No One Leaves Until It’s Fixed

As Trump rebrands diplomacy as war and the courts wrestle with lawless deportations, a different kind of power is rising, from tow trucks, budget books, and bus depots.

Good morning! While Congress quietly prepares to flee Washington for summer recess, the Trump regime is crumbling into a heap of bad improvisation and radioactive ego. This week’s NATO summit in the Netherlands wasn’t a diplomatic conference, it was a delusional monologue delivered by a man who thinks World War III is a branding opportunity.

In a surreal press conference that veered from messianic to medically concerning, “Captain Bone Spurs” Trump proposed renaming the Secretary of Defense as “Secretary of War”, because nothing says peacekeeping alliance like resurrecting the language of empire. Standing next to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth (yes, the push-up guy from Fox News) and Marco Rubio, who now plays America’s Secretary of State in this sad spinoff series, Trump declared:

“It used to be called Secretary of War… then we became politically correct… but we feel like warriors.”

The room did not erupt in applause. Possibly because European leaders were too busy wondering if they should build a second NATO just to exclude us.

Trump claimed credit for a brand-new commitment from NATO allies to spend 5% of their GDP on defense, a number that exists nowhere in the official record, but sure sounds cool on Truth Social. He called it the “Heg Defense Commitment”, named after Pete Hegseth, whose most recent policy contribution was nearly failing the Army Ranger course.

But the real fireworks came when Trump invoked Hiroshima and Nagasaki to describe his “success” in bombing Iran’s underground nuclear sites:

“They ended the war. Somebody said this ended a war in a different way but it was so devastating…”

Never mind that the ceasefire between Iran and Israel collapsed just hours later. Trump dismissed U.S. intelligence assessments as “incomplete,” instead citing Iran’s Foreign Ministry and Israel’s Atomic Energy Commission as the only trustworthy sources. Not even kidding.

He then bragged that 14 missiles aimed at a U.S. base in Qatar were politely scheduled for 1:00 a.m., allowing everyone to “empty out” except “the gunners,” who presumably signed a waiver. It’s hard to say whether this was meant to reassure anyone or just juice his imaginary Netflix special Trump: Commander in Chief of Chaos.

And lest you think that was the end of it, he also announced that he negotiated peace in Rwanda, Congo, India, Pakistan, Kosovo, and Serbia, all in the past few weeks, by simply threatening to cancel trade deals. It’s diplomacy by extortion, The Art of the Trade Embargo.

Trump also used the NATO stage to insult Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, whom he called “a very average mentally person” with “low IQ for what he does.” Why? Because Powell won’t slash interest rates to keep Trump’s economic Ponzi scheme from collapsing before election season.

Markets didn’t wait to interpret: bond yields spiked, the dollar plunged to a three-year low, and the WSJ reported Trump plans to name Powell’s replacement early to intimidate the Fed into compliance. One rumored pick was axed for not being “TV ready.” Apparently, we’re now casting the Federal Reserve the same way Trump picked cabinet secretaries: for how they look in a chyron box.

Behind the curtain? A full-blown authoritarian economic model: slash interest rates, pump up debt-fueled booms, hand the cash to Musk, crypto cronies, and corporate landlords, and hope no one notices the inflation until it’s someone else’s problem. Spoiler: we noticed.

Governor J.B. Pritzker, gave a quiet but devastating contrast from Illinois this week. While Trump brags about pledges from oil monarchies that haven’t materialized and shouts about credit he hasn’t earned, Pritzker is out here governing.

Nine credit upgrades. A rebuilt rainy day fund. Pensions overfunded. Childcare and infrastructure investments preserved. And all without raising taxes.

“The Trump administration is spending wildly on tax cuts for their wealthy friends,” Pritzker said.
“We’re balancing the budget while making life more affordable for working families.”

He’s not alone. Democratic governors across the country are quietly succeeding where the federal government has spectacularly failed: defending healthcare, funding education, protecting civil liberties, and doing it without torching the balance sheet.

Meanwhile, Trump’s team is staging Instagram-ready stunts, like Defense Secretary Hegseth doing pushups with soldiers, while ICE agents defy court orders and the Department of Homeland Security buys more surveillance balloons.

And while the courts continue wrestling with Trump’s serial deportation violations from Abrego Garcia to OCG to Kamargo, all deported in defiance of court orders, people on the ground are jamming the machine. We’re talking targeted acts of civil friction, using the very laws ICE would weaponize against us to slow the machinery of state violence.

In Los Angeles, tow truck drivers are trailing ICE agents and towing their government vehicles the moment they’re illegally parked. No confrontation. No signs. Just clean, precise disruption. You want law and order? Great. The law says no parking here, and the order is your car gets impounded.

In Chicago, immigration advocates are flooding ICE’s public hotlines with spam reports and false leads, tying up their systems for hours, deliberately wasting the agency’s time just as ICE has wasted so many lives.

In Tucson, activists are trailing unmarked white vans, livestreaming their movements, and notifying community defense networks in real time, turning once-invisible extractions into public emergencies ICE can no longer operate in the shadows.

In Oakland, a network of neighbors set off coordinated noise alerts when raids begin, creating chaos and confusion in the streets, forcing agents to abort their targets as the neighborhood flares to life in collective resistance.

As one observer put it: if they can immobilize our communities, maybe we immobilize them right back.

Speaking of immobilization, America is running out of places to dump its garbage, literally. Countries across Asia and Africa are closing their ports to U.S. waste exports, particularly plastic and e-waste, once falsely labeled as “recyclables.” With the Basel Convention tightening restrictions, the Global South is saying what Europe and half of U.S. voters are already thinking: Keep your garbage.

The same empire that exports war, inflation, and crypto grift can no longer export the physical byproducts of its own decline. The landfill has come home.

Yet, something is stirring… While Trump burns bridges abroad and his enablers stage cosplay revolutions at home, a different momentum is quietly taking shape.

Zohran Mamdani, the 33-year-old democratic socialist surging toward New York’s mayoralty, is showing what happens when the left builds, not just resists. It’s a warning shot to the Democratic establishment: power is organizing itself without you.

All of this, Trump’s imperial fantasies, the Fed intimidation, the ICE abuses, the collapsing façade, points to a regime that is cracking under the weight of its own delusions. And Congress? They’re preparing to vanish for the summer, sipping cocktails while the world melts.

So here’s a thought: what if a strategic, regional general strike in targeted sectors, like transportation, coincided with tens of thousands of civilians showing up to Congress with a clear list of demands?

What if truckers didn’t haul cargo, but hauled Congress to a standstill?

What if airports, buses, and railways simply stopped, not forever, just long enough to force a reckoning?

Before they can skip town for summer recess, what if the people made it clear: no one leaves until the work gets done?

If they won’t govern, we make it impossible for them to pretend.

History doesn’t wait. And power doesn’t yield to politeness, it yields to leverage. The kind that clogs their exits. Disrupts their deals. And makes them feel, for once, the pressure they so casually inflict on everyone else.

Summer is here, the exits are open. Now might be the perfect time to tow the whole damn thing.