AmericaFest has long been one of the biggest events on the right, but this year, the conference saw a record turnout of roughly 30,000. When I asked attendees why they had decided to come, they invariably told me that they were there “because of Charlie.”
[…]
But during my four days at AmericaFest, I noticed that something else was also casting a shadow over the conference. Everyone had come to unite around Kirk, but they kept fighting about Nick Fuentes. In the opening hours on the first night, Ben Shapiro took the stage and ripped into the prominent white-supremacist influencer. Fuentes, who did not attend the conference, is a “Hitler-apologist, Nazi-loving, anti-American piece of refuse,” Shapiro said. The crowd erupted in boos. At one point, I ran into the longtime GOP operative Roger Stone, who insisted that the debates over Fuentes and his staunch criticism of Israel were being inflated by the mainstream media. “I still haven’t seen any polling showing that it’s spilled over to voters,” he told me. The early MAGA influencer Mike Cernovich told me something similar: “If you ask most people here, ‘Do you think the war in Gaza is a genocide?,’ I think most of us are like, ‘I don’t really care,’” he said.
Fuentes has tremendous sway over the young right, and his profile has risen to new heights since late October, when the former Fox News personality Tucker Carlson hosted him for a friendly podcast interview. Carlson “built Nick Fuentes up,” Shapiro said during his speech. “He ought to take responsibility for that.”
When Shapiro finished his speech, attendees lined up to ask him questions. Shapiro was immediately challenged by a student from Baylor University named Nicky Rudd. He asked about the USS Liberty, an American spy ship that the Israeli military accidentally sank in 1967. Fuentes often talks about the incident on his nightly livestreams as part of his case against Israel and the Jewish people, peddling a conspiracy that the battleship was attacked on purpose. I tracked down Rudd after he finished questioning Shapiro. Rudd doesn’t agree with everything Fuentes says, he told me. But, he said, “to deny the influence of Nick Fuentes is to deny what millions of Americans are thinking.”
JD Vance had an opportunity to disavow this but he chose instead to sell some pablum about how they have a big tent and everybody needs to get along. He knows this is the future and he wants to lead it.
I have a feeling that they aren’t going to let him …
Nick Fuentes: “J.D. Vance also has an Indian wife and a kid named Vivek. All his kids have Indian names—so it’s like, what exactly are we getting here? And that’s not a dig at him just because I’m a racist or something. But who is this guy really?” pic.twitter.com/2P7KD2k6IK
Trump spent his life pursuing wealth, not public service. As president, he reduces every question to money. He arm-twists companies into giving the government a chunk of their stock. He withholds food stamps as a bargaining chip. He calls low-income housing an offense against rich people. He muses about awarding himself $1 billion from the Treasury.
He treats international relations the same way. He slaps our allies with heavy tariffs, insisting that they “pay for the privilege of access to our market.” He bails out Argentina, meddles in its election, and then brags that his candidate’s victory “made a lot of money for the United States.” He bars immigrants from “third world countries” and sells visas to multimillionaires instead.
He also exploits war. Two months ago, in a speech to American troops in Japan, he fondly recalled the days when “they used to say, ‘To the victor belong the spoils.’” In more recent wars, he complained, “We’d win, and then we’d leave.” He made it clear that he would restore the doctrine of spoils. “Unlike past administrations, we will not be politically correct,” he told the troops.
In some parts of the world, Trump has cashed in on the use of force by other countries. In February, after Israel had leveled much of Gaza, he announced a plan to seize the territory, “own it,” and develop it into “the Riviera of the Middle East.” A reporter asked the president whether he truly meant permanent occupation. “I do see a long-term ownership position,” Trump replied.
In Ukraine, Trump has taken advantage of Russia’s invasion. By choking off Ukraine’s access to military aid and intelligence, he extracted Kiev’s agreement to give much of its mineral wealth to the United States. “I made a deal to take rare earth,” he boasted. “That’s the equivalent of much more” than the aid Joe Biden had sent to Ukraine, he said.
