader, who just endorsed Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton after people already started voting.
So while ballots are being cast, Trump strolls in from Mar-a-Lago to declare that the proper choice is the indicted attorney general who treats the law like a loose suggestion. Voters who already mailed in their Cornyn ballots now get to spend the week wondering if they’ve committed the ultimate sin in the modern GOP: failing to obey the leader’s most recent whim. The message is clear: elections are less a process than a live-streamed loyalty test, and Trump reserves the right to rewrite the script mid-show.
Source: npr.org
#killing-democracy#fascism
killing democracy
trump takes a chainsaw to pepfar while voters say 'please stop killing the thing that works'
Mike Pompeo points at a world map, carefully avoiding every country where PEPFAR used to save lives, while a CDC scientist in the corner counts their remaining $150 million and a roll of duct tape.
US voters, it turns out, are weirdly into not letting people die of preventable diseases. About 74% of likely midterm voters support funding PEPFAR, George W Bush’s actually-good HIV/AIDS program that saved millions of lives and built global disease surveillance. So naturally, the Trump administration is trying to strangle it and stuff the corpse into the State Department, where transparency and public health go to quietly suffocate.
Instead of splitting funding with the CDC, State is now hoarding nearly all the money, leaving CDC with just 7% – $150m instead of a potential $2bn – because when you’re facing HIV and an explosive Ebola outbreak, what you really want is less science and more political appointees. This follows the de facto dissolution of USAID, which one advocate accurately describes as lopping off half the government’s global health brain and then reaching for the rest. Meanwhile, Trump’s budget proposes another $1.6bn in domestic HIV cuts, mostly in prevention, presumably on the theory that if you don’t test for it, it can’t hurt his poll numbers.
Voters across parties say there’s a clear moral case for keeping people with HIV alive and maintaining US global health leadership. The administration’s response is to replace a proven, trackable program with murky country-by-country deals that watchdogs are already warning look extractive and opaque. The result? Funding lapses, an Ebola outbreak that went undetected for weeks, and experts warning that Trump’s State Department is trying to “stab a dagger in the heart” of the very system built to spot and stop pandemics. But sure, keep betting that openly defunding popular, life-saving programs in the middle of deadly outbreaks will play great in the midterms.
Source: theguardian.com
#killing-democracy#anti-science
killing democracy
liar in chief vs. the truth in elections act
Andrew Weissmann, apparently learning the hard way that in Trump’s America, telling the truth about elections is more dangerous than trying to overturn them.
Andrew Weissmann – former Mueller prosecutor, ex-FBI general counsel, and current full-time resident of Trump’s enemies list – is out with a book arguing that maybe, just maybe, democracy shouldn’t have to survive on the honor system of serial liars. He’s pushing a "Truth in Elections Act" modeled on the Stolen Valor Act, so that when politicians knowingly lie about elections to torch democracy, there are actual consequences beyond a Fox hit and a fundraising bump.
Trump, naturally, has already done the beta test for what happens in a system with no such guardrails. Weissmann walks through how Trump publicly screamed "stolen election" while privately admitting Biden won, then rode that lie straight into January 6. Now in Trump 2.0, the regime has decided that the top qualification for high office is loyalty, which is how we end up with Kash Patel as FBI director, because nothing says "independent law enforcement" like a MAGA hype man running the bureau he used to attack on podcasts.
The Department of Justice, rebranded as the Department of Just Trump, is busy filing complaints against the DC Bar for disciplining the lawyers who helped push the election lies, with acting AG Todd Blanche denouncing the bar as a "partisan arm of leftist causes" – a bold accusation from a guy weaponizing federal power to protect coup lawyers. Meanwhile, Trump has been signing executive orders like a bargain-bin Joe McCarthy, revoking security clearances he can’t actually revoke and targeting law firms and universities that employ people he doesn’t like, including Weissmann, whom he helpfully labeled "scum" in a DOJ speech.
