new authoritarianism

Trump Plans to Make 250th US Birthday ‘All About Himself’ With Long Speech, Late Fireworks

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Article by Brett Wilkins republished form Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

US President Donald Trump dances on stage as he tours the Al-Udeid Air Base on May 15, 2025, in Doha, Qatar. (Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images)

One journalist said that “this is like the epitome of personalist rule—turning this into an imperial, dictatorial display of self-glorification.”

As the desolate debacle of President Donald Trump’s “Great American State Fair” continues against a backdrop of an empty National Mall and Shrek-green Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, criticism of the president’s plans for his “most spectacular Trump rally” and record-seeking fireworks show mounted this week as new details of his self-aggrandizing extravaganza emerged.

“Our luck has it that America’s 250 was when Trump is president, and we know that a big thrust of these 250 commemorations are in a lot of ways a celebration of Trump and Trumpism, and if it’s not direct, it’s the vision that Trump and the MAGA movement has of America,” Center on Conscience & War executive director Mike Prysner told BreakThrough News on Tuesday.

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Media Matters for America senior fellow Matt Gertz told Greg Sargent, who hosts The New Republic’s The Daily Blast podcast, that “the fact that we are not going to be able to have a real celebration of America’s 250th birthday—one that respects how far we have traveled, how far we have to go… it’s a real shame that this is what we’re going to get instead: a would-be authoritarian ruler trying to make it all about himself.”

On Monday, the Federal Aviation Administration made a late announcement that it would be shutting down air traffic at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport for three hours on July 3 and 12 hours on the Fourth of July “to help ensure the safe and efficient movement of air traffic during celebrations of America’s 250th birthday, including the iconic flyovers and fireworks.”

During a rally planned for July 4, Trump is expected to speak for at least 45 minutes starting at 9:00 pm. While attendees are advised to arrive very early, they’re reportedly not allowed to bring coolers, lawn chairs, bags, or more than one bottle of water on a day when temperatures are forecast to soar to triple-digits.

Trump said earlier this month that a military flyover featuring a 17-aircraft formation will include the $400 million Boeing 747-8 “flying palace” gifted to Trump by the repressive Qatari monarchy.s

US Interior Secretary Doug Burgum told Fox News on Sunday that the Trump administration is then planning the “greatest and biggest celebration of fireworks ever.”

The Washington Post reported Tuesday that 850,000 fireworks will be detonated in a 40-minute show scheduled to start unusually late—after 10:30 and possibly even 11:00 pm. That’s 50 times as many explosions over twice the length of a typical Fourth of July fireworks show, which even in a typical year can spark severe anxiety in dogs and other pets and post-traumatic stress disorder in veterans.

Trump DC fireworks won't start until at least 10:30 p.m. Heavy TSA-like security, so people will have to get there way early. It's going to be one-billion degrees. No coolers, no metal/thermal water containers. Enjoy your $20 bottles of Trump water and your tearful, exhausted children! Happy Fourth!

— Rex Huppke (@rexhuppke.bsky.social) 2026-06-29T17:52:43.638Z

If Trump’s so-called “Great American State Fair” is any indication, there should be plenty of lawn space available on the National Mall for the July 4 events.

While the president posted a self-congratulatory message to his Truth Social Network on Monday, praising the “fantastic job” his administration has done during the first week of the event and claiming the National Mall was “packed with happy people,” attendees and journalists reported “light crowds, short lines, and plenty of open space.”

This, despite a nationwide ad blitz on Fox and other networks and websites viewed by scores of millions of people.

Some called it the “Great American Fail.”

Former Republican Congressman Adam Kinzinger of Illinois said in a video posted Monday on Bluesky that “10 years ago I voted to create ‘America 250.’ But here’s the truth: Trump started ‘Freedom 250’ to replace it, and made it about himself. Trump’s newest stunt? Trying to convince us there’s a big crowd for Freedom 250. But our eyes don’t lie.”

María José Gutierrez Chavez, trending news writer at the business magazine Fast Company, described “the unbearable emptiness of the Great American State Fair,” writing that the purported celebration “looks more like a liminal space.”

