🗞 Chronicles of Misrule Dispatch 🗞
The Week That Was (Or Wasn’t)
Where Law is Bent, Facts are Optional, and the Grift Flies First Class
🌍 Not-So-Innocents Abroad
Where foreign policy meets frequent flyer miles—and everyone gets a cut except the Constitution.
President Trump swept through the Middle East this week with the poise of a former (failed) casino owner reclaiming unpaid markers, accepting pledges, posing for gilded press shots, and quietly accepting what appears to be a Qatari bribe masquerading as a diplomatic aircraft. The “gift”—a $400 million wide-body jet tricked out like the inside of a Fabergé egg—was ostensibly “for the office,” though it fits neatly into the orbit of Trump Tower Doha.
The White House trumpeted a $600 billion “investment commitment” from Gulf states, but the fine print reads like a mood board of intention, with no terms, no timeline, and fewer strings than a kazoo. What’s clear: the Trump Organization is once again open for business, and this administration takes meetings in boardrooms that smell faintly of oud and laundering.
Musk: From Megayacht to Megaphone
Meanwhile, Elon Musk appears to be freelancing as the Unofficial Secretary of Everything, pressuring nations to purchase Starlink in between threatening regulators and doing podcasts about gut biome enlightenment. Reports suggest he’s leveraging U.S. foreign policy to peddle his satellites, like a traveling salesman who sells both the lightbulb and the grid.
The State Department has yet to clarify whether this is policy or a side quest from Musk’s Dungeons & Dystopias campaign.
Conclusion:
The whole affair was equal parts grift, glamor, and government-on-retainer—a foreign tour for the diplomatically disinterested but commercially inclined. If there’s another stop on the itinerary, expect ribbon-cuttings for Trump Tower Riyadh, a falcon named “Jared”, and a farewell speech delivered from a gold-plated balcony while Eric & Don Jr. collect checks in the foyer.
🧊 ICE Barbie’s Bureau of Bedazzled Border Policy
In a development that blurs the line between Homeland Security and syndicated television, Secretary Kristi Noem—known among Capitol gossips as ICE Barbie—was reported to be exploring a reality show in which migrants “compete” for citizenship, à la The Hunger Games. DHS issued a denial with all the conviction of a dog denying the torn sofa.
Noem, for her part, remained focused on priorities: namely, justifying her department’s new $85 million private jet, reportedly necessary for “efficient border inspections.” One assumes she’ll be checking passports from 30,000 feet while sipping a cruelty-free spritzer.
As for actual immigration policy? That appears to have taken a backseat to media strategy and tactical accessorizing. She has yet to explain how her immigration platform differs meaningfully from cosplay with a body count—though she did take time to defend a doctored photo of gang tattoos shared by Trump, insisting the real issue was “tone.”
In short: Noem brings flair, fog, and a furrowed brow—but precious little function.
🧠 As the Brain Worm Turns
During his congressional testimony, Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr., heir to fortune and peddler of chlorophyll cure-alls, fielded a pointed question from Rep. Josh Harder (D-Calif.), who noted that the average American would need over $286,000 to receive the same addiction treatment RFK Jr. himself had once enjoyed.
To this, Kennedy replied with the tone of a man recommending a discounted yacht:
“There are many really gold star rehabs that do it for a tiny fraction, like $20,000 to $40,000 a month.”
One imagines he believes the working poor might find such sums in their couch cushions, tucked between overdue water bills and expired insulin cards. Or perhaps he imagines America’s addicts forming a co-op, pooling funds for a group cleanse on the cliffs of Malibu.
Either way, the message was clear: if you can’t afford recovery, you must not want it badly enough.
It was a moment so out-of-touch, one half-expected him to suggest that poor people simply manifest sobriety via vision boards and morning sun salutations.
🏛 Congress: A Gathering of Groans and Grift
Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill—a legislative casserole of tax breaks for the already-breakless, spending cuts for the already-broken, and a $4 trillion debt ceiling boost to pay for it all—sputtered this week in the House Budget Committee. Not because it went too far. But because, to the hard-right Freedom Caucus, it didn’t go far enough.
Yes, dear reader: the bill was deemed insufficiently punitive.
“Are there no workhouses?” they might as well have asked.
“And the debtor’s prisons—are they not still standing?”
Indeed, the bill seems written in the spirit of the Beadle from Oliver Twist, pausing only to allow the starving to ask for even less.
At its heart, the bill proposes:
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Tax cuts that expire right after the next election (fiscally reckless by design),
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**A repeal of taxes on tips and overtime—**but only for five years and not counting payroll taxes (other limitations apply),
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A death knell for public programs, including $800B slashed from Medicaid and $290B from food assistance,
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And a $4 Trillion debt ceiling hike that pretends none of the above will come due.
This is not governance. It’s a credit card scam pitched as a liberty crusade. The “sunsets” in the bill aren’t fiscal guardrails—they’re landmines set for the next Congress.
Even Speaker Mike Johnson—Congressional Bobblehead-in-Chief—was seen nodding gravely while trying to corral his own party like a man herding feral raccoons into a baptismal font.
Should the bill re-emerge this week (as expected), it will do so meaner, messier, and even more manicured for cruelty.
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