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Hello Reader,
This week: The State Department erases torture for political favor, Trump adopts Mao’s business model, and the Georgia firebrand everyone loves to hate grows a conscience.
Plus, meet our first American Renegade of the Week—an anonymous Cuban dissident betrayed by the democracy he risked everything to reach.
- For Sale in the USA: Human Rights
- Trump Paves the Road to Serfdom
- Trump Adopts Democrats' Election Hypocrisy
- Marjorie Taylor Greene Is...Making Sense?
New: categorized as strengthening (green) or weakening (red) American democracy.
Since Nayib Bukele became President of El Salvador in 2019, hundreds of journalists have fled government persecution. Tens of thousands of alleged gang members have been detained without due process. Prisons regularly deny inmates food and water. Inside, beatings are rampant, and even children are tortured.
Yet this week, the State Department’s annual Country Reports on Human Rights Practices found "no credible reports of significant human rights abuses" in El Salvador—a blatant quid pro quo for Bukele’s acceptance of Venezuelan gang members from the US.
This shocking betrayal of humanity completes Secretary Marco Rubio's about-face from his days as the Senate’s champion of freedom. The report now omits entire categories of rights violations: women's rights, LGBT rights, persons with disabilities, government corruption, and peaceful assembly have been erased entirely.
The historical revisionism spreads across the globe—wherever Trump's authoritarian allies reign. It glosses over Hungary's erosion of democratic institutions, rule of law, and independent media under Orban. On Israel, it disregards Netanyahu’s forced displacement of Palestinians, use of starvation as a weapon, and deliberate deprivation of water and electricity.
Most egregiously, it fails to acknowledge Putin’s weaponization of political imprisonment to crush dissent.
To me, the report's publication ranks among the most shameful days in American history. The United States of America has now put human rights up for sale.
In 1944, as Allied forces stormed Normandy's beaches, Austrian economist Friedrich Hayek penned a prophetic warning. As Britain's wartime controls morphed into peacetime socialism, he wrote The Road to Serfdom—demonstrating how tyranny begins with government bureaucrats’ good intentions.
Today, that road is being paved in America as the Trump administration pursues federal ownership stakes in Intel, U.S. Steel, and rare-earth miner MP Materials—the very arrangement Hayek warned destroys both prosperity and liberty.
Intel arrived here after devastating losses and massive layoffs. MP Materials faces the Pentagon becoming its largest shareholder on national security grounds. Meanwhile, Trump forced Nvidia and AMD to surrender 15% of their China revenues for export licenses.
Hayek recognized private businesses are superior to governments in determining what and how much to produce. They have stronger incentives to produce efficiently and compete on price. Government ownership centralizes decision-making, overriding market innovation with political priorities.
China's economic decline—as Xi reverted to Maoist state control—offers a chilling warning. Though state-owned enterprises generate 40% of China's GDP, private firms deliver stronger returns while SOEs drown in debt.
And historical evidence confirms an alarming global pattern: state ownership correlates strongly with suppressed civil liberties.
National security may justify oversight of chips and steel, but once government stakes its claim, political interference becomes inevitable—as China's economic wreckage grimly demonstrates.
In 2022, as Senate Democrats moved to destroy the filibuster and override state election laws "to restore democracy," Joe Biden declared the midterm elections "could easily be illegitimate" if his legislation failed.
It did, and his "Jim Crow 2.0" threats never materialized. But now, Trump attempts a similar federal override—without even attempting to go through Congress.
Trump announced Monday his intent to "Get rid of MAIL-IN BALLOTS" and voting machines through executive order, claiming "States are merely an 'agent' for the Federal Government...They must do what the Federal Government, as represented by the President of the United States, tells them, FOR THE GOOD OF OUR COUNTRY."
Constitutional nonsense.
Article I, Section 4 is clear: "The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof." The Supreme Court ruled in 1890 that presidential electors "are no more officers or agents of the United States than are the members of the state legislatures", directly contradicting Trump’s authoritarian rant.
While there are legitimate concerns about mail-in ballots, the founders deliberately distributed election authority across fifty states to prevent concentrated federal election control. The Constitution gives presidents no power to dictate election procedures to states. But with a slim Senate majority, Trump knows he too would need to end the filibuster to win legislatively.
Republicans must choose: between a negligible short-term political advantage—and the Constitution.
Few moments in American politics have been as shocking to me as the three recent occasions I agreed with Marjorie Taylor Greene—the Georgia firebrand who once chased school shooting survivors down hallways.
When not advocating for American isolationism, Greene has recently made some actual sense, unleashing a series of razor-sharp criticisms at Trump. Dare I call them principled?
First came her scorching rebuke over the Epstein files. "I will never protect pedophiles or the elites," Greene declared, co-sponsoring legislation to force transparency after Trump downplayed the case.
Then on trade policy, Greene hammered Trump’s new tariffs on India, correctly identifying that tariffs burden consumers. Sadly, she arrived at the right answer via flawed logic, advocating to “end Indian H1-B visas” —when we need foreign tech talent more than ever.
But most remarkably, Greene showed humanity by slamming Trump's State Department for suspending medical visas for Gazan children. "We need to be the America that allows war torn children to come here for life-saving surgeries," she wrote: "did America's heart grow so cold to refuse innocent children privately funded surgeries?".
Holy moly! That was almost inspiring! MTG? Heart?
Whether Greene has discovered her conscience or is positioning for 2028 remains unclear. Either way, when the most devoted soldiers begin defecting, the MAGA empire may be weakening.
Drop the hate, MTG, and add a dash of economic sense. The Rebellion welcomes converts.
American Renegade of the Week: M.A.S.
In the darkness of Cuba's surveillance state, he spoke truth when silence meant survival. The regime marked him. Surveillance, harassment, and detention followed.
Yet he refused to bow.
Identified only as M.A.R. in court filings, this week's American Renegade reached American soil in 2024 through humanitarian parole—legally—believing he'd crossed from tyranny into refuge. After passing a rigorous screening process, he learned English, found work, paid taxes, and married a U.S. citizen.
Then came his scheduled immigration hearing in May. M.A.R. had checked every box and followed every rule. But after his hearing, ICE officers swarmed, throwing him into expedited removal—fast-track deportation that strips away due process.
M.A.R.'s betrayal mirrors America's abandonment of its democratic values under Trump. Temporary Protected Status, created by Congress in 1990, offers sanctuary to those fleeing war and persecution. When Biden took office, he expanded the program, extending protections to over 700,000 Venezuelans, Nicaraguans, and Cubans who'd fled socialism.
A 2021 Cato Institute study found TPS immigrants are among the least likely to commit crimes in the U.S. But Trump's return changed everything. His administration terminated TPS for all three countries and expanded expedited removal to include humanitarian parolees.
On August 1st, Judge Jia Cobb ruled this exceeded federal authority, marking one of the first major court challenges to Trump’s immigration policy since the Supreme Court’s Trump v. CASA decision, which limited district judges’ power to invoke nationwide injunctions. If she’s overruled, Cuban authorities will certainly be waiting on the tarmac for M.A.R.’s arrival.
Trump once thundered against "ruthless socialism," declaring America “stands with Cuba's oppressed”. Yet now he turns his back, abandoning the brave souls who risked everything to defy tyranny.
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