Trump also found a second revenue stream from the war: selling weapons to NATO—at “full price”—which NATO would then deliver to Ukraine. “We’re making money,” he told reporters. “We have the hottest company,” he added a minute later. Then, catching his slip, he corrected the last word to “country.”
Like Vladimir Putin, Trump has concocted grievances to justify aggression against other nations. In his inaugural address, he vowed to seize the Panama Canal, claiming that Panama had violated its 1977 agreement to keep the canal neutral. Then, in a bid to annex Canada, he threatened to choke off that country’s foreign trade. To rationalize his coercion, he alleged that Canada “stole” its auto industry from the United States.
Now Trump has deployed the Navy, the Coast Guard, and other forces to harass and intimidate Venezuela. Last week, he issued an ultimatum, warning that the military buildup would continue until Venezuelans “return to the United States of America all of the Oil, Land, and other Assets that they previously stole from us.”
Financial coercion backed by military power. There’s a word for this. It’s called extortion:
Extortion is the practice of obtaining benefit (e.g., money, goods, or regular payments) from an individual or group through coercion, usually by threatening them with future psychological or physical harm. In most jurisdictions it is likely to constitute a criminal offence.
He is a convicted felon, after all, so it shouldn’t surprise us.
Since President Trump was elected a second time, he and his allies have raised nearly $2 billion for his favored political causes and passion projects. That total, which was confirmed by four people involved in the fund-raising, likely eclipses the amount raised to support his 2024 campaign.
The astounding haul hints at a level of transactionalism for which it is difficult to find obvious comparisons in modern American history. The identities of the donors behind much of the cash are not legally required to be, and have not been, publicly disclosed. In some cases, Mr. Trump’s team has offered donors anonymity.
To shed light on what has been a largely opaque fund-raising apparatus, The New York Times conducted a comprehensive investigation. It relied on previously unreported documents and public campaign finance filings, as well as interviews with dozens of people who are familiar with the solicitations or are involved in the fund-raising. It traced a large portion of the funds raised — more than half a billion dollars’ worth — back to 346 donors who each gave at least $250,000. It also found that more than half of them have benefited, or are involved in an industry that has benefited, from the actions or statements of Mr. Trump, the White House or federal agencies.
It is not possible to prove that any of the donations directly led to favorable treatment from the Trump administration. And the contributions do not personally enrich Mr. Trump, unlike some of his family’s cryptocurrency ventures. But many of the deep-pocketed individuals and corporations who have given large sums have a lot riding on the administration’s actions, raising questions about conflicts of interest.
What is this “conflict of interest” you speak of?
Trump only understands using money and threats to achieve what he wants. There’s nothing more to him, he has no philosophy or understanding of politics, history, or human psychology. He truly believes it’s all people care about because he can’t imagine anyone not being willing to sell his soul for it.
It’s interesting because he is actually more complicated than that himself. He’s after money, of course, and feels small because he isn’t the richest man in the world. But he’s also motivated by a narcissistic compulsion for attention and admiration and is driven by a massive thirst for vengeance. For some reason he believes that the Palestinian people will be happy if they just get a good deal on a condo in the Egyptian desert and the Ukrainians will have no ill-feelings about giving up their country to his pal Vlad as long as somebody’s building some hotels in Kiev. It doesn’t seem to occur to him that other people might have grievances, just as he does (although their are justified and his are not.) He just assumes they can be bought off with a little cash.
And it’s pretty clear that he’s now totally convinced that he has an ability to alter reality simply by saying it repeatedly. He has convinced tens of millions of people of things he knows aren’t true, he’s beaten the rap on numerous crimes and he became president again after trying to overthrow the government. I guess you can’t really blame him?
Donald Trump is a criminal mob boss. But you knew that.
Jimmy Kimmel delivered a scathing attack Thursday on the American president as part of British broadcaster Channel 4’s annual Alternative Christmas Message.
Hi I’m Jimmy Kimmel.
I have no idea if you know who I am, but I was asked to deliver this year’s Alternative Christmas Message (which I’ve heard is a big deal) so I hope you do, but if not I host what you call a chat show (we call it a talk show) in what you call the colonies, I think? I honestly have no idea what’s going on over there.
