President Donald Trump has spent much of his second term in office working to leave his mark on Washington, DC. He’s draped enormous banners of his face over government buildings, plastered his name onto the Carrara walls of the Kennedy Center, and covered the White House in gold accents while demolishing the East Wing to build a 90,000-square-foot ballroom.
Now the Trump administration is taking another unprecedented step toward brand ubiquity: His Treasury Department plans to add his signature to US currency.
Trump’s autograph will be added to all denominations of US bills, Vanity Fair has learned. The process of developing new printing plates is underway, I’m told, and the new bills will go into circulation in the coming months.
The measure is not temporary: Trump’s name will appear on bills until a future administration decides to take it off.
This will be the first time in US history that the sitting president’s signature will appear on American currency. US bills typically feature the signatures of the Treasury secretary and the US treasurer. Trump’s signature will replace that of the latter official, Brandon Beach, and sit alongside Scott Bessent’s.
“As the 250th anniversary of our great nation approaches, American currency will continue to stand as a symbol of prosperity, strength, and the unshakable spirit of the American people under President Trump’s leadership,” Beach said in a statement to Vanity Fair. “The president’s mark on history as the architect of America’s golden age economic revival is undeniable. Printing his signature on the American currency is not only appropriate, but also well deserved.”
It is appalling. All of it. But Trump is intent upon slapping his disgusting brand on every American symbol he can, from the White House to coins to airports and beyond.
Once he is out of office it’s vitally important that the Democrats rid the country of all this but I honestly don’t think they will. It will infuriate the MAGAs and they won’t want to create more friction by tearing down their dear leader while they’re still screaming in agony over the election being stolen. (Yes, they will assume that.) But we really can’t continue to have him be a ubiquitous figure in American society. It’s poison and it needs to be purged.
I hope that some rich person will fund a citizens effort to lobby for the removal of his hideous name from every public building and retire all the money with his name on it.It may take years but it has to be done.
Primary season is in full swing and it’s important to remember to bookmark Boltsmag.org for all the news at the state and local level as well as the big marquee races we’re all following:
Two statewide votes are headlining the election calendar in April. First, Wisconsin will choose a new supreme court justice, with major implications for voting rights. Then, Virginia will decide whether to allow the new congressional map proposed by Democrats.
But there are plenty of other storylines to watch. Many school districts are electing new school board members this month—in Alaska, Missouri, Oklahoma, and Wisconsin—with familiar battles over book bans and the rights of LGBTQ students.
Also on the menu? Voters are filling vacant congressional seats in Georgia and New Jersey. Appointees of Wisconsin’s Democratic governor are fighting to survive against conservative challengers. Some Missourians and Oklahomans are weighing in on important tax referendums. And voters will decide who controls Anchorage, Alaska, Rio Rancho, New Mexico, Waukesha, Wisconsin, and other cities.
Enter Bolts’ guide to the 40 elections to watch in April.
The guide starts with a busy April 7, when voters will head to the polls in Wisconsin, Alaska, Arizona, Georgia, Missouri, and Oklahoma. On April 14, watch municipal races in California and New Mexico, followed by a New Jersey congressional race on April 16. On April 21, we’re tracking ballot measures in Virginia and Florida, and on April 28 a local race in New York.
As always, this guide is just our selection of key races to monitor, and not an exhaustive list of all elections in April. Some cities in Florida, Missouri, South Carolina, and Texas are electing city council members, for instance; plus, voters in several small towns have the opportunity to recall local officials, and some Missourians and Oklahomans are mulling tax and levy measures.
Return on and after each Election Day; we’ll update this page as the results are known.
Click over here. The Democrats have been kicking ass all across the country over the past year and winning many state races that are going to be super important as we face the assault on voting rights — all rights — that the Trump administration is pushing through at the federal level.
