Let Them Watch UFC: Marie Trump Enriches Himself and His Buddy Donors While People Pay Higher Gas and Grocery Prices Thanks to Him

Cartoon from Phil Hands

There is no limit to Donald Trump's insensitivity, greed, depraved thinking, and ego-stoking.

Last year, on his 79th birthday, the person who called those who served in the nation's armed services "suckers" held a dictator-style military parade to celebrate the other day that future historians may also call "infamy."

This year, in what may be a modern historical analogy to Roman Casears watch gladitors fight in the Coliseum, Mr. Trump has decided to celebrate his 80th birthday by hosting a UFC martial arts event at the South Lawn of the White House.

People should wonder if the martial arts competitors will give Trump the Roman-Fascist arm gesture and tell the aspiring Duce, "We who are about to get our asses kicked salute you."

Of course, this grotesque, un-American event is being paid for by American taxpayers while they have to scramble to pay for higher gas at the pump, groceries at the store, and health care thanks to Mr. Trump and his MAGA Republican allies' ill-advised policy choices for the nation.

Of course, leading the pack of people making money off this event are Mr. Trump and his family, who have business stakes in the UFC.

So much for the emoulements clause.

This is what Trump meant when, at his second inaugural, he said that a new Golden Age was coming for America. Except he left out the part that the golden age was for him and his billionaire loyalists. Everyone else, including the people who actually believed his promises, despite the first term track record with the COVID deaths, the recession, and the treason on January 6, 2001, could just go to hell and pay to watch his UFC Birthday celebration on Paramount Plus.

This is so obscene, and Republicans, like Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who is somehow comparing this event to the effort to land humanity on the Moon in 1969, further demonstrate how corrupt and rotten the former Party of Lincoln has become.

Rubio has made the corruption even worse by giving the UFC a contract with the State Department to provide global educational outreach services that will enrich them and his boss in the Oval Office even more.

Rubio must really want to be the Viceroy of Cuba really badly to sell his soul and country out this way.

How about using that funding to save starving children in this country and around the world along with steming the spread of diseases like Ebola.

Talk about the corruption stinking to high heaven.

Talk about misplaced priorities.

Arizona Senator Mark Kelly said it right in the below social media response to Mr. Trump's perversion of some of the country's hallowed grounds, saying:

"...I like watching UFC. I stayed up really late a few weeks ago to watch Ronda Rousey end that fight in, I think, 17 seconds with the arm bar.

Glad she won. A little bit disappointed that I stay up so late to see it. Anyway, I'm a fan of the sport, but let me tell you which UFC fight I'm not going to be watching.

That's the one on the lawn of the White House. I mean, how ridiculous is this? President builds a stadium on the lawn of the People's House. They're going to do the weigh-in at the Lincoln Memorial.

I mean, I think of that as sort of a sacred place. I mean, they're going to do this in front of the carving in the side of the Lincoln Memorial of the Emancipation Proclamation. This is ridiculous.

So I don't know about you, but I'm not going to be watching. I hope the fighters do well and are safe, but this time I will not be tuning in."

https://twitter.com/SenMarkKelly/status/2065532293234790478

Watch these three Ohio voters who have become disillusioned with Trump after thinking he would do a good job for them and voted for him again despite the history.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bD3CnNumKkg

Better late than never.

Hopefully, more voters across the country will realize that Marie Trump is only working for him and his family and send a powerful message to him and his MAGA Republican loyalists this November.

Four Ready-Made Democratic Campaign Ads Against MAGA Republicans Courtesy of Donald Trump

 1) "I love inflation."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o0NPZbddKfc

His words really speak for themselves here.

2) "Affordability is a Hoax."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uthytxUFwV0

Says the person who promised to bring down prices on day one.

"I don't think about American's financial situation."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a1gNL-BVbUo

Truer words were never said before by Trump.

4) "The U.S. Can't Take Care of Childcare."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_GpxR8D3wK0

But he can fund the domestic terrorists that stormed the Congress on January 6, 2021, in his name.

