defunding sesame street to save democracy, obviously
A lonely TV antenna in a rural field, bravely attempting to broadcast "woke propaganda" like science shows and local school board meetings to a country that just defunded it on purpose.
The Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the boring little nonprofit Congress created in 1967 to fund NPR, PBS, and 1,500 local stations, has decided to do the only responsible thing it can do in Trump’s America: kill itself before Republicans kill it more. After Trump and his Project 2025 fan club leaned on Congress to cut $1.1 billion from CPB, the board finally voted to dissolve the organization entirely, ending nearly 60 years of quietly supporting children’s education, civic literacy, and actual journalism — all the things this administration sincerely hates.
Trump’s memo to Congress ranted that taxpayers had been forced to subsidize “radical, woke propaganda disguised as ‘news’,” which is a bold claim from a guy whose primary news source is his own social media rage-posts. He then threatened that any Republican who didn’t vote to defund CPB would lose his endorsement — and, shockingly, the courage of the GOP vanished faster than local newspapers in a hedge fund buyout. The result: CPB shut down operations in August, and now the board is pulling the plug entirely, saying dissolution is their final act to protect public media from being left defunded and permanently vulnerable to further political attacks.
Meanwhile, the people who actually use public media — especially in rural America and news deserts — are left with fewer trusted sources of information and more Facebook conspiracy groups. Over half of CPB-funded stations were rural, giving 99% of Americans access to public media. Now, an analysis says 15% of local stations could close within three years. Donors have gone on a $70m "rage-giving" spree to keep things afloat, but you can’t permanently replace federal baseline funding with tote bags and guilt. In other words: the government just kneecapped one of the last broadly trusted news systems in the country, all to own Big Bird. But sure, tell us more about how this is about fiscal responsibility and not killing-democracy one institution at a time.
#killing-democracy#anti-science#full-stupid
cuban elf conquers hemisphere, forgets elections exist
Marco Rubio, now Secretary of State, National Security Adviser, and apparently Viceroy of Venezuela, explains that the U.S. isn’t really ‘running’ another country, it’s just, you know, running its policy, troops, oil, and timetable for elections.
Donald Trump just had the U.S. military snatch Nicolás Maduro and his wife out of Venezuela and fly them to New York for trial, without bothering to tell Congress beforehand — because nothing says "constitutional republic" like a surprise regime change and extradition package deal. In the rubble of what used to be Venezuelan sovereignty, Marco Rubio has been handed his fourth Trump administration job: secretary of state, interim national security adviser, national archivist (sure, why not), and now de facto proconsul of "post-Maduro" Venezuela.
Rubio is out doing cleanup on aisle fascism, gently massaging Trump’s claim that the U.S. will "run" Venezuela into something more policy-scented, while simultaneously keeping U.S. troops parked on Venezuela’s doorstep and maintaining a quarantine on its oil to force the new leader — Maduro’s vice president, Delcy Rodríguez — to "fall in line." Elections, which Venezuela’s own constitution requires within 30 days, are now "premature," according to America’s newly self-appointed regional viceroy. The opposition figures Rubio previously hailed as Venezuela’s rightful leaders? The Nobel Peace Prize winner Maria Corina Machado, the actual vote-winner Edmundo González, and Maduro’s political prisoners? All mysteriously missing from the talking points once there’s a U.S.-designed protectorate on the table.
Democrats are asking quaint questions like whether Trump now plans to deploy U.S. troops to protect Iranian protesters, enforce ceasefires, seize the Panama Canal, or maybe "suppress Americans peacefully assembling to protest his policies." Meanwhile, Cuban state TV reports 32 Cuban combatants killed in the U.S. action, and Rubio responds by threatening the "incompetent senile men" in Havana — because nothing calms a volatile region like openly hinting you might be overthrowing multiple governments next. And just to underline the imperial cosplay, Rubio is dual-hatted as secretary of state and national security adviser, the first time anyone’s tried that combo since Henry Kissinger, except this time with fewer diplomats, gutted USAID, a hollowed-out Voice of America, and more Fox hits.
