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Just over a year into Keir Starmer’s premiership, things are not looking well for the former human rights lawyer. His term so far has been characterized by scandals around lobbying and by the rise of the far right both electorally and on the streets, not to mention spending cuts that many of his backbenchers opposed […]

Implausibly, it keeps getting weirder, darker, worse. Hankering to make war against his own citizens in the name of an imaginary crime wave, the deranged, draft-dodging Peace President of the United States just posted a mock Apocalypse Now meme of himself as Duvall's warmongering sociopath, warning Chicago is "about to find out why it's called the Department of War" and leering, "I love the smell of deportations in the morning." Sigh. Nothing to see here.Wildly flailing in a job he is utterly unfit for and so eager to deflect from the looming, damning Epstein files he'll do pretty much anything even kill us, the old, bored, crumbling, makeup-caked cretin now defiling the White House randomly decided it was time to "send a message of strength" to an unlistening world by changing the longtime name of the Department of Defense to the Department of War. "We won the first World War, we won the second World War, we won everything before that and in between," he babbled, "and then we decided to go wokey and we changed the name to Department of Defense." Umm. Ok. So now he's changing it back except Congress would need to approve the change so not really.At least now Pete Kegseth gets to use a new bellicose name to show the U.S., in a break from its long tradition as global peacemaker, is "going to go on offense, not just on defense," a shift he explained in his best warrior-ethos gibberish as, "Maximum lethality, not tepid legality,” also, "Violent effect, not politically correct." In other words, given the "100,000 Americans killed each year" by Biden's "open border," the U.S. had "absolute" authority" to attack a Venezuelan boat carrying suspected gang members in the Caribbean - "We smoked a drug boat and there's 11 narco-terrorists at the bottom of the ocean," he snarled - though some would call that a war crime. The regime's take from J.D. Vance: "I don't give a shit what you call it."No wonder, then, the orange man-child seeking revenge on those who doubt his manly powers is threatening to send troops to Chicago, "the most dangerous city in the world" - "I have an obligation" - though it only has the 92nd highest violent crime rate among big American cities, where crime has been falling the last few years to unprecedented lows. Among them, Dem-led Chicago remains far below the most murderous four cities, all in GOP-run states, of Jackson MS, Birmingham AL, St Louis MO, Memphis TN, which in turn are far below the world's most dangerous cities - Tijuana, Mexico, Colima, Mexico, Caracas Venezuela, Durán, Ecuador - and countries: Brazil, Venezuela, Honduras, Jamaica, South Africa, Colombia, and of course, Gaza.Still, onward to Chicago, or at least the fever dream of Chipocalypse Now, a clumsy word-play that sparked confused responses online: "So now he's declaring war on Chipotle?" "Wouldn't Chicagalypse be better?" "It sounds like the next Ben and Jerry's flavor," etc. Evidently re-posting a MAGA fan's AI slop, the peace president declared war on an American city, coincidentally blue, with a tacky meme rendering himself as an unhinged anti-hero of the smoldering, surreal anti-war movie, Francis Ford Coppola’s 1979 Apocalypse Now, which updates Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness to the Vietnam War - "Charlie don't surf" - that Private Bone Spurs, the fearful manchild who would be king of Chipocalypse, passed on five inglorious times.Now he's cosplaying as Lieut. Col. Bill Kilgore, played by Robert Duvall, commander of 1st Squadron, 9th Cavalry Regiment, a gung-ho, racist, surfing madman who loves war, wears a black Cavalry Stetson hat straight out of America's Indian Wars, and delivers the iconic line - after an attack on a village of innocents, to helicopters blaring Wagner's Ride of the Valkyries that Hitler played at his rallies, relishing the use of a flammable "stick-to-kids" gel that burned screaming children alive. Talk about "tepid legality." "You smell that? Napalm, son. Nothing else in the world smells like that," raves Kilgore. "I love the smell of napalm in the morning. It smells like...victory." "I love the smell of napalm in the morning." "I love the smell of deportations in the morning." Get it? Get the vile sick fucking joke?This ghoul, these people, are vile sick fucking jokes. And they're so dumb they again utterly misunderstand - see Springsteen's Born In the USA - what's going on here. They think Duvall, a sociopath in a black hat, is a good guy. One response: "Tell me this is not real, please." Also, "More fucking fuckery" and, "I have a hard time comprehending how we got to this moment and why any of this is acceptable on any level for any human being." "(Trump) is threatening to go to war with an American city," notes Gov. Pritzer "This is not normal." "Kilgore is a psychotic, mass-murdering white supremacist, an embodiment of every evil American impulse and of (our) pointless, sadistic rampage through Southeast Asia," writes Peter Birkhead. "The President of the United States thinks he’s cool."

Zeteo's project to document the ongoing, pressing, week-by-week growth of authoritarianism in Donald Trump's second term.

Plus, how social media shortens your life, a reclusive billionaire’s private bridge, and the Biden legislation that quietly fueled mass foreclosures.

In 1932, Franklin D. Roosevelt casually dropped one of the most memorable lines in American political history. “My friends,” he said in a campaign speech, “judge me by the enemies I have made.” He was talking about Wall Street financiers, corporate monopolists, and the rest of the United States’ financial elite. Now it’s 2025, and we’re looking at a very different political landscape. But FDR’s message remains true: you really can judge a politician by the forces arrayed against them. And with that in mind, Minneapolis mayoral candidate Omar Fateh has a roster of enemies anyone could be proud of. From the deranged racists attacking him online for his Somali heritage, to the corporate Democrats making shady backroom deals and alliances against him, his opponents represent everything people hate about politics in America. 

Tennessee Republicans were ahead of 2025’s major electoral trend.

New York City Mayor Eric Adams has peppered his reelection campaign with AI photos and videos criticizing his opponents.

The party has finally realized the power of influencers. But they're elevating the wrong people, while keeping the edgy voices out.

Former Chicago mayor and Obama chief of staff Rahm Emanuel has an op-ed in theWall Street Journal encouraging Americans to put aside their differences, stop hating each other, and focus on hating China instead. As a piece of anti-China propaganda, it’s a remarkable document, because of how little evidence it presents that China is actually a threat to the United States. Instead, Emanuel is quite open about encouraging animosity toward China only because it would serve domestic political purposes (namely, tamping down the left-wing and right-wing political movements he dislikes).