putin’s pal picks up the wedding tab
Donald Trump Jr. and his bride enjoy a fireworks display generously brought to you by the International Boxing Association and whatever’s left of American counterintelligence standards.
Donald Trump Jr. celebrated his three-day yacht-bro fairy tale wedding in the Bahamas with helicopters, seaplanes, a five-tier airlifted funfetti cake, and fireworks over the water — all the wholesome, all-American stuff you’d expect when your secret wedding planner is a Putin-linked Russian oligarch. The private island reception, the $100,000-a-night second island, the fireworks show, the villas? Largely underwritten by Umar Kremlev, head of the Gazprom-financed International Boxing Association, paid through an IBA-affiliated Dubai entity. Because nothing says totally normal son of the president like having a Kremlin-adjacent sports boss quietly cover your bar tab and pyrotechnics.
Trump Jr. later described the guest list as “really small, like, just really close friends.” Those close friends included Jared Kushner — the guy helping run U.S.-Russia negotiations over Ukraine — Eric Trump, and a cluster of Russian-speaking dudes standing off to the side like the world’s most obvious B-roll for a counterintelligence training video. National security experts, being killjoys, pointed out that when a Putin-favored oligarch pays hundreds of thousands of dollars for your wedding, you might someday be expected to return the favor. But don’t worry: Don’s spokesperson says Umar is just a “personal friend,” not a business partner, and Kremlev’s team swears they never talk politics. Just boxing, hunting, and presumably how to launder influence through destination weddings.
This would be bad enough if Junior were just another failson with a podcast, but he’s now described as his father’s “most essential political adviser” and played a key role in picking Cabinet members for Trump’s second term. JD Vance literally credits him for landing the VP slot. So while Russia is sanctioned, Putin is invading neighbors, and Kremlev is under Ukrainian sanctions for his closeness to the Kremlin, the president’s politically powerful son is letting that same guy pick up the check for his Bond-movie wedding on the very islands where "Casino Royale" was filmed. The MAGA base gets told this is all about sovereignty and America First; behind the scenes, it’s more like America, Sponsored by Gazprom.
#corruption#national-security#forever-grifting
rfk jr. forgets to file the form that might expose his merck cash
RFK Jr., bravely standing up to Big Pharma by cashing checks from them and then running the agency that regulates them. Truly a bold new era in ethics.
Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has somehow misplaced his annual ethics disclosure, the one tiny piece of paperwork that might tell the public how much money he’s pocketed from a vaccine lawsuit against Merck — a company he now helps regulate. Totally normal stuff: sue Big Pharma for profit, then take charge of the agency that oversees them, and then blow past the deadline for the form that would show how deep the conflict runs.
Ethics watchdogs are patiently waiting to see how much vaccine-litigation cash RFK Jr. has been raking in while sitting in the big chair at HHS, where he can influence everything from drug approvals to enforcement. The rest of us are supposed to believe this is all fine because, presumably, nothing says "public servant" like personally profiting from the industry you’re regulating and then turning your ethics disclosure into a mystery box.
#corruption#forever-grifting
trump turns the reflecting pool into a $14.7m blue faceplant
The Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, now featuring Trump’s signature finish: rushed, no-bid, golf-club-approved, and already falling apart.
The Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool is now a $14.7m monument to Trump-era project management: a no-bid contract, an untested chemical scheme, and design input from the general manager of one of Trump’s golf clubs. Because when you’re dealing with a national landmark, naturally you call the guy who usually worries about cart paths and buffet shrimp.
While Trump has spent weeks screaming about Antifa super-ninjas with box cutters shredding his "American flag blue" pool, the contractor quietly told the government the real culprit was their own botched plan and "human oversight". Turns out they didn’t use enough primer, the chemicals were incompatible, and the top layer literally overheated and blistered the bottom one. So the pool didn’t get vandalized; it just spontaneously rebelled against being turned into a tacky golf hazard.
The justice department even charged people for "vandalism" before backing away once the interior department finally admitted the damage came from the rushed, defective installation done to hit Trump’s big 4 July 250th-anniversary photo op. Interior is still publicly muttering about "major vandalism", because why abandon a good lie just because the paperwork, the science, and the contractor all disagree. Atlantic Industrial Coatings will redo the job under warranty, which is nice, since the American public already paid eight figures for the privilege of watching Trump’s patriotic blue fever dream literally peel off in sheets.
