Daron Acemoglu, Simon Johnson, and James A. Robinson, The Colonial Origins of Comparative Development: An Empirical Investigation. National Bureau of Economic Research, Jun 2000. Settler colonies set up more politically inclusive and economically productive societies because the colonists were more personally invested and involved. Colonies of non-settlers were simply extractive and exploitative.

Wendell Berry, “A Citizen’s Response,” Citizenship Papers (2003) “Our Constitution, by its separation of powers and its system of checks and balances, acts as a restraint upon efficiency by denying exclusive power to any branch of government. The logic of governmental efficiency, unchecked, runs straight on, not only to dictatorship, but also to torture, assassination, and other abominations.” “Efficiency” can also be manipulated to create the emotion of disgust at the government itself, which is dangerous.

Iman Ghosh, The State of Democracy Around the World. Visual Capitalist, Sep 1, 2020.

Ryan Chapman, Why The Government Wastes So Much Money. Ryan Chapman, Jun 16, 2022.

Adam Conover, DOGE is Stealing America's Future, with Max Stier. Adam Conover, Mar 12, 2025. Max Stier is CEO of the Partnership for Public Service.

Michael Lewis, Who Is Government?: The Untold Story of Public Service. Riverhead Books | Amazon page, Mar 18, 2025. Lewis writes an engaging and entertaining book about federal government employees — how competent, patriotic, fascinating, and important they are to American society. See interview by Aaron Bastani, ‘Big Short’ Author: Trump & Musk Could Start a Global MELTDOWN | Aaron Bastani Meets Michael Lewis. Novara Media, Jul 13, 2025. Excellent summary of the book.

Max, Trump's Crypto Scheme MUST Be Stopped. UNFTR, Aug 15, 2025. This is the single best explanation of stablecoin.

“Donald Trump has laid the groundwork to become one of the wealthiest people on the planet by personally making money from every dollar printed in the United States. And the worse the economy gets, the more money he stands to make. The House has already passed three crypto bills that would make this potential a reality by allowing the Trump family to control the global stablecoin market. Now it’s up to the Senate. It’s a wild story that the media won’t report on because they don’t get it. But some very powerful people have figured it out and now the race is on to stop Trump from becoming the shadow central banker to the world.”

See also this update: Yanis Varoufakis & Wolfgang Munchau, Trump’s $6 Trillion Crypto Plot. The Econoclasts, Nov 26, 2025.

Wikipedia, Buckley v. Valeo (1976) (Wikipedia article) on an early campaign finance decision rooted in the view that campaign contributions are "free speech" and should therefore be unlimited.  This led to two further SCOTUS cases, Wikipedia, First National Bank of Boston v. Bellotti (1978) (Wikipedia article) and Wikipedia, Citizens United v. FEC (2010) (Wikipedia article).

Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) website

Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) website

The Center for Public Integrity (CPI) website

Center for Systemic, Peace Polity Project (website)

Daron Acemoglu, Simon Johnson, and James A. Robinson, The Colonial Origins of Comparative Development: An Empirical Investigation. National Bureau of Economic Research, Jun 2000. Settler colonies set up more politically inclusive and economically productive societies because the colonists were more personally invested and involved. Colonies of non-settlers were simply extractive and exploitative.

Daniel Lederman, Norman Loayza, Rodrigo R. Soares, Accountability and Corruption: Political Institutions Matter. Social Science Research Network, Nov 2001.

Jakob Svenssen, Eight Questions About Corruptions. Journal of Economic Perspectives, Summer 2005.

Rohini Pande, Understanding Political Corruption in Low Income Countries. Center for International Development at Harvard University, Apr 2007.

Brian M. Reidl, 50 Examples of Government Waste. Heritage Foundation, Oct 6, 2009.

Nauro F. Campos, Ralitza Dimova, Corruption Does Sand the Wheels of Growth. Vox, Dec 24, 2010.

Ben Rooney, U.S. Bureaucracy Wastes Billions, Watchdog Says. CNN Money, Mar 1, 2011.

Rottin' In Denmark, How to Reduce Corruption and Lose an Election. RottinInDenmark blog, Oct 5, 2012.  On the nation Georgia's transparency laws.

Chris Blattman, Corruption and Development: Not What You Think? blog, Nov 5, 2012.

Michael B. Kelley, Israel Grants First Golan Heights Oil Drilling License To Dick Cheney-Linked Company. Business Insider, Feb 22, 2013.  “A local subsidiary of the New York-listed company Genie Energy — which is advised by former vice president Dick Cheney and whose shareholders include Jacob Rothschild and Rupert Murdoch — will now have exclusive rights to a 153-square mile radius in the southern part of the Golan Heights.”

Gregory Korte, Report: Redundant Federal Programs Waste Billions. USA Today, Apr 9, 2013.

Sean Kennedy, A Bittersweet Victory for CAGW. CAGW, Nov 2013.

Reuters, Behind the Pentagon's Doctored Ledgers, an Running Tally of Epic Waste. CNBC News, Nov 18, 2013.

Craig Whitlock, Senior Navy Civilians Investigated in Alleged Scheme to Defraud Military for $1.6 Million. Washington Post, Nov 12, 2013.

Lauren Lyster, Want to Cut Government Waste? Find the $8.5 Trillion the Pentagon Can't Account For. Yahoo Finance News, Nov 25, 2013.

Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzalez, Three More NYC Contractors Found Guilty in Massive CityTime Scandal to Modernize Pay System. Democracy Now, Truth Out, Nov 28, 2013.

Ralph Nader, Unstoppable: The Emerging Left-Right Alliance to Dismantle the Corporate Welfare State. Bold Type Books | Amazon page, Apr 2014.

Brendan James, Princeton Study: U.S. No Longer An Actual Democracy. Talking Points Memo, Apr 18, 2014.  referring to Martin Gilens and Benjamin I. Page, Testing Theories of American Politics: Elites, Interest Groups, and Average Citizens. Cambridge University Press, Sep 2014. . See also Andrew Reynolds, North Carolina Is No Longer Classified As a Democracy. Charlotte Observer, Dec 22, 2016.  showing that the most powerful Republicans believe that democracy is a transitional state to theocratic and/or racial supremacist positions, much like conservative to radical Muslims aiming for shari'a.

Center for Systemic Peace, Polity IV Project. Systemic Peace website, Jun 6, 2014.

Andrew Prokop, 40 Charts That Explain Money in Politics. Vox, Jul 30, 2014.

Robert Reich, Wall Street's Democrats. Huffington Post, Dec 8, 2014.

Ron Haskins, Social Programs That Work. New York Times, Dec 31, 2014.

Matt Agorist, Whistleblower Cop Calls Our Corruption in Her Department, Naturally She's Being Fired for It. Free Thought Project, Dec 31, 2014.

Jon Basil Utley, Libertarians and Putin's Catastrophic Corruption. The American Conservative, Jan 2, 2015.

Devin Leonard and Richard Rubin, An Emotional Audit: IRS Workers Are Miserable and Overwhelmed. Bloomberg, Apr 8, 2015.

Meghann Myers, Disgraced Navy Officer Says Her Career Was Ruined After Red-Flagging Alleged Fraud. Navy Times, Sep 27, 2015.

Carrie Sheffield, How We Can Reform Unionized Government. Bold, Nov 19, 2015.

Elizabeth Warren, One Way to Rebuild Our Institutions. New York Times, Jan 29, 2016.

Ewan McGaughey, Fascism-Lite in America (or the Social Ideal of Donald Trump. British Journal of American Legal Studies, May 3, 2016; last updated Jun 2, 2019.  “This article suggests the true cause of current developments is Buckley v. Valeo, in 1976. An extraordinary memorandum of Lewis Powell for the US Chamber of Commerce in 1971 urged that ‘[b]usiness interests’ should ‘press vigorously in all political arenas for support’. Richard Nixon then appointed Powell to the Supreme Court. A few years after in Buckley, over powerful dissent, a majority held candidates may spend unlimited funds on their own political campaign. Buckley v. Valeo was the ‘Trump for President’ decision. The 2016 election cannot be separated from the social ideal pursued by a majority of the Supreme Court since 1976.”

Michael Hiltzik, Watch a Conservative Blame Government Waste on the Little Guy. Los Angeles Times, May 12, 2016.

Matthew Nussbaum, How Elon Musk Exposed Billions in Questionable Pentagon Spending. Politico, May 13, 2016.

Oliver Milman and Jessica Glenza, At Least 33 US Cities Used Water Testing Cheats Over Lead Concerns. Guardian, Jun 2, 2016.

Jonathan Chait, The Most Corrupt Candidate Ever Is Donald Trump. New York Magazine, Jul 5, 2016.

Carrie Sheffield, Style Over Substance: Liberal Darling Elizabeth Warren's Moral High Road Threatens to Leave America Poorer and More Divided. Salon, Aug 16, 2016.  highlights challenges of managing government bureaucracy.

Jeff Stein, Why Glenn Greenwald Relentlessly Attacks Hillary Clinton — Even If It Helps Donald Trump. Vox, Sep 15, 2016.

Paul Verkuil, The Case for Bureaucracy. New York Times, Oct 3, 2016.

Matthew Mosk, Brian Ross, Brian Epstein, Cho Park, 'FOBs': How Hillary's State Dept. Gave Special Attention to 'Friends of Bill' After Haiti Quake. ABC News, Oct 11, 2016.  and Jonathan M. Katz, The Clintons Didn’t Screw Up Haiti Alone. You Helped. Slate, Sep 22, 2016.  Provides other helpful background

The Young Turks, Wikileaks Bombshell Exposes Extent of Clinton Corruption. The Young Turks, Nov 1, 2016.

Josh Marshall, FBI More Out of Control Than We Knew. Talking Points Memo, Nov 2, 2016.

Paul Blumenthal, This Dark Money Group Is Spending Big On Judicial Races, And No One Knows Why. Huffington Post, Nov 3, 2016.  "Center for Individual Freedom" fronting for big corporations

Shane Goldmacher, How Politicians Hide Their Spending From the Public. Politico, Nov 2, 2016.  consulting firms

Tom Cahill, Rudy Giuliani Just Confirmed the FBI Is Leaking Information to Donald Trump's Campaign. U.S. Uncut, Nov 4, 2016.

Paul Blumenthal, Senate Races Flooded With Never-Before-Seen Sums Of Super PAC Cash. Huffington Post, Nov 5, 2016.