I do know what’s going on over here though, and I can tell you that, from a fascism perspective, this has been a really great year. Tyranny is booming over here.
You may have read in your colourful newspapers my country’s President would like to shut me up because I don’t adore him in the way he likes to be adored. The American government made a threat against me and the company I work for, and all of a sudden we were off the air. But then, you know what happened? A Christmas miracle happened. Well, it was September, it was a September miracle. But the holiday does seem to come earlier and earlier every year, doesn’t it?
Millions and millions of people stood up and said: ‘No, this is not acceptable’. People who never watched my show, people who were on record saying they hate my show spoke out, they marched, they did this all to support the right to a free expression of speech and because so many people spoke out, we came back. Our show came back stronger than ever. We won, the President lost and now I’m back on the air every night givin’ the most powerful politician on earth a right and richly deserved bollocking. That’s a word, right, I used it properly?
And the reason I’m telling you this story is because maybe you’re thinking: ‘Oh a government silencing its critics is something that happens in places like Russia, or North Korea, or LA, not the UK’. Well, that’s what we thought and now we’ve got King Donny the Eighth calling for executions. It happens fast.
You know it’s funny we Americans are very proud of not having a king. It’s kind of why we left. Earlier this year tens of millions of us marched at protests called No Kings. You had some of those there. And just for the record we have nothing against your king. I mean I don’t know if you know this, but his son lives here. We just – well some of us – just have a problem with the guy who thinks he is our king.
Here in the United States right now we are both figuratively and literally tearing down the structures of our democracy. From the free press, to science, to medicine, to judicial independence, to the actual White House itself, we are a right mess. And we know this is also affecting you, and I just wanted to say sorry. And we want you to know or, at least I want you to know, that we’re not all like him. We’re not all like that.
Look I know (from the musical Hamilton) that our countries didn’t start off on the greatest note, but I also know (from seeing Love Actually) that we have a special relationship. So, if I might speak on behalf of my country – which I most certainly do not – our message to you, our friends across the pond this Christmas is: don’t give up on us. We’re going through a bit of a wobble right now, but we’ll come around. It may not seem like it, but we love you guys. We even love the things about you that you don’t like, like Simon Cowell for instance. We are not bright. We’re Americans. No one knows better than you we’re always just a little bit late to the game, but do we come through in the end? Maybe. Give us about three years. Please. Thank you for your patience, and thank you for Spider-Man. Merry Christmas, and happy holidays.
He’s having a nice Christmas holiday, enjoying the fam, enjoying life as only he can:
I think this says it all about our current circumstances:
If I had to summarize the first year of President Trump's second term in one word, it would be: dignity. From his foreign policy to his domestic policy to his immigration policy, the goal has been restoring the dignity of the forgotten working-class men & women of this country. pic.twitter.com/SKd6Ad7Zqu
Once again, thanks so much for your generosity. It makes the holidays so much brighter. I truly appreciate it.
I don’t know about you but I’m just trying to wrap my mind around the fact that we have three more years of this lunacy and I need to cling to my sanity in order to get through it. The question that keeps running through my mind is, “is it getting better or worse?” We see things like the MAGA crack-up and that seems to be a good thing. But then Trump goes into warmonger mode in Venezuela and Nigeria and seems to be upping the ante on absurd expansionism and you wonder if it isn’t hurtling way out of control.
They are very bad at executing most things. Just look at DOGE. But the chaos may be even more dangerous. The lower courts are holding up and there’s a tiny bit of hope from the Supreme Court on that last shadow docket ruling about the National Guard in Illinois, but who knows with them? For all we know, they’re planning to actually overturn the 14th Amendment and say, “waddaya gonna do about it?” It all feels so uncertain.
Still, there’s hope. People are awake and engaged and the Republicans are off-balance and starting to fight amongst themselves. People don’t want what they’re selling. So this year we may just turn the corner.
