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Trump Loyalists Seething After 'Hamilton' Cancels Kennedy Center Run

Trump Loyalists Seething After 'Hamilton' Cancels Kennedy Center Run

The creators of Hamilton refuse to let their hit musical be performed next year at the Kennedy Center, where a now-canceled eight-week run was slated to help celebrate the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence—and this snub has MAGA acolytes seeing red.

President Donald Trump purged the board of the performing arts center in February and has since been made chairman, which caused an exodus of board members and performers.

“This latest action by Trump means it’s not the Kennedy Center as we knew it,” show creator Lin-Manuel Miranda said in a joint interview via The New York Times with lead producer Jeffrey Seller. “The Kennedy Center was not created in this spirit, and we’re not going to be a part of it while it is the Trump Kennedy Center. We’re just not going to be part of it."

And while Seller pointed out in a separate statement that their decision had to do with the “partisan policies of the Kennedy Center” and not with the Trump administration itself, the president’s loyalists aren’t very happy.

"Let's be clear on the facts," Richard Grenell, a Trump administration diplomat, said in a post via X. "Seller and Lin Manuel first went to the New York Times before they came to the Kennedy Center with their announcement that they can’t be in the same room with Republicans. This is a publicity stunt that will backfire."

Grenell—who recently campaigned on behalf of accused sex traffickers Andrew and Tristan Tate—then argued that arts are for both sides of the aisle and "not just for the people who Lin likes and agrees with."

"The American people need to know that Lin-Manuel is intolerant of people who don’t agree with him politically. It’s clear he and Sellers don’t want Republicans going to their shows," he added.

Grenell’s comments come at an interesting time, given that Miranda and Seller pulled the show partly because of Trump’s sudden ousting of Democrats from the previously bipartisan board at the Kennedy Center.

“Our cancellation is also a business decision," Seller wrote in a statement posted to Instagram. "'Hamilton' is a large and global production, and it would simply be financially and personally devastating to the hundreds of employees of 'Hamilton' if the new leadership of the Kennedy Center suddenly canceled or re-negotiated our engagement."

He added, "The actions of the new Chairman of the Board in recent weeks demonstrate that contracts and previous agreements simply cannot be trusted."

It’s likely Seller was referring to Trump’s firing of Deborah Rutter, the center’s longtime president. Trump also fired multiple board members, replacing them with his own supporters.

"At my direction, we are going to make the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C., GREAT AGAIN," Trump wrote via Truth Social in February.

"Just last year, the Kennedy Center featured Drag Shows specifically targeting our youth—THIS WILL STOP. The Kennedy Center is an American Jewel, and must reflect the brightest STARS on its stage from all across our Nation,” Trump added, though he’s admitted to never having seen a Kennedy Center show.

As Trump has brought his loyalists, those on the other side of the aisle have made their exit.

Singer-songwriter Ben Folds resigned from his role as artistic advisor to the center’s National Symphony Orchestra, as did TV legend Shonda Rhimes as a board member.

Hamilton has a history of butting heads with the Trump administration, with cast members personally pleading to former Vice President Mike Pence onstage in mid-November 2016 to do right by the American people.

“We, sir—we—are the diverse America who are alarmed and anxious that your new administration will not protect us, our planet, our children, our parents, or defend us and uphold our inalienable rights,” actor Brandon Victor Dixon, playing Vice President Aaron Burr, said to Pence from the stage. “We truly hope that this show has inspired you to uphold our American values and to work on behalf of all of us.”

While Hamilton won’t be gracing the stage and several other performers have canceled in protest, most of the Kennedy Center’s schedule appears to remain intact.

One other play, The Story of a Rose, however, relocated to Northern Virginia. The World War-I themed concert was said to have been moved due to seating capacity, per the New York Times.

However, one performer later told the outlet, “I’m glad at how it turned out. I wanted to do a show that everyone could attend—left, right, and center.”

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos.

Trump Media & Technology Group

Never Stop Grifting: Trump's Business Expands Shady Financial Venture

Truth Social’s Trump Media & Technology Group announced Wednesday that it will expand into financial services and potentially purchase bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.

Per the press release, the company built on President Donald Trump’s brand will launch the fintech brand Truth.Fi. The brand will partner with Charles Schwab and offer financial and investment advice and strategy.

Despite Trump having America’s biggest tech bros front row at his inauguration, the press release also states that Truth.Fi seeks to create a “robust ecosystem” for “American patriots” free from the “threat of cancellation, censorship, debunking, and privacy violations committed by Big Tech and woke corporations.”

