thom tillis discovers the real problem is *everyone* around trump
Thom Tillis bravely explains that the arsonist-in-chief is only dangerous because his matches keep giving him bad advice.
Republican Sen. Thom Tillis went on TV to perform the classic MAGA magic trick: separate Trump from the consequences of Trumpism. The new script is that the president isn’t the problem, it’s just a few naughty Cabinet secretaries giving him bad advice — as though the guy who demands loyalty oaths, purges anyone who says "no," and governs by Truth Social post is actually a helpless victim of his own handpicked yes‑men.
This is the updated "adults in the room" fantasy, except now the adults are the villains and the man signing the executive orders is a wide‑eyed bystander. Instead of confronting the obvious — that the chaos, abuses of power, and authoritarian lurches are features, not bugs — Tillis helpfully offers up a couple of scapegoats in the Cabinet, like a company blaming middle management for the CEO driving the business into a volcano.
What we’re really watching is the party trying to launder responsibility for every disastrous policy and norm‑shredding stunt: blame the staff, protect the boss, and hope voters never notice that Trump personally hired, fired, and publicly humiliated these same people on a rotating basis. The message from Tillis: the system isn’t broken because of Trump’s behavior; it’s just suffering from a few bad influencers. Democracy will be fine once the emperor’s entourage gets a light refresh.
#killing-democracy#full-stupid
house discovers consequences, immediately faints
Democrat explains that Congress has ‘zero room’ for abusers of power, while broadcasting from a building that’s basically an open-plan office for them.
Eric Swalwell resigns from Congress over sexual misconduct allegations, and California Democrat Robert Garcia appears on TV to announce there is "zero room for anyone who abuses their power" in the House. Bold words from an institution that spent the Trump years treating abuse of power like a networking opportunity and a fundraising strategy. Apparently the new standard is: if you get caught this loudly, you finally have to go.
Garcia leans hard into the "accountability" framing, insisting the House must be a safe workplace and that abusing power is disqualifying. Meanwhile, the same building still contains a thriving ecosystem of alleged harassers, insurrection cheerleaders, and people who think ethics is a type of salad. But sure, today we’re drawing a bright red line — right through the one guy who already resigned.
The kicker is the retroactive tough talk: another Democrat insists Nancy Pelosi would have "decimated" Swalwell if she'd known about the allegations earlier, as if the real tragedy here is depriving Pelosi of the chance to personally vaporize a member on live TV. The broader lesson from all this? Congress will absolutely crack down on abuse of power — once it’s politically safe, media-saturated, and someone else has already taken the fall.
#lawlessness#killing-democracy
supreme court governs by sticky note to help trump
Ketanji Brown Jackson politely explaining that the Supreme Court is not supposed to be Trump’s emergency suggestion box.
Ketanji Brown Jackson went to Yale Law School and basically told the country that the conservative justices have turned the Supreme Court into a late-night fax machine for Trump. She called their pro-Trump emergency orders “scratch-paper musings” and “back-of-the-envelope” impressions, which is a very polite way of saying: the highest court in the land is now issuing policy-changing rulings with the intellectual rigor of a napkin at a steakhouse.
The pattern is simple and bleak: Trump’s second administration files 34 emergency applications; the conservative 6–3 majority quietly hits the green button most of the time; lower courts that actually looked at the law say the policies are probably illegal; the Supreme Court shrugs and lets them go ahead anyway. These supposedly “short-term” orders then function as de facto policy, greenlighting anti-immigrant crackdowns and steep funding cuts while the merits cases crawl through the system. Judicial review, but make it express lane for the president.
Jackson’s core point is devastating: the Court is not only issuing these thin, barely explained orders, it’s demanding that lower courts treat these sketches as binding guidance, while pretending that abstract “harm” to the president’s agenda outweighs the very real harm to actual humans. As she put it, the president “certainly isn’t harmed if what he wants to do is illegal” — a concept that used to be basic civics, not controversial judicial philosophy. Yet here we are, with the Trump-boosted majority repeatedly grabbing the third rail of every divisive policy fight and calling it neutral law.
