ryan zinke retires to spend more time with his ethics file
Ryan Zinke, seen here pondering which public lands to "champion" into an oil lease next.
Ryan Zinke, Trump’s former interior secretary and part-time oil and gas concierge, is bailing on another term in Congress, citing health issues from his time as a Navy SEAL. Totally unrelated, of course, to that tiny detail where he previously had to resign from Trump’s cabinet under a blizzard of ethics investigations. Just a coincidence that the guy who treated the Interior Department like a lobbyist Airbnb is suddenly discovering the joys of rest and recovery.
Montana’s veered hard right, but Democrats now get a faint, flickering chance at the seat Zinke grabbed back in 2022 after his reputation did a Lazarus routine. While Greg Gianforte rushed out a statement hailing him as a “champion for Montana,” the record is a bit more specific: at Interior, Zinke pushed Trump’s "drill, baby, drill" agenda to open up public lands for oil and gas, then later tried to launder his legacy with some conservation cosplay by opposing the sale of those same lands in a GOP budget proposal.
So the man who helped auction off America’s natural heritage to fossil fuel interests is riding off (again) into the sunset, this time from Congress, with Republicans calling him a hero and Democrats circling his seat like it’s the last intact watershed he didn’t lease to an energy company. The Trump administration may be over, but its alumni network of ethically challenged public servants just keeps quietly slipping out the side door.
#corruption#forever-grifting
white house antitrust now streaming on ‘friends of trump+’
Ted Sarandos leaves Washington after a ‘routine’ DOJ visit, coincidentally having discovered that bidding against a Trump donor is no longer a sound business decision.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren and friends would like to know why Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos flew to Washington for a "routine" DOJ meeting and then, hours later, mysteriously decided that bidding for Warner Bros. Discovery was no longer "financially attractive." The timing just happens to clear the way for Paramount Skydance — run by David Ellison, son of billionaire Trump superfan Larry Ellison — to clinch the deal. Totally normal for the Justice Department to be the surprise guest star in a Hollywood bidding war, right?
Instead of regulators acting like, well, regulators, we get Attorney General Pam Bondi and White House chief of staff Susie Wiles allegedly huddling with Sarandos behind closed doors while the Antitrust Division’s review is still pending. Warren, Richard Blumenthal and Rep. Sam Liccardo are asking the obvious question: did the Trump administration quietly lean on Netflix to walk away so the president’s donor could scoop up a Hollywood studio? Meanwhile, Trump publicly swears he’ll “stay out” of the antitrust process, then gushes that Larry and David Ellison are “friends” and “big supporters” who will “do the right thing.” Conveniently, “the right thing” appears to be consolidating even more media power in the hands of his billionaire buddies.
Sarandos insists his DOJ chat was "very productive" and "nothing out of the ordinary," which raises the fascinating question of how many merger talks now come with a side of quiet political pressure and a wink from the White House. Ellison, fresh off buying Paramount Global and fresh from the State of the Union as Lindsey Graham’s plus-one, serenely assures investors there are "no statutory impediments" to closing the WBD merger. Of course there aren’t — when you’re plugged into Trumpworld, the statutes tend to move out of your way. The antitrust laws may still be on the books, but the real rule seems to be: if you’re rich enough and loyal enough, the market isn’t the only thing you can corner.
#corruption#oligarchy
93,000 dollars for a trump selfie and some light election fraud
When you drop $93,000 to stand next to Trump and it turns out the only thing you really bought was evidence for a federal indictment.
Federal prosecutors just shut down one of the Trump era’s favorite side quests: the pay-to-play selfie grift. New York businesswoman Sherry Xue Li is headed to prison for nine years after stealing more than $30m from foreign investors, promising them a fake development project and a magic green card, then laundering some of the loot into US political campaigns. Among the perks: charging investors $93,000 a head for entry to a 2017 Trump fundraiser and using the cash to make $600,000 in illegal donations.
The scam was basically EB-5 meets Mar-a-Lago photo line. Li and her partner, Lianbo Wang, allegedly blew investor money on luxury shopping, housing, vacations, and fine dining, then sold "access" to US politicians like it was a timeshare presentation with a Secret Service detail. Li even scored a photo with Donald and Melania and then used that image as marketing collateral for her totally-not-real development project. American democracy: now with VIP package pricing.