Trump has spent quite a bit of time crafting his brand on the idea of anti-woke, anti-cancellation ideology—now, fans of the convicted felon can invest directly through his platforms while wearing his cologne and sneakers, too.

Watchdog groups have long been sounding the alarm about conflicts of interest in Trump’s business and policy decisions in the White House.

As Daily Kos previously reported, ethics came into question just last week when Trump and his wife Melania launched their own meme coins, $TRUMP and $MELANIA.

With Trump’s control over how the federal government will regulate the cryptocurrency industry, experts have expressed concern.

Jessica Tillipman, an anti-corruption and government ethics professor at George Washington University, explained to Daily Kos last week that there are no laws stopping a president from profiting off of the people he was elected to serve.

Laws were never made to prevent this type of behavior because past presidents typically acted in good faith.

“We've always relied on this system of norms,” she explained. “I think people were pretty surprised to see how few restrictions there were on what a president could do because we hadn't seen this before.”

Speaking to CNN, one expert explained the challenges for federal agencies regulating businesses such as Trump’s as he continues to expand into the financial market.

“These business moves create even more opportunities for conflicts of interest: the various agencies that regulate the financial industry will now be controlled by people appointed by President Trump himself,” Delaney Marsco, director of ethics at the Campaign Legal Center, said. “Those people will be faced with questions about how to handle matters that will impact the financial interests of their boss.”

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos.

Revulsion Against Musk's 'Nazi Salute' Explodes Online And Across Europe

Revulsion Against Musk's 'Nazi Salute' Explodes Online And Across Europe

Subreddit communities are banning the use of links from X after Donald Trump’s billionaire bestie Elon Musk threw out twoNazi salutes during the indoor inaugural parade.

Musk had the world ablaze with furor and controversy once again after throwing out his arm in a “Sieg Heil” as he thanked the crowd for “making it happen.”While some sources, such as the Anti-Defamation League, dismissively called it an “awkward” hand gesture, others, including a popular German newspaper, left no room for ambiguity.

The weekly paper Die Zeit titled a piece “Ein Hitlergruß ist ein Hitlergruß ist ein Hitlergruß,” which translates to “A Hitler salute is aHitler salute.”

And though many can’t seem to agree on whether or not a grown man who owns one of the largest social media companies is aware of what a “Sieg Heil” is, hundreds of moderators behind Subreddit groups aren’t fooled by Musk’s deflection.

Almost immediately, communities across Reddit began banning the use of X links, starting with popular sports subreddits such as r/NBA and r/NFL, both of which include at least 10 million people. Despite their names, these Subreddits are not officially affiliated with the sports giants.Hitler salute.”

And though many can’t seem to agree on whether or not a grown man who owns one of the largest social media companies is aware of what a “Sieg Heil” is, hundreds of moderators behind Subreddit groups aren’t fooled by Musk’s deflection.

Almost immediately, communities across Reddit began banning the use of X links, starting with popular sports subreddits such as r/NBA and r/NFL, both of which include at least 10 million people. Despite their names, these Subreddits are not officially affiliated with the sports giants.Hitler salute.”

And though many can’t seem to agree on whether or not a grown man who owns one of the largest social media companies is aware of what a “Sieg Heil” is, hundreds of moderators behind Subreddit groups aren’t fooled by Musk’s deflection.

Almost immediately, communities across Reddit began banning the use of X links, starting with popular sports subreddits such as r/NBA and r/NFL, both of which include at least 10 million people. Despite their names, these Subreddits are not officially affiliated with the sports giants.According to the BBC, more than 100 Subreddits have banned the use of X links since Musk’s Nazi salutes.

“This is something that we've been contemplating for a little while now,” the moderator of the Subreddit r/pcgaming wrote. “X has become increasingly hateful, toxic and less and less moderated. This has, in turn, made us less comfortable with letting our subreddit link it to other people. Not to mention the distasteful things Elon Musk has done recently.”

Groups such as these cite not only Musk's egregious behavior and the toxicity coming out of his social media platform, but they have also considered the usability of posting links to X—which now requires users to have an account to view.

As communities on Reddit distance themselves from the increasingly volatile and pro-white nationalist platform, journalists and companies alike are also making their exodus from the app.

Subreddits pertaining to PC gaming might come as a personal blow to Musk, who admitted to paying gamers to help him win video games. While he juggles arguing over public policy and immigration, Musk also seems to be spending time trying to defend his self-imposed reputation as a “living god of video games.”

It might be hard to defend his title when no one is around to listen.

MAGA Deportation Czar Can't Wait To Resume Family Separation

MAGA Deportation Czar Can't Wait To Resume Family Separation

Donald Trump’s “border czar” Tom Homan plans to reinstate controversial family detention centers as part of the upcoming administration’s mass deportation efforts.

