President Trump is once again making Nixon look like a choir boy.

One of the first executive orders Trump signed in 2025, Celebrating America’s 250th Birthday, promised a “grand celebration” and set up a White House task force to make that happen.

The task force does not include a representative from the bipartisan United States Semiquincentennial Commission, created by Congress in 2016 to “provide for the observance and commemoration of the 250^th founding of the United States.” Instead, all members represent the executive branch.

That, by itself, is not necessarily a bad thing. But it is bad when the National Park Service (NPS) says on its website that the task force event, Freedom 250, is the “official national commemoration of America’s 250^th anniversary.” Because it’s not. The official Congressional event is America250, established by the bipartisan Semiquincentennial Commission.

Freedom 250 is an LLC set up by the National Park Foundation (NPF), the official nonprofit partner of the NPS, in December to manage fundraising and branding for the White House task force. The NPS is directly represented on Trump’s task force via the Secretary of the Interior. And Freedom 250, LLC, is overseen by that same White House, partisan task force.

Got a headache yet? It gets more complicated.

Freedom 250 was in the news this week because of a series of planned concerts at the Great American State Fair on the National Mall June 25 – July 10. Musical guests rushed to renege after they learned that the event was a partisan one closely tied to the president.

And the president’s response? Replace the concerts with a political rally “instead of having overpriced singers, who nobody wants to hear, whose music is boring, and yet who do nothing but complain.” Earlier he had claimed to be more popular than Elvis Presley while pitching himself as the keynote speaker for the fair.

Why did most musicians run away from Freedom 250? It’s a moneymaking scheme that grants donors access to the president. Donate $1,000,000 (or more), for example, and get, in return, an invitation to a private reception hosted by the president. All donors and donations are hidden from public view under the LLC umbrella.

Let’s return to the organizations for a moment. Congress allocated $150 million to America250; it has received $25 million. Somehow, $10 million was siphoned off for a Freedom 250 fleet of six “Freedom Trucks” (double-wide 18-wheelers) modified into mobile museums. Where is the remaining $115 million?

The museums are not without controversy. This Administration has a documented history of removing exhibits from national parks. For example, in January, NPS removed an outdoor exhibit from Independence National Historical Park in Philadelphia. The topic? President Washington’s ownership of slaves. With the moving museums, the challenge isn’t simply whitewashing and pablum. It’s putting words in the mouths of founders using AI.

That $10 million was a present to conservative PragerU (not a real university) and Hillsdale College, a Michigan-based Christian liberal arts college. So it’s no surprise that “America is depicted as a white Christian nation.” As The Guardian continues, one placard states: “The truth that each person is made in the image and likeness of God is the basis of human equality.”

I’d like to remind you of the First Amendment to the Constitution, which makes it clear that the federal government can neither be hostile to religion nor can it promote one religion over others. Freedom 250 is a public-private partnership run through the White House. As such, it is subject to the Constitution, in this non-lawyer’s opinion.

Then there are fake AI quotes that PragerU created for the Founders Museum, a partnership with the White House and the U.S. Department of Education. Dennis Prager, 77, has John Adams say: “Facts do not care about your feelings.” Adams did not say this. Contemporary conservative commentator Ben Shapiro, a PragerU presenter, is the owner of that phrase.

You won’t find out much about the Freedom Trucks or the Great American State Fair on the Freedom250.org website. The site doesn’t link out to PragerU, for example, which has a much easier to read list of dates and locations than Freedom 250.

And the website provides no details about the states and organizations it claims are participating in the Great American State Fair. Axios was able to get some details about Arizona and Florida; John Deere and Northrop Grumman will also be there, they say. Contrast that with America250, which has a comprehensive calendar of events by date or state and links out to each state’s website.

Then there’s the Freedom 250 UFC fight on the south lawn of the White House slated for June 14, Trump’s birthday. The $80 million event is being fully sponsored by TKO Holdings Group, which owns UFC. Politics has leaked through, reportedly. Sean Strickland, the reigning middleweight champion, says he’s been banned from the event for being critical of Trump.

In case you’re wondering what a mixed martial arts event put on by the UFC has to do with Independence Day … you won’t find an answer at Freedom250.org. If you frame it as spectacle, though, it’s on brand. After all, Trump himself admitted it is “a gimmick.”