A judge eventually declared Trump’s enemies-list executive order "null and void", but the point was never legality – it was intimidation. Firms dropped Weissmann, a publisher bailed on his book, and institutions across the country quietly decided that maybe they’d rather not cross a government that uses executive orders as personalized Yelp reviews. Weissmann’s whole argument boils down to this: as long as lying about elections is cost-free and retribution from the state is guaranteed, the "marketplace of ideas" is just a mob-run casino, and the house – Trump – always cheats.
Trump, naturally, has already done the beta test for what happens in a system with no such guardrails. Weissmann walks through how Trump publicly screamed "stolen election" while privately admitting Biden won, then rode that lie straight into January 6. Now in Trump 2.0, the regime has decided that the top qualification for high office is loyalty, which is how we end up with Kash Patel as FBI director, because nothing says "independent law enforcement" like a MAGA hype man running the bureau he used to attack on podcasts.
The Department of Justice, rebranded as the Department of Just Trump, is busy filing complaints against the DC Bar for disciplining the lawyers who helped push the election lies, with acting AG Todd Blanche denouncing the bar as a "partisan arm of leftist causes" – a bold accusation from a guy weaponizing federal power to protect coup lawyers. Meanwhile, Trump has been signing executive orders like a bargain-bin Joe McCarthy, revoking security clearances he can’t actually revoke and targeting law firms and universities that employ people he doesn’t like, including Weissmann, whom he helpfully labeled "scum" in a DOJ speech.
A judge eventually declared Trump’s enemies-list executive order "null and void", but the point was never legality – it was intimidation. Firms dropped Weissmann, a publisher bailed on his book, and institutions across the country quietly decided that maybe they’d rather not cross a government that uses executive orders as personalized Yelp reviews. Weissmann’s whole argument boils down to this: as long as lying about elections is cost-free and retribution from the state is guaranteed, the "marketplace of ideas" is just a mob-run casino, and the house – Trump – always cheats.
Source: theguardian.com
#killing-democracy#retribution#lawlessness
killing democracy
the boss vs. the snowflake-in-chief
Bruce Springsteen, 76, doing more to defend the Constitution in one encore than most elected officials manage in an entire term.
Bruce Springsteen is apparently doing what most of Congress won’t: saying out loud that the president is a "reckless, racist, incompetent, treasonous" authoritarian whose administration is a "ship of fools" running the country into a wall. At a Brooklyn stop on his Land of Hope and Dreams tour, the Boss turned a three-hour arena show into a civics class with guitars, spelling out the choices: "democracy over authoritarianism, the rule of law over lawlessness, ethics over unbridled corruption." You know, the sort of "controversial" positions that used to be bipartisan before the GOP decided democracy was for losers.
Instead of mumbling a vague "both sides" plea for unity, Springsteen calls out Trump’s war on Iran, the deployment of thousands of masked agents to intimidate Minneapolis, and the White House’s attempt to force museums to literally rewrite American history so nobody has to hear about slavery being bad. He points out the obvious—Trump and family are enriching themselves "by billions of dollars trading on the people’s office" while working families get crumbs—and then has the audacity to suggest that honesty, humility, and character still matter. Trump, who has branded Springsteen a "total loser" and "not a talented guy," continues to rage from the world’s angriest retirement home while the guy playing three-hour shows at 76 is the one "dried up."
Colbert gets quietly pushed off late night for criticizing Dear Leader, but Springsteen, answerable to exactly zero corporate overlords, writes an explicit protest song, "The Streets of Minneapolis," about federal goons stepping on a city’s neck, and packs arenas with people willing to pay triple digits to chant it back at him. So the working-class Jersey rocker is now the de facto leader of the cultural opposition, and the sitting president is the fragile "snowflake" who can’t handle museums, musicians, or comedians telling the truth. American democracy: currently being propped up by a 76-year-old rock star because the institutions built for that job are too busy cowering.
