Month: May 2025

The whole world knows it

The United States of America has descended from George Washington to Donald Trump. From a statesman who led his country to freedom from a powerful, monarch-led empire at the cost of blood to a convicted felon soon to travel the world in a $400 million “palace in the sky.”

Along the way, Abraham Lincoln ended slavery, again at epic cost in blood. Franklin Roosevelt led Americans who shed their theirs on foreign shores to stop Nazi genocide and to save the world from fascist tyranny.

They've now made clear the Qatari plane is officially a bribe. Trump gets to take it with him for his personal use after he leaves office. The Times is really not being clear with readers abt how prez libraries work. https://t.co/afUpJz7S5T

— Josh Marshall (@joshtpm) May 11, 2025

This month, the Catholic Church elected its first American pope. With the United States already so influential across the planet, it was said there would be no American pope until the U.S. was in decline. And so here we are, led by a shameless mountebank easily steered by flattery and baubles.

The Washington Post suggests that the aforementioned flying palace, the world’s largest private jet, gifted to Trump by the Qataris skirts the Constitution’s emoluments clause and U.S. bribery laws through a legal loophole:

The Qatari plane will first be a time-limited gift to the Air Force. Shortly before Trump leaves office, after it has been upgraded at taxpayer expense, it will be transferred to the Donald J. Trump Presidential Library Fund, which will then keep it available for the fund’s namesake. Presto: a gift to the Air Force becomes one to the library fund becomes a lavish lifetime perk for Trump personally.

This is a bribe. The whole world knows it. Out in the open. Metaphorically, in the middle of Fifth Avenue in broad daylight. “It’s no different than Qatar handing Trump $400 million in cash in a duffel bag under the table,” writes Dan Pfeiffer. And against the law, ethics experts say. But we know what Trump thinks of experts. Unless they are his.

Attorney General Pam Bondi wrote a legal memo clearing the plane’s transfer as legal. You may recall that John Yoo wrote the infamous “torture memos” for the Bush II administration signing off on waterboarding prisoners. Paid shills get paid to shill. Bondi’s last job was lobbyist for Qatar.

The cost to operate such a beast runs from $2.5 to $4 million dollars per year. That’s a lot of Trump’s meme-coins and auctioned-off dinners with private-citizen Trump. There is no word on whether Trump will eventually have to pay his minimum 10 percent import tariff on the $400 million aircraft. Or for the cost of upgrades necessary to fit out the gift as Air Force One before it is transferred to his “presidential library.”

As depressing as this affair may be, Pfeiffer encourages outrage-weary opponents not to lose hope for our country. Corruption can be an issue:

If everything were going great in Trump’s America—costs were down and the economy was humming—maybe people would look past this corruption. But that’s not what’s happening. Costs are rising, shelves are about to be empty, and the economy is reeling from Trump’s incompetent and erratic leadership. The national tolerance for this sort of self-dealing is likely to be very low.

Trump wants you to pay more for toys, pencils, and everything else, while he gets free jets from the Qataris. That hardly seems fair. I would strongly encourage everyone in the anti-Trump coalition to hammer this issue. Trump won because voters thought he could upend a corrupt system. We need them to realize he’s exploiting that system to line his pockets.

Let’s make sure they see this jet for what it is:

A bribe. Bought at 40,000 feet.

Trump ostensibly came to Washington to “drain the swamp.” Instead, he’s privatized it and made it a water hazard on another Trump golf course. People who work for him are mob accomplices in turning the world’s greatest democracy into the world’s greatest grift, criminals working for the criminal-in-chief.

The emperor has no clothes. Trump has no morals. The United States has no future under Trumpism. Nor do you.

Now, what do we do about that?

Update (a day later, Washington Post): About that “free” $400 million airplane.

But retrofitting the 13-year-old aircraft to current Air Force One requirements would take years of work and billions of dollars, current and former U.S. officials say. Such a task would be impossible to complete before Trump leaves office.

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This is quite the order:

President Trump on Friday said his administration would soon issue an executive order mandating a “favored nations” policy in which U.S. payments for drugs are capped at the lowest price paid by either a manufacturer or a developed country.

“Why should other nations — like Canada — but why should other nations pay much less than us?” Trump asked. “We’re working on a favored nations law where we pay whatever the lowest nation’s price is.”

