This is so insanely corrupt, I can’t even believe it.
More than half the donors to Trump’s $400 million White House ballroom just won over $50 billion in new federal contracts in six months.
And here’s the part that should make your blood boil.
Sixteen of these 27 donors were facing federal enforcement actions, antitrust reviews, labor cases, securities charges. Many of those cases have been quietly dropped or scaled back since Trump took office. You write a check, your legal problems disappear. That’s not a coincidence.
The White House won’t even release the full donor list. They’re hiding it on purpose, because daylight is the one thing pay-to-play can’t survive. A federal judge already ruled ballroom construction has to stop until Congress authorizes it.
Government is supposed to serve the people, not auction itself off to the highest bidder. When access goes to whoever pays the most, working families always end up paying the price.
We either end the corruption, or the corruption will end us.
https://t.co/4MGFzSseFl
I truly wish @PBS would hire the team that @60Minutes has fired, including those-soon-to-leave Scott Pelley etc. and create their own version of this iconic program. Ratings would be huge.
Good will would be even larger.
Texas Republicans have long been among my favorite people. (I knew a lot of Bushies, back when.) (And Phil Gramm was just about my favorite politician.)
Today, in their Senate primary, Texas Republicans have chosen a picture of degeneracy over a Trump-supporting incumbent who is, at bottom, responsible and decent.
It’s like Republicans looked at Cornyn and said, “Nope. Not corrupt, crazy, or immoral enough.”
In a democracy, we say who we are, with our votes. We show what we value. To some of us, recent years have been both illuminating and heartbreaking. I have had frequent occasion to use an old expression: “sadder but wiser.”
I have not spoken like a populist. I’m not running for office. I don’t believe in “Vox populi, vox Dei.” In fact, I think that’s one of the most erroneous and disgusting notions ever conceived. I’m a writer, for better or worse. I have said what I think, even as I hope for a brighter morrow.
Trump is now reportedly responsible for roughly 27.7% of the entire U.S. national debt accumulated under all presidents combined.
That is an astonishing figure historically.
The national debt just crossed $39 trillion.
President Trump has added roughly $12–13 trillion to the debt across his two terms in office.
That’s approximately 30% of ALL U.S. national debt accumulated since 1789.
In 2016, Trump said he would pay down the national debt “over a period of eight years.”
Instead:
- First term: +$7.8 trillion
- Second term: roughly +$4–5 trillion already
And yes, COVID affected first-term spending.
It does not explain adding another trillion dollars every five months without a pandemic.
A political movement built on:
“fiscal conservatism”
“small government”
“balanced budgets”
has now overseen the largest debt expansion tied to any single presidency in American history.
Many evangelicals need to reflect more deeply on the question: "what is a sermon?"
If a sermon is just "giving advice from a stage" then it's not clear why only an elder should do it.
George H.W. Bush kept his assets in a blind trust, as did Bill Clinton. Neither Obama nor Biden traded stocks or bonds while in office. 3,700 trades is probably more than all the trades of all the presidents until now. And he is trading stocks that are affected by his decisions. A walking conflict of interest, at the least, and perhaps insider trading. Just as members of Congress should not be able to trade stocks, so too the president. https://t.co/yDqVXWfDgc
@chrislhayes@daveweigel@RichardRubinDC both parties spend like drunken sailors with no end in sight. Those of us indie voters think the system is broken and the elite class truly is selling off the U.S. part by part.
Today, two U.S. destroyers transited the strait into the Persian Gulf without being harassed by the Iranians. It’s possible they will anchor in the Emirates to reinforce anti-aircraft defenses.
And why didn't Iran stop these vessels? Because, by all indications, there is an agreement where Iran pretends nothing passes through the strait, and the U.S. pretends no Iranian ships are leaving the region.
As I reported yesterday, about 25-35 Iranian ships loaded with oil bypassed the American blockade. Why? The U.S. priority is to maintain the flow of oil in the international market, and stopping Iranian exports would only worsen that. Obviously, this deal includes Iran quietly allowing the passage of several tankers.
So, one side pretends to run a naval blockade against Iranian exports, while the other pretends the strait is closed to American military ships.
Iran is the clear loser in this deal, giving Trump the argument that the operation freedom project, he claims to be implementing is actually opening the strait by force.
Video ilustrativo
There is no version of the attacks on Iran in which the U.S. citizen doesn't pay more. Fertilizer disruption jacks up the global food supply; helium disruption from natural gas/oil production jacks up semi-conductor manufacturing; gas prices are up. No clean win for U.S. at all.
Vance: "We also know that a lot of our farmers are struggling with high fertilizer prices. I'm aware of that. As the president of the United States has said, we got a little blip in the Middle East. We gotta take care of some business on the foreign policy side."