Category: News & Comment

Racism and lying in the Oval. Having been subjected to the Trump clown show for too long, we all knew he had to be lying about the purported white genocide in South Africa. Now fact checkers at Reuters have uncovered the truth. “Trump’s image of dead ‘white farmers’ came from Reuters footage in Congo, not South Africa.” Trump ambushed South African President Cyril Ramaphosa in the office with photos of people handling body bags. He claimed the bodies in the bags were farmers who were massacred because they were white. In fact, Reuters learned, the photos showed humanitarian workers with bodies of victims of M23 rebels in the Congolese city of Goma in February 2025.

Best at being worst. Whether Trump will best presidents Andrew Johnson and James Buchanan to become the worst president in U.S. history remains to be seen. But four months into his second term, Trump takes the prize as the most brazenly corrupt chief executive the country has yet to produce.

According to Huffpost, “Trump is taking his efforts to use his office for personal enrichment — the very definition of corruption — selling face time to those who put money into his bank account by purchasing nearly $200 million worth of his branded souvenir crypto coins. Just four investors in the $TRUMP coin grift collectively own 2.7 million coins, worth a total of $38.3 million, based on the $14 price per coin that day.

In past presidencies, especially during the Warren G. Harding administration, the thieves were in the cabinet or the lower ranks. The current level of corruption is unprecedented, Heather Cox Richardson, a Boston College historian, tells HuffPost. “Interestingly,” she says, “the real financial corruption in an administration is around the president, not usually the president himself.”

It’s not ‘deporting.’ In the latest outrageous act of kidnapping people and renditioning them to foreign sites, Trump goon squads have seized Vietnamese and Burmese migrants and flown them to South Sudan, violating a court order in the process and likely committing criminal contempt.

Everybody hates Elon. Trump’s circle is not holding back about their heart-felt dislike for former Pres. Elon Musk. From The New Republic:

Musk’s unceremonious exit from government followed widespread reports that several senior Trump officials practically hated the tech billionaire, finding him abrasive, unfunny, and pompous — with some describing Musk as the “most irritating person” they’d “ever had to deal with.”

“I have been in the same room with Elon, and he always tries to be funny. And he’s not funny. Like, at all,” a senior Trump official told Rolling Stone last month. “He makes these jokes and little asides and smiles and then looks almost hurt if you don’t lap up his humor. I keep using the word ‘annoying’; a lot of people who have to deal with him do. But the word doesn’t do the situation justice. Elon just thinks he’s smarter than everyone else in the room and acts like it, even when it’s clear he doesn’t know what he’s talking about.”

No, you’re out of control. Reacting to the nearly 40 nationwide injunctions against the administration in the past four months, Trump’s solicitor general, John Sauer, complained to the U.S. Supreme Court last week that the federal judiciary is out of control. “But another explanation is also available,” Adam Server, writing in “Trump Is Tired of Courts Telling Him He’s Breaking the Law,” in The Atlantic. “An out-of-control executive who ignores constitutional restraints on his authority also results in a lot of injunctions. Even accepting the premise that there are too many nationwide injunctions, executive—not judicial—overreach seems like the actual problem here.”

Fascist Idiocrat spotlight: Yale fascism expert Timothy Snyder puts Trump’s recently demoted U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia in the spotlight:

Ed Martin is a major actor in Trump’s attempted regime change to authoritarianism. His particular role is to transform the law into a tool to intimidate Americans. After a stint as interim US Attorney for DC which was marked by unprecedented weaponization of the position, Martin will now continue his work for Trump as the official “weaponization czar.”

This is a new position within the Justice Department, designed by the Trump administration, to punish people who have committed no crimes. Martin was originally placed on the “weaponization working group” seemingly ex officio when he was a US Attorney; he will now continue as its chairman. On Martin’s account, his assignment will be to publicly single out Americans who have not been found guilty of anything, or for that matter even indicted. He says there will be “no limit to the targets.”

Mixed Signals. Yet more confusion at the top. On Tuesday, as Republicans were arguing, not about whether to cut Medicaid, but rather how deeply to slash into the nation’s healthcare system, Dear Leader did an about face, warning his House MAGA minions: “Don’t fuck around with Medicaid.” It’s likely Trump saw the KFF Health Tracking Poll in April that found that a whopping 76 percent of voters disapprove of MAGA’s cuts to Medicaid. That includes 79 percent of Independents and 55 percent of Republicans.