The ads really do write themselves.

Or take a look at the ad below with the Trump Emoji raising prices. It is funny, on point, and apparently comes from a conservative-leaning organization.

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/5jau_601nQs 

Donald Trump's Project 2025 War on Knowledge and Reality Continues, Challenging the American Ideal and the Nation's Global Standing

Over the last ten days, Donald Trump and his MAGA-Know-Nothing Republican Project 2025 Allies have advanced their autocratic war on reality in their continuing quest to spread ignorance and rewrite history to suit their perspective, promote a white nationalist-isolationist anti-science agenda, and stoke conspiracy mania to sow distrust in election results.

This is not surprising considering Mr. Trump's 2024 victory was fueled by a surge in uninformed voter support. The less educated and informed the person was in current events, the more likely that individual voted for the candidate who bragged that he "loved the uneducated."

On May 29, 2025, John Timmer of ArsTechnica published an article showcasing Mr. Trump's Anti-Science Regime revising, through Executive Order, the federal grant review process for science projects with political appointees loyal to the MAGA cultural agenda and Project 2025 platform having final say over whether the funding is granted, rather than peer scientific review teams.

According to the New York Times reporting on the subject, "If finalized, it would require all federal grants to be approved by the president’s political appointees, who must ensure that the money would 'demonstrably advance the president’s policy priorities.'"

In order to circumvent the court's likely ruling against them, the Office of Management and Budget, headed by Project 2025 mastermind Russell Vought, "has decided to merge the executive order with other administration priorities and send it through the formal federal rulemaking process."

Calling it "A horror show for U.S. Science research," Timmer writes that these new rules, which can stop grants at a moment's notice, put up barriers on international collabortaion with science projects, and mandate funding priorities that conform with both Project 2025 and MAGA's interpretation of American values along with their anti-woke and anti-D.E.I. agenda, could provide "a recipe for how the government can finish the job of crippling American science."

Please click here to read the proposed rule changes provided by the New York Times.

China's leaders are smiling right now.

Another area where the Trump regime is pushing its war on knowledge and reality agenda is the recent purging of quality journalistic staff from the iconic, highly rated TV news show, 60 Minutes, with the firing of Executive Producers Tanya Simon and Draggan Mihailovich, correspondents Sharyn Alfonsi and Cecilia Vega, and 37-year show veteran Scott Pelley after a tense meeting with the new Executive Producer Nick Bilton.

The owner of Paramount, David Ellison, who owns CBS News, is currently trying to get approval from the Trump regime for its proposed merger to absorb Warner Studios, which also owns CNN and HBO.

Several pundits see this purging of 60 Minutes as an attempt by Ellison to, since Trump has made no secret of his distaste for the highly praised fact-finding news program, to increase the merger approval prospects.

In an interview with the New York Times after being fired, Pelley asserted that unqualified CBS News Director Bari Weiss tried to steer coverage of the ICE murder of Renee Good towards the Trumpist perspective, showing that the protestors were violent. If Pelley's recollections are accurate, Weiss obviously did not see the video of Good talking with the ICE officers before one of them, Jonathan Ross (who has since been transferred out of state and is walking around free), killed her and called her a "fucking bitch."

If Freedom of the Press is compromised, with the journalists and editors of a renowned news program like 60 Minutes being told to rewrite history in what they report and what perspective to follow by corporate bigwigs or Big Brother in the halls of government, freedom and the Democratic Republic hallmarks of the American Ideal are in serious jeopardy.

Please click here to see the New York Times interview with Scott Pelley.

Finally, Trump and his MAGA team are relaunching their conspiracy theory-driven and unfounded accusations of election fraud in both the 2020 elections and the recent California Mayoral Primary Results with Trump-endorsed candidate Spencer Pratt not making it to the runoff round.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZirfcTAawA8

What is especially galling from the above video is that Mr. Trump, Speaker (in name only) Mike Johnson, and Wisconsin Senator Ron Johnson continually say something is wrong with the California elections without citing one source of evidence.