The phrase “favored nations” is sometimes used in contracts to ensure that a purchaser of a good or service receives terms at least as favorable as any other purchaser. In other words, the clauses ensure no one else gets a better deal than the “favored nation.”

It was not immediately clear to what extent Trump’s announcement differs from one of the White House’s signature drug pricing proposals: an international price index that would similarly cap U.S. drug payments based on an average of prices paid in an index of developed nations.

Oh wait. That was from 2019, when Trump first proposed to do it and never did. Never mind.

The “plan” is preposterous and will end up creating shortages in the US and, if it were actually implemented, would kill a bunch of people in poor countries. But that’s probably a feature.

There is certainly something that should be done about the ridiculous price of pharmaceuticals in America. This isn’t it. If any of it comes to pass it will, as everything Trump touches does, make it worse.

You may know Jeanine Pirro as the boozy, bombastic Fox News Trump fluffer but she had a whole career before Roger Ailes rescued her. On paper it looks like good qualifications for a US Attorney for DC — former judge and prosecutor — but there’s oh so much more to it.

As NBC reminds us:

Long before she was a Fox News host who pushed pro-Trump election conspiracy theories, Jeanine Pirro was an ambitious New York politician whose career stalled after she was recorded plotting to bug her then-husband’s boat to catch him in an affair.

The revelation rocked Pirro’s campaign for New York attorney general nearly 20 years ago, resulting in days of front-page headlines in the city’s tabloids (“BUG THIS LOVE BOAT!” blared the Daily News cover).

The conversation took place in 2005 between Pirro and the former commissioner of the New York Police Department, Bernard Kerik, a close ally of Rudy Giuliani’s.

“What am I supposed to do, Bernie? Watch him f— her every night?” Pirro said, according to a transcript obtained by WNBC-TV’s Jonathan Dienst in 2006. “What am I supposed to do? I can go on the boat. I’ll put the f—–g thing on myself.”

The incident is likely to receive renewed attention now that Pirro is President Donald Trump’s pick to be the interim U.S. attorney for Washington, D.C. Her selection came after the president withdrew the nomination of conservative activist Ed Martin, whose defense of Jan. 6 rioters was criticized by some Republican senators.

In announcing Pirro as his choice for Martin’s replacement, Trump described her as “in a class by herself.” He’s right in one sense: No other U.S. attorney nominee is known to have come under federal investigation after being caught on tape scheming to catch a cheating spouse in the act.

The U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York confirmed the existence of an investigation into Pirro at the time, but no charges were brought. Pirro was the district attorney of Westchester County when she was caught on tape talking to Kerik, who was under investigation by the Bronx District Attorney’s Office.

She really is perfect for the job. And now that they axed Ed Martin (who will now be at the DOJ focused like a laser on getting revenge for the 2020 election) there is no way the GOP Senate will have the courage to defy Trump again. So she’s in.

We know you’re waiting for an update. As we gather feedback from attendees, here’s a video from the #First100Party — billed as the “Official” celebration of Trump’s first 100 days in office — organized by grifters.

6/ pic.twitter.com/CiZX4gwANe

— Arlington GOP (@goparlington) May 1, 2025

There’s been a lot of talk in the press about the glamorous the new MAGA generation. I guess it’s supposed to be something like JFK’s Camelot but it appears to be more like the early bird special at a San Fernando Valley Medieval Times restaurant.

Will Sommer of the Bulwark has the latest pathetic MAGA grift story and it’s hilarious:

LAST WEEK, THE CAREER OF CONSERVATIVE journalist Myles Morell hit a new peak.

As a reporter for the Daily Caller News Foundation, he had just scored what counts as a scoop in that world: He caught an irritated Rep. Ilhan Omar on video telling him to “fuck off.”

Then, this Wednesday, Morell walked into work and was swiftly fired.

The abrupt change in fortunes came thanks to an “official” celebration of the first 100 days of Donald Trump’s second term, one that was supposed to feature Republican members of Congress and even the president himself. The bash was a massive bust.

Instead of hosting GOP royalty, the event generated two police reports from ticket buyers. One man who was asked to help set up the event compared it to the disastrous Fyre Festival, and at least one embarrassing video of a man breakdancing with a puppet ricocheted across the Internet.

“I do not think the party was that bad,” Morell, one of the party’s organizers, told me.