Homan told the Washington Poston Thursday that his plans include building “soft tents” to keep families under one roof as they await deportation.

Detention centers have a long history of being inhospitable to humans and offering prison-like facilities to migrants. Homan, however, seemingly blames parents for having children, instead of acknowledging these dangerous conditions.

“Here’s the issue. You knew you were in the country illegally and chose to have a child. So you put your family in that position,” he said.

President Joe Biden closed family detention facilities in 2021 in an attempt to make the immigration system more humane and compassionate. In their place, his administration distributed ankle monitors and traceable cellphones, allowing families to reside in the United States as they awaited deportation hearings.

But after the end of Trump’s Title 42, which allowed for the swift deportation of undocumented immigrants at the border due to COVID-19 concerns, the Biden administration considered bringing back the facilities.

Homan served as the Obama-era head of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and he has carried out deportation efforts over the past three decades. So if anyone recalls the inhumane conditions of these facilities, it should be Homan.

“There's barbed wire, there are prison guards,” a former volunteer said of a family detention center in 2007. “There's counts throughout the day so that people are in their cells for hours of the day, there's no free movement around the facility, the food was terrible. You know, it's just a prison.”

Despite supporting these facilities, Homan told the Post that he wants to “show the American people we can do this and not be inhumane about it.”

Speaking on deportations as a whole, he said, “I don’t see this thing as being sweeps and the military going through neighborhoods.” Instead, it will be a “targeted” campaign aimed at people who have criminal convictions, gang affiliations, or those who are seen as a national security threat.

However, Homan sang a less empathetic tune during an interview with CNN’s Kaitlan Collins last week, during which he said the goal is for ICE officers and other agencies to assist them in arresting “as many targeted priority aliens as possible.”

When asked about a “target number” for deportations, Homan responded, “The target number is arresting as many people as we can possibly arrest with the resources I have.”

He also claimed that sanctuary cities will force ICE to make sweeping arrests of anyone who is considered undocumented.

“In sanctuary cities, we can’t arrest criminals in a jail because they won’t let us in the jail,” he said. “Which means instead of one agent arresting the bad guy in the jail, we have to send a whole team to the neighborhood.”

He also said that this retaliation will inevitably result in “nonpriority” undocumented immigrants being arrested “because immigration officers aren’t going to be told to walk away from somebody illegal.”

Homan has been coming for sanctuary cities for quite some time, even threatening to send additional law enforcement into cities like Los Angeles and Chicago where local law enforcement has been told not to release immigration information to ICE officials.

"If I gotta send twice as many officers to LA because we're not getting any assistance, then that's what we're going to do,” Homan told Newsmax in November. “We got a mandate. President Trump is serious about this. I'm serious about it. This is gonna happen with or without you."

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos.

Tulsi Gabbard

Kremlin Advocate Gabbard Will Plead For Senate Confirmation On Hill

Tulsi Gabbard is heading to Capitol Hill to beg senators for votes. Like so many of Donald Trump’s Cabinet picks, Gabbard has her work cut out for her.

The felon-elect’s pick for director of national intelligence has drawn critical eyes as it has been revealed the former Democrat has a penchant for Russian propaganda.

Former Gabbard aides told ABC News last week that the Democrat-turned-MAGA apologist would regularly read and share stories from RT—a state-run media outlet formerly known as Russia Today.

Despite Democrats claiming Gabbard is a “Russian asset,” her former coworkers said that’s not quite the case. However, the ex-aides do think that the former Hawaii representative has adopted some more sympathetic viewpoints that align with the Kremlin due to her consumption of the pro-Russian media. Adding fuel to the fire, the aides released a memo, obtained by ABC, sent to them in 2017, which echoed this stance.

Gabbard pointed fingers at the U.S. and NATO for provoking Russian aggression, criticizing the U.S. for its “hostility towards Putin.”

“There certainly isn't any guarantee to Putin that we won't try to overthrow Russia's government,” she wrote. Gabbard added that she was “pretty sure” there were some “American politicians who would love to do that.”

She also drew ire for a controversial 2017 meeting with Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad, who, as of this week, has reportedly been granted asylum in Russia after rebel forces seized control of Damascus.

Speculation aside, Gabbard’s reputation for commingling with dictators has drawn fierce criticism as she is poised to oversee U.S. spy agencies and would have a treasure trove of the country’s biggest secrets.

“Behind closed doors, people think she might be compromised. Like it’s not hyperbole,” one Republican Senate aide told The Hill, adding, “There are members of our conference who think she’s a [Russian] asset.”