Jordan Clive, If You Really Want to Know What's Going On, Stop Giving Hillary a Pass. Medium, Nov 11, 2016.

Michael J. Glennon, Trump's Looming Showdown With the 'Secret Government'. Boston Globe, Dec 1, 2016.  an elaboration on Jordan Michael Smith, Vote All You Want; the Secret Government Won't Change. Boston Globe, Oct 18, 2014.

John Schwarz, Donald Trump’s White House Counsel Is Proud “Architect” of America’s Corrupt Big Money Politics. The Intercept, Dec 4, 2016.

Jonathan Chait, How Republicans Justify Unlimited Trump Corruption. New York Magazine, Dec 5, 2016.

Craig Whitlock and Bob Woodward, Pentagon Buries Evidence of $125 Billion in Bureaucratic Waste. Washington Post, Dec 5, 2016.

Daniel J. Mitchell, There's Only One Way to Drain the Swamp. FEE, Dec 5, 2016.

Daniel DiSalvo, Madiganistan How House Speaker Michael Madigan Helped Ruin Illinois. City Journal, Autumn 2016.  an excellent biographical study illustrating why a party needs to exercise some discipline over its leaders

Amanda Taub, How ‘Islands of Honesty’ Can Crush a System of Corruption. New York Times, Dec 9, 2016.

Larry Elliott, Donald Trump is Undermining the Fight Against Corruption. Guardian, Feb 12, 2017.

Glenn Greenwald, The Leakers Who Exposed Gen. Flynn’s Lie Committed Serious — and Wholly Justified — Felonies. The Intercept, Feb 14, 2017.

Veronika Bondarenko, Donald Trump's hotel in Azerbaijan linked with corruption, Iran's Revolutionary Guard. Business Insider, Mar 6, 2017.  and original piece by Adam Davidson, Donald Trump’s Worst Deal. The New Yorker, Mar 13, 2017.  “According to the Transparency International Corruption Perceptions Index, Azerbaijan is among the most corrupt nations in the world. Its President, Ilham Aliyev, the son of the former President Heydar Aliyev, recently appointed his wife to be Vice-President.” A perfect cess-pool for money-laundering.

Normal L. Eisen and Richard W. Painter, Trump's Unprecedented War on Ethics. USA Today, Mar 20, 2017.

Ruth May, How Putin's Oligarchs Funneled Millions into GOP Campaigns. Dallas News, May 8, 2018.  “Campaign finance reports show troubling connections between a group of wealthy donors with ties to Russia and their political contributions to Trump and top Republican leaders.”

The Editors, Scott Pruitt Should Go. National Review, Jun 13, 2018.

Laurence Kotlikoff, Is Our Government Intentionally Hiding $21 Trillion In Spending? Forbes, Jul 21, 2018.

Mary Elizabeth Williams, Who's Buying Our Elections? Inside the Shadowy World of Dark Money. Salon, Jul 17, 2018.

The Young Turks, Devin Nunes Really Wishes This Audio Wasn't Leaked. The Young Turks, Aug 9, 2018.  re: Nunes' comments at a private fundraiser that Republican lawmakers need to protect Trump from the Mueller investigation, which is a constitutional breach of duty, putting the President above the law

Fred Hiatt, We're Paying Too Little Attention to This Endangered and Essential National Resource. Washington Post, Oct 7, 2018.  re: civil service, which has held remarkably constant in size through decades, suggesting that this aspect of government is not as bloated as it could be

The Young Turks, The Most Important Policy Announcement of the 2020 Campaign. The Young Turks, Oct 7, 2019.  Bernie Sander’s proposal that we need a Constitutional Amendment to say money is not speech, and corporations are not people; a public voucher financing system for each citizen to participate in federal elections; and a lifetime ban on lobbying if you were a Congressional staffer

Chris Hayes, Where President Donald Trump’s Conspiracy Theories Come From. All in with Chris Hayes | MSNBC, Oct 11, 2019.  Jane Mayer explains that Robert Mercer and Government Accountability Institute fund Steve Bannon and pump false “oppo” research into mainstream media

Brian Tyler Cohen, Rand Paul Accidentally Throws Under the Bus Over Hunter Biden. Brian Tyler Cohen, Oct 15, 2019.  sums up the way the Trump children funnel taxpayer money into the Trump Organization and their own pockets

Heather Vogell, Never-Before-Seen Trump Tax Documents Show Major Inconsistencies. ProPublica, Oct 16, 2019.  “The president’s businesses made themselves appear more profitable to lenders and less profitable to tax officials. One expert calls the differing numbers “versions of fraud.””

John Atcheson, The Revolution Is Here: Democrats Ignore It at Their Peril. Common Dreams, Oct 29, 2019.  “With the majority of people holding progressive views, the way to get no-shows to show is not to back centrist policies, it’s to run on values that favor the people, and that are supported by the majority of Americans.” 

Ari Melber, Trump's Bribery Apprentice? How Failed Bribery Plot Put Governor In Prison For 14 Years. The Beat | MSNBC, Nov 26, 2019.  How Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich bribed others for something of value for official government action (filling Obama’s U.S. Senate seat.  See also Legal Eagle, Lawyer Examines Impeachment Defenses (Real Law Review). Legal Eagles, Nov 26, 2019.

Mary Papenfuss, Former Ethics Chief Slams ‘Preposterous’ Trump Fundraising For His Senate ‘Jurors’. Huffington Post, Nov 23, 2019.  “Trump is also calling GOP lawmakers, having lunch with them and opening up Camp David for fun weekends as part of his impeachment “charm offensive.””

Chris Hayes, GOP Donor Gets $400 Million Sweetheart Deal. All In | MSNBC, Dec 3, 2019.  to help build Trump’s border wall, overriding laws guarding against conflicts of interest

John Iadarola, Urgent Push To Stop Amazon's Seattle Takeover. The Damage Report, Dec 6, 2019.  because foreign investors can own stock in American companies, they can influence American elections through campaign contributions. American multi-national corporations, which long exploited the developing world, now come back to haunt us.

Farron Cousins, Ben Carson Is Illegally Holding Up $18 Billion In Puerto Rico Disaster Aid. Ring of Fire, Dec 9, 2019.  Following the Trump playbook of declaring the recipient – in this case, Puerto Rico.  is too corrupt to receive aid money

Patrick Gleason, Lawmakers From Texas To Wisconsin Consider An End To Taxpayer-Funded Lobbying. Forbes, Dec 14, 2019.  

The Young Turks, Report: US Officials Lied About Afghanistan. The Young Turks, Dec 15, 2019.  Donald Rumsfeld refused to pursue Osama Bin Laden in 2005 when Bin Laden was cornered, to prolong the war; money wasted by military contractors in fraud and corruption.

Joy Reid, The Black Ledger: How Paul Manafort Ties Trump to Putin // Malcolm Nance. AM Joy | MSNBC, Dec 23, 2019.  See also Commonwealth Club, Malcolm Nance: The Plot to Betray America. Commonwealth Club, Nov 22, 2019.  About Kremlin conspiracies promoted to distract from Russian international activity and ambition, and the larger geopolitical-religious narrative of Russia-Eurasia vs. NATO as “Christian Russia” vs. “the secular West”

Anita Kumar, How Trump Fused His Business Empire to the Presidency. Politico, Jan 20, 2020.

Derek Tisler and Daniel Weiner, Citizens United Put Out a Welcome Mat for Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman. The Hill, Jan 21, 2020.  and Brendan Fischer, How Citizens United Led Directly to Trump’s Impeachment. Slate, Jan 21, 2020.  

Jonathan O’Connell, D.C. Attorney General Sues Trump Inaugural Committee Over $1 Million Booking at President’s Hotel. Washington Post, Jan 22, 2020.  the “emoluments clause” of the Constitution must be enforced

Rachel Maddow, Esper Guarantee Against Retaliation Proves Faithless For Vindman. Rachel Maddow | MSNBC, Feb 7, 2020.  retaliation for whistleblowers is against the law, yet Trump fired/reassigned Lt. Col. Vindman and his twin brother

John Iadarola, Trump’s Secret Border Decision. The Damage Report, Feb 8, 2020.  on preventing standard public information about border patrol agents and activities from being accessible

Robert Reich, 5 Ways Trump Has NOT Drained the Swamp with Robert Reich. Robert Reich, Inequality Media, Feb 11, 2020.  Trump appointed lobbyists and donors to government agencies with clear conflicts of interest; administration officials routinely break the law; Trump enriches himself at taxpayer expense

The Young Turks, MSNBC: We NEED Mike Bloomberg To Beat Bernie Sanders. The Young Turks, Feb 12, 2020.  MSNBC newscaster Joy Reid promoting Bloomberg as an anti-Bernie candidate, despite Bloomberg’s mayoral support coming from his philanthropic organization giving millions to cities. corrupt self-dealing.

Kyle Cheney, Trump Accused of Another Quid Pro Quo, This Time with New York. Politico, Feb 13, 2020.  “"He's holding New York state hostage to try to stop investigations into his prior tax fraud," tweeted Rep. Val Demings.”

Krystal Ball and Saagar Enjeti, Matt Stoller on How the Democratic Party Functions as a Monopoly. Rising | The Hill, Feb 24, 2020.  fear to criticize leaders (e.g. even in the Iowa Caucus debacle.  is a symptom of monopoly power. Stoller hints at how the modern Democratic Party since the 1980’s has consolidated its donors, think tanks, consultants, and operatives in such a way that the Party became weak at intra-party debate and a consumer-orientation to the grassroots.

Seth Meyers, The Check In: Trump’s Family Profits Off Policy Meant to Help Low-Income Communities. Late Night with Seth Meyers, Mar 10, 2010.  Jared Kushner and his family profit from Trump’s “Opportunity Zones”

Brian Tyler Cohen, Trump Gives Unreal Answer on Using Gov't Bailout for His Family Businesses. Brian Tyler Cohen, Mar 21, 2020.  suggests why Trump initially wanted airlines, hotels, cruise companies supported

Krystal Ball and Saagar Enjeti, Dr. Abdul El-Sayed: How Profit Motive in Healthcare Screwed Us In Crisis. Rising | The Hill, Mar 24, 2020.

Morning Joe, Trump Campaign Threatens Legal Action Of Coronavirus Ad. Morning Joe | MSNBC, Mar 26, 2020.