She, Sotomayor, and Kagan keep dissenting, but dissents don’t stop deportations or funding cuts. So Jackson is now saying the quiet part very loudly in public: the conservative bloc has discovered a handy tool for helping Trump sidestep legal obstacles, off the regular docket, without full briefing or argument. The shadow docket was meant for true emergencies; under Trump’s Court, the emergency is apparently that his agenda might have to follow the law.
#killing-democracy#lawlessness
trump’s ai jesus fan cam presidency
When you can’t walk on water, but you can ask Midjourney to make it look like you did.
Trump has discovered a new favorite presidential power: not the veto, not the pardon, but the Generate button. The White House and Trump’s own accounts are now a nonstop firehose of AI fan art depicting him as a doctor, a king, a pope, a Nobel laureate, a Sith lord, and, most recently, a kind of off-brand Jesus beaming holy light into a patient’s skull. When called out for the Christ cosplay, he insisted it was just him as a humble medical professional, healing the masses with… divine head lasers.
The AI worship doesn’t stop at theology. The administration is systematically pushing these images as political messaging: Trump as Superman, Trump roaring with a lion, Trump as a football star, Trump as an Apocalypse Now tough guy. Fact-checkers have already noted that this “slopaganda” isn’t just cringe; it’s designed to rally the base and drown out reality with glossy, fabricated hero shots. Why bother governing when Midjourney can just render you into greatness?
While Trump rage-posts through the night about Pope Leo and invents unverified death tolls in Iran by the tens of thousands, the AI content mill keeps churning. By Wednesday morning he was reposting yet another image of Jesus literally embracing him from behind, proudly announcing that the “Radical Left Lunatics” won’t like it—but he thinks it’s “quite nice.” Authoritarian aesthetics 101: blur the line between leader and messiah, flood the zone with fake visuals, and hope no one notices that the only thing getting resurrected is his poll numbers.
#killing-democracy#fascism
trump rediscovers his love for spying on americans
Trump and Congress bravely defend America from the terrifying threat of unchecked government power… by expanding unchecked government power.
Donald Trump has heroically overcome his deep constitutional principles and personal grievances to once again embrace warrantless mass surveillance. After spending years screaming that FISA was a deep state plot to spy on his 2016 campaign and should be “KILLED,” he’s now demanding an 18‑month, no‑changes extension of Section 702 because it’s suddenly an “effective tool” that’s “extremely important to our military” during the war in Iran. Turns out, when the spying machine might work for you instead of on you, it starts to look pretty patriotic.
Inside the House, the show is even better. A bipartisan blob of security-state enthusiasts is frantically trying to ram through a clean renewal, while a weird alliance of progressive Democrats and far‑right Republicans is yelling “maybe get a warrant before you dig through Americans’ emails?” Speaker Mike Johnson, channeling his inner J. Edgar Hoover, refuses any amendments because reform would “jeopardize its passage” – which is Washington‑speak for: the abuses are a feature, not a bug. This is despite the FISA court itself saying FBI compliance problems are “persistent and widespread,” and despite agents using 702 to rummage through the communications of protesters, journalists, a state judge, political commentators, and even members of Congress.
The FBI proudly reports only 7,413 queries on Americans last year, while privacy advocates point out that a handy new “filtering tool” just means a lot of searches don’t get counted at all – a bold innovation in the field of creative accounting for civil liberties violations. Meanwhile, surveillance can keep running through March 2027 thanks to secret court certifications, even if Congress pretends to have a debate or accidentally does its job. The intelligence agencies swear warrants would be too “burdensome” because some queries wouldn’t meet legal standards, which is a remarkably honest way of saying: if we followed the Constitution, we couldn’t do half of what we’re doing now.
So Trump gets to posture as Commander in Chief of Safety, the security state keeps its favorite toy, and Americans get the same deal they always get under this crowd: perpetual fear, perpetual war, and a government that insists it loves freedom so much it has to read your messages to protect it.
#killing-democracy#lawlessness
bernie tries to unplug trump’s bomb subscription box
Bernie Sanders attempts the dark Washington art of ‘listening to voters’ while the Senate checks with AIPAC to see if that’s allowed.