But that hasn’t stopped Fox News from drumming up their own pro-Gabbard takes as well. The outlet has leaned on veterans and bashing Democrats as a means to prop up Gabbard. As Fox News writes, many other outlets have “attempted to paint Gabbard as a national security risk who is sympathetic to U.S. adversaries.”

However, instead of addressing the narrative further, Fox has only addressed these claims of dictator sympathy once. The Murdoch-owned outlet seemingly buried any information regarding the accusations at the bottom of a story bashing one Democrat for even suggesting Gabbard was associated with the likes of Putin or al-Assad.

As for Gabbard, she isn’t the only one of Trump’s picks on Capitol Hill this week vying for votes that may be stacked against them. Fox News’ Pete Hegseth is on the Hill pleading to senators as he tries to collect favorable votes—despite being an alcoholic with sexual assault allegations among a list of other offenses.

May the odds be ever in your favor.

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos.

Mike Johnson

House GOP Shields Gaetz As 'Times' Report Exposes Evidence Of Misconduct

The House Ethics Committee voted Wednesday to block the release of a potentially damning report that investigated sexual misconduct charges against former Rep. Matt Gaetz.

This decision comes soon after Gaetz was selected by president-elect and convicted felon Donald Trump to serve as attorney general. Even though Gaetz is now in line to be the nation’s top law enforcement officer, the bipartisan committee shot down the opportunity for senators to view the report before potentially confirming the 42-year-old as AG.

“There was no agreement by the committee to release the report,” Republican Rep. Michael Guest—a chairman of the ethics panel—said as he and other members exited the two-hour meeting.

While the report remains sealed, the Senate Judiciary Committee can subpoena the House committee to hand it over before deciding whether or not to move Gaetz’s nomination forward for a full Senate vote.

The controversial former Florida congressman has been under investigation by the committee since 2021 for alleged sexual misconduct involving a minor, illicit drug use, and other questionable affairs.

The committee has also stated that Gaetz—who managed to obstruct the investigation simply by stepping down—had potentially attempted to “obstruct government investigations of his conduct.”

And on Wednesday, The New York Times reported that a federal investigation traced Venmo payments from Gaetz to women who allege they were hired for sex. None of that stopped Gaetz from reportedly making his rounds on Capitol Hill in an attempt to gain the favor of senators who will approve—or reject—his nomination.

As Daily Kos previously reported, the committee’s findings were initially set to be released last week. However, the plan was thwarted after Trump announced Gaetz as his pick for attorney general, prompting his conveniently timed resignation.

House Speaker Mike Johnson voiced his desire for the report to be sealed on Nov. 17.

Johnson essentially told Fox News Sunday host Shannon Bream that there was no need to pursue Gaetz’s alleged misconduct further since he resigned—despite now being under consideration for AG.

"There's a very important reason for the tradition and the rule that we always have—almost always followed—and that is that we don't issue investigations and ethics reports on people who are not members of Congress.”

He continued, “I’m afraid that that would open a Pandora’s box because the jurisdiction of the Ethics Committee is limited to those who are serving in the institution.”

While Johnson fell in lockstep to protect Gaetz, the Republican swiftly turned his ire toward incoming Democratic Rep. Sarah McBride (D-DE), the first trans person elected to the House.

As Daily Kos reported, Johnson has decreed that bathrooms in the Capitol and House office buildings will officially be segregated by “biological sex” from now on.

“All single-sex facilities in the Capitol and House Office Buildings—such as restrooms, changing rooms, and locker rooms—are reserved for individuals of that biological sex,” Johnson said in a press release.

Bluesky—a swiftly growing social media alternative to X—erupted with outrage.

“Love to ban trans women from capitol restrooms in order to ‘protect women and girls’ while suppressing a report about the incoming attorney general paying for the statutory rape of a minor while in congress and showing women’s nudes on the House floor,” one user wrote.

An interview with Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) has also made the rounds on the social media platform, in which the South Carolina Republican said her effort to ban transgender women from using the female bathrooms was “absolutely” a hit against McBride.

“If someone with a penis is in the locker room, that’s not okay,” Mace said. “I’m a victim of abuse myself. I’m a rape survivor.”

One Bluesky user wrote, “As an assault survivor, Mace should be worried about Matt Gaetz becoming AG, not Sarah McBride for existing.”

A resolute McBride addressed the new policy, insisting that this blatant attack on transgender people will not keep her from performing her duties.

“I’m not here to fight about bathrooms. I’m here to fight for Delawareans and to bring down the costs facing families. Like all members, I will follow the rules outlined by Speaker Johnson, even if I disagree with them,” she wrote on X.

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos