President Donald Trump has unveiled the D-list musical acts to perform at a replacement MAGA rally after issuing a directive to “cancel” his disastrous Freedom 250 concert series.

Trump’s Great American State Fair, part of the country’s 25oth anniversary celebrations, saw most of the headline acts cancel due to his link to the event.

Now the president, who turns 80 this month, has moved into damage control mode with a new “Rally to end all Rallies,” to be held in Washington, D.C., on June 24, the day before the State Fair shows were due to begin.

The president announced the new rally on Truth Social on Thursday night.

And he has managed to secure “a fine and highly dignified gentleman” to headline the event: himself.

For his rally, Trump has booked his usual MAGA-friendly performers, after the ones previously booked for the State Fair, including Martina McBride, Milli Vanilli and his Celebrity Apprentice pal Bret Michaels, deserted him.

For his warm-up act at the rally, Trump picked 83-year-old country singer Lee Greenwood, whose signature hit “God Bless the U.S.A.” was released in 1984. Greenwood has performed the song at Trump rallies since 2016. He also sang it when Trump appeared at the Charlie Kirk memorial last September, the singer proudly sharing it on his social media.

Greenwood’s last hit was a 2001 re-release of “God Bless the U.S.A.,” while three of his top five songs on Spotify are variations of the track.

“We don’t want singers with no talent, but big fees to put you to sleep, we’ve told them all to stay home,” Trump said on Thursday. “All we want is you, me, a few speakers, and the Greatest Music ever played, the same Music you have listened to for years!” Donald Trump posts about headlining his own rally. Donald Trump posts about headlining his own rally. screen grab

Trump added, “We will have the fabulous Lee Greenwood introducing me with what has turned out to be one of the Greatest Hits of All Time, GOD BLESS THE U.S.A.”

Greenwood confirmed in an X post that he would be performing his trademark hit with the United States Marine Band.

“Growing up as a farm kid in California, I never could have imagined that one day I would stand on the National Mall, alongside our Commander in Chief, and help commemorate this remarkable milestone in our nation’s history,” Greenwood wrote. Vice President JD Vance and President Donald Trump stand as singer Christopher Macchio performs “The Star-Spangled Banner” after Trump was sworn in as the 47th U.S. President on January 20, 2025. Vice President JD Vance and President Donald Trump stand as singer Christopher Macchio performs “The Star-Spangled Banner” at Trump’s second presidential inauguration. SAUL LOEB/via REUTERS

The president also announced “the amazing Christopher Macchio” to perform some of his personal favorite classical songs. “Not since the legendary Luciano Pavarotti has there been such a voice!” Trump wrote.

Despite having just 571 monthly listeners on Spotify, the 47-year-old is now Trump’s go-to opera singer.

He has a history of performing for Trump at rallies and other MAGA events, including singing “The Star-Spangled Banner” at Trump’s inauguration last year. The opera tenor has 2,000 subscribers on YouTube, and his page includes multiple videos of his performances for the president, including singing “New York, New York” at a Trump rally at Madison Square Garden in 2024.

His YouTube page sees Macchio interviewed by right-wing broadcaster Benny Johnson, while Macchio’s X account is full of MAGA content, including praising Elon Musk and slamming transgender rights.

Using Macchio to perform songs the late Pavarotti made famous also bypasses the issue Trump faced when playing the recordings at his rallies.

Pavarotti’s family previously protested his use of the song “Nessun Dorma,” citing concerns about his views on immigration.

The singer’s widow, Nicoletta Mantovani Pavarotti, and three daughters said in a statement in 2016 that “the values of brotherhood and solidarity which Luciano Pavarotti expressed throughout the course of his artistic career are entirely incompatible with the worldview offered by the candidate Donald Trump.”

Earlier this week, Republican congressman Tim Burchett had suggested Greenwood could have headlined a rebooted Great American State fair, as well as other MAGA-safe artists including Kid Rock.

“It’d be cool to have Lee Greenwood come out and sing—he’s got a bunch of great songs—but of course the ending would be ‘God Bless the U.S.A,’” Burchett said in a video.

The Great American State Fair website now lists no performers, with the event remaining in limbo. Rappers Flo Rida, Vanilla Ice and Freedom Williams from C+C Music Factory have yet to cancel, with all other headliners already walking away.

