trump and rfk jr heroically declare war on vaccines, science, and basic survival
Donald Trump and RFK Jr., proudly standing over the smoking wreckage of America’s vaccine leadership, wondering why all the scientists keep running for the airport.
The US spent more than $10 billion building the world’s leading mRNA vaccine ecosystem, so naturally Trump’s second administration handed the keys to Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a man whose brand is being wrong about vaccines in public for decades. In a move that would make even Big Tobacco say "tone it down," RFK Jr. has spent the past year actively sabotaging the country’s own scientific success: cancelling a $766m bird flu vaccine contract with Moderna, orchestrating a "coordinated wind-down" of federal mRNA funding, and axing another $500m across 22 projects. Because nothing says "America First" like kneecapping the technology you literally helped invent and build.
The administration has turned once-trusted health agencies into anti-vax propaganda mills. HHS and the FDA are now slow-walking approvals and quietly dropping recommendations for mRNA vaccines, helpfully turbocharging falling vaccination rates and public distrust. The FDA’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research – now run by Vinay Prasad, RFK Jr.’s fellow anti-mRNA enthusiast – will decide whether vastly superior mRNA flu shots get approved in early 2026. In other words, cutting-edge vaccines are waiting on a guy whose whole career is "what if we just didn’t trust data?" A stall or rejection would confirm that the administration’s health policy is basically: Let the virus sort it out.
Meanwhile, the only mRNA work escaping the wrecking ball is personalized cancer vaccines, apparently because the White House doesn’t realize they’re vaccines. So the future of life-saving tech in the US now depends on the president and his health secretary being too scientifically illiterate to notice it. Researchers and companies are openly talking about leaving the US for the UK and EU, who are dangling hundreds of millions to lure them away – small change compared with what Trump has torched, but a bargain for anyone who thinks "not sabotaging cancer and flu vaccines" is a good baseline for civilization.
So the country that led the world in mRNA vaccines is now led by a president and a health secretary trying to strangle that success in the name of vibes and conspiracy theories. The message to scientists and industry is clear: invest years and billions in American innovation, and if it works too well, the government will defund it, discredit it, and hand your fate to RFK Jr. and a YouTube contrarian. But sure, tell us more about how this is the "pro-life" administration.
#anti-science#killing-democracy
trump slaps his name on the kennedy center, immediately starts looting
Protesters look up at the newly christened Trump-Kennedy Center, wondering when exactly the national arts budget got converted into a loyalty-points program for MAGA cronies.
The Kennedy Center was supposed to be a national monument to the arts. Instead, it’s become a live-action case study in how fast the Trump crowd can turn a cultural institution into a MAGA yacht club with better chandeliers. After Trump purged Biden appointees from the board, installed himself as chairman, and handed the presidency to professional yes-man Richard Grenell, the place allegedly pivoted from supporting artists to supporting Trump’s friends’ minibar tabs at the Watergate.
Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse’s investigation into the center’s finances describes it as a “slush fund and private club for Trump’s friends and political allies”, with millions in losses and a mission that now seems to be less about ballet and more about grift. In other words, the arts are canceled; the grifting is sold out for a multi-year run. Grenell, naturally, responded by screaming “partisan witch hunt” on X and blaming “financial chaos” on the previous leadership, because nothing says fiscal responsibility like allegedly handing out free access and luxury rooms to your buddies.
And just when you think the tackiness has peaked, Karoline Leavitt proudly announces that the board has “voted unanimously” to rename it the Trump-Kennedy Center—despite that tiny constitutional-ish snag where Congress actually has to do that. Within 24 hours, workmen are bolting Trump’s name onto the facade while the Kennedy family points out that this is, legally speaking, not how any of this works. But sure, who needs statutes when you’ve got a tarp, some metal letters, and a personality cult?
So the ‘secular temple to the arts’ is now a Trump-branded loot crate, and the only performance being perfected is public corruption.
#corruption#forever-grifting#killing-democracy
jesus saves, trump invoices
The president of the United States auctions off a portrait of Jesus at his own private club to a room full of billionaires and indicted sidekicks, then wishes for peace on Earth while the CIA allegedly blows up stuff in Venezuela. Totally normal democracy stuff.
Donald Trump rang in 2026 at Mar-a-Lago by doing what he does best: turning religion, public office, and foreign policy into a live infomercial for himself. At his $1,450-a-ticket New Year’s Eve bash, Trump played auctioneer for a freshly painted portrait of Jesus that sold for $2.75m, because nothing says humble carpenter from Nazareth like a multimillion-dollar impulse buy at the president’s private club.