Rubio goes rogue: Secretary of State Marco Rubio has gone all in on the new authoritarianism. Marco Rubio Says No Judge Has Authority Over Him in Alarming Testimony.

What is DOGE hiding? DOGE, the secretive federal department that Trump and Elon Musk have deployed to destroy the U.S. government from within, has appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court to to declare them exempt from compliance with the Freedom of Information Act. The appeal is a response to an order by a federal judge to comply with FOIA in March.

As heard on Blue Sky, “Apparently the IVF terrorist self-identified as an anti-procreation, pro-death vegan.” At first, authorities in Palm Springs were confused because the bombing occurred Saturday at a fertility clinic there, not an abortion clinic. The one person who was killed turned out to be the bomber himself. He was identified as Guy Edward Bartkus, 25, whom the FBI described as having “nihilistic ideations.”

Equalizer in Chief: His nibs says he’s invented a new word to describe his plan to reduce drug costs that actually raises the costs. “Basically, what we’re doing is equalizing,” Trump said. “There’s a new word that I came up with, which is probably the best word. We’re gonna equalize where we’re all gonna pay the same. We’re gonna pay what Europe’s gonna pay.” Europe pays more, so Americans will pay more.

Let them eat tariffs, Trump says, referring to Walmart, MAGA’s favorite retailer. He’s demanding that the company “eat the tariffs” instead of raising prices – which is a prime example of authoritarian economics.

Comey folds: Former FBI director James Comey was spotted leaving his home and ducking into a black SUV with the Secret Service before speeding off. CNN reported that Comey is cooperating with the Secret Service amid blowback over his “86 47” beachside post—which critics, including Trump himself, have alleged was a veiled assassination threat against the 47th president.

Making America the 90s Again: Deranged Trump Boosts Bonkers Clinton Kill List Conspiracy. “President Donald Trump boosted a wild conspiracy theory that accuses the Clinton family of murdering seven people.”

Handing Trump the 2016 election on a gold-plated platter wasn’t enough to save former FBI director James Comey from being investigated by Trump’s secret police over an Insta post. The offending post was a photo of sea shells arranged to spell, “86 47,” which means toss the 47th president out of office. Fascist idiocrats claimed Comey’s post called for the assassination of Trump. Comey removed the post right away.

Speaking of idiots, our wannabe autocrat felt he had to explain groceries to a Middle Eastern leader: “We have a term ‘groceries.’ It’s an old term, but it means basically what you’re buying, food, it’s a pretty accurate term, but it’s an old-fashioned sound, but groceries are down.”

Fascism is allergic to voting, so it shouldn’t be surprising that the DOJ Voting Section Has Just Three Lawyers Left, Watchdog Estimates, says Democracy Docket. The section had 30 lawyers assigned to enforce voting laws before the Trump insane clown posse hit town.

And when the wannabe autocrats don’t like the way voters vote, they finagle a re-do: Republican legislators approve ballot item that would again ban most abortions in Missouri.

The USDA hangs a giant banners depicting America’s best and worst presidents on the facade of its neoclassical headquarters in Washington.

What First Amendment? A Business Insider story with the headline, “Don Jr. is the new Hunter Biden,” has so enraged Don Jr.’s daddy that he has ordered his lackeys to attack the European conglomerate that owns Politico and Business Insider, because it is a “German Influence Operation.” Whatver that is.

Newsweek: Qatar’s Gift to Trump Is Unsold Plane It’s Been Trying to Dump for Years.

A president from the erstwhile party of free enterprises tells an American CEO where not to expand his business, and members of his allegedly pro-capitalism party fall in line and remain mute: Trump to Apple: Don’t expand iPhone production in India.

Sen. Josh “Running Man” Hawley, MAGA-Mo, is so afraid of voters on Medicaid that he’s swallowed his fear of Trump long enough to speak out against the boss’s “big beautiful” cuts to healthcare funding for those in need.

It’s not just the pundits. Science Tells Us the U.S. Is Heading toward a Dictatorship