Bernie Sanders is once again wandering into the Senate chamber with the radical, fringe idea that maybe the United States shouldn’t keep mailing 1,000lb bombs and demolition bulldozers to Benjamin Netanyahu like it’s an arms-themed Birchbox. This time he’s trying to block a $151.8m shipment of 12,000 bombs and another $295m in bulldozers that have a well-documented habit of turning homes, neighborhoods, and international law into dust and legal footnotes.
Democrats, who have spent years deeply concerned about Israel’s conduct while voting to fund every missile that concern requires, are now facing voters who have noticed that “ally” apparently means “we underwrite whatever Netanyahu and Trump dream up in Gaza, Lebanon, and Iran.” Sanders is framing the vote as a chance to stand up to AIPAC, the super-PAC that has been carpet-bombing US elections with cash so senators can bravely represent the views of their wealthiest constituents. As he politely suggests they try listening to actual voters, groups like Indivisible, MoveOn, J Street, and Jewish Voice for Peace are outside reminding Democrats that supporting mass displacement and annexation might not be the electoral slam dunk AIPAC’s checks implied.
Over in the House, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ro Khanna have committed the unpardonable Washington sin of saying the quiet part out loud: if Israel wants Iron Dome, it can buy it with its own money instead of siphoning more from US taxpayers to underwrite an endless Trump–Netanyahu foreign-policy fanfic. Meanwhile, Senate Democrats are also pushing a war powers resolution to stop Trump from continuing his wildly unpopular hostilities against Iran — a symbolic gesture Republicans will kill so the president can keep playing commander-in-chief with other people’s lives and other countries’ cities. American democracy: where public opinion is advisory, bombs are mandatory, and the real war is making sure AIPAC never feels ignored.
#killing-democracy#imperialism
cms now stands for coke, miracles & soda
Trump contemplates advanced cancer therapy on Air Force One, also known as a warm Fanta in a Styrofoam cup.
The president of the United States, a man with the nuclear codes and a permanent McDonald’s coupon book, apparently believes diet soda might kill cancer cells because it can kill grass. This revelation comes courtesy of Mehmet Oz — now somehow running the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services — who cheerfully recounted how Trump defended chugging Fanta on Air Force One by declaring, “this stuff’s good for me – it kills cancer cells,” and then suggested it was basically health food because it’s made with “fresh squeezed” orange juice from concentrate. America, your tax dollars are sponsoring a live-action YouTube misinformation reel.
Not to be outdone, Don Jr. nodded along and floated the idea that maybe his dad is “on to something,” citing Trump’s “energy, recall, stamina” as if surviving on Diet Coke and grievance were a peer-reviewed clinical trial. Meanwhile, actual doctors are sprinting to social media to remind people that diet soda does not, in fact, cure cancer — though Trump’s logic does raise the exciting possibility that bleach is a superfood. Physicians have to publicly debunk the commander-in-chief’s lawn-care-based oncology theories while the same health department he controls is re-writing US nutrition guidelines to emphasize “real food.” Sure, real food — as long as it comes in a fountain cup and melts a dandelion.
This is the same brain trust that once mused about injecting disinfectant and shining “powerful light” inside the body, now effectively crowdsourcing public health policy from late-night infomercials and whatever pops into Trump’s head when he sees a commercial. With Dr. Oz at CMS and Trump treating sodas like chemo in a can, the line between federal health guidance and a daytime talk show segment has fully disintegrated. The only thing getting killed here isn’t cancer — it’s scientific credibility.
#anti-science#healthcare#full-stupid
rfk jr runs cdc like a facebook comments section
Robert F Kennedy Jr studies vaccine policy the way most people read YouTube comments: confidently, incorrectly, and with catastrophic consequences.
The Trump administration’s second-term health strategy is finally clear: if you can’t beat infectious diseases, legally disable the people who know how. A federal judge just hit pause on all the vaccine "work" done by the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) — the one hand‑picked by HHS secretary and professional anti-vaxxer Robert F Kennedy Jr — and in the process vaporized official CDC recommendations for current flu shots, Covid boosters, and a new RSV shot for babies. So yes, the world’s richest country has managed to stumble into respiratory virus season with a vibes-based vaccine policy.