Thanks again for sticking with us here at Hullabaloo. It’s been a wild ride all these years — and it isn’t over yet. We can do this.
Every year about now I can’t wait for the year to be over in the vain hope that the next will be better. Disappointment awaits. Another run at the football, anyone?
Donald Trump won reelection in 2024. He returned to the White House in 2025, writes Michelle Goldberg, “surrounded by obsequious tech barons, seemingly in command of not just the country but also the zeitgeist.” The DOGE rape of Washington followed, led by Elon Musk of chainsaw and ketamine fame. Trump undermined NATO and Ukraine. His masked secret police kidnapped and disappeared undocumented immigrants willy nilly, some in defiance of court orders. The State Department revoked the legal status of others and DHS deported them too. Trump dispatched troops to Los Angeles. His goons tear-gassed and pepper-sprayed residents in Chicago. Trump illegally slaughtered alleged drug smugglers in small boats in an attempt to justify war with Venezuela. And then on Christmas Eve, Howie Klein, our longtime friend, Down With Tyranny! colleague, and music industry legend, passed away.
So, what now? Goldberg believes there is still room for hope. You, YOU are the hope (gift link):
While Trump “has been able to do extraordinary damage that will have generational effects, he has not successfully consolidated power,” said Leah Greenberg, a founder of the resistance group Indivisible. “That has been staved off, and it has been staved off not, frankly, due to the efforts of pretty much anyone in elite institutions or political leadership but due to the efforts of regular people declining to go along with fascism.”
In retrospect, it’s possible to see several pivot points. One of the first was a Wisconsin Supreme Court race in April. Elon Musk, then still running rampant at the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, declared the contest critical and poured more than $20 million into the race. Voters turned out in droves, and the Musk-backed conservative candidate lost by more than 10 points. Humiliated, Musk began to withdraw from electoral politics, at one point breaking with Trump. The tight bond between the world’s richest man and the most powerful one was eroded.
In June, Trump’s military parade, meant as a display of dominance, was a flop, and simultaneous No Kings protests all over the country were huge and energetic. A few months later, Charlie Kirk was assassinated, a tragedy that the administration sought to exploit to silence its opponents. When the late-night comedian Jimmy Kimmel made a distasteful comment on ABC that seemed to blame the right for Kirk’s killing, Disney, the network’s parent company, gave in to pressure to take Kimmel off the air. It was a perilous moment for free speech; suddenly America was becoming the kind of country in which regime critics are forced off television. But then came a wave of cancellations of Disney+ and the Disney-owned Hulu channel, as well as a celebrity boycott, and Disney gave Kimmel his show back.
Trump’s approval ratings are in freefall. His courtiers struggle through grimaces to praise the emperor’s cognitive splendor. Citizens like you on grand juries are, repeatedly, calling bullshit on administration attempts to indict Trump critics:
But it’s become, over the past year, easier to imagine the moment when his mystique finally evaporates, when few want to defend him anymore or admit that they ever did. “I think it’s going to be a rocky period, but I no longer think that Trump is going to pull an Orban and fundamentally consolidate authoritarian control of this country the way that it looked like he was going to do in March or April,” said [Ian] Bassin, referring to Prime Minister Viktor Orban of Hungary. If Bassin is right, it will be because a critical mass of Americans refused to be either cowed or complicit.
I’m energized each week by streetcorner and overpass protests. What good are they? They give hope to anxious neighbors who really need it. Commuters give that energy right back. We’re earning their trust week by week. I’ll be urging them to vote early next October.
And when the ACA subsidies end next week, I’ll be lit up on the overpass asking 4,700 pairs of eyes per hour how much their premiums rose. They won’t need reminding who’s to blame.
FAIRVIEW, North Carolina — A dusting of December snow had turned the mountains around her white, but Elizabeth Clark barely had time to notice.
It had been 438 days since Hurricane Helene’s floodwaters wrecked her home’s foundation, inundated the first floor, destroyed the septic system and swallowed theirbelongings. Her mortgage company agreed to pause her payments for a year, but now seemed to be losing patience over the $270,000 she still owed on a house no longer safe to live in.