The painting, done onstage in minutes while a band crooned Hallelujah, was hyped by Trump as the work of “one of the greatest artists anywhere in the world” – which, in Trump-speak, is what he usually says right before someone ends up with a federal subpoena or a cameo on Newsmax. Half the proceeds, he announced, would go to St Jude’s children’s hospital and half to the local sheriff’s department, because if you’re going to launder your image through charity, you might as well cut in law enforcement too. “These people are loaded with cash, just so you know,” he told the room full of donors, in case anyone forgot they were supposed to be both worshipping Jesus and opening their wallets.
The guest list was a who’s-who of the American decline cinematic universe: Rudy Giuliani, still haunting public life; Homeland Security secretary Kristi Noem; Benjamin Netanyahu and his wife; Emirati billionaire Hussain Sajwani; Brett Ratner, currently filming an Amazon documentary about Melania for those who felt the Trump era deserved a director’s cut; House Republican Tom Emmer; and DC attorney general Jeanine Pirro, proving once again that in Trump’s America, the justice system is just another banquet table. While Trump wished for “peace on Earth”, reporters asked about a reported CIA-directed strike on a dock in Venezuela, because nothing pairs with a soft-focus Jesus auction quite like covert military action in Latin America.
Earlier in the day, Trump spent his time presidentially calling Colorado governor Jared Polis a “scumbag”, labeling George Clooney “mediocre”, and insisting Democrats are a “bunch of cheaters and thieves”, all while bragging that his tariffs had produced a “World Record on investments”. He also fixated on Minnesota governor Tim Walz and alleged social services fraud, proclaiming that “they stole $18 billion” and promising to “get to the bottom of all of it.” In other words: accuse everyone else of scams, then go back to your private club, sell a Jesus painting for millions to your rich friends, and call it charity and patriotism. Other than that, we’re going to have a great New Year.
#oligarchy#forever-grifting
trump admin to trans feds: lose your healthcare or your job
OPM headquarters, where bureaucrats carefully review which marginalized group’s healthcare to cancel before lunch.
The Trump administration rang in the new year by telling transgender federal workers and their families to pick between their jobs and their health. The Office of Personnel Management announced that all federal employee and USPS health plans will no longer cover what it calls “chemical and surgical modification of an individual’s sex traits” – or, as every major medical association refers to it, medically necessary gender-affirming care. Because nothing says “small government” like micromanaging your kid’s puberty blockers from the White House.
The Human Rights Campaign has filed an EEOC complaint on behalf of affected federal employees, arguing that ripping gender-affirming care out of health coverage is sex-based discrimination and an obvious attempt to drive trans people and anyone who loves them out of the federal workforce. One postal worker with a daughter diagnosed with gender dysphoria now gets to watch Trump’s OPM reach into his family’s medical decisions and hit “deny claim” – all while still demanding he deliver everyone else’s mail on time.
This isn’t a one-off; it’s part of a coordinated crusade. The Department of Health and Human Services, under Robert F. Kennedy Jr – who has decided he’s a medical expert now – is pushing rules to block gender-affirming care for minors nationwide, even threatening hospitals with loss of Medicare and Medicaid funds if they treat trans kids. In other words, the administration is using the full weight of the federal government to override doctors, parents, and every major medical association in the country, all to score culture-war points by literally targeting children’s healthcare. But sure, tell us again how this is about “protecting kids” and “freedom.”
#trumps-america#killing-democracy
rubio invents ‘humanitarian aid, but make it extortion’
Marco Rubio explains that the UN can ‘adapt, shrink or die,’ which is also the unofficial mission statement of Trump-era diplomacy.
The Trump administration has discovered a bold new innovation in humanitarian policy: pay-to-obey. Washington is loudly bragging about a “bold and ambitious” $2bn UN aid pledge, while quietly stapling a ransom note to it that says the UN must “adapt, shrink or die” and route everything through a single Ocha fund Washington can lean on. In other words, it’s not really a contribution, it’s a hostile takeover bid.
The money can only go to 17 countries personally blessed by the US, conveniently skipping inconvenient disasters like Afghanistan and Yemen, but including places where the US has nice, tidy political interests. Aid experts are pointing out the obvious: this isn’t humanitarianism, it’s a foreign policy slush fund with better branding. As analyst Ronny Patz notes, pre-announcing a handpicked list of countries just “solidifies a massively shrunk UN humanitarian system” that can’t even respond to the next crisis unless Marco Rubio signs off between Fox hits.