Gutierrez cited one TikTok user who commented, “I’ve seen graveyards with more people,” and another who said that “there were more people in line for the Trader Joe’s summer tote bags.”

Meanwhile, the iconic Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, a focal point of the semiquincentennial festivities, remains what Common Dreams columnist Abby Zimet described Tuesday as a “fetid debacle” as cleaning up the algae-choked centerpiece proves more difficult than anticipated.

Instead of blaming the no-bid contracted company owned by a Trump donor for the emerald embarrassment, detractors say the president has humiliated himself even further by attempting to pin the blame for his administration’s failure on elusive vandals and former President Barack Obama.

Even some Trump supporters have had enough.

“This sucks,” Fox News columnist David Marcus said earlier this month following an event featuring daredevil dirtbike jumps and Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) cage matches on the White House lawn that critics said looked like they were inspired by the classic Mike Judge dystopian satire Idiocracy.

“This pisses me off,” Marcus said after one of the UFC fighters called former First Lady Michelle Obama a man. “You wanna throw out this nonsense at a rally? Fine. Not at an official Freedom 250 event. Disgraceful.”

Some are calling on people to eschew the July 4 event in favor of local celebrations.

“This is like the epitome of personalist rule—turning this into an imperial, dictatorial display of self-glorification,” Sargent said. “It’s important that Americans reject this and not show up to this.”

Gertz concurred, replying, “I think what we have here is a president who does not respect any sort of separation between himself and the country at large.”

“He views the idea of celebrating the nation’s birthday as one and the same with celebrating himself,” he added.

Article by Brett Wilkins republished form Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

Donald Trump warns against following the Onaquietday.org blog, says that he's heard that she's a which with a black cat and a dangerous kitchen.
Donald Trump warns against following the Onaquietday.org blog, says that he’s heard that she’s a which with a black cat and a dangerous kitchen.
Orcas discuss rotting brain, front Orca says Sundown Syndrome is a dead givaway and he wishes someone would Lock Him Up
Orcas discuss rotting brain, front Orca says Sundown Syndrome is a dead givaway and he wishes someone would Lock Him Up

Continue ReadingTrump Plans to Make 250th US Birthday ‘All About Himself’ With Long Speech, Late Fireworks

‘A National Outrage’: Days After Monsanto Ruling, Trump EPA Approves More Forever Chemical Pesticides

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Article by Jessica Corbett republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

Supporters of the Make America Healthy Again movement are seen at a news conference at the Department of Health and Human Services headquarters in Washington, DC on April 22, 2025. (Photo by Nathan Posner/Anadolu via Getty Images)

Ripping “Trump’s reckless push to ignore science and embrace these extremely harmful, long-lasting pesticides,” one critic said his legacy will be the millions “his shortsighted policies will sicken and prematurely kill.”

The US Environmental Protection Agency on Tuesday continued its betrayal of President Donald Trump’s campaign promise to “Make America Healthy Again,” approving the use of multiple “forever chemical” pesticides on crops despite public health concerns.

Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) are called forever chemicals because they don’t naturally break down—instead accumulating in human and animal bodies as well as the environment. They have been used in everything from fabrics for clothing and furniture to firefighting foam to nonstick cookware, and are tied to various health problems, including increased risk of some cancers.

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The Trump EPA on Tuesday finalized its approval of using two PFAS pesticides, diflufenican and epyrifenacil, on corn and soybeans, the two most widely grown crops in the United States.

The agency also expanded its allowances for another previously approved forever chemical pesticide, bifenthrin, and greenlighted the first food use of chlormequat, a non-PFAS pesticide tied to reproductive issues.

“While the Biden administration had approved one PFAS pesticide in the prior four years, this is the third and fourth approval of a PFAS pesticide under Trump in just his second year in office,” the Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) noted in a Tuesday statement. “The previous two PFAS pesticide approvals were cyclobutrifluram and isocycloseram.”

