Trivia info

Just twelve days after trump declared victory over what he called "Biden filth," the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool is peeling apart in real time, its fresh coat of "American flag blue" paint lifting off the bottom in massive chunks and floating to the surface of an already swampy, algae-choked mess.

The whole disaster reads like a contractor cutting every corner to hit a July 4th photo-op deadline. Pool coatings fail for a pretty predictable set of reasons: improper surface prep, rushing the cure time before flooding the basin, or a chemical imbalance that destroys the paint's bond. In this case it appears to be all three at once. Workers have been dumping hydrogen peroxide into the water to fight the algae bloom, and as any pool professional will tell you, that chemical is essentially a paint stripper.

The contract was handed to Atlantic Industrial Coatings through a no-bid process at $13.1 million, going to a Virginia company that had never once held a federal contract before this job. As pool service owner Cochise Wanzer Il put it to the AP, "What do you expect?" The pool coating, designed for smooth plaster and concrete surfaces, was applied to a reinforced concrete basin that was rushed through prep and flooded before the material had any real chance to bond.

For $13.1 million, the American public got a green swamp with peeling walls and phosphate levels far above safe limits. Experts say the whole thing likely needs to be stripped and redone from scratch, meaning the country may end up spending that same money twice just to get back to where it started. Everything, and I mean EVERYTHING trump touches gets ruined.

President Trump is under fire for saying all Somalians do is “go around killing each other, then try to tell us how to run our country. We don’t want them.”

Trump supporters say he is voicing concerns many Americans have held for years about immigration, assimilation, and national identity.

Critics say the comments unfairly stereotype an entire community and echo rhetoric that fuels division.

Democrats and progressives, including Rep. Ilhan Omar, have long argued that immigrants strengthen the country and that blanket attacks on ethnic groups undermine American values. They accuse Trump of turning complex issues into cultural grievances.

Supporters counter that border security and controlled immigration are essential to preserving public safety and national cohesion. They argue that Washington elites have ignored the concerns of ordinary citizens for too long.

Opponents say the debate should focus on policy, not on condemning entire populations, and warn that language targeting groups rather than individuals deepens polarization.

The controversy once again highlights the divide over immigration, identity, and what “America First” should mean in practice.

As reactions pour in from both sides, one thing remains clear: the argument over immigration and national identity continues to be one of the most explosive issues in American politics.

Barack Obama opened his presidential center in Chicago on Thursday with every living president beside him on stage, except one. Then he spent half an hour describing that one man without ever once saying his name.

Clinton was there. Bush was there. Biden was there, the man Obama called family.

Donald Trump wasn’t invited.

The foundation’s chief executive said he’s welcome to come tour the museum like anybody else, he just wasn’t asked to the dedication.

So Obama stood in front of the people who actually believe in the thing and spelled out what a democracy runs on.

That no one is above the law or beneath its protection. That the military and law enforcement answer to the Constitution and the people, not to any president or party. That power passes peacefully after a free and fair vote.

He never had to point. Everyone in that room knew exactly who flunks the list.

Then came the line that landed like a verdict. When people stop believing their voices matter and give away their power, Obama warned, they open the door to “the most ruthless, or the most careless, or the most fearful among us.”

The kind who treat some people as more equal than others. Who see government as a way to divvy up the spoils, punish enemies, and keep anyone different in their place.

He was describing a man, not a hypothesis. We all watched that man take a blowtorch to the manual Obama just read out loud.

The fairness he was defending isn’t soft or sentimental. It’s the entire bet of the country: that the rules bind the strong exactly like they bind the weak, that the loser of an election still goes home a citizen and not a target.

A president who runs the place on a spoils system, who decides which Americans count and which ones get put in their place, isn’t bending the rules. He’s voiding the contract every other person on that stage swore to keep.

Obama reached back to a Boston preacher in the 1850s, a moment when a captured man was marched in chains to a southbound ship by hundreds of armed officers and the abolition cause looked dead. The minister admitted he couldn’t see the whole curve of history, but from what he could see, he was sure it bent toward justice.

That’s where the arch outside the center gets its words.