It was that bad. It was in fact, in the words of a GOP operative, “100 grift” in which the organizers told ticket buyers they might get to meet Trump officials and possibly Dear Leader himself.

This is just part of the “new Washington” under Trump — safe spaces — where all the MAGAs can hang out together and celebrate their Big Beautiful Dear Leader (and themselves.) For a price. This one was billed as “the official celebration of President Trump’s first 100 days” and it was to be held at the Kennedy center. Tickets cost up to $2500.

Sadly, Trump decided to hold one of his interminable rallies that night in Michigan and the Kennedy Center cancelled. Sad. So they had to move to Arlington in what appears to be some kind of airport hotel conference room which just isn’t quite as nice.

It went downhill from there. People with comped tickets were told to bring booze to fill out the “premium bar” that had been advertised. That takes some real chutzpah. Soon people were quitting and the organizers were taking to their social media accounts to say things to them like “fuck you whore.” No big MAGA names were in attendance.

Sommer reports:

An attendee who spent “hundreds of dollars” on her ticket filed a police report, and complained to the Washington Examiner that the event was a “grift” and “illegal.” Another ticket-buyer has also filed a report, according to Hurtt.

The organizers say they’ve been targeted by GOP operatives and insist they didn’t make any money but haven’t shown anyone a report of their finances.

Unfortunately, for Mr Morell, his event planning prowess wasn’t enough to save his job. Two days after his massively successful Arlington bash, the Daily Caller fired him. They gave no official reason but it stands to reason that they were called on the carpet by MAGA poohbahs (Steve Bannon?) who complained that their boy was much too amateurish with his grift in Trump’s new Washington. When the president is getting foreign nations to gift him a brand new 747-8 jumbo jet, this penny ante stuff is just embarrassing. These young MAGA operators are going to have to up their game.

Yet another one. And it’s lethal:

The White House has ordered federal agencies to stop considering the economic damage caused by climate change when writing regulations, except in cases where it is “plainly required” by law.The directive effectively shelves a powerful tool that has been used for more than two decades by the federal government to weigh the costs and benefits of a particular policy or regulation.The Biden administration had used the tool to strengthen limits on greenhouse gas emissions from cars, power plants, factories and oil refineries.

[…]

During the Obama administration, White House economists calculated the social cost of carbon at $42 a ton. The first Trump administration lowered it to less than $5 a ton. Under the Biden administration, the cost was adjusted for inflation and jumped to $190 per ton.

But “it is no longer federal government policy to maintain a uniform estimate of the monetized impacts of greenhouse gas emissions,” Jeffrey B. Clark, the acting administrator of the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, wrote in a May 5 memo.

Ok, but why?

In his memo, Mr. Clark doubted the scientific consensus that pollution from things like transportation and industry is heating the planet. He argued that there were too many “uncertainties” in calculating the figure, including “whether and to what degree any supposed changes in the climate are actually occurring as a consequence of anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions.”

Scientists and environmental groups say that the Trump administration is denying reality.

They deny reality in every way possible.

He could fire him because he’s obviously incompetent, but Trump loves his warfighter Heggie and he wants him to keep going on TV and defending him. So this is what they’ve decided to do:

Exasperated by the turmoil that has dogged Pete Hegseth’s office in recent weeks, the White House will block the US defense secretary’s choice of chief of staff and select a candidate of its own, according to two people familiar with the matter.

Hegseth had suggested giving the chief of staff position to Marine Col Ricky Buria after the first person in the role, Joe Kasper, left last month in the wake of a contentious leak investigation that brought the ouster of three other senior aides.

But the White House has made clear to Hegseth that Buria will not be elevated to become his most senior aide at the Pentagon, the people said, casting Buria as a liability on account of his limited experience as a junior military assistant and his recurring role in internal office drama.

“Ricky will not be getting the chief position,” one of the people directly familiar with deliberations said. “He doesn’t have adequate experience, lacks the political chops and is widely disliked by almost everyone in the White House who has been exposed to him.”

The White House has always selected political appointees at agencies through the presidential personnel office, but the move to block Hegseth’s choice at this juncture is unusual and reflects Donald Trump’s intent to keep Hegseth by trying to insulate him from any more missteps.

Not to worry though. Whiskey Pete is still on the job, doing what he was hired to do:

A memo issued Friday appeared to be Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s latest broadside against diversity and equity programs and materials. The memo was signed by Tim Dill, performing the duties of defense under secretary for personnel.