Judge Aileen Cannon forbade it. There would be no release of Volume II of Special Counsel Jack Smith’s report, the part that dealt with the discovery that Donald Trump kept classified documents, some at the Top Secret/SCI level, when he left the White House. When Smith testified before Congress, he carefully tailored his responses to avoid violating the court’s order
But not so much the Trump White House. In what appears to be a sloppy but serious error, the administration released a document to Congress that MSNOW’s Carol Leonnig and Jacqueline Alemany reported on yesterday. They write, “In a January 2023 ‘progress memo’ reviewed by MS NOW, Smith’s office discussed the possible motive after the FBI discovered that Trump held on to many documents related to his businesses.” Although the document isn’t publicly available, it sounds like the sort of reports agents and/or prosecutors might prepare for supervisors. This one contains some fascinating details.
The document was released as part of a regular document production DOJ has been making to Congress in support of the Republican inquiry into Smith. House Judiciary Democrats put it like this: “This particular production contained a memorandum detailing non-public information about the classified documents Trump stole when leaving office. The newly produced materials offer a startling view of evidence gathered by Special Counsel Jack Smith during his investigations into the criminal activity of President Trump, even as DOJ continues to suppress Volume II of his final report.”
L.O.L!!!
They are just so bad at everything.
Vance points out that the crimes Trump was charged with don’t require a motive. The statute says that prosecutors instead have to “prove to a jury that Trump unlawfully possessed classified information and willfully refused to return it to the National Archives when asked to do so. But prosecutors don’t have to establish why the defendant did that.”
Still, they knew that jurors would likely want to know why. (I wouldn’t be that interested because I think Trump just wanted to keep stuff for his own purposes which could be anything. His mind is very disordered.) However, Vance is right that people would be curious.
Smith and co. thought the documents indicated they might be useful for Trump business interests. I don’t doubt it.
Vance continues:
The reporting so far doesn’t reveal precisely which Trump business interests are involved, but Raskin engages in some educated speculation in the letter, which involves a classified map Trump had. “Without access to Volume II of the Special Counsel’s final report or the investigative files, we do not know what that classified map contained, nor can we determine from this memo the relationship between the classified documents President Trump stole and their pertinence to his ‘business interests,’” Raskin acknowledged. He continued, however, “We do know that around the time of this flight to Bedminster, President Trump was entering into partnerships with Saudi-backed LIV Golf and state-linked real estate firm Dar al Arkan.”
The flight is one where Trump allegedly showed others the map in question, and Raskin notes, “A month after this flight, in July 2022, President Trump played golf at Bedminster with Yasir al-Rumayyan, head of the sovereign wealth fund of Saudi Arabia—the same official who plied the Trump family with tens of millions of dollars as the family began to run out of money between terms. During this trip, President Trump defended his business partners from criticism levied by the families of 9/11 victims protesting the Saudi government’s role in the attack.” Raskin say that in this time period Trump boasted about having maps and said “that it was only the hawks who wanted to attack Iran, not him, and that he had Pentagon war plans ‘done by the military and given to me’ about such a potential attack.”
Now think about that in the current context. WTF? Does Donald Trump ever do anything in foreign policy that isn’t designed to help America’s adversaries? Russia, China, Iran, North Korea, they always benefit from his decisions. America and out allies, not so much.
The Pentagon is considering whether to divert weapons intended for Ukraine to the Middle East as the war in Iran depletes some of the U.S. military’s most critical munitions, according to three people familiar with the matter.
Although a final decision to redirect the equipment has not yet been made, the shift would highlightthe growing trade-offs required to sustain the U.S. war againstIran, where U.S. Central Command has hit more than 9,000 targets in just under four weeks of fighting.
The weapons that could be diverted away from Ukraine include air defense interceptor missiles,ordered through a NATO program launched last year in which partner countries buy U.S. arms for Kyiv, the three people said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to describe the Pentagon’s sensitive deliberations.
Trump is gleeful at the prospect of handing Ukraine to Russia, obviously. He literally hates them because Rudy Giuliani convinced him that they were behind the “Russia, Russia, Russia hoax.”
Meanwhile, we’re threatening to do the exact war crimes Russia has been committing in Ukraine, making Putin the big winner in all of this.
The ancient scrolls tell us that, in the Before Time, a president's admission that his administration had not considered the obvious likelihood of the war widening when they first attacked Iran would lead to immediate congressional hearings.