In other words, Trump has turned Venezuela into a live-fire demo of what happens when you combine second-term hubris, a Congress you ignore, a foreign policy run through cable news, and a Florida politician who’s spent 15 years using Venezuelan suffering as a branding exercise. But sure, let’s call it "remaking a new order" instead of what it is: a U.S.-led, democracy-optional occupation plan run by a man who just decided elections in another country are inconvenient and can wait.
#imperialism#killing-democracy
administration discovers exciting new way to own the libs: childhood disease
RFK Jr patiently explaining that if we just believe hard enough, measles will respect parental choice.
The Trump–RFK Jr. dream team at HHS has decided the real problem with America isn't measles outbreaks or dead kids from flu – it's that children are getting too many life-saving vaccines. In the biggest rollback yet under longtime anti-vaccine crusader Robert F Kennedy Jr, the administration is slashing routine childhood vaccine recommendations from 17 jabs down to 11, because nothing says "pro-life" like making whooping cough a growth industry again.
Experts like Paul Offit and Peter Hotez, who have spent their careers trying to keep children alive, describe the move as a "systematic attempt" to erode public confidence in vaccines and ultimately make them unavailable. The plan: shove shots like flu, rotavirus, and RSV out of the core schedule, rebrand others as "shared clinical decision-making" so you need a gatekeeping doctor to get them, and saddle manufacturers with impossible demands like splitting MMR into separate shots while fearmongering about safe ingredients like aluminum adjuvants. Regulatory harassment as public health policy – what could go wrong?
This is all happening while the US teeters on the edge of losing its measles elimination status, sees the biggest measles outbreak in three decades, more tetanus cases than in over ten years, and a spike in pertussis deaths. Nearly 300 children died of flu last year, and RFK Jr responds by weakening flu shot recommendations in the middle of a severe flu season – a bold new strategy of "if we stop counting the corpses as preventable, the policy is working." Trump helpfully wrapped it in a December order to "align" with "peer, developed countries" – cherry-picking a Danish-style schedule while ignoring the part where those countries actually believe in vaccines and maintain high coverage.
In other words, the federal government is now officially in the business of turning settled public health into a culture war stunt. HHS tells parents these shots are maybe not such a big deal after all, making it more burdensome to vaccinate and easier to skip, and then waits for the inevitable outbreaks to prove that, yes, if you sabotage the system hard enough, you can make modern medicine look optional. But sure, tell us again how this is all about "science" and "best practices" while you reenact the 19th century in real time.
#anti-science#killing-democracy
trump fights medicaid fraud by punishing children, obviously
Tim Walz, apparently under the impression that governing in Trump’s America is something other than trying to keep programs alive while the White House cuts the power cord.
Minnesota Governor Tim Walz is tapping out of his re-election bid, citing a desire to "focus on the work" of governing, which in this timeline apparently means trying to patch a Medicaid and childcare fraud mess while the federal government kicks his state in the shins for sport.
Republicans have been hammering Walz over fraud in the state’s Medicaid programme and childcare funding. Walz says his administration is working to prevent future scams; the Trump administration’s contribution is to freeze federal childcare funds for Minnesota—because nothing says "we care about waste, fraud, and abuse" like cutting off services to low-income families and kids instead of, you know, prosecuting the fraudsters.
In other words, Trump saw a state-level scandal, smelled an opportunity for retribution cosplay, and responded by holding children’s care hostage. But sure, tell us again how this is about fiscal responsibility and not about using federal money as a political weapon.
#killing-democracy#lawlessness
the voter files must flow
Trump’s DOJ helpfully explaining that to protect election integrity, it first needs everyone’s personal data and the power to delete you from the voter rolls. Very normal democracy stuff.
The 2026 midterms aren’t just about Congress or who gets to be the next governor yelling on Fox News. Buried further down the ballot are secretary of state races – you know, the people who actually run elections and certify results. In 2020, folks like Brad Raffensperger were the thin bureaucratic line between Trump and “just find me 11,780 votes.” In 2022, election deniers tried to capture these offices in Nevada, Arizona, and Michigan; voters said no, barely, and democracy got a temporary reprieve.
