McDonald’s announced Monday it will pay $5 million to become the official corporate sponsor of the livestreamed firing-squad execution of Fort Hood gunman Nidal Hasan.

McDonald’s is the first major corporation to buy advertising during the controversial broadcast, scheduled for Dec. 3. The Pentagon tentatively titled the program “Execution Extravaganza: A Five-Gun Salute to Freedom.” The event is set to mark America’s first public execution since 1936, its first streamed online, and the first ever promoted with a Happy Meal toy.

“Public executions are back and so is the McRib,” said company spokesperson Amy Shepherd. “McDonald’s continues to lead the industry in innovative marketing strategies designed to satisfy our customers’ growing appetite for bloodshed.” The company will also offer the Texas Meal Deal nationwide throughout December. The deal includes a 10-piece order of Chicken McNuggets (spicy or regular), medium fries and a medium drink. Shepherd said it will be priced at $13.09 in honor of the 13 people murdered during Hasan’s deadly rampage at the Texas military base in 2009.

McDonald’s also unveiled a new commercial featuring classic characters like Ronald McDonald, Grimace, and Mayor McCheese blasting the Hamburglar with McNugget-shaped bullets. It swapped the iconic “ba da ba ba ba” jingle with gunshots pitched to the original melody. Ketchup and McDonald’s Tangy Barbeque Sauce were conspicuously absent from the ad. Sources said executives feared the red condiments would invite unwelcome comparisons to the gore on screen.

McDonald’s sponsorship is widely seen as a boon for the Trump administration, which had struggled to pitch livestreamed capital punishment to corporate America. Chili’s reportedly rejected a proposal to switch the execution method to electrocution and replace the broadcast audio of burning flesh with the sizzle of its signature fajitas. President Trump also faced an embarrassing setback when several artists refused to perform for the halftime show.

McDonald’s announcement drew fierce criticism from Democrats on Capitol Hill. “McDonald’s can afford to spend millions on Trump’s death pageant, but won’t pay its workers a living wage,” said Illinois Congressman Raja Krishnamoorthi. “Hardworking Americans deserve better.” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer posted “I’m NOT lovin’ it.” He also told reporters McDonald’s “shameful” promotion had earned “a strong wag of my finger.”

Republicans and the White House praised the fast-food giant. “The same woke leftists who can’t define what a woman is are in no place to lecture us about morals,” said Tennessee Senator Marsha Blackburn. “I’ll be taking my grandkids to McDonald’s for a Lethal Legion Happy Meal.” White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller urged more companies to “overcome their cosmopolitan bias and stand behind the will of our nation.” “This is new to all of us,” he acknowledged. “But it will soon feel very, very normal.”

NOTE: This article is a work of satire. The events and quotations described are fictional and intended for humor and commentary.

Have you been furniture shopping lately? I recently came across an $8,000 sofa at an outlet store near my apartment. It sat in a fairly unremarkable showroom next to a dented end table marked down to about $150. The price tag may be eye-popping, but it’s not an anomaly. Bureau of Labor Statistics data shows prices for living room, kitchen, and dining room furniture climbed 25% between February 2020 and September 2025.

That costly couch represents the state of our economy. Stagnant wages and inflation have forced formerly West Elm Americans to scavenge the wastelands of Wayfair. They’re paying the same prices as a few years ago for cheaper materials and shoddier craftsmanship. You can extend that metaphor to food, clothes, cars, electronics, and so much more.

The reasons for this are myriad. The U.S. has spent the last quarter-century bogged down in Middle East forever wars. At the same time, tax cuts, once promoted as a way to “starve the beast” of big government, became dogma within the Republican Party. Conservative lawmakers kept slashing rates even as deficits soared. Democrats, meanwhile, fought harder to protect welfare and entitlement programs than against the tax cuts themselves. Neither side has actually put forth a serious proposal to cut spending. Even the more ambitious plans only slow the rate of increase, not an actual drop in the raw dollar amount spent by the federal government.

For years, America could afford this profligacy. U.S. energy production, the tech boom, free trade, the dollar’s reserve-currency status, deep capital markets, and the inertia of accumulated wealth blunted the worst consequences of our fiscal stupidity. Put simply, we were born rich enough to make a lot of bad decisions without immediately going broke.