Prosecutors stress that the campaigns and committees were "unaware" of the scheme and face no charges, which is a polite way of saying our campaign finance system is so broken you can shove $600,000 of illegally sourced cash through it and everyone just shrugs as long as the checks clear. Li forfeits $31.5m and some properties; the politicians keep the money and the plausible deniability. The house always wins, even when the casino finally jails one of the dealers.
#corruption#forever-grifting#money
fbi director takes olympic beer bong, trump pretends to care about ethics
Kash Patel, hard at work safeguarding America by testing the structural integrity of a locker-room table with a beer in hand and a government jet on the tarmac.
Kash Patel, the man currently cosplaying as FBI Director, went viral for shotgunning a beer and pounding a locker-room table with the U.S. men’s hockey team after their gold-medal win over Canada in Milan. The video was fun, the context less so: Patel was there on what he swears was an "official" trip, conveniently using government aircraft while also taking in one of the hottest tickets of the Winter Olympics. Now a watchdog group wants FOIA records to see whether this was national security or just taxpayer-funded sports tourism.
Trump, who famously doesn’t drink but is absolutely hammered on power, reportedly told Patel he didn’t like the optics — both the beer-chugging and the jet usage. The White House then rolled out spokeswoman Abigail Jackson to insist crime is down and that this is all proof of Trump’s glorious "law and order" agenda, which is a curious way to describe an FBI director under investigation for potential misuse of government resources who just fired at least 10 employees tied to the Mar-a-Lago documents search. Patel also revealed his own phone toll records were scooped up during the earlier Trump probes, so naturally he’s now in charge of cleaning house.
While Patel was living his best Olympic locker-room life in Italy, an armed man was shot and killed after breaching the security perimeter at Mar-a-Lago. But don’t worry: the president wasn’t there, and his top law enforcement official was very busy networking with Italian cops and celebrating gold medals. Meanwhile, Sen. Dick Durbin has asked the DOJ inspector general to investigate Patel’s alleged "joyriding" with the FBI jet, and Democracy Defenders Fund wants to know if he also scored free game tickets and other goodies. America’s premier law enforcement agency is starting to look less like the FBI and more like a frequent-flyer rewards program for Trump loyalists.
#corruption#killing-democracy
supreme court briefly remembers bribery is bad
Trump staring at a tariff chart like it’s a wine list, trying to remember which donors paid for the good exemptions.
For the first time in what feels like several geological eras, the Supreme Court has remembered that presidents are not supposed to run the U.S. economy like a mob protection racket. By cutting back Trump’s ability to unilaterally slap tariffs on whoever hurt his feelings that morning, the court has accidentally taken a swing at the tariff-for-sale operation that’s been enriching donors, lobbyists, and, of course, the Trump family business.
Trump’s scheme was simple enough for even Peter Navarro to understand: cite the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, declare everything an emergency, and then hand out tariff exemptions like party favors to anyone who wrote a big enough check or swallowed their pride hard enough to avoid criticizing him in public. Tim Cook keeps quiet and drops $1m? Apple gets exemptions. GOP megadonor brothers? Their thermoplastic magically escapes tariffs. Elon Musk bankrolls Trump’s reelection? Tesla’s electronics glide right through. Sugar giant Florida Crystals and Reynolds American shovel millions into MAGA Inc, and suddenly foreign sugar and Chinese tobacco are the ones getting punished, not the companies buying policy like it’s on Amazon Prime.
The corruption isn’t subtle; it’s a spreadsheet. AMD gives $1m, and export controls relax. Vietnam greenlights a $1.5bn Trump golf-and-real-estate boondoggle, and—what do you know—tariffs go down and export controls disappear. Trade associations and fossil fuel companies line up with million-dollar offerings while Trump’s friends in lobbying and law firms gorge themselves on fees to secure exemptions. Big corporations, terrified of angering the thin-skinned autocrat with a tariff button, mostly skip court challenges and instead quietly kiss the ring in back rooms, demonstrating how you turn a trade law into an authoritarian loyalty test.
So yes, the Supreme Court’s decision is a rare speed bump on the golden escalator of graft. It doesn’t end the bribe-based tariff economy, but it does make it harder for Trump—or any future aspiring caudillo—to use emergency powers as a personal cash register and censorship tool. When even this court thinks you’ve gone too far with your corruption machine, you might really be overdoing it.