Instead of fixing the mess, the administration has produced a fresh one. There’s no confirmed CDC director, ACIP is legally radioactive, and Kennedy technically could issue recommendations himself, assuming he can stop suing vaccines long enough to read the court order. Health officials might also just ignore the judge entirely — a move that, to be fair, is now standard operating procedure for Trump-world whenever the judiciary gets fussy about laws and due process.
States are splintering off, insurers aren’t sure what they’ll cover, pharmacists don’t know what they’re allowed to give, and professional medical organizations are scrambling to fill the void with guidelines based on whatever data they can legally see. Meanwhile, the administration’s big reform is a new ACIP charter that gives more power to groups that treat PubMed like a Deep State psy-op. Public trust in vaccines and the CDC is circling the drain, and experts say the genie of confusion and mistrust is already out of the bottle. Perfect timing, as always, for the next pandemic roll of the dice.
#anti-science#healthcare#killing-democracy
workers attempt democracy, trump’s nlrb files hostile workplace complaint
Attendees at the Union Now rally in New York display the extremely controversial idea that workers should have power too, prompting immediate concern from Trump’s NLRB about this obvious threat to shareholder feelings.
American workers are doing something truly radical under Donald Trump: trying to have some power over their own lives. Union leaders have launched "Union Now", a nonprofit designed to boost union density in a country where about 70% of workers say they want a union and only 10% are allowed to have one – a ratio that would make any self-respecting corporation drool, but somehow is considered "freedom" when it’s about paychecks instead of phones.
Sara Nelson and other organizers are trying to build a war chest to help workers withstand bosses who fire people illegally during organizing drives, stall first contracts for years, and generally behave like they read the National Labor Relations Act and thought it was a list of suggestions. Meanwhile, Trump’s newly re-rigged NLRB has swiveled from watchdog to corporate HR department, making it even easier for employers to drag out negotiations until workers either quit in despair or die at their second job.
Former labor secretary and current NYC deputy mayor Julie Su politely calls these endless delays a "form of union busting," which is a very professional way of saying: companies are breaking the law and the federal agency in charge of stopping them is now cheering from the luxury box. Union membership is down from 21 million in 1979 to 14.7 million today, even as the population has grown by over 100 million, but don’t worry – billionaire wealth is doing great. Trump’s America: collective bargaining for CEOs, bootstraps for everyone else.
#killing-democracy#forever-grifting
trump sells you ‘tax relief’ and sends the savings to raytheon
A lonely taxpayer stares at their refund check, wondering how much of it got rerouted to bomb Iran instead of paying for their insulin.
American taxpayers just found out what their 2025 "tax receipt" actually bought, and spoiler: it wasn’t healthcare, food, or a functioning planet. The Institute for Policy Studies crunched the numbers and the average household shelled out about $4,049 for military-related spending, up from $3,707 the year before. Of that, roughly $1,870 went straight to Pentagon contractors, because Lockheed Martin’s yachts don’t upgrade themselves. Meanwhile, a majestic $31 per filer went to substance abuse and mental health programs. Good thing no one in power seems to have issues with either of those.
While people are drowning in living costs, Trump is pushing a ~40% increase in defense spending and cutting other programs by 10%. Medicaid for 68.5 million Americans clocks in at $2,492 per filer, Medicare at $2,207, food assistance at $396, disaster relief at $179, and the Environmental Protection Agency gets a generous $131 to hold back climate collapse with duct tape and vibes. But don’t worry, nuclear weapons get $130 all on their own, because priorities. And this tax breakdown doesn’t even include the US-Israeli war with Iran, which burned through an estimated $11.3bn in the first six days like it was kindling for Trump’s reelection bonfire.
Polls show around 60–70% of Americans think their taxes are too high and that the rich aren’t paying enough, but Republicans tossed out some shiny tip-income exemptions and senior deductions so a few people get slightly bigger refunds while war-driven inflation eats it all back at the gas pump. Trump calls it strong leadership; the receipts call it a transfer program from your paycheck to the Pentagon and its contractors, with a tiny side of social spending so no one can technically say they got nothing for their money. Congratulations, you helped fund a war, a weapons lobby, and maybe half a therapy session.