Source: theguardian.com
#killing-democracy#fascism#forever-grifting
killing democracy
trump discovers the supreme court isn’t supposed to be his fan club
Roberts, Kagan, and Kavanaugh sit stone-faced at the State of the Union, contemplating the unique challenge of being Supreme Court justices in a country whose president thinks they’re customer service reps for his ego.
Vice President J.D. Vance quietly drops by the Supreme Court for a cozy private dinner with Chief Justice John Roberts and a roomful of ex-clerks, and we’re all supposed to pretend this is just a sweet little alumni mixer and not the executive branch casually sniffing around the one institution that can still tell Trump "no." Convenient timing, given that the Court is about to decide whether key chunks of the Trump agenda are actually legal or just vibes-based authoritarianism in a flag wrapper.
Trump, meanwhile, is doing his usual two-step: publicly bullying and insulting the justices when they don’t act like his personal legal defense team, then trying to butter them up when he remembers they hold the fate of his policies and his legal exposure in their hands. The article helpfully notes that he appears to think the justices he appointed should function as loyal soldiers rather than independent members of a coequal branch, which is like saying a guy with a ski mask and crowbar "appears" to have an unconventional approach to banking.
The White House, via spokeswoman Abigail Jackson, insists that Americans have "always valued" Trump’s sacred right to rage-post about the Court, as if the issue were free speech and not a sitting president publicly leaning on judges while his veep circulates at their private events. So the separation of powers is now: executive, legislative, judicial, and whichever branch Trump is currently trying to intimidate into obedience. The Founders definitely saw this one coming.
Source: nytimes.com
#killing-democracy#fascism
killing democracy
press freedom, but make it live fire
Secret Service agent demonstrates the White House’s new "active shooter chic" aesthetic on the North Lawn.
The North Lawn press pen briefly turned into a live-action drill for "so you wanted to cover politics in a collapsing empire" as journalists sprinted for cover amid reports of possible gunfire near the White House. ABC’s Selina Wang posted video of herself taking shelter while a volley of bangs echoed across what used to be the postcard backdrop for "peaceful transfer of power" and is now apparently an ambient soundtrack of America, 2026.
Reporters say they were told to run to the briefing room and stay put, which is probably the most decisive security instruction anyone’s gotten out of official Washington in years. The Secret Service says it’s "aware" of reports of shots fired near 17th and Pennsylvania and is trying to "corroborate the information," which is a very polite way of saying they’re not sure yet if this was an attack, fireworks, or just the sound of a country that treats public spaces like a shooting range.
So yes, the people whose job is to inform the public about what their government is doing are now also dodging potential gunfire at the front door of the executive branch. But tell us again how everything’s totally normal and the real threat to America is mean headlines and fact-checks.
Source: bbc.com
#killing-democracy#national-security
killing democracy
dnc commissions 192-page excuse, forgets to include reality
Ken Martin, bravely leading the resistance by commissioning a 192-page cry for help and then hiding it under the DNC’s couch cushions.
The Democratic National Committee looked at Donald Trump’s 2024 comeback, stared into the abyss of American democracy, and decided the best response was… to hand the election autopsy to the chair’s longtime buddy on a part-time, unpaid basis. Ken Martin then sat on the 192-page mess for months, finally releasing it only after the pressure hit "career-ending" on the political Geiger counter. The report somehow forgets to mention Biden’s decision to run again, never once says "Gaza" or "Israel," and comes wrapped in a disclaimer on every page saying it doesn’t actually represent the DNC’s views. Bold strategy: outsource accountability, then immediately disown it.
Members of Congress, party strategists, and basically every progressive group with a mailing list are now telling Martin to pack it up. Seth Moulton calls the delay "utterly nuts"; Norm Solomon says you wouldn’t turn this in as an undergrad paper at a college with standards; Amanda Litman, David Hogg, and the PCCC are all openly campaigning for his resignation. Meanwhile, Martin’s explanation that he buried the report to avoid distracting from some off-year wins in Virginia and New Jersey is doing about as well as Democratic outreach to young Latino men.