Also fun: the $2bn “landmark” pledge is actually less than what the US gave under Biden in 2025, and that’s on top of Trump already cutting $5bn in congressionally approved foreign aid as “woke, weaponised and wasteful” and trying to kill peacekeeping while still owing the UN $1.5bn. But sure, let’s all clap for this “generous” move while the UN bows and scrapes for a promise that, as Patz politely reminds us, is “$2bn promised, but not $2bn given”. Because nothing says “rules-based international order” like forcing the world’s humanitarian system to choose between obedience, irrelevance, or collapse.
#killing-democracy#imperialism
strongman cosplay enters the 'mission accomplished' phase
Trump explains that the troops will leave the cities now that he’s finished using them as extras in his ‘I Alone Can Police This’ reality show.
Donald Trump rang in 2026 by announcing he’ll be pulling National Guard troops out of major U.S. cities — you know, the troops he helped turn into background extras for his domestic strongman reboot. After weeks of using soldiers as set dressing for a president who thinks the Insurrection Act is a light switch, Trump is now declaring victory and promising to send them home, as if the whole thing was just a limited-time holiday fascism pop-up shop.
Because nothing says “law and order” like flooding blue cities with armed troops, stoking fear, and then bragging about your magnanimous decision to stop doing the thing you never should’ve done in the first place. The White House is spinning the withdrawal as proof that Trump “restored calm,” which is an interesting way to describe pouring gasoline on a fire and then demanding a medal for finally putting the gas can down.
In other words, the president spent weeks normalizing military presence in civilian streets, undermining local control, and treating the Guard like his personal campaign prop — and now wants applause for not escalating further. But sure, we’re supposed to be grateful that the constitutional crisis is being dialed back from an 8 to a 6 on the authoritarian cosplay scale.
#killing-democracy#fascism#national-security
trump calls climate a scam, lets your utility bill do the talking
Bernie, AOC, and Zohran Mamdani on stage plotting the radical agenda of cheaper buses, cooler classrooms, and fewer kids getting cooked in uninsulated apartments—so obviously, the real extremists here.
The Trump administration has discovered a bold new climate strategy: call it a “scam,” cash record checks from big oil, and then act shocked when people’s power bills, rent, and insurance all explode. While Trump world insists that regulations are the real problem, Americans are getting hit with a monthly climate surcharge as extreme weather drives up utility costs, healthcare bills, and housing prices. Public transit systems are being shoved off a funding cliff, because nothing says “lower costs” like forcing everyone into cars during a heatwave.
Into this tire fire strolls an actually coherent idea: treat climate policy as an affordability agenda instead of a morality lecture. New York City mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani is pushing free buses and climate-resilient schools; Seattle’s socialist mayor-elect Katie Wilson wants social housing with green retrofits; unions from Chicago to Los Angeles are bargaining for solar schools and clean-energy jobs. Meanwhile, the administration that promised lower energy prices is busy turning the US into an oligarchic oil-and-gas theme park, where Exxon gets the rides and you get the bill.
From Maine’s Graham Platner tying pollution to oligarchy, to Nebraska’s Dan Osborn backing right-to-repair so farmers don’t have to mortgage the farm to fix a tractor, to Democrats winning on “lower utility costs” without even being especially left, the throughline is obvious: climate action can actually cut costs for normal people. But sure, tell us more about how climate policy is a con while you gut transit, shovel subsidies at fossil fuel donors, and let landlords pass disaster and insurance costs straight to renters. Green economic populism is trying to keep the lights on and the rent payable; the Trump administration is just making sure the oil CEOs’ yachts stay fully fueled.
#forever-grifting#killing-democracy
new york elects an immigrant socialist just to personally annoy donald trump
Zohran Mamdani, immigrant Muslim socialist mayor of New York, preparing to personally ruin every Fox News chyron for the next four years.
New York City has elected Zohran Mamdani, a young Muslim democratic socialist immigrant who openly says he doesn’t think we should have billionaires – so naturally, somewhere in Florida, Donald Trump just felt a great disturbance in the Force and blamed it on the deep state. Mamdani used his victory speech to do what most Democratic politicians have spent a decade avoiding: calling Trump out by name and promising that if ICE wants to terrorize immigrant communities, they’ll have to go through the entire city first. Because nothing says “law and order” like having to fight all of New York before you can deport someone’s grandma.