#forever-grifting#killing-democracy
memphis ‘safe’ task force mostly just pulls people over
America’s finest: turning a strip mall parking lot into a checkpoint so we can bravely protect Memphis from the menace of people driving while immigrant.
Trump ordered a law-and-order surge in Memphis to crush violent crime, then showed up to take a victory lap for a 30% drop in serious violence. Tiny hitch: Memphis Police Department data shows crime had already fallen to a 25-year low before his Memphis Safe Task Force rolled in with the National Guard and a small army of agencies. But why let reality get in the way of a campaign rally about how only Donald J. Broken Windows can save America?
Once you pop the hood on this "violent crime" crackdown, it’s just a traffic-stop factory with a deportation side hustle. Of the more than 5,200 arrests in the first four months, only about a quarter were for violent crimes, and most of those were from old warrants. The task force did manage to nab over 800 immigrants deemed unlawfully present, though — and only 2% of those were even accused of violent crime. Being undocumented is a civil offense, but the Memphis Safe Task Force treats it like the city’s gravest threat, especially in Parkway Village, a majority Black, rapidly growing Hispanic neighborhood where 81% of arrests are for nonviolent offenses.
The White House’s response is to crank the gaslight to stadium brightness. Spokesperson Abigail Jackson credits the "great work of President Trump’s task force" for falling crime, while refusing to explain why the supposed war on violent offenders looks suspiciously like a dragnet for immigrants selling shoes and tacos. The U.S. Marshals Service parrots the script, bragging that "calls for service are down 18%" — as if people terrified of calling the cops in a militarized crackdown is proof that crime vanished rather than that trust did. Memphis didn’t get a safety plan; it got a political stunt dressed up as public security, with immigrant families and Black neighborhoods paying the price for Trump’s campaign talking points.
#anti-immigration#killing-democracy#lawlessness
trump promises new iran talks to fix crisis he personally lit on fire
U.S. warship cruises the Strait of Hormuz while Washington pretends this is all a totally normal way to run foreign policy.
Trump is now signaling that new talks with Iran could start "soon," which is Washington-speak for, "after we’ve finished pretending the last eight years of diplomacy never happened." Having torched the JCPOA, slapped on maximum-soundbite sanctions, and helped crank regional tensions high enough to rattle oil markets and Navy commanders, he’s now floating himself as the indispensable dealmaker who will heroically negotiate us back to roughly where we were before he wandered in with a gas can.
Diplomats and military officials get to play minesweeper in the Strait of Hormuz while Trump chases a TV-ready handshake moment that he can brand as the greatest deal ever made, many people are saying. Iran, having watched the U.S. shred a signed agreement on a whim, is supposed to trust that this time the reality show host in chief really means it. American credibility takes another hit, global security gets treated like a campaign prop, and the rest of us are left hoping the next episode of "Art of the Nuclear Deal" doesn’t end with a carrier group on fire.
#imperialism#killing-democracy
save america by stopping americans from voting, naturally
Behold: quaint little "I voted" stickers from that brief era when casting a ballot didn’t require a document scavenger hunt and a DHS background check.
The "Save America" Act is back, and once again the plan to "save" democracy is to make sure fewer people can participate in it. This year's model bolts together strict documentary proof-of-citizenship requirements, a very tight voter ID regime, and the casual threat of criminal charges for election officials who don’t perfectly navigate this booby-trapped mess. As a bonus, states would have to hand their voter rolls over to the Department of Homeland Security on the regular, because nothing screams "free and fair elections" like running your local precinct out of a national security file cabinet.
Instead of just calling this what it is — a mass voter suppression bill built to lock in minority rule — the Trump orbit is selling it as "election integrity" while his supporters are still relitigating 2020 and the FBI is poking around Fulton County. Meanwhile, civil rights groups are in court trying to stop Trump from kneecapping mail-in voting, because the GOP finally noticed that when more people can vote, they tend to lose. The Guardian is politely inviting readers to ask questions about what this all means for November’s midterms and the future of American democracy. The short answer: if Trump gets his way, the future looks a lot like DHS-approved voter lists, terrified election workers, and a government that only trusts elections it has pre-rigged.