New Verasight poll on the prominent issues of the day:
ICE at airports: 53% disapprove of deploying ICE agents to airports; 59% disapprove of Trump rejecting the Senate DHS funding deal.
Airport chaos: 77% say conditions at airports are worse than usual, and 52% blame the Trump administration or Senate Republicans for the current chaos — nearly double the 25% who blame Democrats.
ICE trust: Only 37% trust ICE to act professionally — the lowest of any agency we tested.
Iran: 72% oppose sending ground troops into the conflict. 60% prefer the U.S. pursue a ceasefire and negotiate with Iran, vs 29% who want to continue military operations.
People don’t realize that the Border Patrol is responsible for much of the brutality we’ve seen on our streets. Gregory Bovino was CBP not ICE.
And this …
That’s a killer. Not that he cares. As I’ve said, he’s playing for legacy now. And he’s so megalomaniacal that he figures all he has to do is accuse the Democrats of cheating in 2026 to make it so in the eyes of history. That may not work as well as he thinks it will.
A new Fox News poll released on Wednesday shows President Donald Trump’s disapproval rating is the highest it has been in either of his two terms.
A whopping 59% of respondents said they disapprove of Trump’s performance as president, with 47% saying they strongly disapprove. The 59% disapproval figure is the highest Trump has received in a Fox News poll. Only 41% of Americans said they approve. The survey was conducted between March 20 and March 23 and has a margin of error of three percent.
One key issue that seems to be weighing down the president is the war on Iran and its knock-on effects on the economy. Just 42% of voters back the war, according to the Fox News survey, with independents supporting it at a clip of just 28%.
A Reuters poll released on Tuesday had similarly bad numbers for Trump, as his approval rating in that survey was just 36%.
Twenty-two years ago a famous American became the poster child for insider trading when she was found to have taken a tip from her broker about a falling stock price and saved herself about $45,000 in losses. Martha Stewart, the extremely wealthy entrepreneur and “domestic lifestyle influencer,” spent five months in jail for lying about what she’d done. She paid restitution and fines, and came back just fine afterward. But the punishment struck many people as excessive. It was clear prosecutors sought to make an example of her and send a message that no one is above the law when it comes to insider trading.
Somebody didn’t get the memo. Monday saw what appears to be one of the biggest insider trades ever registered, and there’s nobody minding the store willing to find out who it was. In fact, it may be that the store itself was in on it.
Over the weekend, and seemingly out of the blue, President Trump took to Truth Social to threaten Iran with what, if executed, would amount to war crimes for targeting civilian infrastructure. He wrote, “If Iran doesn’t FULLY OPEN, WITHOUT THREAT, the Strait of Hormuz, within 48 HOURS from this exact point in time, the United States of America will hit and obliterate their various POWER PLANTS, STARTING WITH THE BIGGEST ONE FIRST!” This sounded like a serious escalation, but at the same time, Trump has been so all over the place in conducting the war that it’s no longer reasonable to assume he means anything he says.
Iran responded as one would expect. The regime sent out its own statements threatening to “irreversibly destroy” energy plants throughout the Middle East in response. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent — who has become an unlikely spokesman for the administration on military strategy, perhaps in an attempt to soothe the chaotic markets — explained on Sunday’s “Meet the Press” that “sometimes you have to escalate to de-escalate,” as if that made any sense at all. Suffice to say that everyone awaited Monday with anxiety and trepidation, wondering if the administration was about to take the U.S.-Israeli war in Iran to the next level.
Trump blinked at 7:05 that morning, declaring he was giving Iran a five-day reprieve due to “good and productive talks” to end the war. The Islamic Republic denied that any such talks were happening, and since everyone involved in this endeavor are inveterate liars, there’s no way of really knowing the truth about any of it.