Speaker Johnson saying California's voting system "Stinks to high heaven," and efforts to steer the ballot outcomes are "Diabolical," as CNN's Manu Raju pointed out, are not proof of election fraud or political rigging.

Mr. Trump also leveled these false allegations in the Meet the Press interview on Sunday before walking off like a child who was caught doing something wrong.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4EusZcKt5fs&t=1s

Many pundits suspect that Trump, whose late counsel was Joe McCarthy's consigliere Roy Cohn, and his Project 2025/MAGA allies are laying the groundwork to sow doubt and possibly interfere with the 2026 midterm election results, which currently project to be favorable to Democrats, by broadcasting baseless accusations of rigged results to brainwash their base and the uninformed populace that propelled Trump to victory in 2024 in their automatic attempt to make reality what they say it is.

Voters can not allow this to happen and must turn out and cast ballots against any candidate who wages war on knowledge, science, Freedom of the Press, electoral reality, the Constitution, and the American Ideal.

Editorial Cartoons for the Week

 

In His Rebuilding the Middle Class Plan, Senator Ruben Gallego Proposes a $20 an Hour Minimum Wage

 A day after introducing a bill called the Robin Hood Act, a measure designed to tax "an individual that has either $100 million or more in income or a billion dollars or more in assets, whenever you take out one of these loans, it's going to be counted as if you cashed in that capital gains on the capital gains of the stock that you're using as collateral," Arizona Senator Ruben Gallego has unveiled the beginnings of a plan to rebuild the Middle Class that focuses on five pillars.

These are:

• Raise Wages and Improve Benefits like increasing the minimum wage to $20.00 an hour and strengthening labor unions.
• Create and Protect High Quality Blue Collar Jobs in the service, transportation, and manufacturing sectors.
• Restore Worker Trust in Government by recreating New Deal-style jobs programs.
• Expand Job-Creating Entrepreneurship, Focusing Outside of Superstar Cities and investing in small towns, rural communities, and tribal areas.
• Help Workers Find Jobs Faster, including expanding apprenticeships.

In a press release announcing the plan, Senator Gallego offered:

“I’m committed to building an economy that works for working people. That means bringing down costs. It also means addressing the other side of affordability: wage stagnation and unemployment. I’ve got a lot of ideas – doubling unionization levels, exploring sectoral bargaining, creating a New Deal-style federal jobs program – but I also know there are many more good ideas out there. That’s why I’m asking for feedback, so that we can put together a plan that truly addresses the problems hardworking Americans are facing.”

The Senator expanded on these themes in remarks at the CWA National Legislative–Political Conference earlier today.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wvuiZCH0q2k

In his address to the conference, Gallego, after recounting his life story and pro-labor record, said his plan would help restore the American Dream for many individuals and families, offering:

"...The story I told you about myself and my family, my cousins, my uncles, everything else, is actually a story that is now becoming harder and harder to be true. When I grew up, if you worked hard, you kept your nose clean, you went and got a steady job with a skill set, you were going to be able to buy a house, buy a car, have a safe retirement, and potentially send your kids to school, to an apprenticeship, whatever. Your kids are most likely going to end up being better than you.

The dream of every parent, right? It's certainly the dream that I have for my three kids. Right now, Americans don't feel that way. Americans actually feel quite the opposite.

They feel like they're working more and more, and they're getting less and less in return. And then for us parents and grandparents in the room, there's no worse feeling than knowing everything you worked so hard for your kids, and your kids may end up in a worse situation than you do. All that sacrifice, and your kids may not even be able to buy that first starter home that we all had the luxury of."

Why is that happening? Because we've changed. Where the people that work the hardest should get the most, the people that work the least and invest the most get the most. Paychecks used to cover groceries aren't even covering groceries.