Most cited the fact that they were booked without being told about the event’s political links, including Milli Vanilli singer Fab Morvan, who pulled out of the fair this week.

On Sunday, Trump initially flagged the idea of the rally, saying he wanted to “cancel” the failing State Fair.

He posted on Truth Social that he wanted a “giant MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN RALLY, for 250, instead of having overpriced singers, who nobody wants to hear, whose music is boring, and yet who do nothing but complain.”

The Daily Beast has contacted the White House and Freedom 250 for comment.

Might not be a bad thing if we can’t breach low earth orbit for a few decades. Spoil some billionaire bugout plans and give us a chance to get our shit together before the race to mine everything kicks off.

Marky Marx

Getting ready for his Wrinklemania 250 cage match vs The Undertator

Their point is it’s a job title and working for the worst offenders in big tech isn’t entailed in that. You can work in tech by writing surveillance software for Palantir or you can work in tech by being the website admin for UNICEF. Both are tech workers, but only one is part of the problem.

The autopsy concluded that so-called “identity politics” don’t resonate with white male voters. The report noted the success of Trump’s attack ads, particularly the anti-trans spots with the kicker, “Kamala is for they/them, President Trump is for you.”

“If the vice president would not change her position—and she did not—then there was nothing which would have worked as a response,” the report asserts.

Fuck these ghouls

You’ve got to spend some serious time around elephants to find a bigger piece of shit than Ken Paxton.

Prison. The off-ramp should be prison. There. Considered.

Being more likely than packing the court still doesn’t seem likely. They haven’t shown any willingness to actually do anything of substance and this would be a huge thing to achieve. I hope I’m wrong though.

from the article for those curious about how it’s framed:

All this sounds like pie in the sky, if not “un-American,” right? Actually, there is nothing in the U.S. Constitution that mandates either single-member congressional district or first-past-the-post balloting. A 1967 congressional statute requires single-member districts. Legislation to repeal or replace it would arguably be easier to enact that some blatantly partisan Court-packing scheme or a ban on partisan gerrymandering that might not pass judicial muster.

It’s possible that Callais’s impact is so dire that it would make such radical reforms suddenly possible and perhaps even palatable across party lines. When it comes to gerrymandering, we are clearly entering the “hyper-partisan doom loop of escalating division and polarization” that led Drutman and others to embrace proportional representation and fusion voting. Donald Trump is the perfect expression of the prevailing style of politics, and Democrats who fear and despise him should think hard and think big about how to escape the poison.

The idea is proportional representation, and “could” here of course means if we grant that it had any real chance of happening.

Respectfully disagree.

While it doesn’t comport with many (better) people’s concepts of it, these people aren’t all hopped up on secular humanism when they ban books and open de-transition centers

BREAKING: I can say anything I want like this. Do you have a source?

The League of Women Voters puts out a good voting guide in a lot of areas

https://www.vote411.org/

Adam McKay (born April 17, 1968) is an American screenwriter, producer, and director. McKay began his career in the 1990s as a head writer for the NBC sketch comedy show Saturday Night Live (SNL). After leaving SNL, McKay collaborated with comedian Will Ferrell on his comedy films in the 2000s such as Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy (2004), Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby (2006), Step Brothers (2008), and The Other Guys (2010). Ferrell and McKay co-wrote and co-produced many[quantify] television series and films, with McKay himself co-producing their website Funny or Die through their company, Gary Sanchez Productions.

Nice. I never use it so I didn’t notice. Thanks!

Installation was pretty easy. RCS is only available through the Google Messages app, and even then only seems to work with certain carriers. Other things that don’t work are NFC payments, Android Auto, and any app that uses the the Play Integrity API since it requires access to device identifiers.

Some apps can be hit or miss, but there is an option to disable some of the exploit protections on an app by app basis, and that can sometimes get you signed in and then you can re-enable them.

I make use of multiple users to keep certain apps isolated further.

The forum is a good place to check the compatibility of specific apps. Personally I haven’t been very inconvenienced, and the trade off is well worth it.

Edit: Android Auto does work now

Johnny Cash did a good job with “Hurt”

Seems like the lesson is no one wants to be one.

Smell the Glove

It’s like, how much more black could this be? And the answer is none. None more black.