#corruption#forever-grifting
trump doj to prosecutors: nice career you had there, shame about your ethics
Gautam Adani, pausing between infrastructure projects and fraud indictments to workshop his next $10 billion "totally unrelated" investment pitch.
The Trump administration has discovered a bold new legal doctrine: Article II, Section Fire Anyone Who Annoys Our Billionaire Friends. A career prosecutor in the Justice Department’s fraud section has been quietly dumped after working on — and then withdrawing from — the mysteriously vanished criminal case against Indian mega-billionaire Gautam Adani, who was charged with defrauding U.S. investors and bribing officials to snag a massive solar project.
Adani just so happened to pledge billions in U.S. investments while his lawyers floated a $10 billion proposal in a slide deck that the U.S. Attorney’s Office says it "categorically rejected." The Trump DOJ swears the case was simply "indefensible" and that all this talk of money raining down on America is unrelated, and if you can’t trust an administration that fires prosecutors via boilerplate "Article II" letters, who can you trust?
U.S. District Judge Nicholas Garaufis already torched the government’s "highly unusual" behavior in tossing Adani’s charges and is still letting some counts against co-defendants proceed because DOJ hasn’t provided anything resembling a solid reason for backing off. So to recap: politically connected billionaire sees indictment evaporate, investments are dangled then disavowed, a judge smells smoke, and the prosecutor who didn’t want their name on this bonfire of the rule of law suddenly loses their job. America’s justice system is now basically a rewards program for oligarchs with good PowerPoint skills.
#corruption#killing-democracy
trump hands out $45k loyalty bonuses, calls it christmas
Trump, surrounded by staff, mentally sorting aides into $45k, $20k, and "should’ve praised me more on TV" tiers.
Donald Trump has reportedly discovered a bold new approach to ethics reform: just pay your favorite courtiers directly. New disclosures show he handed out hefty holiday "gifts" to four White House aides, including $45,000 each to executive assistant Natalie Harp, communications adviser Margo Martin, and deputy director of Oval Office operations Chamberlain Harris. Walt Nauta, loyal valet-turned-indicted-then-saved valet, got a comparatively humble $20,000. All of them already pull down six-figure government salaries, but apparently the going rate for industrial-strength sycophancy has gone up.
The White House swears these cash infusions have nothing whatsoever to do with their official duties and are therefore "entirely permissible" under ethics rules. Yes, the president of the United States is cutting personal checks to aides who manage his media image, curate his praise scrapbook, and sit on a commission overseeing his White House ballroom project, but relax: it’s just wholesome Christmas cheer, not at all a private loyalty bonus program running parallel to the federal payroll.
Harp, famous for hauling around a portable printer so she can feed Trump a steady stream of printed compliments like a malfunctioning Pez dispenser, pockets $45k. Martin, who’s been glued to Trump’s political afterlife from the first term through Mar-a-Lago exile and back to the White House, gets $45k. Harris, now on the US Commission of Fine Arts to help oversee Trump’s ballroom dreams, also $45k. And Nauta — who, along with Carlos De Oliveira, was charged in 2023 with helping Trump obstruct the FBI’s classified documents investigation before the charges were dismissed — gets $20k for his years of loyal service in the "totally normal" presidential document and valet ecosystem.
So yes, your tax-funded public servants are doing just fine: salary from the government, side cash from the boss, and an ethics office whose main function at this point seems to be stamping "PERMISSIBLE" on whatever falls out of Trump’s checkbook. American governance, brought to you by direct deposit and plausible deniability.
#corruption#forever-grifting
judge asks who built the jan. 6 gofundme with taxpayer money
Todd Blanche, bravely explaining that the $1.8 billion fund for pardoned insurrectionists doesn’t exist, it never existed, and if it did exist, it was definitely someone else’s idea.
Turns out when you quietly carve a $1.8 billion "anti-weaponization" slush fund out of a settlement between Donald Trump, his sons, their company and the IRS, a federal judge might eventually ask: so who exactly cooked this up? U.S. Magistrate Judge Ivan D. Davis has ordered the Trump administration to cough up the names of the geniuses who designed a fund that would shovel taxpayer cash to people who "suffered weaponization and lawfare" — which just so happens to include Jan. 6 rioters convicted of violent crimes and then pardoned by Trump.
