Lawn and Order

Trump plays general in D.C. while Putin bombs an American factory abroad, the strongman act collapses into farce.

Good morning! Donald Trump wants to be seen as the strongman patrolling America’s streets. Instead, he looks like a man-child LARPing as a general in Fallujah while ranting about sprinklers. This week he assembled troops in D.C., not to fight foreign enemies, but to menace delivery drivers and mopeds. He struck a pose straight out of a war movie briefing, but instead of rallying soldiers to push through Taliban defenses, he was railing against Uber Eats.

The absurdity writes itself. Side by side with actual footage of a U.S. commander prepping troops for combat in Afghanistan, Trump’s “tough guy” act collapses into parody. One minute, a general is urging troops to “breathe fire.” The next, Trump is boasting about grass. “Grass has a life,” he declared, promising to re-sod D.C. parks like they were fairways at Mar-a-Lago. The supposed commander-in-chief has boiled down his vision for the capital to sprinkler systems and Augusta turf.

And he didn’t stop there. Trump, forever haunted by the bogeyman of renewable energy, ranted that “wind doesn’t fire people.” Wind, he warned, “destroys everything” and is too expensive, unlike his gas-fueled fantasy of relaunching America as a giant fossil fuel theme park. Pam Bondi went on TV to defend him like a White House infomercial host: “The president is so excited about fixing up D.C., all new grass, sprinkler systems, our monuments.” Forget the rule of law. It’s Lawn and Order now.

But here’s the reality: crime in D.C. is at a 30-year low. Red states are far worse off. Trump isn’t targeting crime; he’s targeting symbols of resistance, college neighborhoods, immigrant communities, and cultural hubs like U Street, where locals are answering his militarization with free protest concerts. “Free D.C!” the crowd chanted as Trump’s federalized troops harassed civilians, threw migrants off mopeds, and beat people in the street. It’s political theater with jackboots.

Meanwhile, halfway across the world, Vladimir Putin just bombed an American-owned factory in Ukraine. Flex, a major U.S. investment employing hundreds in Mukachevo, was struck with Russian missiles as part of one of the largest aerial assaults of the war. Smoke still rises from the wreckage. President Zelensky called it a deliberate strike on American property. France’s Emmanuel Macron and other leaders immediately spoke out. Trump? Silent. Not a word from the President of the United States after a foreign adversary hit American business and sent drones into NATO airspace. Imagine if Iran hit a U.S. factory, the outrage would be deafening. But when it’s Putin, Trump’s lips stay sealed. He’s too busy posing with soldiers in Logan Circle and muttering about sprinklers to confront Russia’s attack on American assets. America is being humiliated on the world stage.

California Governor Gavin Newsom, fresh off his state’s counter-redistricting push, put it bluntly: Trump has built a private army in ICE and is using the National Guard not for natural disasters but to suppress democracy in American cities. He warned that Los Angeles, where masked Trump troops patrolled Little Tokyo, is just “a preview of things to come.” He also reminded us that Trump has never deployed active-duty military overseas. Instead, he saves them for the real enemy: Americans. And now, while telling Texas lawmakers he’s “entitled” to five congressional seats, Trump is openly rigging the playing field in broad daylight.

The grotesque hypocrisy is everywhere. MAGA loses its mind over Cracker Barrel changing a logo, tanking the stock by $700 million, while ICE plasters recruitment ads like they’re hawking a video game. Gaza is being slaughtered, U.S. markets are underperforming globally, and Trump is out here babbling about grass and windmills.

And then there are the Epstein files. Today, after months of stonewalling, the Justice Department is expected to begin turning documents over to Congress. House Republicans say some will be made public, but only after redactions and delays carefully designed to dull the impact. Senate Democrats accuse Pam Bondi of slow-walking the process and burying the truth. Investigative reporters warn this is likely only a sliver of what’s been hidden, the glossy cover page of a library that remains locked. In other words: the cover-up continues, just with a fresh coat of “transparency” paint.

The economy sags, allies recoil, democracy itself takes hit after hit, and through it all Trump dreams of sprinklers, sod, and Augusta turf. If he can’t make America great, he’ll at least make the lawns look terrific.

In case you missed it, one of Trump’s most grotesque detention camps, the Everglades tent city dubbed “Alligator Alcatraz”, is closing after a federal judge ruled it was destroying the ecosystem. The ruling came on environmental grounds, not humanitarian ones, but the net effect is the same: fewer people will be tortured in swampland cages.

DNI Tulsi Gabbard has stripped dozens of intelligence officials of their clearances, not because they were wrong, but because they were right. Their crime? Reporting in 2016 that Russia helped Trump win. Let’s call it what it is; authoritarian retribution, an attempt to erase history with the sweep of a pen.

Trump’s favorite courtroom flack just took a major hit. Chief Judge Matthew Brann disqualified Alina Habba from acting as interim U.S. attorney in New Jersey after defendants pointed out the obvious: she wasn’t confirmed, wasn’t extended by the judges, and had no legal authority to be prosecuting anyone. Brann agreed, stripping her of the role and exposing yet another Trump scheme to install loyalists who couldn’t survive legitimate vetting. For a regime obsessed with “law and order,” it sure does have a habit of breaking both.

Brace yourselves; Walmart’s CEO reported spiraling costs and rising prices, warning they’ll persist into the third and fourth quarters. Markets tanked for the fifth straight day, with Trump’s tariffs and economic mismanagement fueling inflationary pressure. Chris Norlund summed it up best: Trump and his “merry band of incompetent fools” are flailing as the retail giant that feeds America signals trouble ahead. It’s the economy, stupid, and Trump is botching it again.

A quick update on Marz. Turns out the poor guy wasn’t dealing with just one rogue suture but two, both scratching his cornea and driving him half-mad with irritation. Under $200 worth of sedation later, the vet fished them out, and Marz is back home. He’s still a bit wobbly, but the swelling is easing, and he already seems more comfortable. The vet even called him a “trooper,” which is no small praise for a mastiff who’s been poked, prodded, and stitched more times than he deserves. Thank you all for the kind wishes, they mean the world.