Now it’s 2026, Trump is back in the White House, and as Arizona secretary of state Adrian Fontes politely puts it, “the bad guys are inside the castle.” The Trump justice department is suing 22 states to force them to hand over their complete voter rolls – including sensitive personal data – so the administration can build a national voter file and push aggressive voter purges. Because nothing says “states’ rights” like Washington demanding your entire electorate’s private info and threatening them in court if they refuse.
Democratic secretaries of state in swing states are suddenly the last firewall against a federal “full court press” to rewrite election rules before 2028. Nevada’s Cisco Aguilar spells it out: stack conspiracy theorists in state offices on top of an election-denying president, and you don’t just have smoke – you’ve got a controlled burn of democratic norms. In other words, while everyone’s arguing about the presidential horse race, the real action is in the offices that decide who even gets to be on the racetrack – and who gets erased from the voter rolls first.
#killing-democracy#fascism
stalin cosplay, but make it fox news
Pete Hegseth explains that the real laws of war are whatever Donald Trump yelled at the TV last night.
Donald Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth have decided that if you can’t win wars, you can at least purge the people who know how. Former infantry chief Maj Gen Paul Eaton says Trump’s ongoing effort to turn the U.S. military into his personal fan club is “reminiscent of Stalin” – and for once that’s not liberal hyperbole, that’s a guy who spent 37 years in uniform watching what actual authoritarian rot looks like.
Step one in Trump’s second-term military makeover: install Fox & Friends ornament Pete Hegseth at the Pentagon, a man Eaton says swears not just loyalty but “fealty” to Trump – because nothing says "civilian control of the military" like putting a cable-news hype man in charge of the world’s largest war machine. Step two: immediately fire the military inspector general, then clean out the top military lawyers (JAGs) whose annoying job is to explain that "war crimes" are still technically bad. Then dump the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, plus the Navy and Air Force chiefs, and replace them with people Trump claims have said they’d "kill for him." But sure, tell us again how this is all about "efficiency" and "readiness."
The result is a Pentagon-wide message written in 50-foot letters: toe the line or get purged. Eaton explicitly compares it to Stalin’s 1940s officer purges – no gulags yet, just career executions and political commissars in suits. Meanwhile, Trump and Hegseth are road-testing their new loyalty-based military on real people: more than 20 lethal strikes on boats in Latin American waters, including a notorious second strike that killed survivors clinging to wreckage after the first bombing. The Washington Post reports Hegseth literally issued a "kill everybody" order, which the Pentagon’s own law-of-war manual says is illegal. Eaton calls the 2 September strike either a war crime or murder, comparing it to U-boat commanders machine-gunning survivors in the water in WWII – but don’t worry, Hegseth is very focused on the real threat: "wokeness."
To drive the point home, Hegseth summoned commanders to Quantico for a loyalty-and-rant session about "woke" liberals and "fat generals," encouraging anyone who disagreed to resign. In other words, it’s not a professional military anymore, it’s a Trump-branded paramilitary with nukes. Eaton warns the U.S. now has a "1940s Stalin problem" inside its own armed forces. The war on norms, the purging of independent oversight, the illegal kill orders – all the things experts literally war-gamed as Trump’s worst authoritarian instincts are now just… policy. But hey, at least the culture wars are winning.
#fascism#killing-democracy#lawlessness
trump’s europe: some of his worst ideas already live there
European leaders and Trump arguing loudly in public while quietly copy-pasting each other’s anti-migrant playbooks in private.
Trump rolled out a national security strategy that treats Europe like a woke, migrant-coddling antifa theme park—and the punchline is that half of Europe’s leaders basically agree with him. While the US president rants about “civilisational erasure” and parrots great-replacement conspiracies, EU leaders respond with the diplomatic equivalent of a shrug and a LinkedIn post about "European values". Because nothing says defence of human rights like quietly adopting the talking points of the guy boosting far-right parties across your continent.
Behind the scenes, the EU is busy building its own Trumpian playground: a shiny new migration pact that tightens asylum rules, speeds deportations, expands detention, and hands more power to Frontex, the border agency already accused of systemic human rights abuses and illegal pushbacks. Twenty-seven European states are even asking to water down the European convention on human rights so they can better "balance" migrant rights with white people’s feelings of "security" and "freedom". In other words: less law, more Fortress Europe.