As the center detailed:

The EPA has stated in press materials that these new fluorinated pesticides are not PFAS. That assertion is based on the fact that they do not meet the chemicals office’s unilateral regulatory PFAS definition. But the new pesticides do meet the much more widely accepted PFAS definition that was developed transparently by dozens of scientists around the world. That definition has subsequently been endorsed by more than 150 leading PFAS researchers, is used by nearly every US state for regulating PFAS, and specifically was written into past versions of the National Defense Authorization Act.

Using the scientific definition of a PFAS that is widely accepted in this country and around the world, these pesticides are PFAS.

The EPA had even initially acknowledged that these pesticides met the more broadly accepted PFAS definition on its fluorinated pesticides webpage. Yet three weeks after creating the webpage, it removed any mention of the conflicting definition, instead portraying the agency’s unilateral definition as the only PFAS definition.

Under the Freedom of Information Act, CBD obtained documents showing that those website revisions were overseen by EPA Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention’s assistant administrator, Douglas Troutman, and Kyle Kunkler—a former American Soybean Association (ASA) lobbyist controversially installed as the office’s deputy assistant administrator for pesticides—and reviewed by agency Administrator Lee Zeldin.

While ASA president and Ohio soybean farmer Scott Metzger welcomed the Tuesday approvals, saying that “we appreciate EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin and the agency” for advancing the registrations, Nathan Donley, CBD’s environmental health science director, was deeply critical and tied the developments to the Trump administration’s other actions serving the pesticide industry.

“It’s a national outrage that Trump’s EPA is expanding use of dangerous, cancer-linked PFAS pesticides just days after the Supreme Court limited the American people’s right to sue pesticide companies,” said Donley, referring to last week’s ruling in favor of Monsanto and against thousands of people who argue that its glyphosate-based weedkiller Roundup caused their cancer.

In addition to the Trump administration backing Bayer—which bought Monsanto in 2018—in the case before the high court, the president in February issued an executive order mandating the production of glyphosate. Since returning to office last year, Trump has also faced criticism for EPA approvals of other pesticides, from atrazine to dicamba, and for his administration’s MAHA report that echoes industry talking points.

Donley declared Tuesday that “Trump’s reckless push to ignore science and embrace these extremely harmful, long-lasting pesticides ensures his legacy won’t be the many monuments he’s built to himself, but the many millions of people his shortsighted policies will sicken and prematurely kill.”

Article by Jessica Corbett republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

Orcas discuss rotting brain, front Orca says disinhibition and swearing are typical and common symptoms
Orcas discuss rotting brain, front Orca says disinhibition and swearing are typical and common symptoms
Continue Reading‘A National Outrage’: Days After Monsanto Ruling, Trump EPA Approves More Forever Chemical Pesticides

Trump’s Massive July 4 Fireworks Show Is a Public Health Disaster in the Making: Leaked Documents

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Article by Brad Reed republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). 

Signs around the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool indicate the area has been closed for the installation of pyrotechnic equipment on June 30, 2026, in Washington, DC. (Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images)

An internal National Park Service report recommends Washington, DC residents “wear an N95 mask when outdoors” and “remain indoors as much as possible during and after the show.”

President Donald Trump’s plans for a massive fireworks show in Washington, DC on July 4th could lead to a public health disaster, according to leaked National Park Service documents obtained by The Washington Post.

As the Post reported on Wednesday, internal NPS models project that Trump’s plan to launch an estimated 850,000 fireworks over a 40-minute span on Saturday will lead to “very unhealthy” air quality throughout downtown Washington, DC, Arlington, and the area around Capitol Hill.

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NPS’ internal report recommends that residents “wear an N95 mask when outdoors” and “remain indoors as much as possible during and after the show.”

George Thurston, a professor of medicine and population health at New York University, said that the amount of pollution projected by the NPS is so severe that people should “minimize exposures” to outdoor air during the fireworks show, while adding that wearing “an N95 mask would be a good idea.”

Thurston also expressed concern about DC residents living in low-income neighborhoods, which are disproportionately exposed to environmental pollutants and could be particularly vulnerable to hazardous air quality stemming from the festivities.

A Tuesday report from Capital Weather also expressed concerns about Trump’s planned fireworks, noting that “the approximately 860,000 shells anticipated in this year’s show will be at least roughly 50 times more than the usual 10,000 to 20,000 shells” launched during past events.