Donald K. Sherman, Trump Just Removed the IG Investigating Elaine Chao. Chao’s Husband, Mitch McConnell, Already Vetted the Replacement. Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, May 19, 2020.

Eric Umansky, An Illustrated History of Government Agencies Twisting the Truth to Align With White House Misinformation. ProPublica, Jun 22, 2020.  “When Trump pushes outlandish misinformation, his federal agencies have turned it into official guidance and policy. Some have later had to reverse themselves.”

Krystal Ball, Blackwater’s Eric Prince Poses as Anti-War in Mind-Blowing Tucker Segment. Rising | The Hill, Jul 10, 2020.  security-military contractor Prince tries to sell his services in Afghanistan, while he helps China secure minerals elsewhere.

Perla Trevizo and Jeremy Schwartz, Trump Says He “Disagreed” With Privately Funded Border Wall, So Why Did His Administration Award the Builder $1.7 Billion in Contracts to Erect More Walls? ProPublica, Jul 12, 2020.  the same man and company who privately and improperly built 3 miles of wall that began eroding into the river. See also Jeremy Schwarts and Perla Trevizo, Eroding Private Border Wall To Get an Engineering Inspection Just Months After Completion. ProPublica, Jul 9, 2020.

Andrew Solender, Non-Partisan Watchdog Accuses Trump Campaign Of ‘Laundering’ $170 Million. Forbes, Jul 28, 2020.

Ana Kasparian, Mitch McConnell Blindsided By Trump Corruption During Press Conference. The Young Turks, Aug 1, 2020.  the covid stimulus bill originating from Senate Republicans has a proposal for $2 billion to construct a brand new FBI headquarters in Washington DC right next to the Trump hotel in DC. This was done to prevent competing hotels being built next to it.

Walker Davis and Linnaea Honl-Stuenkel, The Trump Family is Taking 12X More Protected Trips Than the Obama Family. Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, Apr 10, 2020.

Brandy Zadrony and Ben Collins, Dark Money and PAC’s Coordinated “Reopen” Push Are Behind Doctors’ Viral Hydroxychloroquine Video. NBS News, Jul 28, 2020.  “A dozen doctors delivered speeches in front of the U.S. Capitol on Monday to a small crowd, claiming without evidence that the coronavirus could be cured and that widely accepted efforts to slow its spread were unnecessary and dangerous. It was the latest video to go viral from apparent experts, quietly backed by dark money political organizations, evangelizing treatments for or opinions about the coronavirus that most doctors, public health officials and epidemiologists have roundly decried as dangerous misinformation.”

David French, How Much of the Right is a Financial Scam? The Dispatch, Aug 20, 2020.  “Steve Bannon’s alleged fraud is the tip of the con-artist iceberg.” Also the NRA, Tea Party, etc. See also Jim Geraghty, The Right’s Grifter Problem. National Review, Jun 3, 2019.

Dan Alexander, Trump Has Now Moved $2.3 Million Of Campaign-Donor Money Into His Private Business. Forbes, Aug 25, 2020.

Erin Banco, Revealed: Jared Kushner’s Private Channel With Putin’s Money Man. Daily Beast, Aug 24, 2020.  “More than a dozen Trump administration officials, current and former, described a clandestine relationship between Jared Kushner and the CEO of a Kremlin sovereign wealth fund.”

Cody Johnston, Katy Stoll, David C. Bell and Will Gordh, The Freakin’ Post Office!. Some More News, Aug 26, 2020.

Associated Press, Postal Chief and Trump Donor Louis DeJoy Has Long Leveraged Connections, Dollars. Los Angeles Times, Aug 30, 2020.

Simon Shuster, Rick Perry’s Ukrainian Dream. ProPublica, Sep 10, 2020.  “When the then-energy secretary accidentally helped lead the president into impeachment, he was simultaneously trying to help his friends cash in on a big gas deal.”

Nicole Lyn Pesce, Trump Administration Sphoned Almost $4 Million from 9/11 First Responders Fund: Report. MarketWatch, Sep 12, 2020.

Tom Burgis, Kleptopia: How Dirty Money Is Conquering the World. Harper | Amazon page, Sep 2020.  From the review: “In this real-life thriller packed with jaw-dropping revelations, award-winning investigative journalist Tom Burgis weaves together four stories that reveal a terrifying global web of corruption: the troublemaker from Basingstoke who stumbles on the secrets of a Swiss bank, the ex-Soviet billionaire constructing a private empire, the righteous Canadian lawyer with a mysterious client, and the Brooklyn crook protected by the CIA. Glimpses of this shadowy world have emerged over the years. In Kleptopia, Burgis connects the dots. He follows the dirty money that is flooding the global economy, emboldening dictators, and poisoning democracies. From the Kremlin to Beijing, Harare to Riyadh, Paris to the White House, the trail shows something even more sinister: the thieves are uniting. And the human cost will be great.” See interview with Stephanie Ruhle, ‘Why Is This President Paying More To Foreign Nations In Taxes Than He Is To The U.S.?’ MSNBC, Oct 1, 2020.  who positions Trump’s tax returns and debt into the pattern of officials who seek high office as immunity from prosecution.

Benjamin Weiser and William K. Rashbaum, Trump Could Be Investigated for Tax Fraud, D.A. Says for First Time. New York Times, Sep 21, 2020.  “A new court filing from the Manhattan district attorney offered rare insight into the office’s investigation of the president and his businesses.”

Aaron Gregg and Yeganeh Torbati, Pentagon Used Taxpayer Money Meant for Masks and Swabs to Make Jet Engine Parts and Body Armor. New York Times, Sep 21, 2020.  “Shortly after Congress passed the Cares Act, the Pentagon began directing pandemic-related money to defense contractors.”

Isaac Arnsdorf, Trump’s Vaccine Czar Refuses to Give Up Stock in Drug Company Involved in His Government Role. ProPublica, Sep 23, 2020.  “The administration calls Moncef Slaoui, who leads its vaccine race, a “contractor” to sidestep rules against personally profiting from government positions. Slaoui owns $10 million in stock of a company working with his team to develop a vaccine.”

Jenna Grande, New Report: President Trump Has 3,400 Conflicts of Interest. CREW, Sep 24, 2020.

Linnaea Honl-Stuenkel, Records Reveal: 1.5 Years After Hurricane Maria, FEMA Had Sent Only $3.3 Billion to Puerto Rico. CREW, Sep 24, 2020.  instead of $91 billion allocated

David Leonhardt, 18 Revelations From a Trove of Trump Tax Records. New York Times, Sep 27, 2020.  “Times reporters have obtained decades of tax information the president has hidden from public view. Here are some of the key findings.” See Cenk Uygur, Trump’s Taxes Revealed: He’s Broke!. The Young Turks, Sep 27, 2020.  about financial conflicts of interest. See Ross Buettner, Susanne Craig, and Mike McIntire, Long-Concealed Records Show Trump’s Chronic Losses and Years of Tax Avoidance. New York Times, Sep 27, 2020.

Andrew Solender, Non-Partisan Watchdog Accuses Trump Campaign Of ‘Laundering’ $170 Million. Forbes, Sep 28, 2020.  “The complaint alleges that the Trump campaign paid millions of dollars to campaign-connected vendors without reporting those payments to the FEC, specifically homing in on American Made Media Consultants (AMMC. , a firm created by Parscale, which has been paid over $106 million, making it the campaigns largest vendor…The complaint also points to an app called Phunware, which Parscale has said was created and is “directly owned” by the campaign, but which has never appeared in the campaign’s spending reports because, as the complaint alleges, it was paid through AMMC.”

Saagar Enjeti, Wall Street, Big Businesses Go ALL IN For Biden, Democratic Party. Rising | The Hill, Oct 1, 2020.  the Chamber of Commerce’s endorsement of Democrats

Jake Tapper, “Flood the Streets”: Scientist Reveals the White House Note That Made Him Speak Out. CNN, Oct 8, 2020.  former NIH vaccine director Rick Bright, in his first public interview after his resignation and protest, says that the White House ordered untested and unproven drugs to “flood the streets.”

Robert Hart, While Trump Touts 'Cure' Made By Regeneron, Its CEO Is A Member Of Trump Golf Club. Forbes, Oct 8, 2020.  and note Manojna Maddipatla, U.S. Signs $450 Million Contract with Regeneron for COVID-19 Therapy. Reuters, Jul 7, 2020.  

Isaac Arnsdorf, Trump’s Vaccine Czar Refuses to Give Up Stock in Drug Company Involved in His Government Role (ProPublica, Sep 23, 2020.  “The administration calls Moncef Slaoui, who leads its vaccine race, a “contractor” to sidestep rules against personally profiting from government positions. Slaoui owns $10 million in stock of a company working with his team to develop a vaccine.”

Jarrett Carter Sr., Trump Executive Order Could Make HBCUs Ineligible for Nearly All Federal Funding. HBCU Digest, Oct 10, 2020.  

David Doel, Trump Brags About The Murder Of A U.S. Citizen. The Rational National, Oct 15, 2020.  referencing Evan Hill, Mike Baker, Derek Knowles, and Stella Cooper, ‘Straight to Gunshots’: How a U.S. Task Force Killed an Antifa Activist. New York Times, Oct 13, 2020.  a mark of fascism. “New accounts from the scene raise questions about whether Michael Reinoehl, suspected of killing a far-right Trump supporter, pulled out a gun before officers fatally shot him.”

James Bandler, Patricia Callahan, Sebastian Rotella, and Kirsten Berg, Inside the Fall of the CDC. ProPublica, Oct 15, 2020.  “How the world’s greatest public health organization was brought to its knees by a virus, the president and the capitulation of its own leaders, causing damage that could last much longer than the coronavirus.”

Krystal Ball and Saagar Enjeti, Larry Kudlow, Trump Admin Official Caught In New Corruption Exposés. Rising | The Hill, Oct 16, 2020.  re: Larry Kudlow gave different news about the coronavirus to rich vs. general audiences, primarily for stock selloffs. Also re: Eric Branstad, son of Terry Branstad, Trump’s ambassador to China, who profited from unbanning of Chinese tech company ZTE.