#corruption#killing-democracy
historic landmark to be replaced by trump's ego with chandeliers
President Trump smiles, presumably imagining the East Wing replaced with a 1,000-seat shrine to his own reflection.
The federal judiciary has graciously informed America that Donald Trump’s plan to partially gut the East Wing of the White House for a $300 million, donor-funded mega-ballroom can keep rolling for now. Trump immediately took to Truth Social to announce that the judge had "completely erased" the pesky effort to stop him, which is a bold interpretation of an opinion that explicitly invited the plaintiffs to come back and argue that the president is acting beyond his legal authority. Reading comprehension remains, as ever, an optional feature in this administration.
The National Trust for Historic Preservation is suing because Trump decided to tear into a national landmark and pass the hat to private donors like it’s a Mar-a-Lago expansion, not the actual White House. Judge Richard Leon didn’t say the scheme is legal; he said the lawsuit needs a procedural tune-up and practically begged them to refile with a sharper claim that Trump is exceeding his statutory authority. The Trust, noting the judge agreed they have standing, says they’ll do exactly that. So the bulldozers get a head start while the lawyers reword the obvious: the president is not supposed to treat the People’s House like a GoFundMe for his event-planning fantasies.
Meanwhile, Trump’s dream ballroom — 1,000 seats of pure, taxpayer-adjacent opulence — glides through “oversight” bodies now stuffed with his loyal appointees. The Commission of Fine Arts signed off despite not having seen the final design, and despite public comments running roughly 99% against the project. When nearly the entire public says "absolutely not" and the handpicked commission says "rubber-stamped," that’s not governance, it’s a zoning board cosplay of authoritarianism. Next up is the National Capital Planning Commission, also dominated by Trump allies, because if you’re going to reconfigure a historic democratic symbol to host bigger inauguration parties, you may as well have your own people holding the clipboards.
Trump promises the ballroom will host future inaugurations and large state visits, be ahead of schedule and under budget, and "stand long into the future as a symbol to the Greatness of America!" Which is one way to describe a privately financed, legally dubious expansion of the White House pushed through by captured boards over the near-unanimous objections of the public. The rest of us might call it a monument to the era when a president tried to turn the seat of government into a branded events venue, and the system’s checks and balances responded: "Please resubmit your complaint in the correct format."
#corruption#killing-democracy
antitrust chief tries to stop monopoly, gets replaced by lobbyists on legs
Jamie Raskin, pictured here wondering how many lobbyists it takes to run the Justice Department, prepares to find out the hard way.
House Democrats are poking the hornet’s nest at the Pam Bondi Department of Justice, asking why antitrust chief Gail Slater was shoved out the door right after she tried to block a $14bn Hewlett Packard Enterprise–Juniper Networks merger. Jamie Raskin and Jerry Nadler want to know why a supposedly independent antitrust division looks like an open-plan office for Trump-world lobbyists, and why Slater’s reward for questioning a mega-merger was a one-way ticket to "spend more time with her principles."
The letter politely suggests what everyone can see with the naked eye: the antitrust division isn’t being run by lawyers, it’s being run by Ballard Partners and a gaggle of "cozy MAGA friends" roaming DOJ’s Fifth Floor like it’s a WeWork for monopolists. Bondi, formerly of Ballard Partners herself, insists everything is fine, while a Hewlett Packard Enterprise litigator literally bragged on X about helping get Slater fired. Meanwhile, cases involving American Express, Live Nation/Ticketmaster, Netflix/Paramount/Warner Bros Discovery, and Google’s search monopoly all sit in the hands of an agency that looks less like a trust-buster and more like a concierge service for corporate consolidation.
The fun twist: many of the key players allegedly leaning on DOJ aren’t even in the administration, which means Trump can’t hide them behind executive privilege. So if Democrats win back the House, we may finally get the answer to a burning question of the Trump era: how many lobbyists does it take to screw in a lightbulb at DOJ? Trick question. They’re too busy screwing the antitrust division.
#corruption#forever-grifting
trump demands congress stop doing the crimes he brags about
Trump, captured at the precise moment he discovered that pretending to hate insider trading polls better than admitting you text your buddies before you tank the market on live TV.