#killing-democracy#fascism
trump’s jan. 6 ‘patriots’ keep racking up child sex crimes
Future Trump martyr David Paul Daniel hydrating between assaulting cops and, as it turns out, starring in a federal child exploitation case.
The "law and order" president has done it again: another Jan. 6 rioter personally blessed by Donald Trump’s mass clemency program is now set to plead guilty to federal child sexual exploitation charges. David Daniel — who Trump helped scrub clean for assaulting police at the Capitol — has reached a plea deal over enticement of a child under 12 to produce sexual abuse images, plus another minor victim under 18. Truly the finest of people, the best people, the only people this movement ever seems to find.
Federal Judge Matthew Orso had to patiently explain that Trump’s Jan. 6 pardon does not magically extend to "child exploitation" because, astonishingly, raping children is not "conduct related to the events at or near the United States Capitol." This is not a hypothetical problem: Daniel is at least the third Trump-pardoned Jan. 6 rioter nailed in separate child sex cases. Daniel Tocci got four years for a child porn collection; Andrew Paul Johnson is doing life after trying to bribe a victim into silence with fantasy money from a supposed Trump Jan. 6 settlement. The movement that screams about "groomers" sure seems to have a recurring casting problem.
Meanwhile, the Trump DOJ has been tying itself in knots drawing magical lines around these pardons: guns seized during Jan. 6 raids? Sometimes pardoned. Child sexual abuse material uncovered during those same investigations? Not covered. One rioter, Dan Wilson, even got a second pardon to cover his gun conviction — because if there’s one thing this crowd takes seriously, it’s making sure the violent coup guys keep their firearms. And lawyers for alleged DNC/RNC pipe bomb suspect Brian Cole Jr. are now trying to cram bomb-planting under the Jan. 6 pardon umbrella too.
So the pattern is clear: Trump hands out mass pardons to insurrectionists like merch at a rally, a non-trivial number turn out to be accused or convicted child predators, and the courts are left sweeping up the wreckage while MAGA world still insists these are political prisoners and heroes. This is the movement that claims it’s saving America’s children.
#lawlessness#forever-grifting
white house stages heartwarming ad for poverty wages
Grandma delivers McDonald’s to the president while delivering talking points to the cameras—America’s economy, now available as a branded content partnership.
The White House rolled out its latest economic policy explainer by doing what this administration does best: staging a commercial and calling it governance. Enter "DoorDash grandma" Sharon Simmons, previously flown in to lobby Congress for Trump’s "no tax on tips" gimmick, now reappearing as a surprise McDonald’s delivery driver to the president. DoorDash eventually had to admit the whole thing was a pre-arranged stunt, complete with a carefully televised $100 tip, because nothing says serious tax policy like an influencer collab with the guy who almost ended democracy.
Then the propaganda machine really went for it. The Trump rapid response account blasted out a quote claiming Simmons had "saved" more than $11,000 in tips by "not having to claim" them on her taxes—promptly smacked down by a community note and basic math. The actual policy is a temporary deduction on up to $25,000 in tips, most tipped workers already pay little or no federal income tax, and her tips are still taxable in Arkansas anyway. Minor details, easily ignored when you’re busy turning a precarious gig worker into a mascot for a law that, according to researchers, gives a tiny tax break to some servers while gutting health care, energy, and food assistance to finance tax cuts for the ultra-wealthy.
Labor advocates pointed out that this isn’t worker empowerment; it’s a marketing campaign for poverty wages. The policy encourages more tipping instead of higher base pay, while Trump’s broader package shreds the safety net the same workers rely on to survive. As One Fair Wage’s Saru Jayaraman put it, the fact that "DoorDash grandma" is even a thing is a sign of societal failure, not a feel-good moment. But in Trump’s America, corporations pay workers so little they have to beg for tips, the government offers a tax gimmick instead of a raise, and then everyone gathers at the White House to film it like a heartwarming Super Bowl ad for late-stage capitalism.