The fund, born from a Trump–IRS deal that also tried to make Trump and several family members immune from IRS audits, was already on pause after a fired Jan. 6 prosecutor, a law professor the administration tried to sue into silence, and a group of horrified career IRS workers dragged it into court. Democracy Forward’s lawyers are now prying open discovery, because when the president uses the tax system as a personal legal defense fund for insurrectionists and himself, that apparently raises a few red flags.
Attorney General Todd Blanche, whose confirmation nearly imploded over this masterpiece, has since declared in writing that the fund "is rescinded" and that "there is no fund" — a very normal thing to have to say about a government program, like insisting your imaginary friend moved out. The problem is, the document he signed conveniently didn’t include the original agreement’s signatories, leaving a legal trapdoor through which the whole scheme could be revived later. Trump has pointedly refused to disown it, saying at a Cabinet meeting that the fund "is dead, but you know, I wish it weren’t," while openly musing about payouts to Jan. 6 defendants he insists were "horribly treated."
Just to complete the farce, Jan. 6 defendant Treniss Evans III — who wants a cool $1 million from this corpse-of-a-fund — posted a proud photo from Todd Blanche’s office this week. We’re told he didn’t actually meet with the attorney general, which is reassuring in the same way it’s reassuring to hear that the arsonist only got into the fire station, not the room with the gasoline. The "anti-weaponization" project is looking less like justice reform and more like the Trump administration’s dream scenario: a taxpayer-backed loyalty rewards program for coup enthusiasts and the guy who sent them.
#corruption#killing-democracy
trump doj allegedly fires pardon attorney for not rubber-stamping mel gibson’s guns
Artist’s rendering of the Trump DOJ: a red carpet rolled straight into the pardon office, with career attorneys swept out like used popcorn bags.
The Trump-Blanche Department of Justice is once again pioneering bold new frontiers in turning law enforcement into a concierge service for the president’s friends. Former pardon attorney Elizabeth Oyer has filed a lawsuit saying she was pushed to "disregard her duties" and cook up an "independent" review recommending that Mel Gibson — convicted of a domestic violence misdemeanor — get his gun rights back because of his "relationship with President Trump." When she declined to turn the pardon office into a celebrity gun lobby, she says Todd Blanche showed her the door.
According to Oyer, the assignment was simple: pretend the neutral career office magically concluded that a Trump-loving movie star with a domestic violence conviction was totally ready for more firearms, then slap a bow of institutional legitimacy on it. She refused, and — shocker — was allegedly fired the next day. DOJ, meanwhile, swears the Gibson issue had nothing to do with her dismissal, which is why, of course, the department then reportedly moved ahead to restore Gibson’s gun rights anyway. The coincidence is so pure it should come with its own Hallmark movie.
Oyer’s suit says her firing violated civil service protections, due process, the First Amendment, and those quaint "separation of powers" principles we used to teach in schools before the syllabus was replaced with loyalty oaths. She’s asking to be reinstated, paid what she’s owed, and protected from further retaliation — a tall order in an administration that treats the Justice Department like Trump’s personal HR and public relations shop. The message from Main Justice remains clear: the rule of law is optional, but star power and presidential fandom? Non-negotiable hiring criteria.
#corruption#lawlessness#killing-democracy
hostage situation at the kennedy center: nice arts memorial you got there
The Kennedy Center, moments before being declared structurally unsound unless someone carves TRUMP into the marble in 10-foot letters.
The Trump-appointed Kennedy Center board is back in court demanding the right to slap "renovated and restored by President Donald J. Trump" on the front of the John F. Kennedy Memorial Center and rebrand the grounds as "President Donald J. Trump Plaza" by Sept. 8, because nothing says nonpartisan national arts memorial like a giant campaign billboard. When U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper asked what was so special about that date, DOJ lawyer Brantley Mayers basically shrugged and said, "the board said so," which is always what you want to hear about a rushed rewrite of a national monument.
The judge then had the gall to ask why turning a presidential memorial into Trump Tower: Performing Arts Edition doesn’t violate federal appropriations rules against aggrandizing individuals. DOJ’s answer: it’s fine because they’re honoring Trump as president, not as Kennedy Center board chair. The judge gently noted that this was "cutting it a little fine"—legalese for "are you serious right now"—while considering putting the whole stunt on pause. This came days after DOJ helpfully suggested in a filing that if Trump’s name can’t go back up, the Kennedy Center might just have to be demolished, because apparently the marble will spontaneously disintegrate if it isn’t properly branded.
