The chief attraction at Donald Trump’s Great American State Fair made people sick on Monday.One of the events at the country’s semiquincentennial was a pancake-eating competition that had its four participants gagging and heaving after they’d stuffed themselves with the batter-rich flapjacks. An intern at the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Douglas Ford, won the competition, though footage of his success didn’t make it look easy.Fox News noted that the eating contest was made more difficult by a heat wave that has gripped Washington. The conservative network also ironically referred to the all-you-can-eat competition as a celebration of the “Make America Healthy Again” movement, in a chyron.the marquee attraction at Trump's fair today was a pancake eating contest where the contestants were gagging and nearly puking. 'Murica! pic.twitter.com/KQyoRk7fWD— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) June 29, 2026Practically every component of Trump’s wildly expensive celebration has turned out to be a dud. The $15 million renovation of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool failed to rid the iconic monument of algae, a multiweek lineup of music acts had to be canceled after practically every artist pulled themselves from the program, and a fleet of buses carrying a contemporary retelling of American history have failed to make a splash in their journey across the country.The state fair was supposed to be the centerpiece of the festivities, yet even it is more of a Potemkin village than a sincere reverence. The booths, which offer space for each state to represent its heritage and culture (pet a replica of a bison at the North Dakota pavilion, or walk away with a bag of chips from Maine), are ideologically pitted against the seismic presence of the federal government and Trump’s authoritarian expansion (banners featuring Trump’s grim face flank the event, while a small-scale replica of his “Triumphal Arc” proposal sits center stage). As The Atlantic’s Kelsey Ables put it, “The president is bringing down the mood.”
The standoff between Somalia and the EU comes on the heels of a recently overhauled anti-migration policy, as part of which European countries are scouting for African countries to serve as “return hubs” to which migrants will be deported.
Pavan Kulkarni , June 29, 2026
On June 23, the United Nations Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel released one of the most devastating reports ever produced by a UN investigative body on the Israeli genocide in Gaza. Its title is almost unbearable to read: The Essence of Childhood Has Been Destroyed. Behind the [...]
“The Second World War is here, and it is only a matter of time before the United States is an open belligerent in words as well as in deeds. Of all the havoc caused by the war, none is so tragic as that produced in the working-class movement. Suppressed, atomized, corrupted, demoralized or misled, labor [...]