Almost a decade out of office, Obama didn’t pretend the moment was gentle. He named the wars, the pandemic, the algorithms that feed us outrage and blur a lie into the truth.

But he refused the exit cynicism keeps holding open. Giving up now, he said, would betray everything this country has already lived through.

Look at the stage and be honest. We didn’t agree with everyone up there. Some of us marched against half of them.

But that’s exactly what made the picture matter. You can fight a president on every policy and still stand with him on the one thing underneath all of it, that power answers to the people and the rules hold for everyone or they hold for no one.

That floor is what’s worth protecting, even when we’re standing on it next to people we’d argue with all day.

BREAKING: Sean Penn Is Making a Jan. 6 Film and Trump Is Going to Hate Every Second of It

Sean Penn is coming for Trump’s legacy on the big screen. The three-time Oscar winner has written and will direct an untitled feature film for Warner Bros. centered on the January 6th Capitol attack, told through the eyes of a police officer caught in the middle of the chaos that day. Bradley Cooper is expected to star in the lead role.

Penn has never been shy about where he stands. He attended the House Select Committee’s January 6th hearings in 2022, sitting alongside former D.C. Metropolitan Police officer Michael Fanone, whose story the script is believed to closely mirror. Fanone was savagely beaten by rioters that day, suffering a heart attack, a brain injury, and burns before later being diagnosed with PTSD. President Biden awarded him the Presidential Citizens Medal. Fanone, once a Trump voter, has since publicly walked away from that support entirely.

Penn has called Trump “an enemy of mankind” and warned that he might try to destroy the world before leaving office. Now he is channeling that conviction into a film that Warner Bros. will bring to the widest possible audience, with production set to begin in mid-2027.

Trump tried to bury January 6th. He even pushed a $1.7 billion fund to compensate the rioters who attacked officers like Fanone. Rep. Jamie Raskin called it exactly what it was: a payout to insurrectionists and white supremacists. The courts, the history books, and now Hollywood are making sure none of it gets forgotten.

🚨 TRUMP SPARKS DIPLOMATIC CRISIS WITH ITALY: Italy’s Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani has canceled his planned June 21–22 trip to Washington after President Trump insulted Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, claiming she “begged” for a photo with him at the G7 and that he “felt sorry” for her.

Meloni released a video firing back at Trump’s comments, calling them “completely fabricated.”

“I am frankly appalled,” she said. “I don’t know why the President of the United States behaves this way towards his allies.”

She added that Trump appears to show more accommodation toward “the enemies of the West” than America’s allies and concluded by saying:

“Italy and I never beg.”

BREAKING: Italy’s Deputy PM Cancels US Trip Over Trump’s “Offensive” Meloni Comments

Italy’s deputy prime minister just sent Trump a message the whole world can hear: respect isn’t optional.

Antonio Tajani has officially scrapped his upcoming trip to Washington after Trump allegedly made demeaning remarks about Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, suggesting she had begged him for a photo and that he only agreed because he felt sorry for her.

Tajani wasted no time calling it out. He said Trump’s words were serious and offensive, and that they were an insult not just to Meloni, but to all of Italy. Then he backed up his words with action, canceling his planned visit for June 21 and 22 entirely.

Meloni herself pushed back hard, flatly denying Trump’s version of events. She said neither she nor Italy ever begs, and admitted she was stunned that the president of the United States would treat a longtime ally this way. She didn’t stop there, pointing out that Trump reserves his toughness for friends while going soft on actual adversaries of the West.

Former Italian PM Matteo Renzi went even further, calling the comments horrifying and using the moment to call on Italy’s leadership to stop courting Trump altogether, arguing the country deserves leaders who command real respect on the world stage.

This isn’t an isolated incident either. Trump has a pattern of commenting on Meloni’s appearance instead of her leadership, including remarks at a peace summit last year that left her visibly uncomfortable.

What’s happening here is bigger than one canceled visit. A key European ally just looked at disrespect dressed up as diplomacy and refused to show up for it. Tajani didn’t just complain, he acted, and Meloni didn’t shrink, she corrected the record in real time. That’s what it looks like when allies stop absorbing insults quietly and start drawing lines.