Donald Trump, a man who treated the presidency like a clearance sale at Mar-a-Lago, is now solemnly urging Congress to "Pass the Stop Insider Trading Act without delay." Because if there’s one thing this era excels at, it’s the guy with a history of market-moving tweets, family-brand stock promotions, and mystery debt suddenly discovering ethics like he’s hosting a very special episode of Schoolhouse Rock.
In this State of the Union clip, Trump scolds Congress about trading on nonpublic information, as if we all forgot the multiple members of Congress who dodged COVID market losses while he downplayed the pandemic, or the way his own administration treated sensitive economic data like party favors. The message is clear: insider trading is bad when they do it, but perfectly fine when the president’s friends, donors, and sons are out there guessing the market with uncanny accuracy.
What we’re watching isn’t reform, it’s performance art. Trump gets to pose as the anti-corruption crusader while stacking his administration with people who treat financial disclosure forms like optional homework. If this thing ever passes, expect the enforcement mechanism to be a sternly worded letter, a shrug, and a fresh round of trades five minutes after the next classified briefing.
#corruption#forever-grifting
smokejumper tries to put out the dumpster fire that is ryan zinke
Ryan Zinke, alleged public-lands defender, carefully inspecting which part of Montana should be converted into his next investment vehicle.
Montana smokejumper and union leader Sam Forstag has spent his career parachuting into literal wildfires, which turns out to be the less dangerous part of his resume. The real inferno started when the federal government abruptly axed a quarter of US Forest Service workers in Montana in one day—no cause, no notice, including a 15-year employee getting canned during cancer treatment and another worker learning he was fired while in line for his mother’s funeral. A court eventually reversed the cuts, but the message from Washington was clear: workers are disposable, the spreadsheets are sacred.
So Forstag decided to go from jumping into fires to trying to evict one: Republican congressman Ryan Zinke, Trump’s former interior secretary and walking monument to the phrase "public service really pays." Zinke slunk out of the Trump administration in 2018 under multiple ethics investigations over his business dealings, then somehow watched his net worth rocket from about $2 million to more than $30 million by 2021 through real estate and assorted ventures. Now he’s back in Congress running on a platform of "stonewall Biden" and "open every scenic vista to mining and drilling" while still cosplaying as a public-lands defender. He votes to gut the agencies that protect the land, then helps his rich friends cash in on the ruins.
Forstag’s pitch is almost offensively straightforward: maybe Congress should have some people who have actually had jobs that don’t involve lobbying, insider deals, or Fox News hits. He’s running on boring, extremist ideas like affordable housing, universal childcare, and a healthcare system where getting sick doesn’t mean losing your job and your house. Meanwhile, Zinke is too busy skipping town halls and pushing new extraction projects to respond to any of this. The choice for Montana’s 1st District is shaping up nicely: a guy who jumps into forest fires to save public land, versus a guy who treats public land as a starter kit for his next investment portfolio.
#corruption#oligarchy#forever-grifting
trump bulldozes history to build himself a party room
An excavator tenderly removes 20th-century history to make room for a 21st-century autocracy ballroom.
The Trump-appointed Commission of Fine Arts has bravely stood up to 150 years of history and 99% public opposition to approve the president’s dream: a giant taxpayer-adjacent ego chamber where the East Wing used to be. After literally demolishing part of the White House in 2025, the commission — composed of people personally chosen by the guy who wants the ballroom — has now decided the design is just fine, thanks, once architects tweaked it to their liking.
Historic preservation groups, led by the National Trust for Historic Preservation, have had the audacity to suggest that maybe you can’t just knock down a chunk of the White House and throw up Mar-a-Lago North without complying with legally mandated review processes. They even sued to halt construction, because apparently laws are still a thing outside Trump’s head. Meanwhile, commission chair Rodney Mims Cook Jr announces this mega-ballroom is “definitely needed for over 150 years,” which is a very poetic way of saying “we’re retrofitting American democracy for permanent monarchy vibes.”
Trump, naturally, promises it will be “the most beautiful ballroom anywhere in the world” and insists it’ll be funded by private donations — a phrase that has never, ever in U.S. history led to influence-peddling, access-buying, or future ambassadorships for random rich people. As the rubble of the East Wing settles, what’s left is a familiar blueprint: destroy historic institutions, bypass normal process, and replace it all with a gilded space designed for spectacle, flattery, and power-brokering. Governance as architecture: knock down the old checks and balances, put up a bigger stage.