Meanwhile, Trump whines that nationalists are being censored while it’s actually progressives—especially those showing solidarity with Palestinians—who are getting surveilled, banned, and beaten. UN experts are telling Germany to stop criminalising Palestine activism, France is kicking Palestine conferences out of elite institutions, and the Dutch parliament can’t even be bothered to discuss its own report showing structural anti-Muslim discrimination. But sure, tell us again how Europe is a woke dystopia.
The reality: Europe’s institutions are still "Brussels so white", far-right rhetoric has gone mainstream, and the EU has perfected a polite, technocratic form of exclusion wrapped in buzzwords like “values” and “security”. Trump’s fantasy of a white, Christian Europe isn’t some foreign contagion—it’s a joint transatlantic project. The only open question is whether anyone in power on either side of the Atlantic will admit that the people they’re demonising are the same ones keeping their ageing, labour-starved economies from collapsing.
#killing-democracy#anti-immigration
president uses grieving family as b-roll for his conspiracy channel
The president of the United States, hard at work retweeting conspiracy videos about a murder case he doesn’t understand and doesn’t care about, as long as it hurts a Democrat.
President Donald Trump spent his weekend doing what any responsible head of state would do after a politically motivated double murder: sharing a conspiracy video on Truth Social that suggests Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz somehow had a hand in the killing of state Rep. Melissa Hortman and her husband. The video strings together zero evidence, some viral fraud allegations, and a lot of insinuation to imply Walz and state program fraud were linked to the murders. In other words, it’s the standard MAGA true-crime fanfic — except this one uses a real grieving family as content.
Walz, the 2024 Democratic VP nominee, called it “dangerous, depraved behavior from the sitting president of the United States” and warned that Trump “will get more innocent people killed.” But sure, let’s pretend this is just "asking questions" and not the commander in chief pouring gasoline on an already politically violent environment where a Minnesota lawmaker and her husband were murdered and another lawmaker and his wife were shot.
Hortman’s children, Colin and Sophie, are now forced to publicly beg the president to stop exploiting their parents’ deaths for a disinformation hit piece. Sophie calls it “a painful, false twisting of my mother’s final vote,” while Colin asks Trump to remove the video and apologize for using his mother’s own words to dishonor her memory. The Hoffman family — who were also attacked — backs them, saying the conspiracy reflects the same hateful lies that motivated the violence in the first place. Because nothing says "law and order" like echoing the worldview of the guy currently under federal indictment for the murders.
Meanwhile, the White House can’t seem to explain why the president is boosting a random conspiracy edit while his administration weaponizes viral fraud claims in Minnesota to justify federal action. Over 70 people have already been charged in a real DOJ fraud case, but Trump is more interested in the YouTube-ification of presidential power: take an ongoing tragedy, slap on some baseless accusations, and hit share. Responsibility and compassion, the families say, would start with taking the post down. Unfortunately, that’s not nearly as on-brand as turning political violence into campaign content.
#killing-democracy#fascism#lawlessness
trump threatens greenland like it’s a walmart parking lot
Denmark’s prime minister Mette Frederiksen patiently explaining that, no, the U.S. cannot just slap a flag on Greenland and call dibs, even if the president saw it on a meme first.
The Trump White House is once again speedrunning the Axis of Really Dumb Ideas, with President Trump casually suggesting the U.S. could "intervene" in Greenland and Katie Miller—wife of noted xenophobic policy goblin Stephen Miller—posting an image of the American flag draped over Greenland with the caption “SOON.” Because nothing says normal allied relations like imperialist thirst-traps for Arctic real estate.
Denmark’s prime minister Mette Frederiksen had to issue the kind of statement you normally reserve for dealing with a drunk uncle at Christmas: the U.S. has no right to annex parts of Denmark and should “stop the threats.” Denmark’s ambassador to the U.S. chimed in to remind Washington that “territorial integrity” is still a thing, and that allies generally prefer cooperation to cosplay invasions. Meanwhile, Trump insists “we do need Greenland, absolutely, we need it for defense,” which is a very polite way of saying “military base plus melting ice equals future oil.”