The board’s filing warns of a "financial and structural death spiral" without "prominent recognition" of Trump, helpfully clarifying that the building will become so unsafe it will "be required to be taken down" if donors are deprived of their required dosage of presidential ego. Attorneys for Rep. Joyce Beatty, an ex officio board member, translated the threat into plain English: "What a nice Kennedy Center you have here. What a shame should something happen to it." They argue the financial mess comes from slapping Trump’s name on the facade in the first place, and now the defendants are threatening to wreck a national memorial if they don’t get to re-emblazon it with Dear Leader’s name—twice.
Meeting minutes show Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick explaining that it’s "important to President Trump" that if he’s going to "put his time and effort" into the building and fundraising, he be recognized. Trump then appeared virtually, trashed prior management, promised a $257 million renovation in two years, and the board—Trump included—voted to honor his "current and future existential and unprecedented contributions" by renaming the front like a casino marquee. Beatty dryly noted that the renovation is actually funded by congressional appropriations, also known as taxpayers, and that Trump hasn’t successfully renovated anything yet. Lutnick, undeterred, told reporters that Trump is "the most credible person in the world" and that this is all just to "induce" and "entice" him, because he only enjoys two things: golf and building monuments to himself. American cultural heritage is now a loyalty test and a hostage note.
#corruption#killing-democracy
ken paxton discovers datacenters are bad, after cashes the checks
Ken Paxton explains that datacenters are a grave threat to Texas — unlike the years he spent subsidizing them and cashing their checks.
Ken Paxton, Trump-endorsed attorney general, serial ethics hazard, and aspiring US senator, has rolled out a bold new plan to stop the "negative impact" of datacenters in Texas — the same datacenters whose industry has handed him nearly half a million dollars and billions in tax breaks. The plan was posted as a slick "Texas first" graphic on X, which the platform promptly labeled "Made with AI", because when you're faking a populist conversion this hard, even the algorithm feels compelled to snitch.
Paxton now wants to ban Chinese tech from powering US datacenters, hold companies criminally liable if AI endangers children, and cut red tape so, he claims, Texans' power bills don't skyrocket — while backing Greg Abbott's push to keep new centers out of rural areas and yank their tax perks. Democrat James Talarico helpfully reminded everyone that Paxton previously voted to flood Texas with datacenters, showered them with tax handouts, ignored communities begging him to intervene, and only found his inner environmentalist once polling and focus groups suggested voters were ready to torch the server farms (and maybe his Senate hopes).
This sudden conversion comes from a man impeached for corruption, indicted for felony securities fraud (rescued by a pre-trial diversion), and freshly divorced "on biblical grounds" for adultery. Now he’s selling himself as a culture-and-land-protecting dad-hero guarding Texas kids from AI chatbots, while Trump gushes that opposing datacenters is a "mistake" because, shockingly, he likes giant capital-intensive projects that funnel money to whoever’s holding the tax breaks. It’s a perfect GOP 2026 tableau: the base hates the thing, the donors love the thing, and Ken Paxton is trying to pretend he hasn’t spent a decade auctioning off the thing to the highest bidder.
#corruption#forever-grifting
hakeem jeffries speed-runs the 'let's normalize kushner' side quest
Hakeem Jeffries and Jared Kushner, seen here workshopping the sequel to ‘How to Profit From Public Office Without Technically Calling It Bribery’.
House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries apparently decided that what American democracy really needed, months before a possible blue-wave House takeover, was a cozy little meeting with Jared Kushner — the president’s son-in-law, freelance "diplomat," and full-time Gulf-financed venture bro. According to the New York Times, they chatted about "possible areas of collaboration," because when someone is under investigation for using public office to juice private Gulf investments, the logical next step is obviously bipartisan brainstorming.
Democrats on the House judiciary committee are already probing Kushner’s financial conflicts, with Jamie Raskin politely pointing out that you can’t simultaneously be America’s envoy and the Saudi monarchy’s favorite portfolio company. Yet Jeffries is out here beta-testing a future where the guy under scrutiny helps shape the homework assignment. Even Tommy Vietor — not exactly Antifa — had to spell it out: the only collaboration Kushner should get is subpoenas and document requests, not a policy vision board.
