The Dictatorship
LSU brought a live tiger to its football game. Guess what happened next.
Before the LSU Tigers played the University of Alabama Crimson Tide Saturday night in Baton Rouge, a cage covered by black fabric was wheeled onto the field of Tiger Stadium. A spotlight was aimed at a curtain that lifted to reveal a Bengal tiger lying in a tiny cage and breathing rapidly. At the sound of the stadium’s frenzied applause, the tiger — named Omar Bradley — stood and showed signs of severe distress: pacing, panting and snarling.
Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry decided to reintroduce a cruel tradition of bringing a live tiger to games, nearly a decade after that tradition had been ended.
Omar had been forced to travel for hours from Florida for that one moment — because Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry decided to reintroduce a cruel tradition of bringing a live tiger to games, nearly a decade after that tradition had rightly been ended.
LSU stopped bringing Mike the Tiger to games in 2016 on the advice of the university’s veterinarians. The university’s current mascot, Mike VII, lives in a 15,000-square-foot enclosure adjacent to the stadium and is kept as a living figurehead to be observed by passersby and on a livestream online. But he isn’t put in a cage and wheeled onto the field as Omar was. Previous generations of Mike the Tiger mascots were even dragged to away games and subjected to pranks that included being kidnapped and even being released to wander dangerously around campus (before being shot by tranquilizers and returned to an enclosure).
Fittingly, there was an appropriate and immediate backlash regarding Omar’s appearance at Tiger Stadium. A poll conducted by the Baton Rouge Advocate found that of 1,500 people surveyed, 90% were against having Omar brought to the game. Clearly, the display of Omar offends current sensibilities about holding wild and exotic animals captive for our entertainment.
Omar is reportedly owned by Mitchel Kalmanson of the Worldwide Exotic Animal Agency in Florida. Places that raise, keep and rent out animals such as tigers are neither sanctuaries nor accredited zoos, but often recklessly operated carnival operations that prioritize profit over animal welfare. The federal violations accumulated by Kalmanson involve multiple incidents in which tigers he owned escaped during performances. The Omar episode also highlights the dangers of private ownership of such animals. Congress sought to curb such ownership with its resoundingly bipartisan passage of the Big Cat Public Safety Act in 2022.
Aside from the obvious safety concerns, the public increasingly cares about the plight of animals in general. The use of live animals as props is both outdated and out of favor. People can see that putting living, sensitive animals — whether birds or buffalobulls or big cats — into environments with bright lights and loud noises causes extreme stress. And keeping animals confined and captive for such uses is a recipe for lives of abject misery. The whole system seeks to profit from disregard for and cruelty to animals.
Keeping animals confined and captive for such uses is a recipe for lives of abject misery.
This year, Kalmanson was cited by the U.S. Department of Agriculture for failing to provide records showing that animals in his custody were receiving adequate veterinary care.
Landry’s invocation of “tradition” to justify parading Omar in front of screaming fans was bad enough, but it was also upsetting to see Louisiana Surgeon General Ralph Abraham, a physician and a veterinarian, justify the stunt.
“We had numerous discussions and took every step to ensure this was safe for the tiger. I spent several hours with the tiger last night and you could tell he was comfortable around people and enjoyed the attention,” a statement from Abraham read. “He’s in great health, well cared for by his owners and socially acclimated.”
“As both a veterinarian and medical doctor, I couldn’t think of a better day to literally and figuratively be a tiger.”
That statement showed a total disregard for the conditions that animals need to thrive and live their own autonomous lives. Above all, the officials’ defensive comments suggest that they realized how backward the plan appeared to much of the public.
The confined, unnatural lives of animal mascots are a shadow of what they should be. And to continue to use any animal as a mere symbol without regard for their interests raises the question of who we are as a society, and what kind of people we want to be. That’s the heart of the matter.