Now we have a president reckless and incompetent enough to test just how much abuse the American economic order can withstand. A capricious and constitutionally questionable tariff regime is pummeling what remains of American manufacturing. Trump has shattered decades of painstakingly negotiated free trade pacts. He even ripped up his own USMCA agreement and launched a trade war with Canada. His actions make it clear that America is no longer a credible business partner, and it could take decades to undo the reputational damage.

Not to mention the latest foreign adventure in Iran burning through billions of dollars each month and imperiling global oil supplies. Or immigration crackdowns dealing a blow to the labor force. Or unprecedented political interference in the Federal Reserve as the BRICS nations look for alternatives to the dollar. Or attacks on higher education, which attracts the world’s best scientists and entrepreneurs. Or God knows what else.

Most terrifyingly, Trump and his family have normalized corruption and cronyism. There has perhaps not been a political family so shameless about monetizing its proximity to power since the Marcoses of the Philippines. The president’s net worth has reportedly grown by $3 billion since he took office again less than two years ago. It’s difficult to see Amazon’s bankrolling of the Melania documentary that it knew would lose money as anything other than a bribe. Jared Kushner is yet again representing the U.S. in the Mideast while Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the UAE funnel billions into his private-equity operation. Now he’s engaged in a shady land deal in Albania. Ivanka Trump became ensnared in a scandal of her own involving Chinese trademarks while working for the White House.

If the country ratifies this kakistocracy and graft by maintaining the Republican majority in Congress, our dear leader promises to send $5,000 checks. America can survive the excesses of a single president; it cannot survive if those excesses become ingrained in its political culture.

Empires rarely collapse because of one catastrophic decision. They erode when a succession of bad decisions consumes the advantages accumulated by previous generations. Eventually, the inheritance runs out.

Then one day, the people of the once-great American empire look around and realize they can’t even afford a decent couch anymore.

.

Critics are blasting the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation over guidance telling its journalists not to refer to 9/11 as a “terrorist attack” without attribution.

“The hijackings led to passenger jet crashes in Washington, D.C., Pennsylvania and Manhattan,” the leaked memo read. “The World Trade Center (WTC in second reference) was destroyed.” The language is tortured enough to constitute a violation of the Geneva Convention. Such bizarre sentence construction lets the author avoid the matter of who carried out the attacks, never mind the more politically dangerous question of their motivations.

It also glosses over details like the nearly 3,000 people the terrorists killed that day. Sorry, I mean “individuals who died in what officials called a ‘terrorist attack’.”

The misguided missive is doing numbers in conservative circles. It even caught the attention of FBI Director Kash Patel. He called it a “bastardization of history” and vowed any Canadian agency that failed to denounce the CBC’s practice “will no longer have friend [sic] in this FBI.” That’s an insane threat for the nation’s chief law enforcement officer to make over a TV network’s style guide, even if his outrage is understandable.

Some commenters saw evidence of Trump Derangement Syndrome in the 9/11 guidance. Others speculated about anti-American sentiment or terrorist sympathies. After a decade working in media, I assure you the answer is far more boring yet equally insidious.

Everything flows downhill from the Associated Press. The AP Stylebook sets the standard for American news organizations. It increasingly makes judgments that extend beyond grammar and clarity into hot-button culture and identity issues. This is why you rarely see “illegal immigrant” in print anymore. It’s also why the Black community is capitalized, but the white community is not. The girthy guidebook is full of such subtle manipulations.

The 2022 AP Stylebook included:

“New guidance on terrorism that says to describe specific actions that are being perpetrated, and attribute the use of the word terrorism or terrorist to authorities except when talking about historical events widely acknowledged as terrorist actions.”

That seems fair enough, but the CBC’s edict doesn’t carve out an exception for historical events. The broadcaster says its terrorism policy actually predates the AP’s version, but the similarities show just how deeply ingrained these ideas are within the industry.

Journalists will vigorously debate editorial choices but rarely break from the progressive worldview that dominates the profession. Newsrooms have become hyper-sensitive to language that could stigmatize marginalized groups. The war in Gaza has only heightened that instinct around Islam. That may be well-intentioned, but walking on eggshells produces convoluted copy, and audiences lose trust.

There will be a lot of incredible, insightful coverage surrounding the 25th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. It would be a shame if cringey, performative bullshit distracted from an otherwise amazing piece.

My advice: don’t overthink it. Islamic terrorists attacked the United States on September 11, 2001. Full stop. Stand firm on facts. If some unhappy soul on Bluesky thinks that’s bigoted, oh well.