BREAKING: “ITALY NEVER BEGS!” Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni publicly tears into Trump after he causes a major international incident by falsely telling the media that she “begged” him for a photo at the G7!

He is SUCH an asshole…

Insecure and attention-hungry Donald Trump has apparently created a major rift between the United States and Italy by telling the press that the Italian Prime Minister was “begging him” for a photo and that he felt “sorry” for her.

In response, Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani abruptly cancelled a planned trip to the United States this weekend, calling Trump’s claims “serious and offensive” toward Meloni and all of Italy.

Meloni herself released a video in which she addressed Trump’s lies in furious fashion.

“So, certain things deserve an immediate response,” says Meloni into the camera.

“Donald Trump’s statements are completely fabricated. I am frankly appalled. I don’t know why the President of the United States behaves this way towards his allies; after all, it’s not the first time it’s happened.”

“I can only say it’s a pity that he doesn’t show the same determination with the enemies of the West, with the enemies of the United States, with leaders towards whom he instead proves to be much more accommodating.”

“But he must remember one thing: Italy and I never beg.”

Trump had made the comments in an interview broadcast Friday morning on the La7 network.

Seriously, what is WRONG with him? This is the quintessentially Trumpian scandal: a national humiliation and international rift ignited by his jealousy at having to share the spotlight and his irrepressible urge to be a little see-ya-next-Tuesday towards everyone he doesn’t like.

Just a complete absence of anything resembling leadership, self-control, or basic human decency.

God, this is SO STUPID!

BREAKING: Obama Presidential Center Opens in Chicago With Every Living Former President — Except Trump

Today, the Barack Obama Presidential Center officially opened its doors on Chicago’s South Side, bringing together four former presidents, a constellation of American icons, and thousands of community members for a ceremony that felt less like a ribbon-cutting and more like a national exhale.

The $850 million, 19-acre campus in Jackson Park welcomed former Presidents Joe Biden, George W. Bush, and Bill Clinton, along with their former first ladies. Vice President Kamala Harris and her husband Doug Emhoff were also in attendance. The one conspicuous absence: Donald Trump, who was not invited and had spent the days before the event mocking it on social media.

The ceremony opened with a performance by The Roots before giving way to a lineup that included Bruce Springsteen, Stevie Wonder, Jennifer Hudson, John Legend, Christina Aguilera, Bono and The Edge of U2, Marc Anthony, and Eddie Vedder, who performed an original song written specifically for the occasion.

Michelle Obama took the stage to thunderous applause and delivered what many observers called one of the most powerful speeches of her public career. She mounted a full-throated defense of immigrants, declaring that they are not just Americans too but are America itself. She urged the crowd to choose hope as an active act, calling it a decision that must be made deliberately in difficult times.

When Barack Obama stepped to the podium, he connected the center’s founding mission to the country’s own founding ideals, invoking the Declaration of Independence’s promise of a government accountable to its citizens and not its rulers. In remarks widely read as a rebuke of the current occupant of the White House, he reminded the crowd that the nation’s charter makes no room for kings or lords.

Obama also became visibly emotional describing his favorite exhibit: a display of letters written to him by ordinary Americans during his eight years in office. He estimated he received as many as 40,000 pieces of correspondence daily and read ten of them each day himself. The raw vulnerability of those letters, he said, stayed with him long after leaving office.

The center itself is not simply a museum. It includes a Chicago public library branch, a playground, an athletic center, a vegetable garden, and a 225-foot tower currently the tallest structure ever featured at a presidential site. Foundation CEO Valerie Jarrett made clear in her remarks that the building is not a monument to the Obamas but a tribute to the communities and people who made their journey possible.

Among the crowd of roughly 6,300 attendees were several potential 2028 Democratic presidential contenders, including Governors Gavin Newsom, Josh Shapiro, and JB Pritzker, along with Senator Mark Kelly. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and former Speaker Nancy Pelosi were also present. So were Oprah Winfrey, George Lucas, Mark Hamill, Stephen Colbert, and Quinta Brunson.

Chicago residents who attended the ceremony said the day gave them something they had been struggling to find: hope.