The freak-out from the left and anti-Trump Republicans like Adam Kinzinger highlights a basic question: are Democrats preparing to actually investigate Trumpworld’s self-enrichment during his second term, or are we already fast-forwarding to the part where everyone treats Jared’s Gulf-funded diplomacy cosplay as just another normal Washington side hustle? As Gretchen Whitmer plays “collaborative” with Trump and Chris Van Hollen shrugs that meetings are fine as long as nothing "real" happens, the bar for resisting authoritarian grift has been set at: it’s okay as long as it’s just vibes and no indictable paperwork.
#corruption#forever-grifting
supreme court saves trump’s $400 million party bunker
Workers race to finish the nation’s most expensive anxiety ballroom as the Supreme Court makes sure the party never has to stop for something trivial like the law or historic preservation.
The Supreme Court briefly looked up from dismantling democracy to handle a truly urgent matter: making sure Donald Trump’s new White House ballroom doesn’t suffer the indignity of a construction pause. Chief Justice John Roberts issued a temporary stay blocking lower court rulings, letting the above-ground portion of Trump’s $400 million, "privately funded" monument to tackiness keep rising while the full court pretends to think about it.
The National Trust for Historic Preservation had the gall to suggest the president might not have the authority to bolt a mega-ballroom onto a national landmark and also that it looks hideous, which, given Trump’s design track record, is the safest bet in Washington. A district judge had split the baby — underground security and medical facilities could continue, but the glitzy ballroom-on-top had to wait. The D.C. Circuit agreed, setting a deadline for work to stop unless the Supreme Court stepped in to rescue the chandeliers.
Instead, Roberts waved the bulldozers through. The administration bragged in court filings that the project is already 65% done, with a 250-person crew working 20 hours a day, seven days a week — not for infrastructure, not for climate, not for housing, but for a presidential party bunker that just happens to massively upgrade Trump’s future events venue. Authoritarian chic meets Mar-a-Lago aesthetics, now with an "extensive underground component" for "security" and "medical facilities" — because nothing says stable democracy like turning the People’s House into a fortified event space for one man’s ego.
#corruption#killing-democracy
trump-backed sex-scandal grifter gets rejected by actual florida republicans
Cory Mills, seen here pondering how a party that still supports Trump somehow decided *he* was a bridge too far.
Cory Mills just discovered that even in Florida, there is such a thing as too much baggage. The Trump-endorsed congressman — currently juggling a House Ethics probe into sexual misconduct and campaign finance violations, a Justice Department investigation into his finances, bipartisan calls for his resignation, and a restraining order tied to revenge porn allegations — managed to lose a GOP primary in a district Trump won by 12 points. Apparently "under federal investigation" is finally a harder sell than "owns the libs."
Instead, Republicans in Florida’s 7th District went with Ryan Elijah, a former TV journalist whose main qualification appears to be "has not (yet) been investigated for sex crimes and sketchy money." Elijah pulled 46% to Mills’ 34%, helped along by fellow Republicans Anna Paulina Luna and Mike Haridopolos, who took the rare step of endorsing against their colleague while gently hinting that maybe, just maybe, Congress should have slightly fewer alleged harassers under DOJ scrutiny.
Mills still had Trump’s blessing, which is rapidly becoming less of a golden ticket and more of a "you may already be a defendant" mailer. He raised less than $900,000 and barely spent on ads, because it turns out donors get squeamish when your name keeps showing up in headlines next to the words "Ethics Committee," "Justice Department," and "revenge porn." He’s now the 11th House member to lose a primary this year, proving that even in the modern GOP, there’s a limit — not on corruption, of course, but on how embarrassing you’re allowed to be while doing it.
#corruption#forever-grifting#lawlessness
perfectly normal president screams 'vandals' while admitting his no-bid pool job sucked
The Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, freshly repainted "American flag blue" and already disintegrating—seen here bravely attempting to hold its shape under the weight of one no-bid contract and about sixteen million taxpayer dollars.
The Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool has finally achieved its destiny as a metaphor for the Trump era: drained, repainted American flag blue, and then promptly falling apart. Trump is now grudgingly admitting the $14m (and counting) no-bid repaint was "rushed" and that the contractor "cut some corners"—but insists the real problem is mysterious vandals, one of whom is a former Olympic canoeist apparently moonlighting as Aquatic Antifa.