Mamdani also committed the unforgivable sins of refusing to apologize for being Muslim, denouncing Islamophobia as a winning electoral strategy, and suggesting that maybe – just maybe – a handful of billionaires hoarding more wealth than entire countries is bad. In other words, he took the exact values Trumpism demonized for years and used them as the basis of a winning campaign in the city that produced Donald J. Golden Toilet himself. He even closed by telling Trump to “turn the volume up” while he explained how to dismantle the conditions that created him – a polite way of saying, “watch closely while we try to make sure your kind never happens again.”
Meanwhile, the right is stuck screaming “communist” at a guy who hops on a Citi Bike and corrects them with, “It’s pronounced ‘cyclist’.” Trump and his friends spent years trying to build a politics of fear around immigrants, Muslims, and socialists; New York just turned around and elected all three in one person and handed him City Hall. But sure, tell us more about how the country is crying out for more billionaires and fewer burrito-eating, bike-riding mayors who don’t want ICE prowling the subways.
#killing-democracy#trumps-america
uncle sam wants you (to raid trailer parks for trump)
ICE recruitment booth featuring Uncle Sam, an American flag, and a sign-up sheet for people who think ‘wartime’ should start in the nearest parking lot.
ICE is rolling out a $100m ‘wartime recruitment’ media blitz because nothing says ‘totally normal democracy’ like the federal government targeting the MAGA-verse with Call of Duty–style ads for real-life deportation squads. The agency is geofencing military bases, Nascar races, gun shows, and college campuses to find people whose dream job is "deport illegals with your absolute boys" — an actual ICE ad line, not a rejected Proud Boys slogan.
All of this is made possible by Trump’s big, beautiful HR 1, which shovels $45bn into cages and another $32bn into enforcement and manpower, so ICE can hire roughly 14,000 new agents and brag that arrests will “explode” in 2026. They’re dangling up to $50,000 signing bonuses and $60,000 in student loan payoff to fill the ranks, while a record 68,440 people sit in detention — the vast majority with no criminal conviction — and the administration grumbles that only about 300,000 people have been deported so far, well short of their dream of a tidy, round million removals in year one.
To sell this, ICE is slapping Uncle Sam, George Washington, and Lady Liberty onto recruitment ads that paint immigrants as ‘criminals and predators,’ and then farming out the message to fitness and ‘tactical lifestyle’ influencers for at least $8m, because why just have fash aesthetics when you can literally sponsor them? Marketing experts politely note that the campaign is aimed at people “with something to prove” who want power “under the guise of patriotism” — in other words, exactly the personality type you’d pick if your goal was maximum abuse potential with a flag on top. But sure, tell me again how this is about ‘guarding the homeland’ and not building a taxpayer-funded, ultra-jacked deportation militia.
#anti-immigration#killing-democracy#fascism
supreme court briefly remembers posse comitatus, ruins trump’s troop cosplay
Nothing says ‘land of the free’ like waving to soldiers on patrol in your own capital because the president wanted a domestic occupation aesthetic.
Donald Trump rang in the New Year by reluctantly pretending he always meant to stop using the National Guard as his personal campaign security force. After the Supreme Court ruled last week that he can't use troops in Chicago for domestic law enforcement, the administration quietly pulled its legal bid to keep control of deployed forces in Los Angeles too. In other words, the Court had to step in and remind the president that the military is not his rent-a-cop service.
Trump announced on Truth Social that he is withdrawing National Guard troops from "several" cities, including Chicago and LA, and promised they would "come back, perhaps in a much different and stronger form, when crime begins to soar again"—because nothing says respect for constitutional limits like openly threatening to re-deploy soldiers on US streets the moment you can cook up an excuse. Portland got a name-check, Washington DC did not, which is convenient, since troops are still patrolling the capital like it's his own personal Green Zone.
So to recap: Trump tried to normalize using the military for policing, the Supreme Court slapped his hand away, and now he's spinning a forced retreat as a bold strategic masterstroke. The only thing "undermined" here isn't his authority—it’s the fantasy that this administration has even a passing acquaintance with the rule of law.
#fascism#killing-democracy
jack smith explains crime, trump explains 'i'm president again'
Jack Smith testifies on how he built airtight cases against Trump, only to learn the real legal strategy was "win back the presidency and delete everything."
Congress dropped the 255-page Jack Smith transcript on New Year’s Eve, because nothing says "fresh start" like a meticulous record of how the sitting president allegedly committed crimes and then just canceled the prosecutions by winning the Electoral College again. Smith calmly walks through how his team found proof beyond a reasonable doubt that Trump tried to overturn the 2020 election and hoarded highly classified documents at his country club — including in a ballroom and a bathroom, because when you think "national security," you obviously think "next to the guest towels."