The problem could be made worse, Capital Weather added, by the extreme heat Washington, DC is expected to get on July 4, with temperatures projected to peak at 100ºF.

“Unless there are strong winds, there will very likely be near-record amounts of smoke to go with all the fireworks,” Capital Weather explained. “As of now, winds only look to be around 5 to 8 mph, which will struggle to push the smoke along. If a chance of scattered storms materializes, it could become even more humid and primed for smoke to hang around.”

Article by Brad Reed republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). 

Orcas discuss rotting brain, front Orca says Sundown Syndrome is a dead givaway and he wishes someone would Lock Him Up
Orcas discuss rotting brain, front Orca says Sundown Syndrome is a dead givaway and he wishes someone would Lock Him Up
Continue ReadingTrump’s Massive July 4 Fireworks Show Is a Public Health Disaster in the Making: Leaked Documents

Armed With New Slush Fund, ‘Lawless and Rogue’ ICE Arrests 10,000+ in Just Five Days

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Article by Jake Johnson republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). 

Those arrested in the recent surge include a 56-year-old Catholic nun from Nigeria.

Ordered by the Trump White House to aggressively increase arrest rates, federal immigration officials have reportedly detained more than 10,000 people in just the last five days, intensifying fear in communities across the United States.

The New York Times, which was first to report the new detention figures late Wednesday, noted that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials were “told that 2,000 arrests a day was the new standard for enforcement.” The agency, flush with cash following President Donald Trump’s signing of a reconciliation package containing another $70 billion for immigration enforcement, has been instructed to assign 80% of its officers to “arrest operations,” according to the Times.

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The Trump administration claims to be targeting the “worst of the worst,” but available data shows that the percentage of people arrested by ICE despite having no criminal convictions has tended to rise during the agency’s mass detention efforts. On Sunday, ICE briefly detained a 56-year-old nun from Nigeria as she walked to church in McAllen, Texas.

“The geniuses at ICE just arrested a Catholic nun, who practices as a nurse, as she was walking to church,” Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) wrote in response to Sister Leticia Ugboaja’s detention. “Our Republican colleagues think they need even more money. Had enough?”

The Times reported that immigration attorneys across the US “have been on alert” as ICE arrests surge, though much more quietly than earlier blitzes in Minneapolis—where federal immigration agents killed two US citizens—and other major cities, where groups of armed and masked officers roamed the streets and menaced neighborhoods.

“Cindy Blandon, an immigration attorney in Miami, said that one of her clients, a Nicaraguan father of two children, had an immigration court hearing set for 2027, but was arrested by ICE on Monday during a routine check-in,” the Times reported. “And in Utah, Ysabel Lonazco, an immigration attorney, has noticed an uptick as well… One of her clients, Arturo, a 48-year-old Mexican man, was arrested in Salt Lake City on his way to a soccer game on Sunday, according to his wife, Veronica. She said the arrest had shattered their family.”

ICE also appears to be ignoring a federal judge’s order last week curtailing arrests at immigration courthouses. According to The Intercept:

On Thursday, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents arrested an Ecuadorian man at a court at 26 Federal Plaza and a man from the Dominican Republic at another court at 290 Broadway, both in Lower Manhattan. The arrests continued on Monday, when ICE agents detained a third man, originally from Guatemala, at 290 Broadway.

In legal filings challenging the detentions of the men taken Thursday, advocates with the nonprofit Make the Road New York accused ICE of not only violating their clients’ right to due process, but also of brazenly flouting a federal court order.

Murad Awawdeh, president and CEO of the New York Immigration Coalition, told The Intercept that “we’re witnessing ICE, yet again, operate in a lawless and rogue fashion and not following court orders.”

“We’re supposedly a nation under the rule of law, and our judicial branch has said that this agency must stop engaging in this lawless behavior, and they continue to do so,” said Awawdeh.

ICE is currently headed by Acting Director David Venturella, a former private prison executive. A record number of people have died in ICE custody under the second Trump administration.

Last week, Trump announced that he intends to nominate former Oklahoma state trooper Lance Schroyer to lead ICE in a permanent capacity.

