July 23: The terrifying true story of the lettuce PR war that’ll scare the shit out of you … Trump gives the Saudis the key to nuclear power just like MAGA wanted … Six House Democrats help pass GOP military spending bill to fund crimes … Madison, WI, police officer shoots Black man dead as he lies on the street …
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This is the story of Pres. Donald Trump’s secret war on Taco Bell™, dispatches from the front … of the drive-through line.
It was a war waged to protect the real enemy, a right-wing corporation attacking America’s rear flank in 34 states.
The cyclosporiasis casualty count now stands at 11,500 cases. Eleven-thousand and 500 volunteers who deployed to Taco Bell™, other fast-food outlets, and the bagged-salad aisle and goddamit put their asses on the line.
When the first shots were fired, everyone targeted Taco Bell™. Then came the scheme to use Taco Bell™ as a diversion from the real target, further up the supply lines: A massive lettuce grower and salad-maker that couldn’t be saved by its usual cover: Italian, French, or Russian.
This account is based on reporting by food war correspondents from Bloomberg and others.
First they came for the gorditas.
It all began with a series of mysterious explosions, insane explosive diarrhea (IED, not to be confused with DEI, which broadens your mind, not your sphincter). The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) discovered that the roadside bombshells came from Taco Bell™s.
Then, a week ago Wednesday, July 15, the FDA and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), reached out to Taco Bell™’s lettuce supplier: Taylor Fresh Foods. It’s a $7 billion company that goes by its nom de guerre: Taylor Farms.
Word was already out that the FDA/CDC joint strike force was targeting Taco Bell™.
But now they told Taylor that the Taco Bell™s in question got their lettuce from Taylor. They gave Taylor a deadline: Initiate a voluntary lettuce recall by noon on Thursday. Taylor ignored the deadline and didn’t retreat. So the feds prepared to open fire with a press release.
Then the White House entered the war.
Trump was already a strategic Taylor ally. The company had given $1 million to a pro-Trump political action committee last year, and donated more to other right-wing causes. CEO Bruce Taylor attended an event with Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins earlier this month.
Bruce is a big donor to right-wing Republicans, WIRED reported, and to anti-regulatory groups. His company’s spent $810,000 lobbing lobbyists against food regulations that might help regulate your bowel movements.
And Taylor just hired former White House aide Trent Morse.
The White House and Taylor had an open line of communication, Bloomberg reported. The White House demanded that the FDA and CDC defend their evidence, which the White House was definitely qualified to evaluate.
One covert White House operative told Bloomberg that Taylor was defensive with the White House, but swore that Trump never directly entered the conflict. The New York Times reported that last Thursday Taylor asked the White House to camouflage Taylor’s role.
The White House ordered the FDA and CDC to cease fire.
Two unidentified White House officials approved a press release that still blamed Taco Bell™, but didn’t even mention Taylor. The White House told the Times that Taylor wasn’t named due to confidentiality concerns about trade secrets like who buys and sells lettuce with a parasite that causes explosive diarrhea1.
Taco Bell™ returned fire the best anyone could when the only fire you have is a variety of sauce packet. The fast-food franchise released a statement zeroing in on its supplier, but still not naming Taylor.
All told, thanks in part to the White House’s diversionary action, Taylor bought themselves an extra 60 hours before the public learned that Taylor was even on the battlefield of lettuce.
It wasn’t until Friday afternoon that Taylor emerged from cover and issued a voluntary recall of its shitty lettuce. They again tried to divert fire from themselves, saying they were “removing all iceberg lettuce sourced from central Mexico.” Yeah. sourced from their farms in Mexico. Taylor’s source was Taylor. Catch-22.
So Taco Bell™ was still in the crosshairs. Defenders assured them, “It’s nacho fault,” but all they had to fight back was salsa. They needed ships and salsa.
Taco Bell™ didn’t have allies in the White House. They might retaliate with a Baja Blast™, but lacked the firepower of a MAHA Blast.
But soon Walmart, Sysco Corp., and other companies began retreating from Taylor.
On Saturday, Taylor lettuce not involved in the recall tested positive, but by Sunday federal scientists concluded that was a false positive. Taylor struck hard at the sudden opening in the federal lines.