Axios, USPS IG: Postal Service Changes Compounded Significant Negative Service. Axios, Oct 21, 2020.  “A U.S. Postal Service inspector general report out Tuesday found changes implemented by Postmaster General Louis DeJoy led to “confusion and inconsistency in operations at postal facilities” that “compounded the significant negative service impacts across the country.””

Eric Lipton, Trump Issues Order Giving Him More Leeway to Hire and Fire Federal Workers. New York Times, Oct 22, 2020.  “The move would give the president greater freedom to weed out what he sees as a “deep state” bureaucracy. The executive order, which could be rescinded if he is not re-elected, was condemned by civil service unions.” “President Trump signed an executive order this week that could substantially expand his ability to hire and fire tens of thousands of federal workers during a second term, potentially allowing him to weed out what he sees as a “deep state” bureaucracy working to undermine him. The executive order, issued late Wednesday and described by one prominent federal union leader as “the most profound undermining of the Civil Service in our lifetimes,” would allow federal agencies to go through their employee rosters and reclassify certain workers in a way that would strip them of job protections that now cover most federal employees.” See Rebecca Beitsch, Trump Federal Salary Adviser Resigns Over Order Stripping Worker Protections. The Hill, Oct 26, 2020.  Cass R. Sunstein, Trump’s War on Civil Servants Is Worse Than It Looks. Bloomberg, Oct 29, 2020.  “His executive order would impose a chilling effect on professionals who use their expertise to raise questions and doubts.”

Stephen Gandel, Postal Service Awards $5 Million Contract to Postmaster DeJoy's Former Company, XPO. CBS News, Oct 24, 2020.

Carl Zimmer, The Trump Administration Shut Down a Vaccine Safety Office Last Year. What’s the Plan Now?. New York Times, Oct 28, 2020.  “The office was dedicated to the long-term safety of vaccines. Experts say plans to track coronavirus vaccines are fragmented and “behind the eight ball.” Reflects a pro-corporate, anti-regulation philosophy of governance.

Eric Lipton and Benjamin Weiser, Turkish Bank Case Showed Erdogan’s Influence With Trump. New York Times, Oct 29, 2020.  “New details of the Justice Department’s handling of the accusations against Halkbank reveal how Turkey’s leader pressured the president, prompting concern from top White House aides.”

Ben Popken and Andrew W. Lehren, Release of PPP Loan Recipients' Data Reveals Troubling Patterns. NBC News, Dec 2, 2020.  “Tenants paying rent at Trump Organization and Kushner Companies properties are beneficiaries of PPP loans.”

Tom LoBianco and Dave Levinthal, Jared Kushner Helped Create a Trump Campaign Shell Company That Secretly Paid the President's Family Members and Spent $617 Million in Reelection Cash, a Source Tells Insider. Business Insider, Dec 18, 2020. . See also Rachel Olding, Kushner OK’d Trump Campaign Shell Company That Secretly Paid Inner Circle: Report. The Daily Beast, Dec 18, 2020.  “The company, American Made Media Consultants Corporation and American Made Media Consultants LLC, took more than half of the Trump campaign’s massive $1.26 billion war chest and was largely shielded from having to publicly report financial details. However, a source told Business Insider that Trump’s daughter-in-law Lara Trump was the company’s president, Vice President Mike Pence’s nephew was its VP, and Trump campaign CFO Sean Dollman was treasurer and secretary.”

Brian Williams, Trump Remains Silent On Russia’s Cyberattack. The 11th Hour | MSNBC, Dec 19, 2020.  Trump has financial interests, at a minimum.

Erica Newland, I’m Haunted by What I Did as a Lawyer in the Trump Justice Department. New York Times, Dec 20, 2020.

Fintan O’Toole, Trump Has Unfinished Business. A Republic He Wants to Destroy Still Stands. Irish Times, Dec 26, 2020.  “When [Chris] Christie arrived at Trump Tower, he was met by Trump’s then consigliere, Steve Bannon. Bannon told Christie that he was being fired with immediate effect “and we do not want you to be in the building anymore”. His painstaking work was literally trashed: “All thirty binders [of the planned transition]”, as Christie recalled in a self-pitying memoir, “were tossed in a Trump Tower dumpster, never to be seen again”. With Trump, the personal and political could never be separated and both were equally at work here. The personal was silverback gorilla stuff, humiliating Christie was a sadistic pleasure and a declaration to established Republicans that Trump was the boss of them all now.”

David Siders, Trump’s Crony Pardons Flabbergast the Political World. Politico, Jan 20, 2021.  “He apparently didn’t consider, or didn’t care, how this might impact the Senate Republicans who will now be asked to ignore his actions and save ‘his reputation’ in the impeachment trial,” said one top Republican. See also Legal Eagle, A Parting Shot at Corruption. Legal Eagle, Jan 21, 2021.  focuses on political corruption and real estate corruption.

Associated Press, President Trump Releases Aides From 'Drain the Swamp' Ethics Pledges. Time, Jan 21, 2021.  the 5 year ban on lobbying the government was lifted

Rachel Maddow, 'Science Was Distorted & Rejected': Dr. Fauci On Working With Trump Admin. MSNBC, Jan 23, 2021.  points out how bad science-denial was by Trump and his administration

Fred Schulte, Trump’s Pardons Included Health Care Execs Behind Massive Frauds. PBS NewsHour, Jan 22, 2021.

Rachel Maddow, Trump Leaves Record Of Corruption In Justice Department's Top Offices. Rachel Maddow | MSNBC, Feb 17, 2021.  the Head of the Criminal Division quietly buried the criminal referral of Trump’s phone call to Ukraine, and the office hosted meetings with Rudy Giuliani while Giuliani was under fraud charges. The Head of the Civil Division The Deputy AG, Jeffrey Rosen quashed the search warrant for Rudy Giuliani, tampered with investigations into Roger Stone, ginned up the case against John Bolton’s book, and shielded Paul Manafort from going to Rykers Island while facing state charges in NY. The Head of the Civil Division was the person who said that if Trump made him acting AG, he would demand that Georgia declare its election for Trump, prompting all the other top leaders in the Justice Dept to threaten to resign.

Ari Melber, 'No One’s Surprised': Trump Ally, Gov. DeSantis Facing Vaccine Bribery Allegations. MSNBC, Mar 5, 2021.  DeSantis is under fire over damning allegations first reported by the Miami Herald that he gave special treatment to 17 of his donors, allowing them to get the vaccine in January before many healthcare workers even received it.

Linnaea Honl-Stuenkel and Caitlin Moniz, Betsy DeVos Made at Least $225 Million While Education Secretary. CREW, Mar 22, 2021.  “DeVos’s financial entanglements and her family’s political giving raised ethical questions. She maintained a stake in Neurocore, a brain performance company targeting children, and failed to recuse from matters related to the company despite the potential for conflicts of interest. She pledged that her husband would stop making political donations for the duration of her tenure, but he continued to donate throughout the 2018 and 2020 election cycles.”

Krystal Ball and Saagar Enjeti, Facebook, Amazon Become Top Lobbyists In DC. Rising | The Hill, Mar 25, 2021.

Shane Goldmacher, How Trump Steered Supporters Into Unwitting Donations. New York Times, Apr 3, 2021.  “Online donors were guided into weekly recurring contributions. Demands for refunds spiked. Complaints to banks and credit card companies soared. But the money helped keep Donald Trump’s struggling campaign afloat.” “Stacy Blatt was in hospice care last September listening to Rush Limbaugh’s dire warnings about how badly Donald J. Trump’s campaign needed money when he went online and chipped in everything he could: $500. It was a big sum for a 63-year-old battling cancer and living in Kansas City on less than $1,000 per month. But that single contribution — federal records show it was his first ever — quickly multiplied. Another $500 was withdrawn the next day, then $500 the next week and every week through mid-October, without his knowledge — until Mr. Blatt’s bank account had been depleted and frozen. When his utility and rent payments bounced, he called his brother, Russell, for help.”

Richard Wolff, Economic Update: The Center Cannot Hold. Democracy at Work, Jun 14, 2021.  a short summary of the political monopoly operated by establishment, corporatists in the GOP and Dems. Wolff’s analysis of coalitions could be adjusted to: old industry (oil, gas, etc.) vs. new (high tech, etc.). Wolff points out how the coalitions fray. Campaign finance maintains this arrangement.

Lee Fang and Ryan Grim, Leaked Audio of Senator Joe Manchin Call with Billionaire Donors Provides Rare Glimpse of Dealmaking on Filibuster and January 6 Commission. The Intercept, Jun 16, 2021.  “Manchin urged big-money donors with No Labels to talk to Sen. Roy Blunt about flipping his vote on the commission in order to save the filibuster.” See also David Doel, AOC Tells Morning Joe About Manchin's Leaked Call With Billionaire Donors. The Rational National, Jun 17, 2021.  

Eric Katz, DOJ Will Not Prosecute Trump Officials After IG Referred Findings of False Testimony on Census. Government Executive, Jul 16, 2021.  “Investigators verified that former Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross misled Congress, but the Justice Department said it won't pursue prosecution.” Historian Heather Cox Richardson says that she believes Attorney General Merrick Garland has to clear evidentiary hurdles and be sensitive to political opinion. Be that as it may, this still smacks of government corruption.

Betsy Woodruff Swan and Nicholas Wu, Top DOJ Official Drafted Resignation Email Amid Trump Election Pressure. Politico, Aug 4, 2021.  In early January, “Patrick Hovakimian, prepared the email announcing his own resignation and that of the department's second-in-command, Richard Donoghue, as Trump considered axing acting attorney general Jeff Rosen.” This shows that DOJ officials were alarmed that Trump was trying to use the DOJ to pressure Georgia and other states to declare their elections corrupt and invalid.

Walter Isaacson, Preet Bharara: Trump Tried to Weaponize Justice Dept. to Overturn Election. Amanpour and Company, Aug 12, 2021.  discusses Jeffrey Clark’s attempt to support Trump’s attempt to undermine the 2020 election and the DOJ. Also, how Trump tried to form independent, direct, side relationships with prosecutors without going through the chain of command.

Ryan Grim, Damning New Email Puts Joe Manchin’s Daughter At Center Of EpiPen Price-Fixing Scheme. Rising | The Hill, Sep 7, 2021.

Editorial Board, Future-Proofing the Presidency. Boston Globe, Jun 2021.  A helpful series of articles.