Speaking of Freedom250.org, that website was developed by the National Design Studio (NDS), a three-year temporary agency created by an August 2025 executive order and run through the White House. That quasi-independent LLC looks very connected to the White House, doesn’t it?

The website includes events that do not appear to be affiliated with Freedom 250. For example, it lists the opening of the Teddy Roosevelt Presidential Library as a Freedom 250 event. There is no mention of Freedom 250 or its logo on the library website. Freedom 250 also gets the date wrong and doesn’t link out to the library.

The website also claims the 4^th of July celebration at Mount Rushmore. There is nothing about Freedom 250 on the NPS website promoting the event. Freedom 250 says there is only one day of events; there are three. (No link out to the event, as expected.) The NPS page acknowledges its partnership with the State of South Dakota, however. Mount Rushmore has 4^th of July events every year.

Somehow, the International Naval Review & Sail4^th 250 at the Port of New York and New Jersey is affiliated with both America250 and Freedom 250 but is certainly not unique to either. Sail4th got its start under President Kennedy. It held July 4^th celebrations during the 1976 Bicentennial, the 1986 Statue of Liberty centennial, the 1992 Columbus Quincentennial, the Millennium celebration of 2000 and the 2012 Bicentennial of The Star-Spangled Banner.

Freedom 250 is also co-opting the annual Independence Day fireworks display on the National Mall.

So there’s questionable content on the NDS-designed website. There is more razzmatazz that has an enigmatic connection to the Declaration of Independence. First up, an INDYCAR race, the Freedom 250 Grand Prix. Next, the group announced plans for a Patriot Games National Competition (page is 404 not found) for high school athletes this fall; it has drawn comparisons to the Hunger Games.

Let’s look at the website designer bona fides. The temporary head of NDS is Joe Gebbia, the DOGE alumnus and cofounder of Airbnb. As you know, DOGE is the subject of numerous federal lawsuits related to their controversial access to Social Security data. Given DOGE’s documented record on data access, his appointment warrants close scrutiny.

At least one security analyst has critiqued apparent data privacy issues associated with NDS built sites. It’s noteworthy that Congress established a web design system that resides in the General Services Administration. Yet the White House developed its own.

The more you investigate semiquincentennial events sponsored by the White House, the more you see it as a tangled and disjointed mess. The White House has sucked oxygen (and financing) away from the Congressionally created America250. It promotes opaque donations to curry favor with Trump. Most events have little if any connection to 250 years of American democracy.

If there is one thread, it’s all about Trump. His is the last video in the Freedom Truck museums. And a placard alongside reads: “My fellow Americans, get ready for an incredible future, because the golden age of America has only just begun.”

With him at the helm, of course.

First published at Substack.

The post The nation turns 250. One man is making sure it’s about him. appeared first on WiredPen.

We need every possible member of Congress on the record: does brazen presidential self-enrichment cross a red line?

The corruption at the center of this impeachment request is the $1,776,000,000 slush fund, also known as the Anti-Weaponization Fund (Fund), designed for third parties not part of Trump’s original non-adversarial lawsuit against the IRS. Trump sued the IRS for $10 billion because his tax records were leaked, along with others, by a contractor. That man is currently in prison. The leak occurred in Trump’s first term, but he filed the lawsuit in the second term.

Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, who reports to Trump and previously served as his personal attorney, announced details about the Fund on Monday when both parties withdrew from Trump’s lawsuit without filing a settlement with the judge.

The judge had questioned whether there was truly an adversarial relationship between the two parties: Trump the citizen suing Trump’s executive branch. Even Trump saw the conflict last October: “it’s awfully strange to make a decision where I’m paying myself.”

Critics (raising my hand) are also making this point. This settlement answers the judge’s question definitively.

The $1.776 billion Fund, a deeply offensive figure for its co-option of our 250^th birthday, will come from a Department of Justice (DOJ) account not authorized by Congress for this specific purpose. It also allows settlement of claims without Congressional authorization. And, crucially, it conflicts with the DOJ directive published by former Attorney General Pam Bondi prohibiting “payments to nongovernmental, third-party organizations that were neither victims nor parties to the lawsuits.”