Smith also notes that Trump "repeatedly tried to obstruct justice" and that there was enough evidence to charge him in both cases. So what happened? Trump got re-elected, took back control of the Justice Department, and his people helpfully made the criminal cases "go away" — not because he was innocent, but because he was in charge. In other words, the rule of law got replaced with the rule of "who’s holding the nuclear codes this week." Smith and his staff were then fired, because nothing screams "totally exonerated" like purging everyone who investigated you.
Now, from the safety of his restored throne, Trump is demanding investigations into the officials who charged him, and Smith openly says he has "no doubt" Trump wants retribution against him and that DOJ now wants payback on anyone who worked the Trump cases. House Republicans, led by Jim Jordan, are doing their part by hauling Smith in for an eight-hour deposition, just to make sure every future prosecutor in America understands the new precedent: if you follow the evidence to the president, enjoy the unemployment line and maybe an investigation. But sure, tell us again how this is all about "law and order."
#killing-democracy#lawlessness#retribution
trump’s anti-dei crusade comes for the newsroom
Trump’s America: the FCC hunts for “woke” programming while newsrooms mysteriously become even whiter, purely by coincidence and definitely not because the government declared diversity the new enemy.
Trump’s war on diversity isn’t just about making federal offices whiter – it’s coming for the people who tell you what’s happening. At CBS, when a show gets axed, five white producers magically find soft landings elsewhere, while the four producers of color discover that, oops, there are suddenly no other jobs available. One of them, Trey Sherman, walks out of his layoff meeting and immediately learns his white colleagues were reassigned. But sure, this is all about
merit.
This isn’t happening in a vacuum. Trump signs executive orders to
end DEI programs and
kill affirmative action in the federal government, and—what do you know—corporations start torching their own DEI efforts one by one. The new Trump-appointed FCC chair Brendan Carr helpfully announces he’s scrapping the FCC’s DEI work, then launches investigations into Comcast/NBC and Disney/ABC over their diversity initiatives. In other words, the government loudly signals that diversity is now suspicious, and media companies fall over themselves to comply.
Meanwhile, the merger crowd gets in on the fun. Skydance tells the FCC it will kill Paramount’s DEI programs, then CBS hands the keys to its newsroom to Bari Weiss, whose brand is basically
"end DEI for good". NBC lays off 150 people and guts teams dedicated to covering Black, Asian American, Latino, and LGBTQ+ communities, but insists those verticals will still "exist"—just without dedicated staff, like a ghost town with a nice logo. Teen Vogue, which somehow committed the crime of covering politics and marginalized communities, gets folded into Vogue as most of its (heavily women of color) staff allegedly disappear in a "restructuring."
Newsrooms were already overwhelmingly white, and they’d been missing their own diversity targets for decades. Now, under Trump’s anti-DEI regime, the remaining journalists of color are being quietly shown the door while executives and regulators repeat the magic words
"merit-based" like a legal force field. Because nothing says "free press in a vibrant democracy" like the government pressuring media conglomerates until they decide the safest story to tell is the one told by as few people of color as possible.
#killing-democracy#racism#fascism
president launches new altcoin, calls it 'regulation policy'
President Trump proudly announces his new cryptocurrency, seen here attempting to moon while ethics laws quietly flatline in the background.
The Trump administration has discovered a bold new frontier in public service: cutting out the middleman and just paying the president in crypto. Trump Media & Technology Group — the corporate husk behind Truth Social — is rolling out a shiny new cryptocurrency for its shareholders, which conveniently includes its largest shareholder: President Donald Trump. Each share gets a token, the stock price jumps, and Devin Nunes calls it a "first-of-its-kind" move to "promote fair and transparent markets" — because nothing says fairness like the guy writing the rules also pumping his own coin.
In other words, the White House now doubles as a crypto launchpad. Nunes isn’t just the CEO of Trump Media; he’s also Chair of the President’s Intelligence Advisory Board, whispering sweet nothings about “intelligence collection” to the same guy whose policies just made crypto’s life much easier. Since returning to the White House, Trump has signed landmark crypto legislation, dropped multiple enforcement cases against crypto firms, and pushed to let Americans shove their retirement savings into volatile coins — all while his family’s various tokens and meme-coins rake in hundreds of millions and conveniently crater only after the insiders have cashed out. But sure, this is all about "innovation" and "mainstream adoption," not the president using federal policy to juice his own digital casino.