But someone seems to have known that Trump was going to back down exactly when he did. CNBC reported later that day that at 6:49 a.m., the S&P 500 e-Mini futures trading on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange — the world’s largest derivatives marketplace for futures and options, — saw a “sharp and isolated jump in volume.” It also happened on the Barito Renewables Energy (BREN) and West Texas Intermediate May futures oil markets, where contracts valued at $580 million were sold. Bloomberg News analyzed trading on those markets during the same period of time over the previous five days; the average trading level was around 700 contracts. In a one-minute period on Monday — between 6:49 and 6:50 — about 6,200 contracts were traded.
The market was very quiet at the time. There was no news, no public chit-chat, nothing that would give rise to such a big move, but there it was. The only explanation that makes any sense is that someone knew that within 15 minutes Donald Trump was going to announce he was backing off his threats against Iran — and that the markets would surge on the news. (A White House spokesman called the implication “baseless.”)
As Axios noted on Wednesday, “Mysterious trading patterns [have followed] Trump into war.” Each time he announces a consequential decision, the report found, an “epidemic of suspicious trading” occurs just before the news would affect the markets.
People appear to have been profiteering on the prediction-market website Polymarket as well, beginning with Trump’s military operation in Venezuela. According to the BBC, one trader made $436,000 on a $32,000 bet on the timing of the capture of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. CNN reported that another trader has made nearly $1 million since 2024 from “dozens of well-timed bets that correctly predicted U.S. and Israeli military actions against Iran,” profits almost certainly derived from insider information. According to the report, “the bettor won a staggering 93% of their five-figure wagers about Iran, even though the events they predicted were unannounced military operations.”
This threat is acute enough that observers are warning that the ability to anonymously make such large bets on current events could motivate the people involved to alter outcomes for their own financial benefit. This is bad when it comes to sports, but it’s downright terrifying when it comes to wars.
Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., labeled the alleged profiteering an example of “mind-blowing corruption” and has proposed legislation to prohibit these markets from allowing bets on government action. “They are rife with insider trading,” he said, “and they offer incredibly perverse incentives, especially inside government, for government actors to push official decision making towards their financial interests.”
It would be nice to believe that our political leaders would never do such a thing, which would amount to making money off the lives of our troops. But considering the history of an administration led by a man convicted of 34 felony counts of business fraud, that would be unforgivably naive. According to a comprehensive New Yorker investigation, the Trump family has made $4 billion since the president returned to office in January 2025, and it’s important to note that Donald Trump Jr. is an investor in and adviser to Polymarket, and a paid strategic adviser to Kalshi, its rival firm.
But members of Congress are no better. Many of them have been raking in profits like it’s their religion ever since Donald Trump came back into office. After Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu launched the war against Iran on Feb. 28, Rep. Dave Taylor, R-Ohio, sold stock among two oil companies.
Polymarket and Kalshi announced on Monday they were issuing new guidance to guard against such behaviors going forward, but no one knows exactly how they will be able to control it. There are various bills pending in Congress to rein in some of the excesses, but it’s hard to imagine Trump signing them.
As for the blatant market manipulation that’s taking place, such as those incredibly lucrative, serendipitously-timed Monday morning trades, I wouldn’t expect too much. After just six months on the job, Margaret Ryan, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s top enforcement official, resigned last week. She reportedly clashed with Trump’s hand-picked SEC chair Paul Atkins and other GOP political appointees over her decision to pursue cases with ties to Trump.
Maybe they can find another high-profile woman like Martha Stewart to send a different message. This one will say, “For my friends, everything; for my enemies, the law.”
You’re driving down the highway and the driver ahead meanders back and forth between the left and right lanes. “For god’s sake, pick a lane,” you say aloud.
You may say the same to federal judges mentioned in Mattathias Schwartz’s reflections on their recent comments regarding the fate of the republic. Some are speaking out in Trump-era opinions usually much more reserved. Others see that as risky.
Schwartz writes in The New York Times (gift link):
In many instances, the writerly flourishes and flashy citations appear to be symptoms of a growing sense among district-court judges that President Trump’s second term is an all-hands-on-deck constitutional emergency. That feeling of alarm runs all the way up to the Supreme Court, where Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson wrote that one decision from the conservative majority was “an existential threat to the rule of law.”
Oh, but wait, warn others.