No one should resurrect a tradition so demeaning to animals and to ourselves. When we play so whimsically with animals’ lives, or by our silence endorse causing animals such stress and anguish, we all lose — but none more than Omar and countless others like him, caged and wheeled out as a sideshow.
Kitty Block is the president and CEO of the Humane Society of the United States and the CEO of Humane Society International. Block first joined the HSUS as a legal investigator in 1992. She has advised the White House on trade and the environment, and served multiple elected terms on the International Dolphin Conservation Agreement International Review Panel.
A federal judge in Washington has denied a bid Wednesday brought by a watchdog group to immediately block the Justice Department’s “anti-weaponization” fund, for now choosing to trust the department’s assertions that it is not moving forward with the fund.
U.S. District Judge Richard Leon ruled immediately, denying Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington’s request for a temporary restraining order that would have blocked the Department of Justice from taking steps to create the fund.
Throughout the 30-minute hearing, the DOJ reiterated that the administration was not moving forward with the nearly $1.8 billion fund, which seeks to compensate individuals who allege they have been politically targeted or victimized by the DOJ.
Andrew Block, the only lawyer present for the government, repeatedly cited Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche’s June 2 congressional testimonyin which he said the administration was “not moving forward” with plans to create the fund.
Leon indicated he agreed with the DOJ’s position that the case appeared to be moot, saying he was not persuaded there was an issue for the court to decide regarding the creation of the fund. He issued a stern warning to the DOJ, saying, “Don’t play possum with this court!” — meaning he does not want to be deceived.
The plaintiffs argued Blanche’s testimony did not amount to an official cancellation. Nikhel Sus, CREW’s attorney, said Blanche “refused to memorialize that rescission,” or in other words, put it in writing. Sus said that was “highly unusual.” Leon responded, “This whole case is highly unusual to say the least.”
Leon asked the government twice why they would not just rescind the order that established the fund. Block responded, “I don’t know,” and pointed again to Blanche’s public statements about the fund’s future.
Both Leon and Sus raised the issue of Trump’s continued public defense of the fund. “It can still be an important issue and also not moving forward,” Block said. “That isn’t a direction to move forward with the fund.”
Although Leon rejected CREW’s bid for an immediate block, he indicated he is still considering its request for a longer-term block against the fund.
A block order from a separate federal judge in Virginia remains in effect until at least Friday.
Fallon Gallagher is a legal affairs reporter for MS NOW.
The date when Social Security’s trust fund is expected to run out of money just got bumped up. The fund is now projected to empty in 2032according to a new report released by Social Security’s trustees.
The new depletion date isn’t an earth-shaking change — it’s only a quarter earlier than the estimate in last year’s report. But it illustrates how President Donald Trump’s policies are degrading a program he promised to never jeopardize — and accelerating an approaching crisis in how our government will assist the elderly and disabled.
The report names three factors that contributed to the earlier insolvency date. One is a declining fertility rate, but the other two drivers can be traced back to Trump: a drop in immigration into the country, and the “substantial effect” of the tax policies in the One Big Beautiful Bill he signed last summer.
Trump’s acceleration of the program’s insolvency comes atop his assaults on the program’s administrative capacities.
Reduced immigration during Trump’s second term — especially when coupled with a declining fertility rate — strains Social Security because the program is funded through payroll taxes. Those come out of people’s paychecks, and fewer workers supporting an aging population means the program receives less revenue. Indeed, Social Security already has been tapping its trust fund for the better part of the past two decades because the program’s costs have exceeded its cash income. And as the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities pointed out last yearlast year’s tax cuts were a boon to the rich but a bust for the solvency of the Social Security trust fund.
To be clear, if the fund is depleted, Social Security won’t go belly up. Benefits will continue to be paid out, but there will be a large drop in the amount. The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget estimates that the “average monthly cut would total $500, which is more than what the average retired household spends on groceries each month.”