Trump’s crypto empire is, fittingly, as stable as his temperament. The TRUMP meme-coin exploded in value around his inauguration, then lost more than 90% of its worth — the perfect metaphor for every Trump-branded venture ever. Trump Media stock is down more than 60% this year, so naturally the solution is not sound governance or real products, but airdropping magic internet money via Crypto.com on the Cronos blockchain and promising "various rewards" like discounts on Trump-branded nonsense. It’s not a presidency anymore, it’s a perpetual pump-and-dump scheme with nuclear codes.
So to recap: the president owns a media company that prints its own token, he controls the regulatory environment for that industry, his allies kill enforcement actions against it, and Americans are nudged to gamble their retirements on the whole circus. But don’t worry, Devin Nunes swears it’s all about transparency.
#forever-grifting#corruption#crypto
trump doj discovers 5 million reasons to stall the epstein files
Artist’s rendering of the Trump DOJ document review: a shredder labeled “redactions,” a clock stuck on December 19, and a giant box marked “totally not hiding anything, promise.”
The Trump Justice Department has suddenly "discovered" that the Jeffrey Epstein case involves more than 5 million pages of documents, which is extremely convenient for an administration that’s already blown its congressionally mandated deadline to release the files. Deputy AG Todd Blanche is on X assuring everyone that DOJ lawyers are working "around the clock" through Christmas and New Year’s, because nothing says good faith transparency like missing your legal deadline by more than a month while roping in national security prosecutors to redact paperwork about a dead sex trafficker.
Attorney General Pam Bondi’s shop originally dribbled out under 40,000 pages—less than 0.01% of the total, as Chuck Schumer helpfully pointed out while accusing Bondi, Blanche, and friends of lying to the public "since day one." Meanwhile, DOJ keeps announcing they’ve found "more" documents like a teenager who just remembered another homework assignment, and insisting that the real problem is all the pesky laws requiring them to protect victims. That line took a hit when they briefly yanked an image that showed a desk drawer with photos, including at least one of Donald Trump, then quietly put it back after claiming it was about victim exposure. But sure, this is all just about privacy, not politics.
In between the redactions, we’ve already learned the FBI knew about Epstein’s abuse of minors at least a decade earlier than previously admitted, plus DOJ is shrugging off the release of fake letters and fake suicide videos with a casual "sometimes we release bogus stuff, it was just in the pile." In other words: the Trump DOJ is using victim protection and document volume as a very on-brand shield for maximum delay, minimum accountability in a case that touches the rich, the powerful, and at least one guy who used to host The Apprentice.
#killing-democracy#corruption
one big beautiful back‑door abortion ban
A Planned Parenthood clinic, shortly before Congress heroically saved unborn cells by cutting cancer screenings for the people who are already alive.
The Trump administration just scored another "pro-life" victory by making it harder for poor people to stay alive. A federal appeals court has agreed to let the White House cut off Medicaid funding for Planned Parenthood in 22 states and DC, greenlighting a provision in the GOP’s hilariously named One Big Beautiful Bill Act. The law targets any tax-exempt organization that provides family planning and also performs abortions if it received more than $800,000 in Medicaid funds in 2023 — otherwise known as "we wrote this for Planned Parenthood and didn’t bother to hide it".
Because nothing says limited government like Congress quietly stuffing a bespoke vendetta into a massive tax-and-spending bill, then retroactively booby-trapping state Medicaid programs. Judge Indira Talwani had blocked the scheme as an unconstitutional, retroactive condition that states couldn’t have anticipated when CMS signed off on their plans — but the First Circuit’s Democratic-appointed panel stepped in to say, actually, Congress can absolutely yank the rug out from under low-income patients whenever it feels like it.
Planned Parenthood says this little act of legislative spite has already helped close at least 20 health centers and could ultimately shutter up to 200 — mostly in blue states where abortion is still technically legal, which is the entire point. Federal dollars already can’t pay for abortions, so the Medicaid reimbursements being cut are for STI tests, cancer screenings, and contraception for over 1.5 million visits a year. In other words, Republicans found a way to make it harder to prevent unwanted pregnancies in the name of stopping abortion, then called it a win for life. But sure, tell us again how this is about "healthcare" and not about punishing women and the poor for existing.
#pro-life#healthcare
doj discovers 'top priority' crimes: embarrassing the trump administration
The Department of Justice, bravely protecting America from the real threat: people who win cases against the Trump administration.
Nothing says "rule of law" like turning your own screw-up into a felony. Newly unsealed court records show that Kilmar Ábrego García, a Salvadoran man who was wrongfully deported and then vindicated by the US supreme court, mysteriously became a "top priority" for the Trump justice department only after he won his case and embarrassed them.