#corruption#killing-democracy
trump’s war on drugs pauses for vip coke ally hospitality package
Pardoned narco-president departing federal custody the hard way: escorted past the rabble straight to the Waldorf Astoria, courtesy of America’s ‘tough on crime’ administration.
Trump spends months thundering about "Latin American narcoterrorists" and ordering military strikes that leave over 140 people dead, then turns around and hands a get-out-of-jail-free card to former Honduran president Juan Orlando Hernández — a man convicted of helping move 400 tons of cocaine into the U.S. Forty-five year sentence? Reduced to "time served" and a presidential hug. Apparently the real crime isn’t drug trafficking; it’s failing to be a loyal strongman with good connections.
Instead of being deported like the overwhelming majority of noncitizens in detention — most of whom don’t even have criminal records — Hernández gets his ICE detainer quietly erased. The Federal Bureau of Prisons, which is allegedly too broke to staff basic posts, somehow finds the money to pay a tactical team overtime to chauffeur him from a high-security West Virginia prison to the Waldorf Astoria in New York. Along the way, he’s allowed to hop on the captain’s government phone to chat with BOP deputy director Joshua Smith, himself a convicted drug conspirator that Trump already pardoned. The narco state isn’t at the border; it’s on the White House stationery.
Frontline prison staff are, shockingly, not thrilled about being turned into a concierge service for cartel-adjacent ex-presidents and Trump’s personally curated rogues’ gallery. The bureau swears in writing that it totally, absolutely doesn’t give preferential treatment and that anyone who does could face discipline. Meanwhile, a convicted foreign leader gets the red-carpet release, hotel drop-off, and de facto witness protection from the same administration that insists it’s defending America from brown-skinned "poison". Trump’s message is clear: if you’re a corrupt, authoritarian ally who helped destabilize your own courts and democracy, this government has your back — and your five-star accommodations.
#corruption#killing-democracy#lawlessness
trump republican buys epstein’s desert of bad decisions
Zorro Ranch, seen here trying very hard to look like a normal luxury property and not a 10,000-acre monument to everyone in power pretending they saw nothing.
Texas "Trump Republican" and aspiring comptroller Don Huffines turns out to be the proud political face of a family that quietly snapped up Jeffrey Epstein’s infamous New Mexico Zorro Ranch — the 10,000-acre sex-trafficking crime scene that came with more red flags than a CPAC stage. They bought it in 2023 through a nice, anonymous-friendly LLC, because nothing says "trust me with state finances" like hiding your ownership of a convicted predator’s playground behind shell paperwork.
His spokesperson insists the Huffines clan only swooped in four years after Epstein’s death, purely to help victims via the auction proceeds, and definitely not because they thought they could get a bargain on a disgraced billionaire’s lair. They even complained the place was overvalued due to its “notoriety”, and got the county to knock the assessed value down from $21.1m to $13.4m. Apparently the market just doesn’t properly appreciate the resale challenges of a property that doubled as the set for Epstein’s eugenics fanfic.
Meanwhile, Huffines is the GOP frontrunner for Texas comptroller, running on a promise to "DOGE Texas government" — a loving tribute to Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, the federal demolition crew that fired people first and asked zero questions later. He brands himself a "successful businessman" and "Trump Republican" endorsed by Ted Cruz, Vivek Ramaswamy, Ron Paul, and assorted culture-war influencers, while the Trump administration tries desperately to pretend the Epstein files — where Trump’s name shows up thousands of times and includes a sexually suggestive birthday note — are just a boring paperwork issue and not a giant neon sign about the company this movement keeps.
The campaign won’t say what the family actually plans to do with the ranch, but given Epstein once allegedly envisioned it as a base for spreading his DNA, it’s on-brand that the MAGA era has converted it into a real-estate asset for a Trump-branded candidate. From sex-trafficker’s compound to "Texas-first" balance-sheet opportunity — the free market works, folks.
#corruption#forever-grifting
trump builds a donor-funded death star ballroom
Artist’s rendering of the people’s house being upgraded to the donors’ palace, complete with complimentary executive overreach and a side of historic demolition.
Donald Trump’s latest vision for American democracy is a $400m, 90,000 sq ft White House ballroom financed by a who’s-who of corporations that just happen to have massive business before the federal government: Meta, Apple, Amazon, Lockheed Martin, Microsoft, Palantir, Google, Comcast. Why bother with subtle lobbying when you can literally buy an extension to the presidency’s house? Call it the Access-Industrial Complex, now with chandeliers.