Bess Levin, Rand Paul Swears There’s an Innocent Explanation for Not Disclosing His Wife’s COVID Stocks for 16 Months.  Vanity Fair, Aug 12, 2021.  “The Senator’s wife invested in a company that makes COVID treatments as he insisted the virus was nothing to worry about and preventative measures should be ignored.”

Farah Stockman, The War on Terror Was Corrupt From the Start. New York Times, Sep 13, 2021.  “Afghan corruption is so frequently cited [by Western agents] as an explanation, as well as an excuse, for Western failure in Afghanistan… whilst ignoring their role in both fueling and benefiting from the patronage pump. Who won the war on terror? American defense contractors.”

House Oversight Committee, Committee Uncovers Evidence that Trump Concealed Millions in Losses, Hid Debts, and Received Millions from Foreign Governments at Trump Hotel. House Oversight Committee, Oct 8, 2021. See commentary and summary by David Pakman, Trump Received Millions from Foreign Governments, Hid Debts & Losses. David Pakman Show, Oct 15, 2021.

Mehdi Hasan, If Brazil Can Do It, Why Not Us? (Trump Edition). Mehdi Hasan Show | MSNBC, Oct 21, 2021.  Brazil charged Bolsonaro with crimes against humanity for his misinformation and handling of the pandemic.

Meghan Faulkner, USPS Mismanaged DeJoy’s Conflicts of Interest and Tried to Cover It Up. Citizens for Responsible Ethics in Washington, Oct 21, 2021.

Daniel Boguslaw, As Senator Joe Manchin’s Star Rose in West Virginia, the FBI and IRS Probed His Closest Allies. The Intercept, Oct 23, 2021.  about conflicts of interest related to coal. See also Ryan Grim, Manchin Blasts “Entitlement Mentality” While His Family Thrives On Government Giveaways. Rising | The Hill, Oct 25, 2021.

Krystal Ball and Saagar Enjeti, Fed Bans Stock Trading, Congress Should Be Next. Breaking Points, Oct 25, 2021.  Very good measures

PBS News Hour, Trump-Era Opportunity Zones Meant to Help Low-Income Communities Exploited by Investors. PBS News Hour, Nov 11, 2021.

Krystal Ball, Pentagon Caught Covering Up Mass Atrocity To Protect Themselves. Breaking Points, Nov 15, 2021.  

David Frum, It Wasn’t a Hoax. The Atlantic, Nov 25, 2021.  On Trump and Russia

Saagar Enjeti, Jared Kushner, Hunter Biden Are Poison On Democracy. Breaking Points, Nov 29, 2021.

Timothy L. O’Brien, Who Just Gave Trump $1 Billion? Let’s Find Out.. Bloomberg, Dec 6, 2021.  “Investments in a blank-check company backing the former president could turn out to be IOUs if he wins back the White House.

Anne Applebaum, The Kleptocrats Next Door.  The Atlantic, Dec 8, 2021.  The loopholes in banking and real estate that allow foreign oligarchs to launder their money in the US and the West.

Bob Hennelly, As the Pandemic's Third Wave Hits America, Members of Congress Look to Cash In. Salon, Dec 21, 2021.  “Recent disclosures that a member of New Jersey's congressional delegation was among the 75 members of Congress who held stock in Moderna, Pfizer or Johnson & Johnson during our ongoing pandemic tells you everything you need to know about why we remain such a stuck nation.  Business Insider ranked the 533 current members of the House and Senate based on a half-dozen criteria, including their compliance with the Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge Act of 2012, which requires timely disclosure of members' investment transactions and those of their staff."

Jane Mayer, Is Ginni Thomas a Threat to the Supreme Court?  The New Yorker, Jan 2022.  See interview with Mehdi Hasan, Justice Thomas Ignores Basic Ethics Where Wife's Activism, Lobbying Conflict With Cases.  MSNBC, Jan 22, 2022.

Alex Witt, With Fraudulent Trump Financials Exposed, House Oversight Asks GSA To Yank Hotel Lease.  MSNBC, Feb 18, 2022.  Witt highlights a mysterious company willing to buy the lease that the Trump Org owns on the Old Post Office Building in DC.  Alex Witt, With Businesses Failing, Trump Taps His Political Supporters To Maintain His Wealth.  MSNBC, Feb 19, 2022.  Trump seeks to monetize his political influence through a social media company.

Breaking Points, Debate: Has Corruption, Messaging Tanked Climate Policy? Breaking Points, Apr 14, 2022.  A sad update on the political messaging quandary about “the Green New Deal,” but Russia’s invasion of Ukraine raises a specter over energy and infrastructure policies.

Krystal Ball and Saagar Enjeti, Congressman Caught Telling Truth About Corruption In DC. Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar, Apr 20, 2022.  Special interest groups control committee assignments and committee activities.  Chairmanship is up for the highest bidder.

Cody Johnston and Katy Stoll, The Devastating Impact of 'Fear of Crime' Politics.  Some More News, Apr 20, 2022. 

01:00 - The Giant Crime Wave That Doesn’t Actually Exist.  Conservatives, and increasingly liberals, use increasing crime rates to stoke fears before elections and use declining crime rates during tenure. 

11:31 - What Is Crime?  Wage theft is not considered a crime, showing that corporate interests govern the definition of “crime.”

18:00 - Why The Crime Rate Has Actually Fallen.  People make these claims despite counterfactuals:  crime has decreased, generally.  

25:30 - The Impact Of The Fear of Crime Or Joe Biden and his Fear of Crime Legacy

41:30 - The War On The War On Drugs

50:20 - Our Crime Policies Are Designed To Divide Us By Race

1:06:30 - Corporations Want to Keep The Status Quo 

Second Thought, How Do Politicians Keep Getting So Rich? Second Thought, Jul 15, 2022. An excellent 13 minute video presentation, amply documented.

Morning Joe, How The Secret Service Became Not Just A Protector Of The President's Body, But His Secrets.  Morning Joe | MSNBC, Jul 20, 2022.  Interview with Carol Leonnig, author of Zero Fail: The Rise and Fall of the Secret Service. See also Lauren White, The Secret Service Knew the Proud Boys Posed a Threat on Jan. 6. Why Didn’t They Take It Seriously? Citizens for Ethics, Jun 29, 2022. White shows actual Secret Service documents, related to what they and we knew about the Proud Boys.

John A. Torres, The USA Isn't a 'Banana Republic' for Investigating Trump - Just Look at the Data.  Politico, Aug 24, 2022.  “Plenty of healthy democracies have held their leaders accountable under the law.”  A helpful summary and international comparison. 

Chris Hayes, Report: Woman Posed As Heiress To Infiltrate Mar-a-Lago, Trump Inner Circle.  All In | MSNBC, Aug 26, 2022.  See also Brian Tyler Cohen, Fox Host Panics As His Own Guest Accidentally Destroys Trump.  Brian Tyler Cohen, Aug 26, 2022.  One item which Trump might have had at Mar-a-Lago was the document explaining what the US President can and should do in the 20 minutes after learning that Russia launched nuclear weapons.  But compare Republican hysteria about then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton possibly jeopardizing national security, to their sycophantic defense of Trump and attacks on the FBI instead.

Krystal Ball, Brett Favre Caught In Welfare Fraud Scheme.  Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar, Sep 15, 2022.  In Mississippi, the GOP leaders have refused to implement Clinton’s TANF welfare for the state’s poorest residents, and the Jackson water crisis unfolds, while elites take advantage of public money at the expense of the poor and the general citizen.

Lawrence O’Donnell, Trump Has Poisoned The Federal Judiciary.  The Last Word | MSNBC, Sep 15, 2022.  Florida Judge Aileen Cannon, appointed by Trump, claimed that she does not believe that the documents retrieved by the FBI are classified!

Ayana Archie, Joe Biden Says the COVID-19 Pandemic Is Over. This Is What the Data Tells Us. NPR, Sep 19, 2022. See also Catherine Powell, War on COVID: Warfare and its Discontents. UCLA Law Review, Sep 21, 2023.

Ben Meiselas, Donald Trump’s New Lawyer for Mar-A-Lago Search Exposed as Foreign Agent of Venezuela.  Meidas Touch, Sep 19, 2022.  Trump paid lawyer Christopher Kise $3 million from the Save America PAC (corrupt, and the likely target of a DOJ investigation).  Kise was a registered foreign agent of Venezuela, and wanted to see the classified documents that the FBI retrieved from Mar-a-Lago.

Ben Meiselas, Top Former Republican Prosecutors SLAM Trump and Judge Aileen Cannon in New Court of Appeals Brief.  Meidas Touch, Sep 20, 2022.  “Former top republican prosecutors have filed a new amicus brief — also known as a friend of the court brief — before the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals where they strongly criticize the meritless legal positions advanced by Trump and adopted by Judge Aileen Cannon in her “unprecedented” and unlawful ruling arising out of the DOJ’s proper seizure of stolen items by Trump during the execution of their August 8 search warrant.”

Ben Meiselas, Breaking: Trump Lawyers File Deranged Response to DOJ Appeal Joined by MAGA Attorneys General.  Meidas Touch, Sep 20, 2022.  Notably, 11 GOP Attorneys General from Texas, Florida, Indiana, Kentucky, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Louisiana, South Carolina, Utah, and West Virginia filed an amicus brief to the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in defense of Trump, arguing that none of our national security interests are compromised by Trump’s theft and careless handling of classified documents.

Minnesota Public Radio News, Feds: 47 Charged in ‘Brazen' $250M COVID Spending Fraud. MPR News, Sep 20, 2022.  “Federal authorities on Tuesday laid out what they described as the nation’s largest COVID-19 funding scam, alleging that dozens of people used an elaborate operation centered on the group Feeding our Future to steal funds intended to feed needy children.”

Ben Meiselas, Senate Condemns Trump’s Despicable Anti-FBI Conduct in Scathing Unanimous Resolution.  Meidas Touch, Sep 21, 2022.  The Senate declared that the documents are the property of the US government, condemned physical and verbal attacks on the FBI by Trump and MAGA.

James Li, Big Business Abusing Homeless Policies To Enrich Themselves.  Breaking Points w/James Li, Dec 10, 2022.  When federal, state, and local governments are not allowed to exercise eminent domain to own and develop affordable housing on its own, public-private partnerships are used and corporations abuse the money.