This latest Greenland fanfic dropped just hours after the U.S. military bombed Caracas, kidnapped Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, and Trump announced that America will “run” Venezuela until he feels like pretending there’s a transition. In other words, we’ve gone from "America First" to "America Owns That Now" in record time. To really drive home that this isn’t a joke, Trump has even appointed Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry as his “special envoy to Greenland,” because nothing says sophisticated Arctic diplomacy like a culture-war swamp creature being dispatched to go window-shopping for other people’s land.
#imperialism#killing-democracy
trump declares war on weather forecasting, americans lose
American homeowner practices cutting-edge Trump-era disaster planning technique: ‘stand on roof and hope the president stops firing scientists.’
Trump’s second-term brain trust has apparently decided that if you don’t measure disasters, they don’t count. So the administration spent year one going after the people who, tragically, know what they’re doing: gutting FEMA, kneecapping NOAA, firing experts, and slashing climate-resilience programs. Because nothing says great again like firing the folks who tell you when a Category 5 hurricane is about to park on your coastline.
The result: a hollowed‑out FEMA that rolled into hurricane season with no plan, weather-balloon networks in Alaska so shredded they couldn’t warn people before one of the worst storms in state history, and a federal government that took more than 72 hours to approve search-and-rescue teams after the Guadalupe River flooded a Texas summer camp and nearby communities, killing over 135 people. In other words, the “small government” crowd finally achieved their dream of shrinking the state so much it can’t even pull children out of floodwaters.
All this is happening in a year with three Category 5 hurricanes, record heat and humidity, and lethal fires and floods – precisely the moment you’d want more climate science and preparedness, not a presidential tantrum against data. But sure, keep canceling research contracts and ripping climate information offline, and then act shocked when the bill for preventable disasters comes due in lives and billions. It’s not incompetence at this point – it’s policy.
#killing-democracy#anti-science#trumps-america
trump’s deportation machine logs its deadliest year—and calls it ‘low risk’
Land of the free, home of the detained: a roll call of people who came seeking safety and got a death sentence by paperwork instead.
In 2025, ICE delivered a real milestone for the “law and order” crowd: 31 people died in its custody, the agency’s deadliest year in more than two decades. As Trump’s second-term immigration dragnet ramped up to record detention levels, people seeking asylum and longtime residents alike died of seizures, heart failure, stroke, respiratory failure, tuberculosis, and suicide in a system that can’t reliably provide soap, let alone competent medical care. Nearly 75% had no criminal convictions, but sure, this is all about “bad hombres.”
Facilities were packed, conditions were described as unsanitary with inadequate food and medical care, and families say their loved ones begged for treatment before dying. Human rights advocates say this is exactly what happens when you treat detention like a campaign stunt and a profit center; the Department of Homeland Security, meanwhile, responded with the bureaucratic equivalent of a shrug and a spreadsheet. A spokesperson triumphantly claimed the average death rate is just 0.00007%, without providing the data—because nothing says “comprehensive medical care” like 31 corpses and a made-up denominator.
December 2025 was the perfect encapsulation of Trump’s America: record detention numbers and the deadliest month of the year in ICE custody, as the administration bragged about cracking down while quietly building a body count. Advocates warn it will only get worse as Trump tries to expand the detention archipelago and speed up deportations. In other words: the system is working exactly as intended.
#trumps-america#killing-democracy
trump invents the tax refund as a campaign ad
Scott Bessent explaining that if you ignore the deficits, the service cuts, and the chaos at the IRS, this is actually a huge win because you might get your own money back slightly later than you should have.
Treasury secretary Scott Bessent is out promising a “gigantic refund year” in 2026, because nothing says responsible governance like bragging that the government accidentally over-withheld your paycheck all year and will now heroically give you back your own money. The magic comes from Donald Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act (yes, that’s really what they called it), which showers new deductions on tipped workers, overtime earners, and seniors—just don’t look too hard at the exploding deficit, shredded social spending, or the part where almost nobody updated their withholdings because the IRS and employers were left in the dark.