Claims will be accepted through Dec. 15, 2028, mere weeks before Trump’s term ends. The Fund does not define the terms “lawfare” or “weaponization.” It does not specify how claims will be evaluated. It does not set limits on individual payouts. It is, by design, a mechanism to funnel taxpayer money to Republican allies with no accountability, no transparency and no legislative oversight.

There is more, as is the norm for this President.

The next day we learned about corruption, part two. Blanche announced an extraordinary addendum: the IRS is “forever barred and precluded” from examining the prior tax returns of President Trump, his family and his businesses. Although the President cannot legally pardon himself, Blanche, in effect, wrote him a pardon. This clause was important to Trump the citizen because he reportedly could owe as much as $600 million in taxes, according to Forbes.

The Fund has gotten the most attention from critics of both sides. It is troubling that Vice President J.D. Vance has refused to rule out compensation to January 6^th insurrectionists who attacked Capitol police. As law professor and CNN Supreme Court analyst Steve Vladeck writes, impeachment is “the only answer the Constitution actually contemplates for a President who uses public money to enrich the people who unlawfully fought against democracy and for him.”

This is not a minor breach of norms. It is an existential challenge to three foundational principles of our republic.

First, separation of powers. Congress controls the power of the purse. The creation of a nearly $2 billion discretionary fund, by executive action alone, to be administered and disbursed at the pleasure of officials who serve at the president’s will, is a shameless assault on legislative authority.

Second, equal justice under law. No American should be immune from the tax obligations and audit processes that apply to every other citizen. The IRS has never exempted an individual from an audit. It is notable that the Treasury’s general counsel resigned, only seven months after Senate confirmation, after Blanche announced the Fund on Monday.

The IRS mandatory audit program for sitting presidents exists precisely because the office creates extraordinary conflicts of interest. Eliminating that oversight by executive fiat, in exchange for dropping a self-serving lawsuit, is a corruption of the tax code and a mockery of equal treatment. How can it be legal?

Third, the prohibition on self-dealing. Federal law already prohibits the White House from directing the IRS to target or protect specific individuals. Blanche has apparently concluded that a carve-out exists for the attorney general. That interpretation must be challenged in court and, if necessary, closed by legislation.

I recognize that this administration has tested democratic norms repeatedly and that the pace of abuses has made it difficult to respond to each one with appropriate force.

We must not let this one pass.

This audacious settlement is not a gray area. It is an act of self-enrichment by the President of the United States, carried out through institutions he controls, paid for by us, the people he is supposed to serve.

Call your US Representative and demand an impeachment resolution. Call your Senators and support legislation to eliminate the Fund. Talk with your friends and family and urge them to act as well.

We cannot expect this Supreme Court to save us, given its ruling that the president has absolute immunity from criminal prosecution. Moreover, given the speed at which litigation moves, it’s unlikely there would be any money left in the fund by the time the case reached the Supreme Court.

This post first appeared at Substack.

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The authors called for policy makers to begin thinking about and planning for a “managed retreat” north of Lake Pontchartrain. They detailed the costs of new containment infrastructure and explained how those investments would ultimately fail. Money would be better spent preparing a relocation plan, they argue.

Co-author Jesse Keenan of Tulane University spoke with NPR. He said, “New Orleans has a matter of generations to prepare for a transition north to the mainland and away from the coast.” And in a Tulane University news release, he frames the work thusly: “Transition planning is not only key to maintaining continuity, but it offers significant economic opportunities, from land-building strategies to renewable energy and new housing development.”

The Guardian’s framing, however, was not nuanced. “Now” rather than “within a few generations” is a sledgehammer. Climate change skeptics and New Orleans residentspredictably cried “foul!” You probably would, too, if that headline had named your home.

Nor did The Guardian allude to other cities in the country that are at risk of flooding or drought from ongoing climate change: Denver, Houston, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Miami, New York City, Phoenix and Tampa-St. Petersburg … a non-exhaustive list.

I understand why the perspective in Nature Sustainability focused on this one city. After all, “Louisiana contains the most exposed coastal zone in the world.” But why did The Guardian reporter make the assessment so emphatically? Oliver Milman, who lives in New York City, is a British journalist and the environment correspondent at The Guardian.