Lawrence O’Donnell, Why Were Some FBI Agents ‘Inclined to Believe Trump'?  The Last Word | MSNBC, Mar 2, 2023.  See also Heather Cox Richardson, Letters from an American: March 3, 2023.  HCR writes,

“The report reveals the Republicans’ “dozens and dozens of whistleblowers” are, so far at least, three witnesses—whistleblower is actually a specific category and they do not meet that standard—who have left the FBI and have complained that the agency is biased against “conservatives.” Two of them lost their security clearances before they left, and while committee Republicans refused to show Democrats the men’s suspension notices, one revealed in his testimony that the notice arrived after he had improperly accessed documents from the FBI’s classified system. All three embrace a number of conspiracy theories. Under oath, they provided only right-wing accusations of bias without being able to attest to any first-hand knowledge of the things they alleged. The witnesses did not come forward on their own; they were identified by former administrators in the Trump administration, including fervent Trump loyalists Kash Patel and Russell Vought. Patel provided money and legal services to two of the witnesses and found one of them a job at Vought’s right-wing think tank, the Center for Renewing America, after he left the FBI.”

James Risen and Thomas Risen, The Last Honest Man: The CIA, the FBI, the Mafia, and the Kennedys―and One Senator's Fight to Save Democracy.  Little, Brown and Company | Amazon page, May 9, 2023.  “Senator Frank Church of Idaho was an unlikely hero. He led congressional opposition to the Vietnam War and had become a scathing, radical critic of what he saw as American imperialism around the world. But he was still politically ambitious, privately yearning for acceptance from the foreign policy establishment that he hated and eager to run for president. Despite his flaws, Church would show historic strength in his greatest moment, when in the wake of Watergate he was suddenly tasked with investigating abuses of power in the intelligence community. The dark truths that Church exposed—from assassination plots by the CIA, to links between the Kennedy dynasty and the mafia, to the surveillance of civil rights activists by the NSA and FBI—would shake the nation to its core, and forever change the way that Americans thought about not only their government but also their ability to hold it accountable.”  See interview by Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzalez, "The Last Honest Man": James Risen on How Former Senator Frank Church Exposed CIA, FBI & NSA.  Democracy Now, Jun 27, 2023.  

David Sirota and Matthew Cunningham-Cook, Florida Lawmakers Help DeSantis Shovel More Cash To Wall Street. The Lever, May 16, 2023.

“As Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis positions himself for a presidential bid, his state’s Republican-controlled legislature just sent him a bill that could enrich prospective Wall Street donors he may need to finance his campaign. That includes a GOP mega-donor who DeSantis recently met with as the bill advanced. But if DeSantis does try to make a fundraising play off the new pension investment bill, it could put him on a collision course with federal regulators — if those regulators decide to enforce a longstanding anti-corruption rule that has previously hindered other governors considering a White House bid.”

Benjamin Wittes, Notes on the Durham Report: A Reading Diary. Lawfare, May 17, 2023. An excellent examination of how the DoJ was weaponized by Trump.

Johnny Harris, How Congress Gets Rich from Insider Trading.  Johnny Harris, May 31, 2023.

James Li, The Flaws Of The Scientific Consensus.  Breaking Points, Jun 4, 2023.  On how funding flows around scientific research.

Patrick Boyle, The Scam of The Century! Patrick Boyle, Jun 16, 2023. Roughly 10% of the $4.2 trillion given by Trump and Biden for pandemic relief was taken fraudulently.

Scott R. Anderson, Anna Bower, Saraphin Dhanani, Natalie K. Orpett, Alan Z. Rozenshtein, Stephanie Pell, Trump Jan. 6 Indictment: The Statutes.  Lawfare, Aug 1, 2023.  

Scott R. Anderson, Quinta Jurecic, Gia Kokotakis, Katherine Pompilio, Natalie K. Orpett, Benjamin Wittes, The Big One: Trump Is Indicted for Jan. 6.  Lawfare, Aug 1, 2023. 

Morning Joe, Jared Kushner's Money from Saudi Arabia Comes into Sharper Focus.  Morning Joe | MSNBC, Aug 14, 2023.

Robert Weissman, The Corporate Sabotage of America’s Future.  Public Citizen, Sep 2023.  Free PDF book.  See interview by Krystal Ball and Saagar Enjeti, Corruption Expert: How Pharma Stole Half a Trillion From Taxpayers.  Breaking Points, Sep 26, 2023.  

Heidi Przybyla, What Ginni Thomas and Leonard Leo Wrought: How a Justice’s Wife and a Key Activist Started a Movement. Politico, Sep 10, 2023. “Thanks to the Supreme Court’s Citizens United ruling, a trove of so-called “dark money” was about to be unleashed. Two activists prepared to seize the moment.” See interview with Mehdi Hasan, New Bombshell Report on Payments to Ginni Thomas by ‘Face of Dark Money’ Leonard Leo. Mehdi Hasan Show | MSNBC, Sep 11, 2023.

Devin Stone, Staggering (Alleged) Corruption of Senator Bob Menendez.  Legal Eagle, Sep 30, 2023. 

David Sirota, The Menendez Scandal Reflects The World That SCOTUS Built.  The Lever, Sep 22, 2023.  “Less than a decade ago, justices reviewed a case that echoed today’s Menendez scandal. This one involved former Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell (R), whom a federal jury found guilty on 11 counts of conspiracy for accepting lavish gifts from a businessman in exchange for gubernatorial favors. However, Supreme Court justices unanimously overturned McDonnell’s conviction in 2016 on the grounds that those favors were permissible.”

Robert Barnes and Ann E. Marimow, Supreme Court Under Pressure Issues Ethics Guidelines Specific to Justices.  Washington Post, Nov 13, 2023. 

Unusual Whale, Congressional Trading 2023.  Unusual Whale, Jan 2, 2024.  

Heather Cox Richardson, January 4, 2024.  Letters from an American | Substack, Jan 5, 2024.  “The Democrats on the House Oversight Committee today released a 156-page report showing that when he was in the presidency, Trump received at least $7.8 million from 20 different governments, including those of China, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Kuwait, and Malaysia, through businesses he owned.”

Le Monde, France's Assemblée Passes Bill Against Foreign Interference. Le Monde, Mar 27, 2024. “The Assemblée Nationale approved the use of online surveillance run by an algorithm in order to monitor suspicious activity and foreign interference.”

France's Assemblée Nationale on Wednesday, March 27, adopted a bill to counter foreign interference including the use of an experimental algorithm to monitor suspicious activity. The bill, put forward by President Emmanuel Macron's Renaissance party, received the approval of 171 lawmakers, with just 25 against. The Sénat now has to give its green light.

Algorithm-based online surveillance has existed in France since 2015, but has only so far been used to hunt down potential "terrorists." This new law would expand the practice to pinpoint potential perpetrators of foreign interference during a four-year test period. 

Renaissance lawmaker Sacha Houlié has argued that while the method had mixed results in the "anti-terror" fight, it could be more useful to ferret out foreign agents after suspicious activity. He gave the example of a "Chinese agent who arrives in France, makes bookings in several hotels then cancels them, then makes some more and cancels them too." He did not provide more details.

Left-wing lawmakers expressed concern that this could lead to long-term intrusion into the private lives of ordinary people. "You are setting up tools for the generalized surveillance of the population," warned Antoine Léaument from the radical left La France Insoumise (LFI) party.

The law would also require people lobbying for foreign interests to sign up to a registry, with sanctions for those who did not. These foreign entities would include non-EU foreign powers, firms of which half or more are foreign-owned or -funded, and foreign political parties. The bill also lays out the possibility of freezing the financial assets of people, firms or entities found to have engaged in foreign interference.”

Eric Lipton, Jonathan Swan, and Maggie Haberman, As Kushner’s Investment Firm Steps Out, the Potential Conflicts Are Growing. New York Times, Apr 9, 2024. “Jared Kushner’s Affinity Partners has invested more than $1.2 billion, much of it in firms abroad, drawing new scrutiny as his father-in-law, Donald Trump, again seeks the presidency.” For helpful political context, see Ana Kasparian and Cenk Uyghur, Report: We Should Be Very Concerned About Jared Kushner. The Young Turks, Apr 9, 2024.

Brian Tyler Cohen and Glenn Kirschner, Top Trump Aide Gets News He’s Dreaded from Supreme Court. Brian Tyler Cohen, Apr 30, 2024. Peter Navarro has to finish his four month prison sentence, plus fines. By contrast, Steve Bannon was convicted of identical crimes but allowed to stay at home before his appeal. The difference is that Bannon was tried by Carl Nichols, a Trump-appointed judge. This is a dangerous precedent — the corruption of the judiciary is a real threat.

Ilan Pappé, Lobbying for Zionism on Both Sides of the Atlantic. Oneworld | Amazon page, Jun 2024. See interview with Aaron Bastani, The Israel Lobby Is Real. This Is How It Works | Aaron Bastani Meets Ilan Pappé. Novara Media, Jun 16, 2024. A 90 minute video. Very revealing.

Chris Hayes, Reporter Who Exposed Welfare Scandal Involving Brett Favre, Former Mississippi Governor, Now Risks Jail. All In | MSNBC, Jul 3, 2024. A chilling account of attack on press freedom. Following welfare scandal by white wealthy celebrity Brett Favre.

Liz Mineo and W. Neil Eggerston, What the Judge Was Thinking and What’s Next in Trump Documents Case. The Harvard Gazette, Jul 17, 2024. Obama-era White House counsel says key point in Nixon decision should have ended inquiry. Re: Judge Aileen Cannon and her claim that Special Counsel Jack Smith was not duly appointed. See also Marilyn W. Thompson, Judge Cannon Should Be Removed From Trump Case, Watchdog Group Argues in New Legal Filing. ProPublica, Sep 3, 2024. Judge Aileen M. Cannon has shown bias in throwing out Trump’s classified documents case and must be replaced if the appeals court overturns her decision, argues public interest advocacy group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. See also Katherine Pompilio, 11th Circuit Vacates Cannon’s Order to Appoint a Special Master in Mar-a-lago Investigation. Lawfare, Dec 1, 2022. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit ruled to reverse an order issued by U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon to appoint a special master to oversee the review of classified documents seized from former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-lago residence on Aug. 8.

J.T. Chapman, Why The Democrats Never Get Anything Done. Second Thought, Jul 26, 2024. The Democrats undermine progressives.