The memo said books about diversity were “promoting divisive concepts and gender ideology” that “are incompatible with the Department’s core mission.” It requires all department leaders to identify books that fall into that category and remove them from military library shelves by May 21. At that point, the memo says, there will be further instructions on which books will be permanently removed.

This expands a similar purge recently at the Naval Academy library, in Maryland. Last month, civilian Navy officials, following orders originating from Mr. Hegseth, pulled from shelves books including one that critiqued “The Bell Curve,” a 1994 text that argues that Black men and women are genetically less intelligent than white people. But the academy kept “The Bell Curve” itself on its shelves.

I feel fairly confident that Pete will be able to purge the military of all Black, brown and female personnel from anything but janitorial and office support positions before the end of his term. Give him time. It’s a big job. I don’t know where they’re going to find all the white boy spartans they’ll need but maybe they can import some of those Afrikkaner refugees.

Well this one really takes the cake:

The Trump administration plans to accept a luxury Boeing 747-8 plane as a donation from the Qatari royal family that will be upgraded to serve as Air Force One, in possibly the biggest foreign gift ever received by the U.S. government, a senior official with direct knowledge of the matter said.

The plane will then be donated to President Trump’s presidential library when he leaves office, the official said, allowing him to continue using it as a private citizen.

The plan raises substantial ethical issues, given the immense value of the lavishly-appointed plane and the fact that Mr. Trump plans to use it after he leaves office. Sold new, a commercial Boeing 747-8 costs in the range of $400 million.

Mr. Trump’s own private plane, known as “Trump Force One,” is an older 757 jet that first flew in the early 1990s and was then used by the Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen. Mr. Trump bought it in 2011. The Qatari jet, if Mr. Trump continued flying it after leaving office, would give him a substantially newer plane for his own use.

The plan — reported earlier by ABC News — is expected to be announced in the coming days, as Mr. Trump makes the first extended foreign trip of his presidency to three nations in the Middle East, including Qatar. It will fulfill the president’s desire for a new Air Force One, after repeated delays involving a government contract to Boeing for two new jets to serve that purpose.

By the way, the Trumps are partnering with the Qatari government on several real estate ventures as well. Here’s one:

الديار القطرية تُطلق بالشراكة مع دار جلوبال وجهة فاخرة تضم ملعب جولف مكون من 18 حفرة ونادٍ حصري وفيلات شاطئية.#الديار_القطرية

Qatari Diar partners with DarGlobal to launch a new standard of luxury living with an 18-hole golf course, exclusive clubhouse and beachfront villas.… pic.twitter.com/KBithBZ6Ih

— الديار القطرية (@qataridiar) May 1, 2025

Perfectly fine. No problem. I just hope none of the kids try to sell a painting or anything.

Also:

We've become completely desensitized to it but it's genuinely unreal how corrupt this admin is. Tinpot dictatorship stuff.

Yes, that is the US Attorney General getting paid $1.38M to lobby on behalf of Qatar, and yes she did approve a $400M private jet as a gift. pic.twitter.com/FwQP6qHqPL

— Hunter📈🌈📊 (@StatisticUrban) May 11, 2025

Pro Publica reports:

Earlier this year, doctors at Veterans Affairs hospitals in Pennsylvania sounded an alarm. Sweeping cuts imposed by the Trump administration, they told higher-ups in an email, were causing “severe and immediate impacts,” including to “life-saving cancer trials.”

The email said more than 1,000 veterans would lose access to treatment for diseases ranging from metastatic head and neck cancers, to kidney disease, to traumatic brain injuries.

“Enrollment in clinical trials is stopping,” the email warned, “meaning veterans lose access to therapies.”

The administration reversed some of its decisions, allowing some trials to continue for now. Still, other research, including the trials for treating head and neck cancer, has been stalled.

President Donald Trump has long promised to prioritize veterans.

“We love our veterans,” he said in February. “We are going to take good care of them.”

After the Department of Veterans Affairs began shedding employees and contracts, Trump’s pick to run the agency, Secretary Doug Collins, pledged, “Veterans are going to notice a change for the better.”

But dozens of internal emails obtained by ProPublica reveal a far different reality. Doctors and others at VA hospitals and clinics across the country have been sending often desperate messages to headquarters detailing how cuts will harm veterans’ care. The VA provides health care to roughly 9 million veterans.