Jeanine Pirro, who Trump personally installed as US attorney for DC like a particularly shouty throw pillow from Fox News, looked at the evidence, realized the damage mostly came from a botched installation by Atlantic Industrial Coatings, and moved to drop the vandalism charges. For this act of basic prosecutorial integrity, Trump accused her of having "folded like a cheap umbrella" and publicly pressured her to "re-visit" her decision, while carefully not ruling out firing her. Nothing screams "independent justice system" like the president rage-posting that his own loyalist prosecutor choked by not jailing the scapegoat for his shoddy pool project.
Interior Secretary Doug Burgum jumped into the loyalty Olympics, claiming his department handed over expert and eyewitness testimony proving vandalism. Pirro's office says they actually later got records showing the whole thing was mostly just bad work on a rushed, no-bid contract whose cost magically inflated from under $2m to over $16m. Meanwhile the pool remains fenced off, the administration is busy installing security cameras to catch future imaginary saboteurs, and Trump keeps inventing new explanations—fertilizer algae, 300ft box-cutter slits, and now a "highly credible" unnamed NPS witness who only seems to exist in his Truth Social posts.
So to recap: they bypassed competitive bidding, blew the budget by a factor of eight, delivered a failing product, then tried to pin the mess on a random guy with a paddle and some conveniently invisible vandals. The only thing really being reflected in that pool is the administration’s talent for grift, blame-shifting, and turning national monuments into crime-scene props for Trump’s victimhood narrative.
#corruption#forever-grifting
trump taps ballroom project fixer as america’s top in-house lawyer
Artist’s rendering of the new White House ballroom: half Versailles, half evidence exhibit.
Donald Trump has promoted Will Scharf, the staff secretary who helped push through his $400m White House ballroom vanity project, to be White House counsel and assistant to the president, because why separate the roles of "personal fixer" and "government lawyer" when you can just mash them together like a constitutional smoothie? Scharf, a former federal prosecutor who already represented Trump in multiple cases up to the supreme court, also chaired the National Capital Planning Commission — the same body that approved Trump’s palace-addition-before-appeals-court-said-stop-building-the-palace.
The timing is almost subtle by Trump standards: just months before midterms that could hand Democrats subpoena power, he installs a loyalist in the office that coordinates with the DOJ, handles pardons, vets judicial nominations, and, crucially, manages congressional investigations and lawsuits against the president in his official capacity. So the guy who helped ram through the ballroom is now in charge of dealing with the fallout from the courtroom that just told Trump he can’t build it without Congress. Who better to advise on separation of powers than the dude who just tried to pour concrete on top of it?
Trump is already vowing to take the ballroom case to the supreme court, meaning Scharf may soon get to reprise his role as Trump’s personal litigator — this time while drawing a taxpayer-funded salary explicitly meant for serving the institution of the presidency, not the ego of the current occupant. The east side of the White House is sprouting a half-built monument to self-dealing, and now the counsel’s office is getting its own renovation: from legal adviser to the executive branch to full-service damage-control shop for one guy’s construction hobby and looming investigations.
#corruption#killing-democracy
gop senator briefly remembers rule of law, panics leadership
Lisa Murkowski stares into the middle distance, contemplating whether the attorney general should serve the Constitution or Donald Trump’s legal defense fund, and realizing that’s somehow a controversial position in 2026.
Trump’s personal trial lawyer Todd Blanche is one Senate vote closer to becoming attorney general, because this administration looked at the phrase "independent Department of Justice" and decided it was just a suggestion. Blanche squeaked through the judiciary committee after promising, cross-his-heart, to kill Trump’s $1.8bn "anti-weaponization" slush fund — a taxpayer-financed hug box for January 6 rioters and other "targeted" political allies.
Then Lisa Murkowski had the audacity to read the fine print and notice that once Blanche is confirmed, Trump can just resurrect the payout fountain with a Sharpie and a tantrum. She’s now a "no" vote, arguing the country needs an attorney general who might check Trump’s worst impulses, not laminate them. Experts politely note that Trump could reverse Blanche’s written assurances anytime, which is a fun way of saying the Senate is trading lifetime institutional damage for a pinky promise from the guy whose client tried to overturn an election.
Meanwhile, Republicans cling to a 53–47 majority minus an absent Mitch McConnell, meaning Trump’s dream of turning DOJ into a loyalty-rewards program for insurrectionists is suddenly at the mercy of a few senators pretending they still recognize the concept of rule of law. Blanche formally rescinded the fund to get Thom Tillis and John Cornyn on board, but the entire exercise is basically Congress haggling over the terms under which the president can pay off his co-conspirators with public money. Very normal separation of powers stuff, if you’re grading on the "late-stage democracy collapse" curve.