Milman, who describes himself as ‘awkwardly British,’ may have brought to this story something most American environmental journalists lack: a baseline expectation, formed by growing up in a country with a century-long flood management plan, of what governments are supposed to do when the water is rising. London, you see, has the Thames Estuary 2100, a comprehensive strategy to deal with flood risk. It has defined decision points (2035, 2040, 2070) designed to keep the plan relevant.

There is no such comprehensive plan for any US city or for the United States as a whole. New Orleans upgrades levees after a disaster like Hurricane Katrina; Phoenix hopes water conservation will win the day; and Miami raises individual streets to protect against sunny-day high tides. Miami is further hamstrung by climate change denier Gov. Ron DeSantis, who banned the term “climate change” from state energy policy legislation in 2024.

London’s plan exists within a very different political culture, however, one where governing means planning for what is coming, not debating whether it is real. In the United States, we are still having the second argument.

Critics claim, for example, that Louisiana’s problem isn’t climate change but extraction: groundwater for potable water and, of course, oil and natural gas. Why shouldn’t oil companies have to pay their share to keep New Orleans safe from flooding, that argument goes. Certainly reparations may be part of a solution, but extraction effects (what economists call externalities) do not negate the overwhelming flooding problem.

In the United States, coastal cities and Colorado River states are at risk, for example, but they aren’t the only ones. Coastal cities of all sizes are at the mercy of sea level rise.

Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming each draws water from the Colorado River to provide sustenance for 40 million people and 5 million acres of farmland. The seven states can’t agree on how to divvy up the ever-shrinking river.

The Wall Street Journal reported Friday that this was “the worst year for snowpack in Colorado and Utah on record.” As a result, reservoirs are at record lows. For example, the snow pack “runoff reaching Lake Powell, the nation’s second largest reservoir, is expected to be just 13% of average, the lowest on record.” The Lake is at about 24% of capacity, barely enough for hydropower.

Because the seven states are at an impasse, the federal government is stepping in. Reactive, in other words. Reuters reported today that the feds are proposing “a new water-sharing ​plan for the drought-stricken Colorado River that could cut up to 40% of current ‌supplies to Arizona, California and Nevada.” Note that the current 1922 Colorado River Compact ​gives “California the highest priority for water use.”

The United States is a very big country. Yet drought and flood conditions are usually treated as local or regional stories, not national ones. This fragmentation leads to locally focused discussions about managed retreat, which are fraught with emotion. But the national tax base is often deemed the source for improvements.

Without a national plan, the loudest Congressional delegation gets the prize. The most vulnerable communities get the flood or the drought.

We desperately need a national plan to address these issues. Proactive planning is always less expensive than disaster cleanup, both in absolute dollar terms and lives.

News organizations need to contextualize stories like the New Orleans feature (and avoid click bait headlines). People in Phoenix need to understand how their water problems are the flip side of those in Miami, for example. One plagued by drought, one by floods. The role of the Fourth Estate is to connect dots and frame these stories as the national crisis that it is.

The Guardian will have done us a favor if this story about New Orleans stimulates an honest conversation about the challenges facing our cities this century. The conversations will not be easy; grief at loss, even future loss, is real.

First published at Substack.

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The year was 1953. That year the CIA, working with British Intelligence, orchestrated the overthrow of democratically elected Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh. In so doing, they restored Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi to power. Why? Because the new democracy chose to nationalize what is now BP, and the Shah was perceived as friendly to western interests.

That was our original sin in Iran. Everything subsequent followed that illegitimate act:

• The 1979 Islamic Revolution, led by Ayatollah Khomeini, overthrew the Shah. The Iranian hostage crisis followed (as well as Reagan’s alleged “October Surprise”which was revealed minutes after his inauguration);
• The Iran-Contra Affair (secretly selling arms to Iran) while Reagan supported Iraqin its war with Iran (1981-1988);
• In 1988, the USS Vincennes shot down Iran Air Flight 655, killing all 290 civilians on board. Reagan did not apologize but Clinton compensated Iran and the families in 1996;
• Trump withdrew from the JCPOA nuclear deal in 2018;
• Trump assassinated Iranian General Qasem Soleimani in Baghdad in 2020;
• Trump bombed Iran’s nuclear facilities in June 2025; and
• Trump launched a full-scale war of choice in partnership with Israel in February 2026, without Congressional authorization. This war of choice is illegal under international and US law.