Deputy attorney general Todd Blanche went on Fox News and basically said the quiet part out loud, implying DOJ went after Ábrego because he’d prevailed in his deportation fight. But don’t worry, former acting US attorney Rob McGuire swears he alone decided to prosecute and totally had no vendetta. Unfortunately for that story, Judge Waverly Crenshaw just unsealed an order noting that internal emails show McGuire “reported to others” at DOJ and that the decision to prosecute Ábrego "may have been a joint decision"—with Blanche’s office emailing that they wanted García "charged sooner rather than later" and labeling the case a "top priority" right after the supreme court ruled in his favor.
The supposed crime? A 2022 Tennessee traffic stop where Ábrego was pulled over for speeding, troopers chatted among themselves about human smuggling, then let him go with a warning and no charges. Homeland Security Investigations sat on it for years—until April 2025, days after the supreme court ruling, when suddenly the deputy AG’s office got very interested, demanded a quick indictment, and told prosecutors to hold the draft until they got political "clearance." In other words: win a wrongful deportation case against Trump’s machine, and that machine may come back with federal charges, because nothing screams “independent justice system” like punishing people for making you look incompetent in front of the supreme court.
A hearing on whether this is straight-up vindictive prosecution is set for 28 January. Place your bets on whether the judge decides this was just another totally routine instance of career prosecutors coincidentally aligning with Fox News talking points and the deputy attorney general’s wounded ego.
#killing-democracy#lawlessness#anti-immigration
armchair quarterback put in charge of the fda playbook
Tracy Beth Høeg, freshly promoted from Twitter thread epidemiology to running the FDA’s drug empire, because in Trump’s America the only credential that matters is being mad at vaccines on podcasts.
The Trump administration has decided that the best person to run the FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research — the massive division that oversees thousands of drugs, generics, biosimilars, and OTC meds — is… Tracy Beth Høeg, a sports doc turned Covid vaccine contrarian who, as multiple experts point out, has no experience in drug development, regulation, or running a large organization. In other words, she’s wildly unqualified for the job, which in this administration is basically the point.
Høeg is the fifth person to run CDER this year, because nothing says "stable regulatory environment" like leadership musical chairs. She’s closely allied with fellow Covid contrarian Vinay Prasad, and her appointment looks a lot like a consolidation of power by the anti-vaccine brain trust now embedded across the FDA. While the agency is rolling out a sketchy one-day "priority voucher" fast-track for drug approvals in near-total secrecy, it’s simultaneously gearing up to tighten the screws on vaccines and slash long-standing childhood immunization recommendations to mimic Denmark’s schedule — a country that, minor detail, has universal health coverage and the population of Wisconsin.
Høeg’s track record includes a heart-inflammation paper based on unconfirmed crowd-sourced reports, advising Florida’s anti-vax surgeon general Joseph Ladapo (you know, the guy who allegedly altered data to make vaccines look more dangerous), and publicly pushing a "wish list" for the Trump administration that features weakening vaccine regulations and eliminating "unnecessary" vaccines. She’s reportedly proposed excluding young men from Covid vaccination altogether, because why not run a giant uncontrolled public health experiment on half the population. Experts describe her as an ideologue who starts with the conclusion and works backward to retrofit the evidence — which, in this White House, is apparently now the core competency for top health regulators.
Meanwhile, the Department of Health and Human Services insists that her few months as a "senior adviser" on drug safety magically count as the same thing as decades of regulatory, scientific, and management experience. Former FDA leaders warn that CDER is a huge, complex operation where the thing you stop watching is the thing that blows up. But sure, let’s hand it to a revenge-tour Covid contrarian whose main qualification is being furious that her "genius" wasn’t celebrated during the pandemic. What could possibly go wrong when you turn national drug and vaccine policy into a Fox News comment section with security badges?
#anti-science#killing-democracy#forever-grifting
making america kill again
America, 2025: fewer safety nets, more firing squads — but don’t worry, the executions are very “strong and decisive.”
Trump came back to the White House and immediately celebrated by signing an executive order titled “Restoring the death penalty” — because nothing says law and order like nearly doubling state killings to the highest level in 16 years while public support hits a 50-year low. Forty-seven men were executed in 2025, turning the US into a blood-soaked outlier among developed countries. But sure, tell us again about “American exceptionalism.”
The message from Trump’s DOJ was crystal clear: kill more people. Federal prosecutors greenlit over 20 new capital cases and death-penalty states got the memo. Florida, under Ron DeSantis’ personal vengeance LARP, rocketed from one execution in 2024 to nineteen in 2025, smashing its own record and leapfrogging Texas in the race to the moral bottom. Alabama, South Carolina, and Texas eagerly joined in, with 12 states in total firing up their death chambers like it’s a jobs program for executioners.