Taylor announced the false positive and said the “FDA apologized to us.” Chalk it up to the foliage of war, but that wasn’t true, as the FDA said Monday. The FDA did not apologize and Taylor was still believed to be the source.
Either way, Taylor’s campaign of taco shelling worked. Today, most people still have no idea that it was Taylor, not Taco Bell™, that launched Kale’s Navy against our asses.
War, as they say, is bell™.
NO ATHEISTS IN FOX ASSHOLES If you’re wondering how God could allow such carnage asada, you should know that Jesus Himself took up arms.
Taylor has strong ties to the evangelical right-wing ministry that’s infiltrated the Republican ranks in Washington.
Rollins, who hosted that event Bruce Taylor attended, is one of the White House insiders who brought Ralph Drollinger back to the White House to lead his antisemitic Bible studies for cabinet members. Drollinger preaches that government should leave business alone, even when the business is selling leaves that cause explosive diarrhea.
Accordingly, tons of FDA food inspectors took the buyouts when Trump let the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) cut government.
The FDA last year inspected 1,122 foreign-food plants supplying the U.S. That’s down from 1,751 in 2019, the last time Taylor’s Mexican Taylor lettuce source was inspected.
It gets better.
As Katherine Stewart just revealed, Bruce’s brother Steve — they once ran Fresh Express together — served several tours of duty on the board of Drollinger’s Capitol Ministries from 2013 to 2020. That includes 2017, when Drollinger first got his Bible studies into the Trump White House.
(As I wrote last year, Drollinger’s board is packed with resentful agriculture executives pissed off that California hasn’t made them more rich.)
Less than two weeks after Rollins took charge at the Agriculture Department (USDA) in 2025, a Taylor executive was appointed to the USDA’s board on organic standards.
The whole point of Drollinger’s ministry is to keep politicians in line … with that most special of special interests, Jesus, an unregistered voter. Here’s a Capitol Ministries Facebook post from 2017:
“I’ve met candidates or even politicians who I would agree with on values or ethical principles, but they don’t have faith,” Steve said. “When values are not founded on biblical truth, it’s harder for politicians to stand firm in the onslaught that is Washington, DC, or Sacramento, or Austin, or wherever God has placed them in office. A politician who has faith is much more solid in standing for those values and won’t run away from them when it’s convenient to do so.”
—Steve Taylor, Board Member
You know, like when it’s convenient to run away from explosive diarrhea! that isn’t solid.
Trump Takes Break from Stopping Iran Nukes to Give Saudi Arabia Nukes
The 25th anniversary of 9/11 is still a couple months away, but Pres. Donald Trump on Wednesday ruined the surprise. The cataclysm’s out of the bag.
Trump on Wednesday gave Saudi Arabia the present it’s had on its Amazon wish list for years: An agreement to let the Saudis enrich uranium for peaceful civilian purposes without the standard international guidelines in place to prevent it from being enriched for non-peaceful non-civilian purposes like making a nuke.
Trump’s voters elected him in 2024 in the hopes that he would supply nuclear capabilities to the nation that gave us 15 of the 9/11 hijackers. After murdering and dismembering a Washington Post writer, the Saudis remain MAGA’s favorite Islamic dictatorship.
The deal will also enrich U.S. companies — such as Jared’s Olde-Fashioned Uranium Enrichment Shoppe — with sweet Saudi cash in return for helping them build their reactors and enrichers.
As TFN warned you Newsfuckers on Monday, the deal does not include the standard inspection protocols and guidelines of the International Atomic Energy Agency. Luckily, the deal is also subject to congressional approval, with less than four months until Election Day.
Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman says they don’t want to build a nuclear weapon any more than they wanted to kill Post op-ed writer Jamal Khashoggi but they will if Iran develops one or writes a mean op-ed.
And it’s not just the U.S. heading for radioactive elections. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is now under fire for failing to prevent a Saudi nuclear program.
Six House Democrats Enlist in Trump’s War on Everything
The House on Wednesday narrowly passed a $1.1 trillion military spending bill to ensure continued funding for the illegal Iran War, The Boat-iac Killer™ maritime murders, and the deployment of National Guard against the citizenry of U.S. cities that don’t want them there.