Ilan Pappé, Lobbying for Zionism on Both Sides of the Atlantic. Oneworld | Amazon page, Jun 2024. See interview with Aaron Bastani, The Israel Lobby Is Real. This Is How It Works | Aaron Bastani Meets Ilan Pappé. Novara Media, Jun 16, 2024. A 90 minute video. Very revealing. At the 13:42 minute mark, Pappe narrates the role of the British Empire and British geopolitics organizing both Protestant Zionism and then Jewish Zionism. See also Rich Forer, Former AIPAC Member Exposes Zionism Myths. India and the Global Left, Jul 31, 2024. A 22 minute video. This is a clip from a full video with Rich Forer on his journey of transformation from being an AIPAC Zionist to a pro-Palestine activist. He also debunks propaganda that is generally spread among Jews.

The Lever, Master Plan: Legalized Corruption. The Lever, Aug 13, 2024. A podcast series.

Accountability US, Project 2025’s Recipe For Success: Hide Agenda, Avoid Paper Trails, Create Secret Plans. Accountable US, Aug 30, 2024. This later led to the Trump admin using the commercial app Signal to communicate about the missile strike on Houthis in March 2025.

Krystal Ball, Exposed: Trump Campaign Directed Elon to Ban Critics. Breaking Points, Oct 14, 2024. Twitter is grossly inconsistent. Plus, Elon Musk stands to gain quite a bit from his government contracts.

Eric Lipton, David A. Fahrenthold, Aaron Krolik, and Kirsten Grind, U.S. Agencies Fund, and Fight With, Elon Musk. A Trump Presidency Could Give Him Power Over Them. New York Times, Oct 20, 2024.

Katya Schwenk and Lucy Dean Stockton, Musk Could Reap Huge Tax Gift From Trump Win. The Lever, Oct 22, 2024.

David Sirota and Freddy Brewster, Trump AG Pick Linked To Musk’s Fraud Lawyer. The Lever, Nov 21, 2024. If confirmed, Pam Bondi could shut down a Justice Department probe of Musk’s company, which was represented by her brother. See also Tim Miller, The Sexual Assault Administration! (w/ Sarah Longwell and JVL). Bulwark Podcast, Nov 22, 2024. At the 25:55 minute mark, Miller, JV Last and Sarah Longwell discuss Pam Bondi. Bondi supported the 2020 insurrection efforts and spoke with Giuliani at the “Four Seasons” event.

Mona Charon, Trump Has Already Started Dismantling Our Government. Beg to Differ | Bulwark Podcast, Nov 19, 2024. On Trump’s cabinet nominations: Matt Gaetz at Justice as AG, Pete Hegseth at Defense, Linda McMahon at Education, Tulsi Gabbard at National Intelligence, RFK Jr. at HHS, Dr. Oz at Medicare and Medicaid, and Russ Vought at OMB.

Kyle Kulinski, Exposed: Trump Already Shatters Corruption Records. The Kyle Kulinski Show | Secular Talk, Nov 26, 2024. Trump is not disclosing donors to his transition fund. The Supreme Court is to blame because they granted him immunity for official acts.

Emily Jashinsky and Krystal Ball, ‘It's About Money': Lindsey Graham Quiet Part Out Loud On Ukraine. Breaking Points, Nov 26, 2024. Ukraine leads Europe in rare earth metals. Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) candidly shares on Fox News that the U.S. could and should make a lot of money for defending Ukraine.

Freddy Brewster and Katya Schwenk, Harris Stayed Silent On Khan Amid Probe Of Top Adviser's Firm. The Lever, Dec 2, 2024. The presidential candidate declined to defend Lina Khan while the antitrust regulator was investigating the employer of Harris’ brother-in-law and chief advisor.

Shawn Musgrave, This is How Trump’s Department of Justice Spied on Journalists. The Intercept, Dec 11, 2024. In a new report, the Justice Department’s inspector general found that the agency violated its own rules to snoop on reporters.

Heather Cox Richardson, December 13, 2024. Letters from an American | Substack, Dec 14, 2024. Corruption via appointments at the DOJ and FBI, particularly.

Krystal Ball, Bernie’s Viral Warning on Oligarch Takeover. Breaking Points, Dec 17, 2024. Stats on billionaires’ fawning and campaign contributions, Trump’s rewarding of these supporters. Andreesen wants to dismantle FDR’s New Deal liberal state. Trump administration considers repealing car crash reporting standard that affects Tesla.

Kyle Kulinski, MAGA’s Trillion Dollar Heist For Crypto Billionaires Exposed. The Kyle Kulinski Show, Dec 16, 2024. Trump flirts with the idea of a crypto currency reserve fund. They want to loot the Treasury.

Scott Waldman, Trump OMB Pick Slowed Aid to Puerto Rico After Hurricane Maria. E&E News, Politico, Dec 20, 2024. “Russell Vought used his powerful perch in President-elect Donald Trump’s first administration to slow down billions of dollars in disaster aid to Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria destroyed the island in 2017. At the time, much of the island remained without power and tens of thousands of Americans were living under tarps. Now, Vought is set to return as director of the Office of Management and Budget if the Senate confirms him.”

Thom Hartmann, This Foreign Billionaire Owns Trump & Now Owns America. The Thom Hartmann Program, Dec 25, 2024. Chinese billionaire Justin Sun got involved in Trump’s cryptocurrency.

Leeja Miller, What You Need To Know About Jack Smith's Report. Leeja Miller, Jan 16, 2025. From the 13 minute mark, Leeja discusses Jack Smith’s own opinion of why the DOJ delayed to prosecute Trump after January 6th, 2021. He does not criticize Attorney General Merrick Garland, since Garland gathered prosecutors on March 11, 2021 to begin holding Trump accountable. Jack Smith points out how other people delayed the investigation. Elon Musk bought Twitter in 2023 and then delayed for weeks getting Trump’s Twitter account information to Smith. Twitter was hit with a $350,000 fine for delaying compliance. Politicians like Scott Perry delayed handing over text messages for over a year. Then, the Supreme Court declared that the President had immunity for his official acts, which delayed Jack Smith’s investigation again because he had to change the language of the indictment, reposition the use of witnesses and co-conspirators, etc. SCOTUS alone put the case on pause for a full eight months.

Amanda Moore, Trump Inauguration Official’s “Phony Charity” Allegedly Pocketed East Palestine Train Disaster Funds. The Intercept, Jan 19, 2025. Under a settlement with Ohio’s attorney general, GOP operative Pat Lee can never fundraise for charity in the state again.

Rachel Dobkin, Donald Trump Just 'Technically' Violated the Law—Lindsey Graham. Newsweek, Jan 26, 2025. Senator Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican and fierce ally of President Donald Trump, told NBC News' Kristen Welker on Sunday morning that the president "technically" violated the law in his firing of over a dozen inspectors general on Friday. Alexandra Marquez, Sen. Adam Schiff Says Trump 'Broke the Law' by Firing 18 Inspectors General. NBC News, Jan 26, 2025. Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, the chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, told NBC News in a statement Saturday that he’d “like further explanation from President Trump” about his justification for the firings. “There may be good reason the IGs were fired. We need to know that if so. I’d like further explanation from President Trump. Regardless, the 30 day detailed notice of removal that the law demands was not provided to Congress,” Grassley said.

Lawrence O’Donnell, Trump Letting Musk Intrude Into Treasury is Biggest, Most Important Data Breach Ever. The Last Word | MSNBC, Feb 3, 2025. The data breach of Social Security numbers in the hands of kids and Musk whose business interests depend on the Chinese government; the halting of USAID operations and putting Pete Morocco, a Jan 6 rioter, in charge.

Ben Penn, Bondi Diminishes Justice Department White Collar Enforcement. Bloomberg Law, Feb 5, 2025. In her first official act, foreign-agent-turned-Attorney-General Pam Bondi is disbanding the Justice Department’s Foreign Influence Task Force and limiting enforcement of statutes regulating foreign government lobbyists. Bondi was previously a registered lobbyist for Qatar as part of the country’s $115,000-per-month contract with her lobbying firm, Ballard Partners. That firm has also been registered to lobby for Japan, Guatemala, Congo, Liberia, and Sudan. 

Chris Hayes, ‘He Has Billions at Stake’: The Real Reason Behind Elon Musk’s Government Takeover. All In | MSNBC, Feb 5, 2025. The GOP committee on oversight refused to subpoena Musk, defying Democrats.

Andrew Prokop, All the Ways Elon Musk Is Breaking the Law. Vox, Feb 6, 2025. By a law professor, David Super.

Michael Popok, Yikes! Trump Gets Smacked Down by…Rupert Murdoch?!!! Legal AF | Meidas Touch, Feb 7, 2025. On the idea of a sovereign wealth fund to do things like buy TikTok. “Even Rupert Murdoch’s Wall Street Journal is attacking Trump and his administration as “bad for business,” with a new editorial that calls for Congress to kill Trump’s get-rich-quick scheme of having the US create a fund using public money to invest in private businesses including those owned and controlled by Trump’s friends. Michael Popok examines closely the “fund” and why the Wall Street journal says its a recipe for corruption as someone like Trump uses public money to reward his allies while the Country wallows in Trillions in dollars in debt.” By comparison, Norway and Saudi Arabia have sovereign wealth funds because of their oil industry, and they run budget surpluses. Norway did an excellent job creating its SWF to be a mutual fund paying dividends to its citizens, incentivizing investments in a diverse portfolio with rules against fossil fuel industries. Trump, by contrast, is running a huge federal deficit and wants a trillion dollar fund. Secretary of Treasury Scott Bessent is supposed to write a proposal in 90 days but only Congress can authorize a new agency or fund. He is supposed to monetize federal assets. But can we monetize and sell $1.6 trillion in student loan debt? Can private companies and individuals own people’s student loan debt — a form of debt bondage and slavery? Can we monetize and sell military assets like tanks? Military assets are two-thirds of federal assets. This fanciful notion that we have $5.7 trillion on the national balance sheet is ridiculous. Trump wants to run up the federal debt and make your children pay for it.