And because plain old lethal injection apparently wasn’t dystopian enough, states started experimenting like Dr. Mengele with a procurement budget. Louisiana used nitrogen gas to slowly suffocate a prisoner who shook for minutes while witnesses watched, and South Carolina brought back the firing squad — including one botched execution where the shooters missed the heart, likely prolonging the man’s suffering. Totally normal justice system stuff.
Hovering above it all is Trump’s remodeled supreme court, now so hard-right it can’t be bothered to pretend to care whether executions are unconstitutional, cruel, or maybe killing the wrong person. The court denied every single request to stay an execution this year, effectively shredding the last safety net between the state and the needle, gas mask, or bullet. In other words: the government is killing more people, in more sadistic ways, with fewer checks, against the will of the public — but hey, at least the “pro-life” crowd can sleep soundly.
#killing-democracy#lawlessness#fascism
microsoft gives china a backstage pass to the pentagon, trump pretends to fix it
Stock photo of a Pentagon server rack, presumably labeled: "Totally Secure, Except For The Part Where Microsoft Outsourced It To China."
For nearly a decade, Microsoft apparently decided that the best way to secure the Pentagon’s most sensitive cloud systems was to let China-based engineers work on them, then slap a few underqualified U.S. "digital escorts" on top as a fig leaf. Because nothing says "national security" like a corporate workaround to avoid the pesky requirement that people handling defense data be U.S. citizens or permanent residents.
After ProPublica did the job the Pentagon allegedly didn’t know it needed to do, the Defense Department suddenly discovered this might be bad, updated its cybersecurity rules, and now Trump has signed a law to ban anyone in China, Russia, Iran, or North Korea from direct or indirect access to DoD cloud systems. In other words, they’ve finally decided that the world’s leading cyber adversaries probably shouldn’t be backstage at the Pentagon’s IT show.
Microsoft, which conveniently "left out" its China-based operations and foreign engineers from a 2025 security plan submitted to DoD, is now declining comment while promising to "work with our national security partners"—a phrase that here means "please don’t cancel the contracts." Meanwhile, Pete Hegseth is thundering on X about how foreign engineers should never touch DoD systems, and Elise Stefanik and Tom Cotton are declaring this a huge "win" for security, as if Congress didn’t just discover that Big Tech had been speedrunning a "national betrayal" for years under their noses.
The new law also forces the Pentagon to brief Congress on cybersecurity controls and incidents, which is adorable coming from the same institution that only learned about Microsoft’s little escort program because ProPublica told them. But sure, now that the barn’s empty and the horses are in Shanghai, we’re installing a really excellent lock.
#national-security#corruption
trump declares war on fentanyl, addicts, and math
Trump proudly displays the executive order declaring fentanyl a “weapon of mass destruction,” finally bringing weapons-of-mass-destruction-level stupidity to domestic drug policy.
In year one of his comeback tour, Trump took a Biden-era public health response that was actually reducing overdose deaths and replaced it with a loud, shiny drug war reboot, because nothing says “I care about the opioid crisis” like cutting treatment and sending in the Navy. Biden’s team poured tens of billions into medication-assisted treatment, harm reduction, Medicaid coverage, and housing — and overdose deaths started dropping in 2023 and 2024. Trump looked at that modest success and said, essentially, “what if we tried the 1980s again, but dumber?”
So now fentanyl is officially labeled a “weapon of mass destruction,” cartels are designated terrorist organizations, National Guard troops are patrolling U.S. cities and the border, and the Navy is launching strikes on alleged drug boats — all while the administration temporarily froze $140 million in addiction treatment grants and threw basic public health programs into chaos. In other words, we’re criminalizing illness, militarizing domestic policy, and starving the people actually keeping addicts alive. Trump even claimed “three hundred million people died last year from drugs,” which is impressive, since that’s basically the entire U.S. population. But sure, let’s trust that guy with WMD classifications and troop deployments.
The result: a sweeping pivot from treating fentanyl deaths as a health crisis to treating them as a justification for more cops, more troops, more executive power, and fewer services. It’s the classic Trump formula — less science, more guns — sold as tough-on-crime leadership while quietly dismantling the only strategies that were working. Because why save lives with boring medicine when you can posture on TV with a big executive order and pretend you’re fighting ISIS instead of addiction?
#killing-democracy#fascism#anti-science