Under OBBBA, tipped workers can deduct up to $25,000, overtime pay gets its own deduction, and older adults pick up an extra $6,000 on top of the standard deduction. Small businesses get juiced with bigger depreciation and R&D write-offs, and there’s even a branded “Trump savings account” for babies, because of course the tax code now includes a MAGA 529 knockoff. Meanwhile, thanks to the shutdown, the IRS didn’t have time to fix W‑2s, employers got almost no guidance, and any screwups are—naturally—your problem. In other words: the administration broke the machinery, slapped Trump’s name on a few tax perks, and is now selling your over-withholding as proof of their economic genius.
Critics point out that the bill blows up deficits and guts needed programs, but hey, you might get a few extra bucks back in April while the safety net quietly dissolves. This is the Trump model in a nutshell: short-term sugar high for workers, long-term structural giveaway for the rich, and a big shiny “refund” headline to wave around on Fox while the bill comes due later. But sure, gigantic refund year—what could possibly go wrong?
#forever-grifting#money
trump eyes the fed, markets reach for the panic button
Wall Street tries to model the risk of an AI bubble, private credit blowups, and Donald Trump treating the Federal Reserve like another failed Trump-branded venture.
Global investors are apparently bullish on 2026, betting that stocks will keep climbing as long as Donald Trump doesn’t finish turning the Federal Reserve into his own personal campaign ATM. A Deutsche Bank survey of 440 investors found that the top risk to markets is an AI/tech bubble, but the second biggest fear is Trump appointing a new Fed chair who slashes interest rates "by a lot" – because nothing says "independent central bank" like a president openly shopping for a human rate-cut machine.
Markets are quietly gaming out the scenario where Trump picks a loyalist willing to blow up decades of Fed credibility for a few quarters of sugar-high growth and a nicer Dow Jones chart for his rallies. Investors are also worried about a crisis in private credit and the usual shadow-banking funhouse, but the fact that "loss of Fed independence" is now a standard risk-line in bank research notes tells you everything about where American institutions are. In other words: the global economy’s 2026 outlook is "pretty good" – unless the guy who once suggested defaulting on US debt decides the central bank should work like his casinos did.
#killing-democracy#money
making america hungry again
A grocery aisle full of snacks, soon to be reserved exclusively for people whose food is subsidized by tax cuts instead of SNAP.
The Trump administration is ringing in the new year the only way it knows how: by helping more than a dozen states take food away from poor people and calling it reform. Backed by the White House, these states are moving to ban candy and snack foods from SNAP benefits in 2026, because nothing says serious anti-poverty policy like micromanaging what broke people are allowed to eat while keeping billionaires’ tax breaks fully stocked.
The pitch, of course, is that this is all about health and responsible choices—in other words, the same crowd that thinks school lunch pizza is a vegetable now wants to be the nation’s nutrition police, but only for people who can’t afford groceries. No talk of raising benefit levels to match food prices, no talk of wage growth, just another round of public shaming dressed up as policy. The government that can’t regulate corporations selling ultra-processed junk somehow found its spine when it comes to policing a single mom’s grocery cart.
So in 2026, if you’re rich, you can buy whatever garbage you want and call it ‘freedom.’ If you’re on SNAP, your pantry is now a culture-war battlefield, and the Trump administration is right there in the aisle, ripping the chips out of your cart while telling you it’s for your own good. But sure, tell us again how this is about health and not about punishing people for being poor.
#trumps-america#killing-democracy
trump fights ‘somali fraud’ by defunding everyone’s daycare
A Minnesota daycare playground sitting empty, presumably waiting for the Trump administration to finish "investigating" rumors before letting kids have swings again.
The Trump administration heard some unsubstantiated claims about fraud in Somali-run child care centers in Minnesota and, in a bold move for efficiency, decided the solution was to blow up federal daycare funding for the entire country. Because nothing says "targeted oversight" like punishing millions of families based on rumors about one immigrant community the right has already spent years fearmongering about.