Before anyone approved construction, Trump already started demolishing the East Wing, because laws are for people who don’t own gold-plated toilets. Preservation groups say he violated multiple statutes by tearing into a historic building with “no review whatsoever,” so the National Trust for Historic Preservation has filed a federal lawsuit. The White House’s response: don’t worry, they documented the destruction and “meticulously preserved” some bits of the place they just ripped down. It’s like burning a library and proudly announcing you saved a couple of doorknobs.
Meanwhile, Trump has stacked the National Capital Planning Commission and the Commission of Fine Arts with loyalists, then—totally unrelated, of course—the official renderings mysteriously vanished from the NCPC website shortly after posting. Regulatory oversight now works on the Las Vegas principle: what happens to the East Wing, stays off the server. The administration insists this is all about “beautifying the visitor experience” and “risk reduction,” which is certainly one way to describe turning the people’s house into a donor-sponsored palace and future inauguration venue for whichever strongman thinks he owns it.
And Trump, naturally, is bragging that the project is “on budget, and ahead of schedule” and will be the “finest Ballroom ever built anywhere in the World.” American infrastructure can crumble, but rest easy: the oligarch-funded imperial ballroom is coming along great.
#corruption#oligarchy#killing-democracy
goldman’s top lawyer loved “uncle jeffrey,” regrets getting caught
Goldman Sachs headquarters, where the code of conduct is strictly enforced unless you’re buddies with a convicted sex trafficker bearing luxury gifts.
Goldman Sachs’ chief legal officer Kathy Ruemmler has announced she’s stepping down after emails revealed she had a cozy relationship with Jeffrey Epstein, lovingly calling him “Uncle Jeffrey” and gushing that she “adored him” — years after his 2008 sex-crimes conviction and sex-offender registration. Nothing says “top legal judgment” like luxury handbags and a fur coat from a convicted predator you’re later going to publicly label a “monster.”
Goldman, whose code of conduct supposedly frowns on high-end gifts and conflicts of interest, now insists she “regrets ever knowing him,” which is a fascinating way to spell “regrets you all saw the emails.” Epstein was still calling her cell the night of his 2019 arrest, while she was busy advising him on how to handle media questions about his sweetheart legal treatment. CEO David Solomon, who as recently as December was praising her as an “excellent lawyer” with his “full faith and backing,” now very respectfully accepts her resignation and would like everyone to move along before anyone asks how normal it is for the top lawyer at a megabank to be on speed dial for a serial sex offender.
So to recap: the American financial and political elite spent years laundering Epstein’s reputation while he trafficked girls, then, once it became inconvenient, discovered retroactive moral outrage and deep, performative regret. Rule of law for the poor, fur coats for the friends.
#corruption#forever-grifting
trump doj fires antitrust chief for insufficient corporate worship
Pam Bondi and Gail Slater reenact corporate antitrust policy: one pushes, the other falls, and the merger walks away untouched.
The head of the Justice Department’s antitrust division, Gail Slater, has been gently escorted to the nearest window and pushed out of the Trump administration after making the unforgivable mistake of occasionally acting like an antitrust lawyer instead of a mergers concierge. Slater tried to block a $14bn Hewlett Packard Enterprise–Juniper Networks merger on boring "competition" grounds, which enraged Attorney General Pam Bondi and the White House’s business-class fan club. When Slater said intel agencies had no national security problem with blocking the deal, CIA director John Ratcliffe popped up later to say actually, allowing the merger was a national security must-have, raising the obvious question of whether national security now means "don’t upset big donors".
Her internal enemies won: DOJ dropped the suit, cut a settlement, and then quietly fired two of Slater’s deputies, prompting Senate Democrats to ask a federal judge to investigate whether the government’s antitrust position was being run by lawyers or by political bagmen. Slater, once boosted into Trumpworld by JD Vance and confirmed 78–something in the Senate, watched her support evaporate as Vance got tired of her telling people he had her back, while Bondi seethed over everything from the merger fight to Slater attending an OECD conference after Bondi said no and then having her government credit cards canceled like a bad airline. Now Omeed Assefi is stepping in as acting antitrust chief, and the message from the Trump DOJ is clear: antitrust is fine, as long as it never actually inconveniences a multibillion-dollar merger or a political ally.