#forever-grifting#killing-democracy
trump discovers minority rights are for losers
Mitch McConnell and Senate Republicans gazing lovingly at the filibuster, wondering if they should kill it now or wait until it can hurt them personally.
President Trump is once again staring at a guardrail of American democracy and asking, very sincerely, whether it would look better smashed through the windshield. This time it’s the Senate filibuster, which he wants to vaporize so he can shove the so‑called Save America Act through the chamber without the pesky inconvenience of needing more than 50 senators to agree.
Senate Republicans, however, are having a rare moment of semi-conscious thought. They’re reportedly nervous about detonating the filibuster because they understand that one day, they might not be the ones holding the gavel, and then Democrats could use the same no‑rules sandbox to pass things that aren’t handouts to donors and Christian nationalists. So we get the usual GOP dilemma: protect basic institutional norms, or hand Trump the matches and hope the fire only burns other people.
The filibuster has a long, ugly history — from civil-rights obstruction to routine gridlock — but it’s still one of the last speed bumps left between Trump and full‑tilt majoritarian rule dressed up as populist revolution. The fact that the future of a 200‑year‑old legislative norm now hinges on whether Senate Republicans are more afraid of Trump’s rage tweets than of someday being in the minority tells you exactly how sturdy American democracy is in 2026: held together with vibes, cowardice, and a parliamentary procedure nobody actually likes.
#killing-democracy#fascism
acting ag proudly announces doj now a trump family office
Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche explains that the Justice Department runs best when the defendant is also the boss.
Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche went on NBC to do the one thing the Justice Department was specifically not designed for: gush about how wonderful it is that Donald Trump is personally "involved" in its work. The nation’s top law enforcement official-in-training wheels essentially confirmed what everyone already knew — the DOJ is no longer an independent institution, it’s just another Trump property, somewhere between Mar-a-Lago and the food court at Bedminster.
Instead of even pretending to defend the traditional wall between the White House and federal prosecutors, Blanche praised Trump’s hands-on approach like he was talking about a tech startup founder, not a guy facing more criminal exposure than a mob convention. The message to career prosecutors was clear: your new job is not to enforce the law, it’s to enforce Trump’s feelings. Investigations? Charging decisions? That’s adorable. The only thing that really matters now is whether the king is pleased.
This is the part of the movie where the regime usually tries to hide the capture of the justice system. The Trump administration has politely skipped that step and gone straight to bragging about it on cable news. When the acting attorney general is on TV applauding the president’s direct meddling in prosecutions, you’re not looking at a justice system anymore — you’re looking at a loyalty test with subpoenas.
#killing-democracy#fascism#lawlessness
uk asks: should our nukes come with a free trump?
The UK, bravely entrusting its national security to a man who tried to buy Greenland like it was a foreclosure listing.
Britain is apparently still role‑playing as Robin to America’s Batman, except Batman is now Donald Trump and he keeps threatening to sell Greenland like it’s a Trump golf course with better ice. Former NATO chief George Robertson is shrieking about a £28bn "black hole" in UK defence spending, because the country might not be shovelling enough money into a force structure designed less to defend Britain and more to be the premium DLC pack for the US war machine.
The whole setup, as the editorial politely notes, means only about 15–20% of UK defence spending is actually about defending the UK. The rest is essentially a subscription to the American empire bundle: US‑controlled nuclear weapons, F‑35s that might as well ship with a "Made for Lockheed" watermark, and a posture built around NATO nuclear sharing where Trump treats alliance commitments like overdue casino markers. Britain doesn’t get technological control, just the privilege of being an extra in Washington’s war cosplay.
Whitehall’s big brain move is to promise more defence money… someday in the 2030s, while Trump is busy casually undermining international law and U‑turning on things like the Chagos deal. Meanwhile, the UK is reshaping its military around a US‑style "defence as venture capital" tech ecosystem, because nothing says "national security" like turning war into a start‑up pitch deck. The Guardian ends on the only real question that matters: with Trump back in office, whose security is Britain actually funding – its own, or the whims of an unstable reality‑TV autocrat with the nuclear football on speed dial?