The autopsy’s grand findings—that Democrats underfunded state parties, ignored voters, and overrelied on "identity politics" while assuming Latino loyalty—are stapled together with factual errors, unsubstantiated claims, and so many internal notes flagging inaccuracies that the document reads like its own rebuttal. At every fork in the road—who writes it, how it’s vetted, when it’s released—Martin appears to have selected the option marked "maximum self-sabotage". It’s a master class in how to confront the authoritarian threat of Trump by making sure your own party infrastructure looks just as untrustworthy, only less competent.
Source: theguardian.com
#killing-democracy#full-stupid
forever grifting
trump mobile accidentally does a data dumpster fire
The Trump boys unveil Trump Mobile at Trump Tower, flanked by executives and the lingering scent of unsecured customer data.
Trump’s latest side hustle, Trump Mobile, is "investigating" how the personal details of roughly 27,000 people who tried to preorder a gold phone apparently got left sitting on the internet like an abandoned Big Mac in the Oval Office. Names, email addresses, mailing addresses, order IDs, phone numbers — basically everything short of their browser history — were exposed, though the company is very proud to announce that, so far, your credit card and Social Security number aren’t in the splash zone.
The Trump Org insists there’s “no evidence” its systems were directly compromised, which is an elegant way of saying the hole may have just been baked into the site from the start. An Australian programmer more competent than whoever coded this mess stumbled on the flaw and reported it, and a Columbia professor confirmed that the e‑commerce setup was tracking every almost‑purchase, abandoned cart and all. So the magic preorder number touted by Trump Mobile may be less “stampede of demand” and more “people who clicked, saw the price, and fled.”
All of this coincides with the long‑delayed rollout of the “T1” phones, originally promised as proudly built in the USA, now quietly downgraded to “assembled” here with components “primarily manufactured” locally — which is corporate‑speak for we slapped a flag sticker on whatever the factory shipped us. The website now claims the phones are “designed with American values in mind,” which, judging from the security practices, apparently means overpromised, underbuilt, and your data left sitting on a folding table in the parking lot.
The CEO says they’re “incredibly pleased” with interest in the product, which is one way to describe 27,000 Trump fans volunteering their personal information to a company that can’t secure a basic preorder form. Trump Mobile is now telling customers to watch out for suspicious emails, calls, or texts — a touching warning from the people who just turned their personal details into an all‑you‑can‑phish buffet.
The Trump Org insists there’s “no evidence” its systems were directly compromised, which is an elegant way of saying the hole may have just been baked into the site from the start. An Australian programmer more competent than whoever coded this mess stumbled on the flaw and reported it, and a Columbia professor confirmed that the e‑commerce setup was tracking every almost‑purchase, abandoned cart and all. So the magic preorder number touted by Trump Mobile may be less “stampede of demand” and more “people who clicked, saw the price, and fled.”
All of this coincides with the long‑delayed rollout of the “T1” phones, originally promised as proudly built in the USA, now quietly downgraded to “assembled” here with components “primarily manufactured” locally — which is corporate‑speak for we slapped a flag sticker on whatever the factory shipped us. The website now claims the phones are “designed with American values in mind,” which, judging from the security practices, apparently means overpromised, underbuilt, and your data left sitting on a folding table in the parking lot.
The CEO says they’re “incredibly pleased” with interest in the product, which is one way to describe 27,000 Trump fans volunteering their personal information to a company that can’t secure a basic preorder form. Trump Mobile is now telling customers to watch out for suspicious emails, calls, or texts — a touching warning from the people who just turned their personal details into an all‑you‑can‑phish buffet.
Source: theguardian.com
#forever-grifting#full-stupid
anti immigration
dhs to immigrants: thanks for following the rules, now get out
DHS officials proudly unveiling their new innovation in immigration policy: the revolving door that only spins outward.
The Department of Homeland Security has apparently decided that the real problem with the immigration system is that it isn’t cruel and chaotic enough. So the new plan: force many green card applicants who are already living in the U.S. to leave the country and apply from their "home" countries instead. Because nothing says "orderly legal immigration" like telling people who did everything by the book to go sit in a consular waiting room on the other side of the planet for an indefinite amount of time.