#corruption#forever-grifting
ghislaine maxwell pitches trump the world's grossest plea deal
America’s worst LinkedIn profile photo: two people who knew everybody and remember nothing.
Ghislaine Maxwell beamed into the House Oversight Committee, said absolutely nothing, and then had her lawyer announce she’s ready to “speak fully and honestly” — just as soon as Donald Trump hands her a get-out-of-prison-(more)-free card. The message couldn’t be clearer: presidential clemency is now being treated like a premium subscription tier for access to the truth about Jeffrey Epstein.
Her attorney helpfully pre-cleared both Trump and Bill Clinton as innocent of any wrongdoing, promising that only Maxwell can explain why, once she’s been liberated by the very guy who “hasn’t thought about” pardoning her, except for when he publicly refuses to rule it out. Meanwhile, she keeps her mouth shut under the Fifth, sits in a cushier Texas prison camp, and dangles potential testimony over Congress like a paywalled confession.
Republicans like James Comer are suddenly against clemency, Democrats like Ro Khanna are flirting with retaliatory harsher confinement, and Maxwell’s lawyer is accusing Congress of authoritarianism for wanting consequences. So the authoritarian card is now being played by the legal team of a convicted sex trafficker trying to bargain for a Trump pardon. American justice has entered the DLC phase, and the price of the expansion pack is presidential corruption.
#corruption#forever-grifting#killing-democracy
trump sues himself for $10 billion, demands taxpayers pick a side
Trump explaining how, if you really think about it, suing yourself for $10 billion actually proves how much you care about taxpayers.
President Donald Trump has decided that separation of powers is overrated and is now suing the federal government he runs for $10 billion over the leak of his tax returns—an amount that just casually clocks in at more than 80% of the IRS’s entire budget last year. He swears any taxpayer money he wins will go to charity, “approved by government or whatever,” which is definitely the kind of precise, arms-length standard you want when the plaintiff and the guy who appoints the attorney general are the same person.
Watchdog groups, ethics experts, and even a few Republicans not currently auditioning for a cabinet job are pointing out the tiny issue that Trump is effectively both plaintiff and defendant here, raising the question of whether the Justice Department will zealously defend the public treasury against the boss’s personal jackpot fantasy. Sen. Adam Schiff calls it a “perverse kind of credit for the sheer audacity of the scam,” while Sen. Thom Tillis just goes with “weird,” which is one way to describe a president trying to raid the Treasury via lawsuit like it’s his own GoFundMe.
The whole circus now sits in the lap of Judge Kathleen Williams, who has to decide whether a case where one man is on both sides of the "v." is even a real legal dispute. Legal ethicists note that the Constitution requires true adverse parties, which this very much is not unless Trump starts arguing with himself on the stand. Meanwhile, Attorney General Pam Bondi, who serves at Trump’s pleasure, is supposed to defend the government against Trump’s demands—though GOP senators privately admit that if she actually did that, she’d probably be updating her LinkedIn by morning. American governance continues its bold experiment in seeing how close you can get to a personal cash grab from the public till before someone in power says no.
#corruption#forever-grifting
gateway tunnel held hostage for the church of trump
Artist’s rendering of Trump International Airport & Train Station & Constitutional Crisis, sponsored by your federal tax dollars.
The Trump White House has apparently decided that infrastructure funding is now a personal branding opportunity. According to multiple reports, the administration told Chuck Schumer that if he wants the already-appropriated Gateway tunnel money actually released, New York’s Penn Station and Washington’s Dulles International Airport should be renamed after Donald Trump. You know, just normal democratic governance where thousands of union jobs and a critical rail tunnel under the Hudson are contingent on everyone agreeing to live inside his ego.
The $16 billion project has been starved of cash ever since the administration froze the money during last fall’s shutdown, under the cover story that they were protecting America from the grave threat of "unconstitutional DEI principles." New York and New Jersey have had to sue to pry loose funds Congress already approved, while the project warns it will run out of money on Friday and start laying off workers. But the president could "restart the funding with a snap of his fingers," as a Schumer ally notes — he’s just choosing to use that snap as a shakedown for naming rights.
Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand called the demand "ridiculous," pointing out that naming rights and the dignity of New Yorkers are not bargaining chips in Trump’s latest vanity auction. Meanwhile, the administration is busy slapping his name on anything that doesn’t move: TrumpRX for drugs, Trump Gold Cards for rich would‑be immigrants, the Trump-ified U.S. Institute of Peace, and even a board vote to brand the Kennedy Center with his moniker. Now he’s moved on to airports and train stations, because nothing says constitutional republic like the president holding critical infrastructure hostage until the country agrees to live in a gaudy, federally funded billboard for himself.
On the bright side, at least we can retire the phrase "pay-to-play". This is more "pay-or-we-shut-down-your-rail-system-until-you-name-it-after-me" — a nice, efficient merger of narcissism, extortion, and governance.
#corruption#killing-democracy
good chaps, bad friends: mandelson, epstein and the untouchable lords
Lord Mandelson in 2008, moments before being granted lifetime access to the ‘no consequences for peers’ programme.
Peter Mandelson, New Labour’s original Prince of Darkness, has finally discovered the one scandal you can’t just spin away: being all over the US Department of Justice’s Epstein files while the Met investigates you for potential misconduct in public office. After decades gliding around Westminster like a Bond villain with a diary, his career has hit what polite people call a “shuddering halt” and impolite people call “wow, those flight logs aged badly.”
The best part? Even now, under investigation and forced out as UK ambassador to Washington, Mandelson still keeps the title, the seat, and the comfy red-leather forever-club of the House of Lords. As Guardian investigator Henry Dyer dryly notes, peers are supposedly governed by the “good chap” theory – a system where billionaires’ buddies are trusted to regulate themselves on the basis of personal honour. Shockingly, a chamber stuffed with lobbyists, donors and retired ministers has not turned out to be a model of ethical self-policing.
While Labour MPs mutter that Keir Starmer’s premiership might not survive appointing Epstein’s well-connected pal as US ambassador, the constitutional reality is bleakly simple: you can lose your job, your reputation and your usefulness to the party, but that lifetime seat in the Lords? That’s basically bolted to the floor. Britain’s unelected upper house continues to function as a cross between a retirement home for political fixers and a witness protection programme for reputations, running on the quaint assumption that everyone there is a good chap right up until the police show up.
#corruption#killing-democracy
ai, crypto, and trump’s favorite oligarchs build a democracy‑optional future
Marc Andreessen, pausing briefly from reinventing feudalism with venture capital to fund an AI super PAC that primary-hunts anyone who suggests maybe the machines shouldn’t run everything yet.
America’s brightest minds in unregulated money and unaccountable algorithms are teaming up with Donald Trump to make sure voters have as little say as possible in the 2026 midterms. Pro-crypto outfits like Fairshake waddled into 2026 with nearly $194 million to spend, because nothing says “innovation” like a gigantic dark-money firehose aimed at anyone who dares regulate their casino. Their AI cousins at Leading the Future — bankrolled by Greg Brockman, Marc Andreessen, Ben Horowitz and friends — are sitting on another $39 million, already targeting a New York candidate whose crime was sponsoring AI safety legislation. In other words: write laws to keep the robots from wrecking everything, and the billionaires’ super PAC will try to wreck your career instead.
Hovering above it all like a bloated orange Death Star is MAGA Inc., Trump’s main super PAC, which finished 2025 with a casual $304 million in the bank. A big chunk of that came from people with business in front of the administration or family members staring down legal jeopardy — so at least the bribery-to-pardon pipeline is being handled with admirable efficiency. Trump can’t legally run for a third term (despite his constant fan fiction), but with that kind of cash, he doesn’t need to be on the ballot to own the GOP; he just has to keep writing checks and menacing primaries.
Meanwhile, Elon Musk — the man who threatened a third party and then wandered back like a sitcom character who never really left — is cutting $5 million checks to the Senate Leadership Fund and Congressional Leadership Fund, and quietly topping up his own America PAC after spending a quarter-billion last cycle to reinstall Trump. Democrats, for their part, are dutifully playing the same game: House Majority PAC, Senate-aligned groups, and AIPAC’s United Democracy Project are all stockpiling tens of millions to decide which candidates are acceptable to donors before voters ever see a ballot. But sure, tell yourself we still have representative democracy, not a full-time auction where policy is written by whoever can light the biggest pile of crypto and AI money on fire.
#corruption#oligarchy#killing-democracy