#imperialism#killing-democracy
ice insists it doesn’t kidnap people, just ‘forcibly relocates’ citizens in their underwear
ICE agents, seen here engaging in what they insist is definitely not kidnapping, just enhanced wrong-address customer service.
In St Paul, ICE decided the Fourth Amendment is more of a vibe than a rule and sent masked agents to smash down the door of ChongLy “Scott” Thao, a 56-year-old Hmong American and naturalized US citizen. They dragged him into the street in subfreezing temperatures, half-naked and clutching a blanket, drove him “to the middle of nowhere” to photograph him, realized they’d grabbed the wrong guy, and then just dropped him back home like a misdelivered Amazon package. Now Ramsey County authorities are investigating the episode as possible kidnapping, burglary, and false imprisonment, because apparently someone in Minnesota still thinks laws apply to federal agents.
Homeland Security’s response? A straight-faced statement that “ICE does not ‘kidnap’ people” and that this is all just a political stunt to “demonize” their officers. They claim they were executing a warrant targeting “sexual predators” allegedly tied to the property, that it’s "standard protocol" to hold everyone in the house, and carefully skip over the part where the local DA and sheriff say DHS has simply ignored requests for records. With a grand jury on the table and neighboring Hennepin County already suing the Trump administration for stonewalling investigations into three federal shootings—including the killings of anti-ICE protesters Renee Good and Alex Pretti—Minnesota officials are having to sue their own federal government just to find out who keeps shooting and abducting people.
Meanwhile, deaths in ICE custody are quietly stacking up like a body-count scoreboard: 47 people have died since Trump’s second term started, at least 15 in 2026 alone. As Trump’s DHS tries to argue that Minnesota has no jurisdiction and federal agents are basically untouchable, Ramsey County’s sheriff gently reminds them that “there is no such thing as absolute immunity for federal agents.” Bold of him to assume this administration recognizes any authority besides Trump’s ego and whatever DHS lawyers can staple together as a constitutional theory on the back of a napkin.
#lawlessness#killing-democracy
trump taps nine-figure mystery fund guy to run the fed, what could go wrong
Kevin Warsh, preparing to reassure senators that the Juggernaut Fund full of undisclosed assets will absolutely not influence the guy running global monetary policy, scout’s honor.
Kevin Warsh, Trump’s pick to run the Federal Reserve, turns out to own at least $100m in assets, including two mystery investments over $50m each in something called the Juggernaut Fund LP — which is exactly the kind of name you give a fund when you absolutely do not want anyone asking what’s inside. The underlying assets are conveniently hidden behind “pre-existing confidentiality agreements,” but don’t worry, he pinky-swears he’ll divest if confirmed. Ethics in Government Act compliance now apparently consists of: check a box, promise to sell the giant black box of money later, and we’re good.
The rest of his portfolio reads like a VC pitch deck written by a bored chatbot: AI bets, crypto schemes like a “yield-generating Ethereum layer two,” a robotic coffee bar, bionic clothing, and a reversible male contraceptive startup. Because nothing says “steady hand on the world’s most important central bank” like a guy simultaneously long on robot lattes, Ethereum yield farms, and high-tech birth control. His wife, Jane Lauder, strolls in with a casual $1.9bn family fortune, plus muni bonds listed as just “over $1 million,” which is how rich people say “don’t bother me with decimals.”
Meanwhile, the Senate confirmation is tangled up in a Republican vow to block Warsh until DOJ finishes its politically convenient investigation into current Fed chair Jerome Powell — a probe a federal judge already called a barely disguised attempt to bully Powell into cutting rates or quitting. DOJ is appealing, because of course it is; why stop using law enforcement as a monetary policy tool now? Powell’s term ends in May, and he’ll stay on pro tem if Warsh isn’t rammed through in time, so the world’s largest economy is basically waiting to see whether its central bank will be run by a career central banker… or by a nine-figure Juggernaut Fund guy whose conflicts of interest are marked “confidential” and stamped “trust me.”
#oligarchy#corruption