Helping Republicans pass the bill to fund these things and whatever the fuck else is up someone’s epauletted sleeve were:
Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-TX)
Rep. Don Davis (D-NC)
Rep. Jared Golden (D-ME)
Rep. Vicente Gonzalez (D-TX)
Rep. Adam Gray (D-CA)
Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (D-WA).
The bill passed 216-212, meaning these Democrats alone could have killed it or forced changes to defend us against the Defense Department. The bill also includes new levels of coordination with Israel’s military that TFN told you about on Wednesday.
But the bill’s fate in the Senate is uncertain. Like ours!
The House also passed $73 billion specifically to fund new, upcoming Iran Wars. That bill included Pres. Donald Trump’s assault on democracy on America, his proposed voting restrictions known as the SAVE Act because he hopes they’ll save his ass from explosive impeachment next year.
This one appears to be DOA in the Senate.
Police Bring Guns to a Knife Fight
Police in Madison, WI, on Wednesday shot dead an allegedly knife-wielding Black man who was on the ground in the middle of a street where the four officers subduing him had plenty of room to defend themselves by, like, just backing the fuck away. Maybe even throw in some de-escalation.
The man allegedly cut one of the officers after they caught him fleeing on his bike. The knife wounds were apparently not too bad, because the officer was still able to fire three shots in rapid succession into the man’s head as he was on the ground.
Here’s the video.
The unidentified dead guy had fled from police on his bike after police responded to calls of someone trying to get into parked cars. In other words, we don’t even know that a crime was committed. But the guy fled, so now he’s dead.
The Guardian reports that when one officer reached for his gun, another yelled, “Taser! Taser!” Maybe next time.
Madison protesters last night demanded justice, without getting shot.
Media Watch
CNN reports that Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) is the war-monger mongering the Democratic Party civil war. The headline reads: “How Sanders’ primary endorsements have sparked a Democratic midterm war.”
Sanders has endorsed more than 90 candidates. Out of the 60 races already decided, 42 Sanders candidates have won so far; not necessarily that impressive because politicians tend to endorse only candidates who have a reasonable shot.
Still, not nothin’! Especially when so many of those 42 were going up against incumbents — like those ousted in New York City — or establishment candidates.
But CNN’s framing is, shall we say, puzzling. How is it that Democratic Party committees and leaders like Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) and Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) didn’t spark this war by recruiting and picking their own candidates?
Aren’t midterm primaries precisely when parties are meant to fight? Is Sanders not supposed to endorse or campaign for the people he wants? Is that the framing CNN is giving us while simultaneously claiming they’re defending democracy?
Three Quickies
Just one day after Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth testified that his war-money cookie jar is almost empty, the Washington Post reported Wednesday that the Trump administration is considering splurging on another war. National Security Council Senior Director for Counterterrorism Sebastian Gorka reportedly wants to attack an al Qaeda affiliate in Mali, because ya gotta collect them all. By the Post’s count, Mali would be the eighth nation where Pres. Donald Trump has ordered strikes on hostile forces and on his approval ratings.
Speaking of which, Trump’s approval ratings just hit a historic low. New polling has his approval rating at a mere 30% for the second month in a row, but his disapproval numbers notched up a percentage to a whopping 67%. More than two out of three Americans now agree that this guy sucks on ICE.
And that was before the price of oil rebounded back above $95 a barrel. On Wednesday, even U.S. officials who don’t have explosive diarrhea pooh-poohed the odds of ending the Iran War any time soon, sending oil prices up by almost 5%. The price at the pump is also continuing to inch up, topping $4.06 per gallon while you were sleeping and Trump was explosively shitposting.
TCB
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TFN creator and writer Jonathan Larsen co-created Up w/ Chris Hayes and wrote for Countdown with Keith Olbermann at MSNBC, helped launch CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360° and Air America Radio, and has also worked at The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and The Young Turks. He is a member of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation advisory board.
In contrast to the White House concern for corporate privacy, it was Morse who helped gut a government watchdog agency that’s supposed to guard individual privacy.
You know, we the American people have ALSO given Trump millions of dollars. Why don’t our millions we’ve given him ever rate against a million from some republican donor with a business interest.
If the presidency is for sale, why doesn’t our money ever count?
Explosively fun reading