#corruption#killing-democracy
trump sues irs, wins ‘no audits for me’ coupon
Todd Blanche and Donald Trump metaphorically running the IRS like a VIP lounge: regular taxpayers wait in line, the Trumps go in through the side door marked “No Audits Ever.”
Career IRS employees have now entered the chat, joining a lawsuit to stop Donald Trump from cashing in on an IRS audit immunity carveout that Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche quietly slipped into a settlement. The deal would give Trump, his family, and their "affiliates" a special tax forcefield that no other American gets, because of course the guy who screamed the loudest about weaponized government wants the power to personally disarm it when it points in his direction.
This whole mess grew out of Trump suing his own government over the leak of his tax returns, then somehow alchemizing that into (1) a promise not to pursue tax claims against him and (2) a proposed $1.776 billion "Anti-Weaponization Fund" that could shovel cash to his allies and even Jan. 6 rioters who claim they were victims of the big bad deep state. A federal judge already hit pause on the fund, but Democracy Forward and the National Treasury Employees Union say Blanche’s "settlement" is still a live grenade of unconstitutional, breathtakingly corrupt self-dealing.
Blanche, whose nomination to permanently run the Justice Department is currently winding through the Senate, insists the slush fund is over while, per the lawsuit, preserving every legal escape hatch needed to revive it later — like a loyalty rewards program for insurrectionists. Meanwhile, DOJ lawyers are telling another court to toss Jan. 6 rioters’ claims on statute-of-limitations grounds, proving that in Trump’s America the law is very consistent: it always expires faster for the foot soldiers than for the guy trying to buy himself lifetime audit immunity from the Oval Office.
#corruption#killing-democracy
hawaiian-shirt warlord buys himself a golden dome
Palmer Luckey, dressed like he’s headed to a beach barbecue, pausing between Senate fundraisers and no-bid weapons contracts to explain that this is all just about innovation and totally not about buying a Golden Dome with campaign checks.
Palmer Luckey, the VR bro who went from garage tinkerer to Facebook billionaire to "secretly funding a pro-Trump shitposting operation," has apparently unlocked the real endgame: becoming the “godfather of Republican fundraising on the west coast” while his defense startup Anduril hoovers up gigantic government contracts from the Trump administration. Emails obtained by the Guardian show him running high-dollar "Keep the Senate" fundraisers where $50,000 buys you a cozy seat next to GOP leadership, all while Anduril quietly lands a $20 billion sole-source Army drone contract and a slot on Trump’s fantasy "Golden Dome" space interceptor project, conveniently priced somewhere between $185 billion and $1.2 trillion.
On one side of the ledger, Luckey and his CEO Brian Schimpf pose as just two regular executives with "different political views"; on the other, FEC records show Luckey pumping nearly $6 million into Republicans and working as a bundler who delivers other people’s money directly to the same politicians overseeing his contracts. Schimpf sprinkles a much smaller amount on Democrats, so management can claim "bipartisan" virtue while they build drones and orbital anti-missile toys for a government that keeps writing them checks without bothering with pesky competition. The media dutifully brands Luckey the "It Guy" of defense tech because he wears Hawaiian shirts and flip-flops, as if dressing like a beach bum while monetizing permanent war and MAGA politics somehow makes this look less like old-school pay-to-play and more like disruption.
So yes, the VR kid who funded anti-Hillary meme warfare is now a central node in the Trump-era military-industrial complex, raising money to keep Republicans in power while cashing in on their trillion-dollar space shield dreams. Eisenhower warned about the military-industrial complex; he just forgot to mention it would eventually show up in cargo shorts, quoting Reddit, and asking for a no-bid contract with its Golden Dome.
#corruption#forever-grifting
state department turns into trump’s personal hr department
The U.S. embassy in Brazil, where diplomacy has been replaced by HR-style ultimatums and visa-based hostage negotiations.
The Trump administration has decided that diplomacy is for losers and visa blackmail is the new foreign policy. The State Department revoked the U.S. visa of Brazil’s ambassador, Maria Luiza Ribeiro Viotti, because Brazil is dragging its feet on approving Trump’s handpicked envoy: Florida House Speaker and professional loyalist Daniel Perez.