Marcos Charles, the head of ICE’s deportation wing, cheered the recent arrest surge in an email to agency personnel earlier this week. On Saturday, ICE officers arrested 2,400 people.

“I want to personally thank each of you for your extraordinary efforts this past weekend,” Charles wrote, according to the Times. “Through your dedication, professionalism, and unwavering commitment to our mission, enforcement and removal operations achieved remarkable operational results.”

Article by Jake Johnson republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). 

Orcas discuss rotting brain, front Orca says disinhibition and swearing are typical and common symptoms
Orcas discuss rotting brain, front Orca says disinhibition and swearing are typical and common symptoms

Continue ReadingArmed With New Slush Fund, ‘Lawless and Rogue’ ICE Arrests 10,000+ in Just Five Days

‘Brazen Crypto Corruption’ Helps Trump Pocket $2.2 Billion During First Year Back in Office

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Article by Jake Johnson republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). 

Eric Trump, Donald Trump Jr., and others ring the Nasdaq opening bell on August 13, 2025 in New York City. (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

One expert who has studied presidential wealth called Trump’s windfall “completely unprecedented” in American history

Annual financial disclosures released Tuesday reveal that US President Donald Trump pocketed at least $2.2 billion—more than half of it from his family’s crypto grift—during his first year back in the White House, a windfall that experts say is without precedent in American history.

The disclosure report shows that Trump pulled in $635 million in royalties from Celebration Coins, an entity linked to the president’s meme coin. The president also disclosed around $527 million in proceeds from token sales by World Liberty Financial, the Trump family crypto venture spearheaded by Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr.

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“It is completely unprecedented,” Megan Gorman, a tax attorney who has studied the history of presidential wealth, told The New York Times of the president’s windfall.

Robert Weissman, co-president of the consumer advocacy group Public Citizen, said in a statement that “Trump’s obscene income is driven by various cryptocurrency schemes, leveraging his political position to exploit a scam-driven industry that he once said was nothing more than a racket.”

“In doing so, he’s ripping off investors—to the tune of billions—who want to get in on the game with him, or think that buying his crypto products is an innocent means to show their support,” said Weissman. “Most troubling, Trump’s personal profit interest has now aligned him with the crypto industry, paving the way for dangerous legislation that will facilitate mass rip-offs and even threaten financial system stability.”

Trump’s massive profits from an industry he’s tasked with regulating represent what the watchdog group Campaign Legal Center (CLC) described as an “unprecedented” conflict of interest, notwithstanding the White House’s laughable claim that “neither the president nor his family has ever engaged—or will ever engage—in conflicts of interest.”

“We have never seen a president have direct conflicts of interest with his financial holdings and the policies he supports, and it’s another example why we need widespread ethics reform now,” Kedric Payne, CLC’s senior director of ethics, told The Wall Street Journal.

The Journal noted that, in addition to crypto profits, “Trump reported $4.7 million in income last year from Trump-branded watches, as well as $1.9 million in royalties from his ‘Save America’ book.”

“Multimillion-dollar licensing deals linked to real-estate developers stretched from Romania to India to across the Middle East. A $6,484-a-month pension from the Screen Actors Guild continued paying out,” the newspaper observed.

The disclosures also include tens of million dollars in legal settlements stemming from Trump’s lawsuits against major companies, including ABC, CBS, and Meta.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), the top Democrat on the Senate Banking Committee, said Tuesday that lawmakers must add language to the upper chamber’s crypto legislation that prevents “the president, vice president, senior administration officials, members of Congress, and their families from profiting off the crypto industry.”

“If it does not,” the senator warned, “it will only turbocharge Donald Trump’s brazen crypto corruption.”

Article by Jake Johnson republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). 

Climate science denier Donald Trump confirms that he knows nothing about democracy and that more liquid gold is being secured according to his policy of global privateering.
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Orcas discuss rotting brain, front Orca says he wishes someone would lock him up, small Orca speaks bluntly.
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Continue Reading‘Brazen Crypto Corruption’ Helps Trump Pocket $2.2 Billion During First Year Back in Office