Officials will call this a "return to normal processing" and a "streamlining" measure, which is an adorable way of describing state-sanctioned family separation by paperwork. Spouses, parents, and workers who’ve built lives here get to roll the dice on consular backlogs, security theater, and the ever-popular risk of being barred from reentry for years thanks to unlawful presence rules. It’s not deportation, you see — it’s just bureaucratic exile with extra steps.
While NBC walks through the policy details, the subtext is loud and clear: the administration is still on its long-running quest to make legal immigration so miserable that people simply give up. Why build a wall when you can weaponize form processing times and consular interviews? The message from DHS is simple: if you’re an immigrant, every door is a trap door.
Source: nbcnews.com
#anti-immigration#trumps-america
killing democracy
trump wants fewer civil rights lawyers, more civil rights violations
Linda McMahon, seen here contemplating how many civil rights lawyers you can fire before anyone notices the Constitution screaming.
The Trump White House has a bold new vision for education: fewer people enforcing civil rights, more people violating them. While Education Secretary Linda McMahon tells Congress she wants to hire more civil rights lawyers, the White House budget quietly tries to cut the office almost in half, from 530 to 271. McMahon calls the gutted budget a “floor for hiring”; anonymous West Wing officials politely respond: no, that’s the ceiling, the walls, and the trapdoor.
This isn’t just garden-variety incompetence; it’s a policy. The administration is simultaneously trying to strangle the Education Department and repurpose whatever lawyers are left to go after diversity programs and protections for transgender students. When judges blocked McMahon’s earlier attempt to fire about half the civil rights staff, the White House didn’t rethink the plan, it just blamed “leftist judges” for the mess and doubled down on dismantling enforcement through the budget instead.
So the official line is: civil rights enforcement is being "wound down" in Washington, while the remaining lawyers are pointed at vulnerable kids and equity programs like a legal SWAT team. The only real disagreement between McMahon and the White House is whether to pretend this is about efficiency—or just admit it’s about making it a lot easier for schools to discriminate without anyone in the federal government getting in the way.
Source: nytimes.com
#killing-democracy#racism#anti-immigration
forever grifting
trump invents the 'sorry we investigated your crimes' fund
The US Capitol, where lawmakers briefly pretended to be shocked that Trump turned the Justice Department into a $1.8 billion loyalty rewards program.
The Justice Department has apparently rebranded itself as GoFundMe for Insurrectionists. As part of settling Trump's lawsuit over the IRS daring to disclose his tax records, DOJ agreed to a $1.8 billion "Anti-Weaponization Fund" to compensate people "unfairly" investigated under past presidents. Among the lucky potential beneficiaries: January 6 rioters who assaulted cops, got convicted, got pardoned by Trump on Day One of Term Two, and may now get a check from the very government they tried to overturn. Law and order, but make it cash-back rewards.
Republicans, who spent years chanting "back the blue" while defending Trump, are suddenly discovering that paying cop-beaters with taxpayer money might look bad on a campaign mailer. Mitch McConnell is calling it a slush fund for people who assault police; Thom Tillis went with "stupid on stilts"—a bold phrase choice for a party that has spent the last decade trying to balance on those stilts. Even House Republicans are scrambling to kill the fund, not because it’s obscene that Trump shook down DOJ in a personal settlement, but because the timing is awkward while they’re pretending to care about deficits.
Meanwhile, the line for free grievance money is forming around the block. Trump ally and former health official Michael Caputo wants $2.7 million because the FBI once looked at him during the Russia investigation, while Michael Cohen—Trump’s ex-lawyer who went to prison for lying and campaign finance crimes—is also eyeing a payout. The "Anti-Weaponization" commission, a five-member panel that somehow exists now, will sift through claims and decide who gets how much for the unbearable trauma of having been investigated in a country that allegedly still has laws. America First has officially become Accountability Last, Direct Deposit Pending.