Why would they do this, you wonder? Even Republicans used to hold the VA pretty sacrede. Well, according to Rolling Stone:

Over 1,000 veterans lost access to life-saving cancer trials. Research on suicide prevention and toxic exposure was paused or canceled. A critical cancer registry — which myself and so many other veterans worked on — was marked for immediate termination. It’s all part of a ploy enabling Trump to sell the VA to the highest private bidder: ensure veterans receive substandard, non-specialized care to the point that a private health care system infamous for putting up roadblocks to obtaining care can take over, maximizing profits for Trump’s donors while leaving veterans to suffer and die.

I think that’s right. These cuts are going to benefit someone and it isn’t the veterans or the taxpayers.

Oh, but Trump is planning to spend tens of millions on a military parade on his birthday so that’s nice. But no disabled vets will be allowed. He doesn’t like to see that.

No attempts to conceal it

Attorney General Pam Bondi and White House lawyer David Warrington signed off on it, so Donald Trump accepting “a super luxury Boeing 747-8 jumbo jet from the royal family of Qatar” is as legal as waterboarding. Trust us.

Trump administration lawyers have determined that it “is legal for the Department of Defense to accept the aircraft as a gift and later turn it over to the Trump library, and that it does not violate laws against bribery or the Constitution’s prohibition (the emoluments clause) of any U.S. government official accepting gifts ‘from any King, Prince or foreign State.'”

Surely wheelbarrows full of gold are next. Just perfect:

In what may be the most valuable gift ever extended to the United States from a foreign government, the Trump administration is preparing to accept a super luxury Boeing 747-8 jumbo jet from the royal family of Qatar — a gift that is to be available for use by President Donald Trump as the new Air Force One until shortly before he leaves office, at which time ownership of the plane will be transferred to the Trump presidential library foundation, sources familiar with the proposed arrangement told ABC News.

The gift is expected to be announced next week, when Trump visits Qatar on the first foreign trip of his second term, according to sources familiar with the plans.

Trump toured the plane, which is so opulently configured it is known as “a flying palace,” while it was parked at the West Palm Beach International Airport in February.

The highly unusual — unprecedented — arrangement is sure to raise questions about whether it is legal for the Trump administration, and ultimately, the Trump presidential library foundation, to accept such a valuable gift from a foreign power.

"No Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under them, shall, without the Consent of the Congress, accept of any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign State"- U.S. constitution abcnews.go.com/Politics/tru…

— Anne Applebaum (@anneapplebaum.bsky.social) 2025-05-11T12:51:18.386Z

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Welcome to Oz

A few weeks ago I recalled the first time, decades ago, when I saw police with submachine guns at a foreign aiport. It was a “not in Kansas anymore” moment. It felt very foreign. It was also a “no place like home” experience.

That memory surfaced after a report of Customs and Border Patrol agents searching an Amtrak train in Montana for noncitizens. In another story that week, CBP detained an American originally from Lebanon for hours when he reentered the U.S. from Canada.

ICE arrested the mayor of Newark, N.J. last week outside a privately run ICE detention facility there. Many of the officers wore masks, as we’ve seen in other arrest videos since January 20. This too feels foreign. And new. I keep having that “not in Kansas anymore” feeling.

“When did ICE agents begin wearing masks?” I asked Google. The AI replied:

ICE agents began wearing masks, including neck gaiters, during President Trump’s first term in response to concerns about being publicly identified and the potential for personal and family safety threats. Critics had protested outside homes of some agents, leading to a shift in policy. While not explicitly banned, the decision to wear masks is often left to the discretion of an operation commander, according to recently retired ICE agents. The use of masks, particularly during high-profile arrests, has raised concerns about transparency and the potential for misrepresentation.

Meaning ICE makes provisons for possible threats to its agents’ personal and family safety while threatening the personal and family safety of people it snatches off the street.

Good to know. Welcome to Oz.

@chris_the_lawyer Why do #ice agents wear masks now ? #immigrant #immigrationlawyer #fyp #tiktik #trump #abogadodeinmigracion #greencard #greencardmarriage #usa #deported #lawyer ♬ original sound – Chris The Lawyer

The no-uniform mask-wearing also makes it easier for yahoos to impersonate police and harass immigrants, so I guess that’s a plus, huh?

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