The public could perceive rulings as motivated by political animus, instead of the basic application of law to the facts of a case. District court judges who take an unnecessarily adversarial stance could provoke appellate courts to overturn their rulings. And if strident writing becomes the new normal, some judges expressed worry that a more restrained, technical style could be misinterpreted as a sign that they do not have broader concerns.
Some judges who spoke anonymously worried their colleagues just might be taking Trump’s bait. Pick a lane.
“The risk is being the boy who cried wolf,” said Noah Feldman, a professor at Harvard Law School and the author of a book on Franklin Roosevelt’s Supreme Court nominees. “If you say that the republic is collapsing in every single case, will anyone listen when the republic really is collapsing, and the Supreme Court says so?”
Noah needs to get out more. Maybe to Minneapolis.
Jaw-dropping DOJ admissions to court
DOJ admits repeatedly made "material mistaken" representations to judge. ICE never had authority (under 2025 Guidance) to conduct arrests at immigration courthouses!
“Antiseptic judicial rhetoric cannot do justice to what is happening,” Judge Joseph R. Goodwin of the Southern District of West Virginia wrote last month. The tactics being deployed by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, he wrote, are “an assault on the constitutional order” and “beyond the reach of ordinary legal description.”
We are seeing blatant constitutional violations of civil rights promoted by this White House. “No court has yet been required to state the obvious,” Goodwin wrote. “This court is now required to say it.”
In ordering the release of an Ecuadorian asylum seeker and his 5-year-old son, Judge Fred Biery of the Western District of Texas condemned the Trump administration’s “perfidious lust for unbridled power” was “bereft of human decency.” Furthermore, “the imposition of cruelty in its quest [knows] no bounds and [is] bereft of human decency. And the rule of law be damned.”
MAGA praises Trump for telling it like it is. Suck it up, cupcakes.
Mr. Trump has “forced judges to be in a position that they’ve never been in before,” said Nancy Gertner, a retired federal judge and lecturer at Harvard Law School. “The distance between what he’s trying to do and what is lawful is so great, and the language of these opinions reflects that. So it’s not that there are rogue judges. There is a rogue president.”
But for Edward Whelan, a conservative legal commentator and former Justice Department official, judges who go further than “dispassionately deciding the specific case in front of them” are overstepping their role. “Once you get into other questions — should the judge be sending a signal or warning of the apocalypse — that’s not judging. That’s something different,” he said.
Like pulling the fire alarm instead of whispering amidst smoke and flame?
Mr. Trump escalated his attacks on Wednesday night, calling on Republican lawmakers to pass a crime bill that “cracks down on rogue judges.” He said at a National Republican Congressional Committee event in Washington that these judges “are criminals.”
First Trump came for the Muslims. Then he came for the election process. Then he came for the immigrants … and their civil rights. Then he came for civil servants. Then he came for voting rights. Then he came for political opponents. Then he single-handedly started a war, all along accepting bribes and lining his pockets.
The Justice Department has reached an agreement with President Donald Trump’s former national security adviser Michael Flynn to pay him roughly $1.2 million to settle a lawsuit brought by the former general claiming he was politically targeted for prosecution during Trump’s first administration, sources familiar with the matter tell ABC News.
The settlement is well below the $50 million in damages Flynn initially sought when he first filed the lawsuit in 2023, but will still likely fuel questions as to whether Flynn received a favorable outcome due to his continued vocal support for President Trump.
A federal judge had previously thrown out Flynn’s lawsuit in 2024 following a motion to dismiss the suit filed by the Justice Department during the Biden administration, after ruling that Flynn had failed to meet essential elements showing he was a victim of malicious prosecution. But Flynn’s attorneys sought to revive their case after President Trump returned to office, and the department disclosed in a filing last year that it had been engaged in settlement talks with his legal team.
A Justice Department spokesperson, in a statement regarding the settlement, said, “ly do it but I have to wonder why. Of course he can. He can do anything and he sees this sort of thing Those who instigated the Russia Collusion Hoax and Crossfire Hurricane abused their power to mislead the American people and tarnish the reputations of President Trump and his supporters. Today’s settlement, secured by this Justice Department, is an important step in redressing that historic injustice.”