Instead of, say, investigating specific centers, doing basic due process, or using any tool besides the blunt instrument of collective punishment, federal officials have launched a probe and slapped a nationwide pause on daycare funds. In other words, parents from Minneapolis to Miami get to scramble for child care because the administration wants to send a message to Somali Americans: you’re not just under suspicion, you’re collateral damage.
This is the Trump playbook in miniature: take racist talking points, skip the evidence part, and then build policy on top of vibes and bigotry. The Somali community gets smeared, immigrant-run businesses get stigmatized, and working families everywhere get screwed. But sure, tell us again how this is about "protecting taxpayers" and not just another episode of Trumps-America: Punish First, Verify Never.
#racism#trumps-america
trump’s economy: tariffs, tantrums, and totally not a recession
President Trump enjoys an Andrea Bocelli concert in the East Room, bravely persevering through the hardship of $8 eggs he helped create.
NPR helpfully kicks off 2026 by asking the big question: what fresh hell will Trump unleash next? The piece notes that Americans think the economy is trash, Trump’s approval is circling the drain at 38%, and 63% of people say the country’s headed in the wrong direction. Technically, we’re not in a recession, but functionally we’re in the part of the horror movie where the audience is screaming at the characters to stop opening doors labeled "tariffs."
Trump, naturally, has made everything more expensive on purpose, slapping tariffs on anything that moves and then acting shocked when prices go up. By a 2-to-1 margin, Americans say he’s raised prices, which is what happens when your economic policy is just angry Facebook comments with legal force. There’s even a looming Supreme Court decision on whether his tariff free-for-all is, you know, legal — because nothing says "stable constitutional democracy" like having to ask the Court if the president is allowed to keep using trade law as a personal rage toy.
So what’s the grand plan to fix affordability? So far, Trump has half-heartedly rolled back a few tariffs on agricultural goods, floated a bailout for farmers he punched in the face, and mumbled something about maybe tax credits, maybe yelling at corporations, who knows. The White House keeps trying to put him in front of "affordability" events, but he just boomerangs back to immigration panic and culture-war grievance, because actually governing is hard and screaming about brown people is easy. In other words: the economy’s on fire, Trump’s holding the gas can, and the big 2026 question is whether voters finally connect the arsonist to the flames.
#trade-war#money#killing-democracy
wisconsin candidate promises the thing washington keeps chickening out on
Mandela Barnes, apparently unaware that in modern America you’re supposed to *talk* about accountability, not actually try it.
Mandela Barnes went on Meet the Press to commit the ultimate D.C. heresy: saying out loud that Donald Trump should actually be held accountable for the stuff he did, not just booked for another Sunday panel. The Wisconsin gubernatorial hopeful framed his race as part of a larger effort to make sure Trump and his enablers don’t just skate by on vibes, nostalgia, and whatever’s left of the Fox News legal defense fund.
Barnes talks about using state power to protect democracy and voting rights while Trump and his party keep trying to speedrun authoritarianism. In other words, he’s proposing that laws should apply to former presidents too, which in our current system counts as a radical leftist position. While national Republicans keep pretending January 6th was just an especially spirited tourist visit, Barnes is out here saying, "No actually, crime is crime, even if you had the nuclear codes once."
Because nothing says "healthy democracy" like the fact that a state-level candidate has to promise to do the accountability work Congress, DOJ, and half the political class have spent years slow-walking. But sure, let’s keep asking whether holding a coup-curious ex-president "to account" might be too divisive.
#killing-democracy#lawlessness
trump saves tesla from success, hands ev crown to china
Journalists admire a Tesla in Mumbai, unaware that back in Washington, Trump is busy making sure America loses the EV race on purpose.
Elon Musk spent 2024 lighting money on fire to get Donald Trump back into the White House, and in a plot twist no one could have predicted except everyone who has ever met Donald Trump, the payoff was Trump kneecapping the very industry Musk depends on. The Trump White House yanked EV subsidies, scrapped emissions rules that nudged companies toward cleaner cars, and generally did everything possible to make sure the US lost the electric vehicle race to China—because nothing says "America First" like turbocharging Shenzhen.