Brazil says it will probably wait until after its October election to bless Trump’s nominee, especially after it already denied visas to U.S. officials it accused of trying to meddle in that very election. Washington insists those officials were just on a "routine" trip, because nothing says totally normal democracy work like flying in the Assistant Secretary for Democracy, Human Rights and Labor during a heated campaign.
A senior State Department official, bravely anonymous, explained that yanking the ambassador’s visa is just "reciprocal" treatment and not at all a tantrum designed to force Brazil to accept Trump’s guy. They helpfully added that Viotti isn’t being expelled… yet. She can stay, but if she leaves, she has to beg for a visa like everyone else — unless Brazil caves and approves Perez, in which case, poof, the visa is magically restored.
To wrap it in a bow, the official declared that "President Trump has the right to determine who represents the American people" and is building an "America First diplomatic A-team" — which currently includes using immigration paperwork as a hostage to secure a political appointment. It’s less foreign policy and more "give my buddy the job or your ambassador doesn’t get back in the country."
#forever-grifting#killing-democracy
max miller discovers even the gop has *some* floor
Max Miller wonders how he became the line the GOP pretends it won’t cross, while party leaders frantically check whether there’s still time to print a less radioactive name on the ballot.
Ohio Republican and former Trump White House aide Max Miller is discovering a rare phenomenon in modern Republican politics: there might be a minimum standard for how monstrous you can be while still keeping your seat. Miller is accused of holding a gun to his then-wife Emily Moreno’s head, scalding her with boiling water, and contributing to their toddler’s broken collarbone. He denies everything, naturally, and is suing her for defamation, because when you’re accused of horrific abuse, the obvious response is to attack the alleged victim in court.
The plot twist: Miller’s ex–father-in-law is Bernie Moreno, now a GOP senator and Trump ally, who has decided that actually, pointing guns at your daughter is a bridge too far. Moreno hopped on X to say Miller “fails” any basic character test and shouldn’t be in Congress, and Republican senators promptly lined up to say they don’t know anything about the facts, but they do know they “trust Bernie.” It’s a bold new ethical standard for the party: if your daughter’s alleged abuser is no longer useful to your family’s political brand, then suddenly character matters.
Trump, ever the moral lodestar, reportedly called Miller to warn him that “things aren’t looking good” for his re-election, which is as close as this White House gets to a conscience: you’re bad for the midterms, buddy. Publicly, Trump insisted Miller is “a good person” and that he’ll let “the families figure that out,” because nothing says presidential leadership like outsourcing domestic abuse questions to the group chat. Miller, for his part, claims Trump was actually “supportive” and that his own polling shows him up 9 points, proving that for this crew, the real victim is always the campaign.
Now the GOP is racing against filing deadlines to figure out whether to swap him out on the ballot, not because of the horrifying allegations involving a gun, boiling water, and an injured toddler, but because the seat might flip to a Democrat. The message is clear: it’s not that alleged domestic abusers can’t serve in Congress; it’s that they can’t serve if they’re down in the polls.
#corruption#leopards-ate-my-face
mr. president, your bank thinks you might be a crime risk
Donald Trump glaring at a bank statement like it personally violated executive privilege.
Capital One has politely informed a federal court that, no, it did not close more than 300 Trump Organization accounts because of "woke" persecution; it did it because its anti-money-laundering team looked at the transactions and said, in banker-speak, "absolutely not." After months of AML analysis, the bank concluded the activity looked like the kind of thing federal guidance tells you to flag, which is generally not what you want your family business associated with when Dad is also the president.
The Trump Organization and Eric Trump responded the way they always do when confronted with compliance: sue and scream culture war. Their 2025 lawsuit claims Capital One was just chasing post–January 6 vibes and engaging in "discriminatory debanking" of conservatives. Capital One's filing delicately notes that this theory is based on "cherry-picked quotations" and that the real story is transaction patterns, not pronouns.
Meanwhile, in a stunning coincidence, Trump’s second-term White House has been leaning on big banks over supposed anti-right-wing bias, and he even signed an executive order banning "discriminatory debanking"—right as he’s suing Capital One and JPMorgan for cutting him off. This follows his earlier attempt, back in 2019, to stop Capital One and Deutsche Bank from sharing his financial records with Congress, after Deutsche’s own AML staff reportedly flagged suspicious Trump-related transactions that higher-ups helpfully ignored. Regulatory capture meets personal finance triage: the president is now using the power of the state to yell at banks for treating him like any other high-risk client.
#corruption#forever-grifting#killing-democracy