Source: bbc.com
#forever-grifting#corruption#killing-democracy
national security
trump’s assad-curious dni taps out
Tulsi Gabbard, director of national intelligence, seen here pondering which classified document to accidentally light on fire next.
Tulsi Gabbard, Trump’s Assad-meeting, Russia-curious director of national intelligence, is bailing out of the administration, citing her husband’s cancer diagnosis. Trump praised her on Truth Social for doing an “incredible job,” which is one way to describe a DNI who wasn’t invited to key war deliberations and spent most of her tenure as a glorified spectator in her own job.
Her record reads like a how-not-to manual for running an intelligence community. She clashed constantly with CIA Director John Ratcliffe, declassified a document on Russian election interference that freaked out Langley, and helpfully outed an undercover CIA officer while stripping security clearances. Her office swears they consulted the CIA; the CIA’s panic attack suggests otherwise. For bonus points, she publicly contradicted Trump’s march to war with Iran, testifying that intelligence didn’t show a revived nuclear weapons program while he shrugged, “I don’t care what she said.” Stellar chain-of-command vibes.
Gabbard, who once ran for president as an anti-interventionist Democrat before enthusiastically endorsing Trump, somehow managed to be too skeptical of war for this administration yet still confirmable enough for a razor-thin 52–48 party-line vote that even Mitch McConnell couldn’t swallow. She leaves as the fourth woman to exit Trump’s Cabinet, joining a Labor Secretary under misconduct investigation and a small pile of other discarded officials. The intelligence community now gets an acting DNI and the lingering memory that the person in charge of protecting classified information once treated covert identities and sensitive Russia docs like content for a particularly reckless Substack.
Source: nbcnews.com
#national-security#killing-democracy
killing democracy
trump to potential fed chair: vibes only, laws optional
Trump explaining that the Federal Reserve should be run on pure instinct, just like his bankrupt casinos.
Donald Trump reportedly told prospective Federal Reserve chair Kevin Warsh to just "do your own thing" if he got the job, which is exactly what you want to hear about the person in charge of the global financial system: pure improv, no notes. The central bank is supposed to be independent, rule-bound, and boring; Trump is suggesting it operate more like his Twitter feed with a Bloomberg terminal.
This is the same guy who ranted for years that the Fed was "rigged" against him, now floating the idea that his handpicked chair should treat monetary policy like a solo side quest. Independence? Guardrails? Any pretense that interest rates are set for the economy rather than the president’s ego? Cute ideas from a bygone era. Under Trump, the message is clear: even the Fed should serve the man, not the mandate.
Source: nbcnews.com
#killing-democracy#money
killing democracy
americans rudely notice president isn’t actually running the economy
Trump stares at a gas pump price display like it personally betrayed him, while an ICE raid plays on Fox News in the background: priorities firmly in order.
Turns out when you start a war with Iran, brag that Americans’ financial pain is “not even a little bit” motivating you to seek peace, and then build your entire presidency around mass deportations, people notice their wallets are empty and their gas tanks are too. A new Morris Predictive poll finds 68% of Americans think Trump is way more interested in kicking out farmworkers than in making sure anyone can afford food, rent, or gas at $4.55 a gallon. Apparently "owning the libs" does not function as legal tender at the grocery store.
The economic picture is so bleak that even Gallup has joined the "this is bad" chorus: economic confidence is at a four-year low, nearly half the country says the economy is flat-out poor, and only 16% think things are going well. Even Trump’s own voters are peeling off: 36% of them say his priorities are wrong, and among those who’ve bailed on him since 2024, 70% say the same. On his supposed strong suits, the numbers are brutal: -35% net approval on the economy, and -13% on immigration – quite an achievement when you’re deporting half the service sector.