The result: China’s BYD sold 2.26 million battery EVs in 2025, while Tesla limped in at 1.63 million, with deliveries down 9% year-on-year and a grim final quarter. BYD didn’t just beat Tesla in a one-off quarter; it pulled away for the year, while US policy under Trump loudly signaled: "If it helps the climate or the future, kill it." In other words, BYD got industrial strategy and scale, while Trump gave US automakers culture-war tweets and a regulatory bonfire.
This all comes after Musk briefly ran a performative "cut government costs" sideshow for Trump and posed in front of the White House in a Tesla like a rejected stock photo model. Then they fell out, and—shockingly—the guy famous for petty revenge and zero impulse control suddenly turned on EVs too. US climate policy, industrial competitiveness, and a once-dominant domestic EV champion all got dragged into the feud. But sure, tell us more about how this is 4D chess and not just full, weaponized stupidity masquerading as governance.
#killing-democracy#full-stupid
trump declares war on wind, loses to danish lawyers
Artist’s impression of a deadly national security threat: wind turbines quietly making cheap electricity instead of oil barons obscene profits.
Ørsted, Europe’s biggest offshore wind developer, is dragging the Trump administration into court after the White House randomly decided that a nearly finished $5bn offshore wind farm is now a grave "national security" threat. The Department of the Interior froze leases for five major offshore wind projects with all the legal precision of a late-night Trump tweet, offering no actual details about the supposed risks—because nothing says "serious security review" like "we just made something up to help oil buddies".
The Revolution Wind project had already spent nine years in environmental and regulatory purgatory, secured every required federal and state permit in 2023, and is about 90% built—foundations in, 58 of 65 turbines installed, and scheduled to deliver "reliable, affordable power" in 2026. So naturally, Trump’s team slapped on a "stop-work order" in August, tanked Ørsted’s market value, got smacked down by a federal judge, waited a few months, and then tried again with a broader lease suspension. In other words, it’s not energy policy, it’s bureaucratic sabotage in service of Trump’s fossil fuel donors and his personal vendetta against tall white spinny things he finds "ugly".
Senator Sheldon Whitehouse politely translated the move as an effort to raise energy prices, kill American jobs, and supercharge climate chaos—so yes, from the administration’s perspective, it’s going great. Ørsted and partner Skyborn now say litigation is "necessary" to protect their rights and avoid "substantial harm" from the suspension, which is legalese for "this is blatantly unlawful garbage and we’re done pretending it’s not". But sure, tell us more about how this is all about "national security" and not just another front in Trump’s war on renewables and the rule of law.
#killing-democracy#forever-grifting
moonshot fascism: flags, billionaires, and a dead nasa
Jared Isaacman at the White House, auditioning for the role of ‘NASA Administrator Who Gets the Flag Shot Before the Budget Collapses.’
Donald Trump has decided that what his second term really needs is a photo-op on the moon, ordering “American space superiority” and demanding a flag-planting before he’s out of office. To make that happen, he’s put billionaire Jared Isaacman – SpaceX fanboy, private astronaut, and definitely not a space policy expert – in charge of NASA. Because nothing says serious national space strategy like handing the keys to the agency over to a guy whose main qualification is being friends with Elon Musk.
In the past year, Trump’s people tried to ram through an “extinction level” science-killing budget for NASA, slashed jobs, and let Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) run a chainsaw through the agency’s expertise. The result? A year of disruption, chaos, and lost institutional knowledge – all so they can now panic-rush a moon landing before China and get Trump his historic selfie. In other words, they deliberately kneecapped NASA, then yelled at it to run faster.
The Artemis program is limping forward on an over-budget, years-delayed Space Launch System that everyone admits is unsustainable, but they’ll keep using it anyway because it’s the quickest way to stage Trump’s lunar campaign ad. Long term, they’ll probably hand even more over to SpaceX and other friendly billionaires, further hollowing out the public agency while calling it “efficiency” and “innovation”. So yes, the US might get back to the moon – but only after turning NASA into a billionaire playground and a prop department for Trump’s great-power cosplay.
But sure, tell us again how this is about science and humanity’s future, and not about one president’s ego, a new space arms race with China, and a nice fat transfer of power and money from a public institution to a cluster of tech oligarchs.
#killing-democracy#forever-grifting