“I’ve never missed a payment in my whole life,” said Clark, a neonatal nurse at a nearby hospital. “Here now, at 42 years old, I’m having to consider foreclosing.”
In November 2024, Clark was among the first storm victims in her county to apply for a voluntary program funded by the Federal Emergency Management Agency that would enable the government to buy out her property.
She and her husband have heard nothing in over a year.
More than 800 storm victims around Helene-battered western North Carolina have applied under FEMA’s Hazard Mitigation Grant Program. State officials vetted applications and began sending them up the chain to FEMA as far back as February. As of Dec. 15, they had sent nearly 600 buyout requests to Washington, with more likely to follow.
So far, they say, not a single approval has come through.
North Carolina Gov. Josh Stein has called the paralysis “absolutely unacceptable,” and has pushed for answers. Earlier this month, he wrote to FEMA’s acting administrator, detailing the startling number of applications that “remain without a final decision.”
“Further delay of these approvals,” he wrote, “keeps communities and families in limbo, in some cases paying expenses on homes they cannot live in while they await word from FEMA.”
FEMA did not comment on questions about the program.
Was anyone left after DOGE to answer the phones?
FEMA claims “80% of acquisitions [are] approved in under two years and 93% in three years or less,” with an average time of 16 months.
But Don Campbell, chief of staff to North Carolina’s emergency manager, told a Helene recovery task force it is his understanding that many of the applications are sitting on Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem’s desk.
When she’s not in cotume chasing down taco vendors and car wash employees, or jetting around with Corey Lewandowski, she’s getting hair extensions and Botox.
When he’s not focused on toppling the government in Venezuela, Trump Secretary of State Marco Rubio has his people making sure not to admit tourists who dislike his boss:
The Trump administration is widening efforts to screen visa applicants for online speech considered dangerous and “anti-American” as the government moves to restrict legal migration and remove people from places the president has called “garbage.”
The State Department earlier this month expanded new regulations requiring foreign students and people on academic and cultural exchange programs to disclose five years of their social media histories and make all of their posts public. All applicants for H-1B employment visas and their dependents will now also be subject to the more rigorous online review.
[…]
Trump administration officials said they are acting to protect public safety against terrorist sympathizers and those who wish harm upon Americans. In a statement, Department of Homeland Security assistant secretary Tricia McLaughlin disputed the suggestion that the administration is stifling free speech.
“DHS takes its role in addressing threats to the public and our communities seriously, and the idea that enforcing federal law in that regard constitutes some kind of prior restraint on speech is laughable,” she said.
A federal judge disagreed. In September, U.S. District Judge William G. Young of Massachusetts ruled that the Trump administration had misused its sweeping powers in a manner “that continues unconstitutionally to chill freedom of speech to this day.”
Don’t think they’ll stop with non-citizens. You’re next.
Trump to child from Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania is great, we won Pennsylvania, actually three times. We won it in a landslide. pic.twitter.com/LKpsc4LqSn
Whatever documents reveal of Trump’s role in Jeffery Epstein’s underage sex ring, Democrats have an opportunity to demand charges against any Epstein co-conspirators where evidence merits. And without regard to reputation, political connections, or net worth.
Many mentions of Donald Trump in the latest Epstein files release are from news items and unverified tips. Nonetheless, explains Sarah Fitzpatrick in The Atlantic, “one conclusion from the files is that Trump’s relationship with Epstein, a former friend, was of interest to federal law enforcement for years.” That, despite Trump’s claims that “I was never on Epstein’s Plane, or at his ‘stupid’ Island.” Investigative files just released dispute that claim.
USA-TRUMP/EPSTEIN-FILES
Trump lied? What a shocker.
Fitzpatrick continues, “Representatives I spoke with told me their takeaway from reading the files is that top officials in the Trump administration have not been honest about what was in them, and that they intend to press Attorney General Pam Bondi and FBI Director Kash Patel for more information.”
Bondi and Patel lied? It’s an epidemic.