That would be a huge blow to the budgets of many older Americans. Social Security is a major source of income for most retirees, and roughly 40% of beneficiaries over the age of 65 rely on it for most of their income. And it would mark the destabilization of the sole source of retirement security for most Americans that is supposed to be insulated from ups and downs — unlike 401K plans. As the CBPP has pointed outSocial Security is “most workers’ only source of guaranteed retirement income that is not subject to investment risk or financial market fluctuations.”
Trump’s acceleration of the program’s insolvency comes atop his assaults on the program’s administrative capacities. His cuts to the Social Security Administration have left offices understaffedincreased wait timesand reduced quality of customer service.
Ultimately, Trump is exacerbating a colossal social safety net problem that predates him, and the trust fund will hit dire straits after he has left office. Democrats need to have clear plans for shoring up the program and making it robust for the future — which will require not being sheepish about taxes as a tool for renewing the social contract. And when Republicans try to claim that they, too, are champions of Social Security, all Democrats need to do is point to the truth.
Zeeshan Aleem is a writer and editor for MS NOW. He primarily writes about politics and foreign policy.
Today’s edition of quick hits.
* The latest from Northern Ireland: “The family of a man who lost an eye in a knife attack appealed for calm on Wednesday after the incident triggered a wave of anti-immigrant violence in Belfast overnight, with masked men burning families out of their homes and torching vehicles. The appeal came as a Sudanese man appeared in court charged with attempted murder and as British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and politicians in Northern Ireland condemned the violence by ‘masked thugs’ that had targeted ethnic minorities.”
* In related news: “The British government hit out at X owner Elon Musk Wednesday, accusing him of whipping up tensions online ahead of disorder in Belfast.”
* The tenuous state of a dubious ceasefire: “Trump said the U.S. is going to hit Iran ‘hard’ today when pressed by reporters in the Oval Office about his statement earlier that Tehran will ‘pay the price’ for taking ‘too long’ to reach a peace agreement. ‘Well, we’re going to be attacking them and attacking them very hard, resuming bombing,’ he said.”
* The latest casualty figures from Lebanon: “Israel’s military offensive in Lebanon has killed at least 3,666 people, including 131 healthcare workers, and injured more than 11,300 since the U.S. and Israel began their war with Iran in late February, the Lebanese health ministry reported yesterday.”
* The changing nature of modern warfare: “Ukraine is wreaking havoc on unarmored trucks and trains in the battlefield’s rear, using drones with upgraded engines and batteries, integrated Starlink communication systems and new artificial-intelligence capabilities. The ramped-up attacks are causing fuel shortages, complicating troop rotations and reducing Russian military activity on the front.”
* This seems like a reasonable request: “Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee demanded Wednesday that Bill Pulte, President Donald Trump’s controversial pick for acting director of national intelligence, submit to a full security check before assuming the post, including an examination of his financial holdings and foreign contacts.”
* Some market trends can’t be stopped despite the White House’s best efforts: “Even as President Donald Trump boosts coal over clean energy, solar power is hitting new milestones in the U.S. and remains the leading source of new power. Data released Wednesday by global energy think tank Ember, along with a report by the Solar Energy Industries Association and analytics firm Wood Mackenzie, show the continued growth of solar and decline of coal in the United States despite federal policy. In May, for the first time, solar supplied more of the nation’s electricity than coal, or 12.8%, Ember said.”
* A bizarre schedule for a nonemergency vanity project: “Federal officials are laying more groundwork to begin construction on President Donald Trump’s planned 250-foot-tall triumphal arch, sharing additional documents that detail the project’s scope and an aggressive timetable for potentially completing work before Trump’s term ends. According to National Park Service documents posted this month, the administration envisions 20 hours per day of construction on the arch, year-round, in hopes of completing the project within two to three years.”
See you tomorrow.
Steve Benen is a producer for “The Rachel Maddow Show,” the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He’s also the bestselling author of “Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans’ War on the Recent Past.”
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