Childcare is now more expensive than college, especially in Arizona. And buying a home, well, good luck with that. This government, and it's not just Republicans, but Democrats also, have left the middle class behind for generations.

We are about to create the poorest generation of Americans in the history of this country since the Great Depression. And we talk about it a lot. We talk about being able to afford things and bring down the cost of things, which we should.

We should bring the cost down of food, of electricity, of housing. But then we also have to work on the flip side of that. It doesn't matter if things are cheap if you're still broke..."

"...Because it makes no sense to struggle to bring things down if you still can't afford it at the end of the day. So we want to make sure that there is an economy that is rewarding workers.

Rewarding workers. Where technology makes the job quality better, not worse, and doesn't get you fired for it. Where a middle-class person can go on vacation, save for retirement, and actually, you know, breathe a little easier once in a while..."

"...First of all, let's get to the minimum wage. At a minimum, we need to move the 20 bucks an hour and peg it to inflation. This country has become the richest country in the world, continues to be the richest country in the world, and yet minimum wage has stayed at $7.25. $7.25. We now have people that are about to be trillionaires in the same time period that a man and a woman is making barely $7.25. I know that's not in all states, but it does matter.

So we need to, first of all, raise it to 20 bucks and peg it to inflation every year. So we're not dealing with this bullshit every year where politicians are filibustering wage increases. We need to create more and true, real blue-collar jobs that are going to be able to survive the AI boom and actually pay you a wage.

And let's be clear, when the big riches come from the AI boom, the workers need to share in the riches just as much as the weirdos of Elon Musk, Sam Altman, and all the other AI dorks. And we're not just going to rely on just whatever we've done in the past. We're going to try to increase labor participation, private sector labor participation, almost doubling what it is right now.

That should be a goal of every Democrat, no matter where they are and no matter when they're running for office. And these jobs need to exist not just in LA, not just in Chicago, but they need to be existing all over this country so you could actually live where you want to be, grow your family there, and retire, and not have to move just to be able to afford this. And we're going to use everything we have, because nowadays we have every private company figuring out how to tear workers apart.

Why don't we all start working together and actually have private sector wage competition, where we actually negotiate for every private sector worker across the board so our businesses and these businesses cannot tear us apart depending on what state you live in, what kind of work you have, or how old you are. This is how we actually have a chance at the American Dream. This is how you have a chance at the American Dream..."

In his press release and on social media, the Senator invited Arizonans and Americans outside the Grand Canyon state to offer their feedback and suggestions on how to make his Rebuild the Middle Class Plan better, posting:

https://twitter.com/SenRubenGallego/status/2062257663002423447 

Putting Loyalty to Him over Serving the Nation, Trump Picks Another Seriously Unqualified Sycophantic-Hack as Director of National Intelligence

 There must be people in this country who may have wondered how we are still alive and how the nation is still functioning after 18 months of Trump picking sycophantic loyalists over competent public servants to preside over most of the Executive Branch departments, White House Directors, and Civil Service divisions.

Personally, I am wondering that.

Donald Trump's nominations, many of whom, like Defense 'I only want to promote and honor white soldiers and officers' Hegseth, and Robert 'why does anyone need vaccines' Kennedy Jr, were confirmed by spineless Republican Senators who did not want to endure the wrath of the aspiring American Duce.

Another confirmed nominee, Tulsi Gabbard, had no qualifications to serve as Director of National Intelligence other than being a fan of conspiracy theories and being loyal to Trump which she proved by overseeing a raid of the Fulton County 2020 voting records.

Still can not figure out what her being there for that had to do with her position as Director of National Intelligence.

She resigned from her Directorship last week, giving the reason of wanting to care for her husband who has cancer.

Trumps replacement for Gabbard.

Not someone with national security, diplomatic, or intelligence experience, but another sycophantic loyalist/hatchet man named Bill Pulte, a man who has spent his time in Trump 2.0 as the Director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency and Chairperson of Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac, going after Mr. Trump's political enemies like New York Attorney General Leticia James, Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook, and California Senator Adam Schiff, accusing them of mortgage fraud.