Team Trump is circling the wagons. But what allies Trump retains as his pool drains is not as interesting or as significant as this:
Representatives and staff on the House Oversight Committee told me they were drafting subpoenas in response to the documents released yesterday, seeking more information related to law enforcement’s identification of 10 alleged “co-conspirators” shortly after Epstein’s arrest in July 2019. The case that prosecutors were building related to those unnamed co-conspirators appears to have been substantial. One document released yesterday is a November 2020 overview presented to the deputy attorney general from an acting U.S. attorney titled “Anticipated Charges and Investigative Steps.” But what, if any, next steps were taken remains a mystery: The rest of the page is redacted.
The revelations point to an opportunity for Democrats if only they choose to accept it.
Yes, Oversight Committee members are drafting a contempt resolution against Bondi (and possible impeachment) for failure to comply with the DOJ’s legal mandate to release all Epstein documents by Dec. 19. But many will see Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer’s call for DOJ accountability as partisan, simply more evidence of a broken political culture. Unless.
The New York Times this morning considers the challenge Democrats face in somehow rebranding themselves as disruptors and not simply defenders of the status quo. Polling shows “a majority of voters described Democrats as focused on ‘preserving the way government works,’ while only 20 percent said the same of Republicans.” Several of Democrats’ 2026 candidates are pitching themselves as reformers:
In some ways, the anti-establishment energy within the Democratic Party is reminiscent of the Tea Party movement, in which conservative activists channeled outrage over bank bailouts and right-wing animosity toward President Barack Obama into a wave of 2010 midterm victories.
“The Tea Party was against the status quo and for replacing it with nihilism,” argues Jesse Ferguson, a Democratic strategist. “These candidates are against the status quo and for replacing it with something better.”
The T-party clearly saw Obama’s election as a threat to their preferred status quo. But the outrage and bitterness over the 2008 economic crash was real too. The government’s bi-partisan rush to put oxygen masks on the financial industry in first class while commoners riding in coach turned blue laid bare the two-tiered nature both of our economy and of our system of justice. Millions lost their homes and life savings during The Great Recession while Wall Street bankers received golden parachutes. Americans of all political leanings noticed the unequal treatment.
Epstein in 2007 won a non-prosecution deal (cut by Alex Acosta, then US attorney in Florida) that left him serving only 13 months (with work release) in state prison:
A draft 60-count indictment was set aside and Epstein avoided all federal charges. According to the Herald, prosecutors had identified three dozen victims. The victims of his criminal acts were not notified of the deal until after it was inked.
Epstein co-conspirator Ghislaine Maxwell, serving a 20-year sentence for sex trafficking, received an unprecedented transfer from a federal prison in Florida to a “club fed” facility in Texas soon after her equally unprecedented interview with Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, former personal attorney to Trump.
Again and again, Americans see plainly that U.S. justice provides valet service to the rich and powerful and harsh justice to commoners. They/we are pissed. Many celebrated the DOGE efforts to burn it all down.
The Times again:
The challenge Democrats face is how to simultaneously defend government institutions that Mr. Trump is trying to gut while also offering a forward-looking message that resonates with voters who believe politics and democracy are broken.
Democrats can prove themselves committed to fixing what’s broken starting now. They can demand justice — equal justice — for any of Epstein’s pals implicated by the evidence percolating out of Trump’s DOJ, and by impeaching any Trump lackeys who refuse that mission. If Democrats fail, they will prove themselves irredeemable and not part of the solution. Americans are watching.
This charming song and arresting video by local artist Lord Stryrofoam (Robert Henderson) is a holiday tradition in our household. Notice the sun traverse at 1:35. The song and video are so evocative that I could watch it on a loop all day. It beats a yule log.
Henderson is a local musician. I’d never met him until I spotted him at the No Kings rally in October. I introduced myself and thanked him for the video we both love. He couldn’t puzzle out how I knew who he was behind the white mask. Then he recalled he was wearing the same costume as in the video. (His brother wrote the lyrics, he said.) I didn’t get to ask where he shot the snow scenes. We don’t see so much in town these climate-changey days.