Trump went to war at the urging of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has been crying wolf about Iran’s nuclear program since the early 1990s. For more than 30 years, Netanyahu has repeatedly claimed that Iran will be able to deploy nuclear weapons in “years,” “months,” and at times “weeks.” For example, in his 1995 book Fighting Terrorism, he asserted that Iran was three to five years from nuclear capability.

Trump mimics those claims, which are contradicted by US intelligence. For example, a week before the strike, Trump’s Iranian envoy Steve Witkoff falsely told Fox News that Iran was “probably a week away from having industrial grade bomb making material.”

Do Americans and Israelis support this war of choice that is based on lies? Americans do not; Israelis do.

History is patient. It does not forget 1953, and it will not forget 2026. The decisions this Congress makes determine what history records. Was this a war the American people authorized, with clear purpose, full cost, and defined measures of success? Or was it a war of choice, waged by one man at the request of another, that a co-equal branch of government watched happen in silence?

The Constitution is unambiguous: the power to declare war belongs to the legislative branch. Every day Congress fails to act — to either authorize this war or end it — it cements the precedent that a president alone may take us to war. That precedent will outlast this war, this president, and this Congress. Future presidents, of both parties, will use it. The cost will be measured not only in dollars and lives, but in the constitutional order itself.

~~~

First published at Substack.

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“This is the highest prevalence of chronic pain ever recorded in the U.S.,” says Hanna Grol-Prokopczyk, associate professor of sociology, State University of New York at Buffalo.

What else occurs in one-in-four of us? Death due to heart disease. Cancer risk. Mental health disorders. Opioid use disorder.

My guess is that you know more about those other risks than you do about pain.

First, there is pain threshold: the point at which an individual feels pain. This threshold is unique to each of us.

Second, there is pain tolerance: just how much pain can a person endure once she feels it. It, too, is unique.

My perception is that in the US, “high pain tolerance” is considered a positive character trait. Think about Hollywood movies. Football players. Olympic athletes. Menstrual pain. Everyone going about their jobs regardless of pain levels.

However, what those “just soldier through it” examples ignore is the fact that the body experiences pain for a reason: it’s been injured. For example, I didn’t know that those menstrual cramps I had into my 30s were a symptom of endometriosis, a condition we discovered only once I needed a hysterectomy.

If you pride yourself on high pain tolerance, this essay is for you. Because I’m asking you to rethink that stoic response.

I’m currently living with high-impact chronic pain. I had left hip pain in the late fall. My six-month PET scan showed nothing, so my cancer care team and I breathed a sigh of relief. The pain got a little better, then it returned in January with a vengeance and moved to the outside of my left leg below the knee.

Last weekend I was in Palm Springs and was unwilling to venture out of the house much because I never knew if I was going to be able to walk more than five steps without excruciating pain.

On Wednesday, I saw my doctor of physical therapy. After reviewing new tests (a hip x-ray and report from a D.O. in my PCP’s office) she did an assessment. “Good news,” she said. “We seem to have caught this damage to L5-S1 early.” No foot drop. No numbness. Not cancer! Now I’m taking gabapentin (ugh) as well as Aleve and Tylenol. Waiting for an MRI for confirmation. Will start PT exercises. Understand recovery is a long haul. (I’m old!)

I’m trying not to kick myself too hard. I might have seen her two weeks earlier if I hadn’t postponed setting up that appointment … because, well, the pain might stop again. Or get better. Right?

The downsides of high pain tolerance are clear: delayed diagnosis, delayed treatment and incomplete understanding between patient and doctor. (I hate being asked to rate pain on a 1-to-10 scale.)

Studies show that people with long-term pain often develop coping mechanisms that allow them to function, but these adjustments can blur the line between everyday pain and new, potentially critical symptoms. Some people start to normalize pain so thoroughly that they might dismiss the warning signs of a more severe condition. This could mean overlooking signs of a herniated disc, spinal issues, or even neurological concerns when what they perceive as “normal” discomfort could actually indicate something far more serious.

So if you’ve been living with pain … or suddenly experience pain that doesn’t go away … seek help sooner than later, while complications are preventable.

First published at SubStack

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