I’m sure Trump is next to be given “reparations” for his trouble. I know people think he can’t possibly get away with ordering the DOJ to pay him for the Russia investigation (which was totally on the up and up) but I don’t know why not. He has no limits. He’ll take the money and give it to some wingnut cause, like that makes it ok. I’m sure Flynn won’t be his only henchman to get paid either. This is just another MAGA grift with the taxpayers on the hook.
Remember, all these people were in bed with every Russian they met at the time. Either they were total dupes or playing footsie with one of America’s most powerful adversaries. Either way they should have all been drummed out of politics forever.
Instead:
The Trump Justice Department under former Attorney General William Barr then moved to drop the case in 2020, in a filing that sharply criticized the FBI’s conduct in investigating Flynn and argued that the case against him should never have been brought.
The move faced some pushback from a Washington, D.C., federal judge who had questioned the department’s motives in dropping the prosecution, and President Trump later issued a full pardon for Flynn in the wake of his 2020 election loss.
Barr had a serious case of Fox news brain rot who only belatedly realized that Trump was out of his mind. He will carry the historical burden of what he did.
William Saletan at the Bulwark runs down all the grotesque statements Trump has made when one of his perceived enemies dies and it’s a doozy. There are some I’d forgotten about like this:
In 2020, Congressman John Lewis, a hero of the civil rights movement, died of cancer at 80. Trump groused that Lewis had slighted him (“He didn’t come to my inauguration. He didn’t come to my State of the Union speeches”), and he refused to say whether Lewis’s life had been impressive (“I can’t say one way or the other. I find a lot of people impressive. I find many people not impressive”). Instead, Trump boasted, “Nobody has done more for black Americans than I have.”
[W]e flew on a trip to Australia, to meet with our “five eyes” intelligence community partners, and while we were there, in the middle of the night, I get a phone call from the White House. DHS just had the flag lowered around the country in honor of the late senator John McCain, which was right and appropriate, and no one thought anything of it. I was awoken in the night by the White House and our military aide frantically trying to get in touch with me and with the secretary to say the president is furious that the flags are lowered for John McCain and he wants you guys to order them raised back up.
They finally talked him out of it but it took hours.
So, so typical. I can’t even imagine what he’ll do if Clinton or Biden die while he’s in office.
As Saletan says:
THIS IS NOT THE BEHAVIOR of a normal human being. And Republicans, in accepting this behavior, have ceased to be a normal party.
He provides a lot of evidence but this one really gets me:
This past Sunday on Meet the Press, Kristen Welker pressed Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent about Trump’s gloating over Mueller’s corpse. “Do you think it’s appropriate,” she asked, “for the president of the United States to celebrate the death of an American citizen, someone who’s a Bronze Star, Purple Heart recipient and who served in Vietnam?”
Bessent defended Trump:
I was with the president in the green room at Davos, and there was a video playing of what may have been an illegal raid on his home at Mar-a-Lago. They are going through his wife’s wardrobe. And I watched the look in his eye. And I think that neither one of us can understand what has been done to the president and to his family.
Bessent was lying. The FBI’s search of Mar-a-Lago was authorized by a court, and it uncovered evidence that Trump had grossly violated laws on retaining classified documents. Furthermore, as Welker reminded Bessent, “Robert Mueller didn’t order that raid.” The search took place in 2022, three years after Mueller’s time as special counsel had ended.
“Is it appropriate for the president to celebrate the death of any American citizen?” Welker then asked. Bessent repeated that Trump was the victim. “Given what has been done to President Trump and his family, it is impossible for either of us to understand what he has been through,” he insisted. “I think that we should all have a little empathy for what has been done to him and his family.”
The whining from all of them is deafening. Poor, poor Donald Trump. He constantly breaks the law, acts like an animal and treats over half the country and most of the world like they are his vassals and then when he’s taken to task for being the grotesque monster he is, he and his minions have a good old fashioned cry.
To borrow a MAGA phrase: fuck their feelings. They’ve inlflicted this chaotic catastrophe on us for over a decade now and it’s enough.
