Saturday Morning Covfefe: This Is How It Scales

Institutions shift. Culture follows. Children pay.

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Refill your coffee mug. The republic didn’t take the week off.

Let’s get into it.

1. Archive the Human Rights Page. Launch “Board of Peace.”

Earlier this month, the State Department quietly archived the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights & Labor’s Facebook page. Gone. Older posts are being removed from public view. The explanation? “To speak with one voice.” Less record. More message control. This is the bureau that documents global human rights abuses.

Now zoom out.

As human rights documentation disappears, Trump convenes his inaugural “Board of Peace” at the former U.S. Institute of Peace, an institution his administration hollowed out and effectively absorbed. Most of the leaders on stage were monarchs or autocratic-leaning allies. None of America’s major European democracy allies joined.

Under the charter, Trump serves as chairman—potentially for life.

From the podium, he drifted into commentary about appearances: "Young, handsome guy… I don’t like young, handsome men. Women? That I like." He mocked a "young, attractive woman" in Congress (AOC) while presiding over a body supposedly dedicated to global stability.

(In 2020, I once watched Trump stop a White House Situation Room meeting on a crisis event to point out a "beautiful woman" at the table.)

Cameras also caught him nodding off. The trick is simple: close your eyes, read the back of your eyelids, perk up when needed. If you’re exhausted at work, apparently that’s the move. It may be the only transferable life lesson from this presidency.

Some habits don’t change. They scale. Peace branding on stage.

✌️ Board of Peace: The Independent

2. The ICE Tip Line, And What It Revealed

A Nashville comedian set up a fake ICE deportation tip line as satire. He expected a few prank calls. Instead, nearly 100 people submitted reports on neighbors, ex-lovers, Uber drivers, and strangers at the grocery store.

One call came from a kindergarten teacher. She reported the parents of a 5-year-old student. "I mean, they seem like nice people," she said. "But if they’re taking up resources from our county, I’m not into illegal people being here."

The child was born in New York.

The most chilling part wasn’t rage. It was the tone. Calm. Polite. Procedural. The comedian simply read her own words back to her. "You make it sound terrible," she replied.

That’s the point. This is what normalization looks like. Not jackboots. Not shouting. Forms. Submissions. "Official reports." If this is what people are willing to send to a fake tip line, imagine what’s happening at the real one.

📞 A Deportation Tip Line, And What It Revealed: WaPo

3. The Kids of Dilley, And the Town That Said No

First, the children. I can’t get these stories out of my mind. They’re horrific.

They fled Putin’s Russia believing America would be different. Instead, they’ve spent more than four months behind razor wire in a detention center in Dilley, Texas, despite passing credible fear screenings.

Their children describe worms in the food. Fluorescent lights that never fully go dark. Guards confiscating toys from small hands.

"Even in Russia, they don’t treat children like this," the father said. Their 12-year-old daughter developed a severe ear infection. Her parents say they stood in line for hours for medication. She now has partial hearing loss in one ear.

For her birthday, spent behind locked doors, her only wish was simple: "To get out of here."

These are asylum seekers. Not criminals. Thousands of families have cycled through Dilley since large-scale family detention resumed. Lawyers report prolonged confinement, inadequate medical care, and children deteriorating emotionally and physically.

Meanwhile, in Social Circle, a heavily MAGA county, residents are pushing back against plans for a 10,000-bed ICE detention center. The city manager refused to turn on the water. Strained infrastructure. No transparency.

Even some of Trump’s strongest counties are asking: At what cost?

🧒 “Even in Russia...”: NBC News

4. The Call. The Check. The Bridge.

On January 16, billionaire bridge owner Matthew Moroun gave $1 million to MAGA Inc. On February 9, he met with Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick to lobby against a competing bridge. Hours later, President Trump publicly blasted that bridge. The White House says it’s unrelated.

Maybe.

But here’s what we do know: Large MAGA Inc. donors are getting meetings, and in some cases, administration actions align with their financial interests. Crypto.com’s parent company just gave $5 million to the same PAC while lobbying the administration over crypto enforcement.

This isn’t a paper bag of cash under a desk. It’s something more modern. It’s legal proximity. Super PAC law allows unlimited donations. Unlimited donations buy influence through access. Access shapes outcomes. Sometimes directly.
Sometimes subtly. But always structurally.

Meanwhile, everyday Americans absorb tariffs, funding freezes, regulatory whiplash–while billionaires write checks and get phone calls returned.

That’s not conspiracy. That’s how the system is currently built. And as we head into the midterms, it will accelerate. Watch the checks.

I didn’t leave my career to take a stand against Trump, put my family at risk, and walk away from power to participate in a pay-to-play system. Politics is lived. And it should be accountable.

🌉 $1M to MAGA, Then the Bridge Attack: NY Times

5. Big Tech Is Buying Up America’s Land, And Home Builders Can’t Compete

Artificial Intelligence (AI) may live in the cloud, but it’s bulldozing real neighborhoods.

In Virginia—especially in Prince William and Loudoun Counties—tech giants like Amazon, Microsoft, and Google are paying staggering sums for land once slated for housing. One builder paid just over $50 million for land. Sold part of it to Amazon for $700 million. In Illinois, a developer paid nearly $1 million per house to tear down an entire subdivision for data centers. In Texas, land that sold for $40,000 an acre a few years ago now goes for $350,000+.

Home builders? They can’t make the math work.

Northern Virginia already faces a shortage of more than 75,000 homes. Inventory is tight. First-time buyers are squeezed. Homes sell in days. Now, the same land that could hold 500 homes can host a massive AI campus that generates tax revenue. This isn’t just a Virginia story. It’s the blueprint.

Wherever AI infrastructure explodes next—Texas, Georgia, Arizona, the pattern will repeat: land gets snapped up, prices surge, housing loses, politics shifts toward whoever writes the biggest check.

If the future economy is built on AI, but the people powering that economy can’t afford to live near it, what exactly are we building?

Silicon Valley is virtual. The land grab is not.

🏘 Homes vs. Data?: Wall Street Journal

🌙 One Thing for Your Soul

Kunal Nayyar, best known as Raj on The Big Bang Theory, shared something quietly extraordinary. He goes on GoFundMe at night and anonymously pays off random families’ medical bills.

At the height of the show, the cast earned around $1 million per episode. Nayyar says wealth doesn’t feel like a burden; it feels like grace. And grace, to him, means changing someone’s life. He calls it his “masked vigilante thing.” There’s something deeply human about that.

We live in a country where families crowdfund cancer treatments and medical debt drives bankruptcy. Survival shouldn’t depend on going viral. He chose to step into that gap, turning success into relief. That’s power used well.

So here’s your reminder, whatever your influence looks like: Be someone’s anonymous miracle. Be someone’s quiet relief.

💛 Kunal Nayyar’s Quiet Generosity: Variety

Tuesday night: State of the Swamp—the rebuttal to the State of the Union. I’ll be on stage. Join us in person or tune in live. Details: www.defiance.org.

Until next time,

Olivia