Voters, including a majority of Trump’s own 2024 supporters, say the mass deportation campaign is jacking up grocery prices, closing restaurants, stripping care workers from the elderly, and tearing families apart – but sure, let’s keep pouring money into ICE cosplay raids instead of Medicaid and lower health costs. Meanwhile, Trump is swapping out Jerome Powell for Kevin Warsh at the Fed, because nothing calms a three-year-high 3.8% inflation rate like installing a more compliant central banker while you torch the labor force and destabilize the Middle East. Republicans head into the 2026 midterms with 16% of Trump’s 2024 voters saying they’re out – mostly over the economy – proving that if you make policy as performance art, eventually the audience starts checking the price of tickets.
Source: theguardian.com
#killing-democracy#imperialism
imperialism
cuban elf finally gets his war
USS Nimitz, currently starring in "West Wing Fanfic Writer Finally Gets to Invade Cuba: The Sequel to Venezuela".
Marco Rubio has apparently speedrun the neocon dream: he’s now both secretary of state and national security adviser, and he’s using his new Imperial Foreign Policy Megazord to chase a lifelong fantasy—toppling the Cuban government. The Trump administration’s "maximum pressure" campaign has escalated to parking the USS Nimitz strike group off Cuba’s doorstep while Rubio tours cameras declaring Havana an "imminent" threat to the United States, because nothing says sober statecraft like claiming a struggling island nation is about to drone-bomb Florida.
Trump, who once pretended "America First" meant not starting new wars, is now bragging in the Oval Office that he’ll be the guy who finally "does something" about Cuba, as if regime change is a reality show finale he’s been building toward. The administration is busily leaking intel about Cuba’s 300 mystery drones and Russian/Chinese boogeymen to justify a military buildup, while Democrats point out that a checked-out president who spends his days "sleeping and worrying only about his ballroom" is extremely convenient for the Cuba-hawk crowd that’s been dreaming of an invasion since the Bay of Pigs.
Meanwhile, foreign policy hands quietly admit this is basically the Rubio 2016 foreign policy platform, just with more sequins and indictments: "tough on dictatorships" as long as the dictators aren’t in Riyadh or Mar-a-Lago, plus a generous helping of quick, flashy wars for the highlight reel. After Venezuela, now Cuba; Washington’s "right" to assert control over Latin America is back, and this time it’s branded as Marco Rubio’s legacy. Democracy in the hemisphere, courtesy of a government that can’t even run its own post office but is very sure it can run everyone else’s country.
Source: theguardian.com
#imperialism#national-security#killing-democracy
forever grifting
america’s doctor, brought to you by drop rx™
Drop RX bottles heroically posing on Amazon before discovering that even Jeff Bezos has *some* standards.
Trump’s third try at finding a surgeon general has produced Dr Nicole Saphier, a Fox News alum and self-styled wellness entrepreneur who’s been hawking "physician formulated" liquid herb drops under the brand Drop RX. One of those fun little tinctures contains an ingredient the Pentagon has banned for troops and health experts say can cause liver damage, which is certainly one way to reduce healthcare costs. The products promise things like better focus, calm, sleep and "intimacy"—because nothing screams rigorous evidence like a $24.99 mystery vial you squirt under your tongue.
While the surgeon general is supposed to be "America’s doctor"—the person who explains actual science to the public—Saphier has been busy filming Instagram reels tying her products to whatever study trended that week. Public health experts are, shockingly, not thrilled that the administration’s top health messenger has been monetizing pseudoscience; one called out the whole thing as classic wellness-industry grift and asked the obvious question: if she’ll push this junk for profit, what else will she sell the country from the bully pulpit?
The White House, through spokesperson Kush Desai, naturally framed all this as a feature, not a bug, praising her fight against "intrusive COVID-19 mandates" and her commitment to Robert F Kennedy Jr’s Make America Healthy Again agenda—because of course the guy who built a movement on anti-vax conspiracies wants a supplement peddler as surgeon general. Meanwhile, Amazon yanked or froze Drop RX listings the moment reporters started asking whether the products even complied with its own rules, which tells you everything about the "rigor" behind this operation. The next surgeon general report might just be a coupon code.
Source: theguardian.com
#forever-grifting#healthcare