Apparently, as Acting Director of National Intelligence, Mr. Pulte will still retain his two current housing positions and role as one of Mr. Trump's hatchet men.

How ludicrous is that? The Director of National Intelligence is not a part-time job.

Right now, the leaders of Iran, Russia, China, and the rest of America's adversaries are smiling.

In the video below from Nicole Wallace's Deadline White House show on MS NOW, Democratic Senator Mark Warner said the pick of Pulte "Puts the country at risk...If you politicize intelligence, you end up in wars. You end up being less secure."

Democratic Senate Leader Chuck Schumer commented on the Senate floor:

"At a time of growing threats around the world, this nomination raises a fundamental question. Is the President looking for independent intelligence or political validation?"

When asked for his views on the pick, Senate Republican Leader John Thune deferred to Senate Intelligence Chairperson/MAGA lunatic Tom Cotton who said:

"We have four more weeks with Director Gabbard as the DNI...I have no understanding on the matter."

Cotton's statement may be the most honest thing he has said as a Senator.

Outgoing, partially thanks to Trump's endorsement of his mini-me, Ken Paxton, Texas Senator John Coryn said to reporters, "I see no evidence of any qualifications for that job."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xom1Ka3zSEc

On social media, Michigan Senator Elissa Sorkin posted:

"As someone who helped set up the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, I oppose elevating Bill Pulte to Acting Director. He has no experience. Zero. And he is the wrong choice to help keep us safe. Mr. Pulte has weaponized his current agency against the President's critics, he's fired federal watchdogs looking into his allies and he is under active investigation by the Government Accountability Office. This all makes him an incredibly dangerous choice to be in charge of ODNI and have access to the tools of this office. As someone who has had the government weaponized against me, I cannot in good conscience support his elevation to such a sensitive post. The President should choose a serious nominee."

Arizona Representative Yassamin Ansari posted a video where she said:

"So Donald Trump just announced on Truth Social today that he's appointing somebody named Bill Pulte as the Acting Director of National Intelligence. Bill Pulte currently heads the Federal Housing Finance Agency, and he's a Trump cult loyalist. He is devoted to Trump, he has zero experience, like literally zero experience in national intelligence, and that is who Trump has appointed as the Acting Director. It's very clear why Donald Trump just wants somebody in this position who will bend the knee to him, who will do whatever he wants, who will, you know, create intelligence or create the narrative that Trump wants created. And ahead of the election, Donald Trump wants somebody who he knows will go after his perceived political opponents. Bill Pulte has already done this in his role, bringing very frivolous allegations before, or about people like Adam Schiff and Letitia James. This is insane. It's also a huge danger to this country and to our national security and will make all of us less safe."

https://twitter.com/RepYassAnsari/status/2061861358040154572

Arizona Senator Mark Kelly, who was in Ukraine over the weekend with the Grand Canyon State's other Senator, Ruben Gallego, for the Black Sea Security Forum to discuss the war between Ukraine and Russia (something the Director of National Intelligence should have some knowledge of), also posted:

"The Director of National Intelligence is a critical job to keeping Americans safe. Bill Pulte wasn't chosen for his qualifications. He was chosen for his loyalty to the President, which he's demonstrated by using his position at the Federal Housing Finance Agency to target the President's political opponents. As a real estate developer, Pulte has no relevant national security experience, which is a requirement for the job. Putting someone this unqualified in charge of U.S. intelligence isn't just absurd. It's reckless."

At a time when the Mad King in the Oval Office tells CNBC that the negotiations with Iran are "Boring" and "I don't care" if they end, the country should have qualified people in all levers of the Executive Branch who will serve the nation's interests and not one narcissist who sees the highest office in the land as nothing but a pyramid scheme to enrich himself and his family, expand MAGA political influence, and a get out of jail free card. 

Editorial Cartoons for the Week