Jordan Liles, USAID Paid $44K to Politico, Not Over $8M as White House Claimed. It Was for Subscriptions. Snopes, Feb 6, 2025. U.S. President Donald Trump, the White House press secretary and DOGE Director Elon Musk promoted misleading statements about USAID and Politico. Glenn Kessler, The White House’s Wildly Inaccurate Claims About USAID Spending. Washington Post, Feb 7, 2025. Eleven out of 12 claims about the agency’s work are misleading, wrong or lack context. See also Linda Qiu, Fact-Checking Claims About U.S.A.I.D. Funding. New York Times, Feb 8, 2025. Trump administration officials have misled about how the aid agency is spending its funding, in an effort to cite widespread “waste.”

PBS News Hour, Rep. Casar Says Fired Inspectors General Were Investigating Elon Musk’s Companies. PBS News Hour, Feb 12, 2025. List of IG’s and agencies investigating Elon Musk’s companies.

Ken Harbaugh, Fed Up Army Vet Files Massive Lawsuit Against Trump. The Ken Harbaugh Show | Meidas Touch, Feb 14, 2025. Kris Goldsmith at www.ProtectDemocracy.org raises an excellent point. White supremacists and known leakers are among the young men on the DOGE team. They could very well leak the private information they hacked, including the information of political critics of, and plaintiffs against, Trump and Musk and Neo-Nazis. See also Jacqueline Sweet, New DOGE Staffer Has Ties to a Sanctioned Russian Oligarch. Rolling Stone, Mar 7, 2025. “Sam Corcos, a new member of Elon Musk’s DOGE team, reportedly showed up at the IRS demanding detailed info about American taxpayers to hunt for fraud.”

David Gilbert, No, 150-Year-Olds Aren’t Collecting Social Security Benefits. Wired, Feb 17, 2025. “Computer programmers quickly claimed that the 150 figure was not evidence of fraud but rather the result of a weird quirk of the Social Security Administration’s benefits system, which was largely written in COBOL, a 60-year-old programming language that undergirds SSA’s databases as well as systems from many other US government agencies. COBOL is rarely used today, and as such, Musk’s cadre of young engineers may well be unfamiliar with it. Because COBOL does not have a date type, some implementations rely instead on a system whereby all dates are coded to a reference point. The most commonly used is May 20, 1875, as this was the date of an international standards-setting conference held in Paris, known as the Convention du Mètre.”

Shelby Talcott, Homeland Security Budgets $200m for New Border Ad Campaign. Semafor, Feb 18, 2025. “Vendor contracts for the project were awarded to People Who Think LLC, a Louisiana-based company co-founded by Jay Connaughton, one publicly available document shows, and northern Virginia-based Safe America Media LLC, according to a separate document reviewed by Semafor. Connaughton and People Who Think worked on Trump’s ads during the 2016 campaign. He also worked with Corey Lewandowski — a former Trump campaign manager and longtime MAGA presence who is now aspecial government employee for DHS — on Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry’s campaign last year.” I.e. Rupert Murdoch expresses concern about loss of advertising revenue. Donald Trump says don't worry and awards Murdoch $200 million from the budget of the Department of Homeland Security in a massive ad buy, all with Murdoch running ads that supposedly target undocumented immigrants but run in English on a channel they don't watch, and are essentially just Trump campaign ads.

Kyle Kulinski, ‘Nothing To Do With It!’: Terrified Elon Musk Disowns DOGE. The Kyle Kulinski Show | Secular Talk, Feb 19, 2025. “Waste, fraud, and abuse” is itself a fraud and illegal. Kyle highlights why DOGE is lying and misrepresenting everything they are finding. The real abuse is Trump firing the Inspectors General, who were already monitoring and recovering the fraud. They want to attack and/or privatize Social Security. See Kyle Kulinski, Elon’s Dopey Lie Used To Destroy Social Security. The Kyle Kulinski Show | Secular Talk, Feb 19, 2025.

Suzanne Vranica, X Hinted at Possible Deal Trouble in Talks With Ad Giant to Increase Spending. Wall Street Journal, Feb 19, 2025. Interpublic recently signed an advertising agreement with the platform; other agencies are also in negotiations. Advertisers pulled their business from X when Musk took over Twitter. “X upped the ante in early January by alerting the court that it planned to add more names to the lawsuit, which left advertisers fretting for weeks over whether they would be next. On Feb. 1, X added about a half-dozen more advertisers to the litigation.  “Some of the advertisers we work with have expressed that they feel there is an implied threat from X that they could be added to the lawsuit if they don’t return to X,” said Ruben Schreurs, chief executive officer of Ebiquity, a consulting firm that works with advertisers.”

Matt Sledge, DOGE Said It Cut $232 Million from Social Security Budget. It Was Only About Half a Million. The Intercept, Feb 20, 2025. The cut, an anti-trans attack, was the latest example of confusion sown by bold claims that wither under scrutiny.

Department of Data, Are Federal Workers Lazy? Let’s Look at the Data. Washington Post, Feb 21, 2025. Helpful for when the government lies to its own people. “As Elon Musk’s U.S. DOGE Service targets federal workers, we investigate how hard those folks have been working for their government paychecks.”

Caitlin Ostroff, Shane Shifflett, and James Benedict, DOGE Claims It Has Saved Billions. See Where. Wall Street Journal, Feb 22, 2025. A WSJ analysis of government data found that many claims of savings were overstated and ‘woke’ cuts were only a tiny fraction of the total. Trump and Musk are trying to make people feel disgust, so they can pass cuts to Medicaid and Social Security by claiming “waste, fraud, and abuse.”

United States District Court for the District of Columbia, AIDS Vaccine Advocacy v. U.S. Department of State | Global Health Council v. Donald J. Trump. Feb 24, 2025. DOGE claims to find “waste, fraud, and abuse” in USAID were lies. On page 5, “Defendants did not even attempt to argue that the action was or could be justified based on waste, fraud, or abuse. And, to date, Defendants have not adduced any evidence of waste, fraud, or abuse aside from conclusory statements from a declarant who has “serious questions” about these topics.

Jon Stewart, Jon Stewart Reworks Trump & Elon’s Sweeping DOGE Budget Cuts. The Daily Show, Feb 24, 2025.

Jonathan Rausch, One Word Describes Trump. The Atlantic, Feb 24, 2025. That word is patrimonialism.

Laura Barron-Lopez, Shrai Popat, Kyle Midura, and Taylor Bowie, A Look at the Misleading and Incorrect Claims on DOGE’s ‘Wall of Receipts’. PBS News Hour, Feb 26, 2025.

“At this point, the $2 billion in savings identified by Elon Musk would pay for 1/75th of 1 percent of the entire national debt. I have not found any legitimate evidence of fraud in the spending that Elon Musk has highlighted. I have found expenditures that a lot of people wish the government wouldn't engage in, such as DEI contracts and Politico subscriptions. But that doesn't make them fraudulent. It just makes them policies that certain people would not like us to be spending money on… if you did distribute some of the — that $2 billion or so in savings across taxpayers in America, which is what Elon Musk has said he would like to do, it would basically come to $2.42 per person, so potentially not enough for a cup of coffee in some cities.”

Ryan Grim and Emily Jashinsky, House GOP Rams Through Medicaid Cuts. Breaking Points, Feb 26, 2025. Ryan makes helpful points about actual Medicaid fraud that would actually make the program work better for recipients, but Republicans don’t want the program at all.

Desmond Butler, Trisha Thadani, Emmanuel Martinez, Aaron Gregg, Luis Melgar, Jonathan O’Connell, and Dan Keating, Elon Musk’s Business Empire Is Built on $38 Billion in Government Funding. Washington Post, Feb 26, 2025. Government infusions at key moments helped Tesla and SpaceX flourish, boosting Musk’s wealth. See Google document copy. See discussion by Brittany Page, The Receipts: Elon Musk Built His Wealth On Government Handouts!!! Brittany Page, Feb 26, 2025.

Brian Tyler Cohen, Breaking: Elon Goes Into Full Panic as New Scandal Erupts. Brian Tyler Cohen, Feb 27, 2025. Brian surveys Elon’s conflicts of interest, starting with the FAA and Starlink/SpaceX contract.

Elie Mystal, This Executive Order Reveals the Trump-Musk Endgame. The Nation, Feb 27, 2025.

“A recent order aimed at destroying independent regulatory agencies isn’t just about taking control of the state—it’s a giant cash-grab in disguise. If you understand the thievery that underpins this entire administration, you’ll understand that Trump’s recent executive order aimed at destroying independent regulatory agencies is an essential part of the overall plot. Independent regulatory agencies are things like the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Federal Trade Commission, and the Federal Elections Commission. These institutions were set up by Congress and are made up of commissioners appointed by the president. They are authorized to promote regulations over the industries and business sectors they oversee. They are the parts of the federal government most businesses interact with. They are the only real day-to-day check on unrestrained capitalism in our system of government.”

Attorney General Pam Bondi, Letter to FBI Director Kash Patel. Office of the Attorney General, Feb 27, 2025. Request for the remainder of the Epstein documents.

The New York Times, The People Carrying Out Musk’s Plans at DOGE. New York Times, Mar 4, 2025. Profiles of each person.

Legal Eagle, DOGE Is The Real Fraud ft. Liz Dye. Legal Eagle, Mar 4, 2025. Elon and DOGE acted illegally. Liz debunks Elon’s claims. At 2:23, the “Condoms to Gaza” via USAID claim was probably a mistake of Gaza province in Mozambique. At 7:24, “Social Security fraud” was a coding error and also mathematically impossible. At 11:40, “FEMA paid for luxury hotels for illegal migrants” was for FEMA shelter and services at very modest hotels in NYC averaging $156 per night per room. At 16:04, media companies were “funded” by USAID, but were really news and information subscriptions; now, SEC lawyers had to cancel its subscription to WestLaw, the legal research database used by every lawyer in America.

Ezra Klein, This Trump Speech Was the Ultimate Loyalty Test. The Ezra Klein Show, Mar 5, 2025. The lies are an operational, management strategy. Trump uses lies to test loyalty.

Senator Chris Murphy, Six Weeks In, This White House Is On Its Way To Being The Most Corrupt In U.S. History. Senator Chris Murphy, Mar 6, 2025. The single best summary to date.

Jackson Walker, Musk Accuses Dem Payment Site ActBlue of Bankrolling Tesla Protest Groups. NBC 15 News, Mar 10, 2025.

Molly Weston Williamson, Cuts to the Social Security Administration Threaten Millions of Americans’ Retirement and Disability Benefits. Center for American Progress, Mar 12, 2025. As the Social Security Administration cuts thousands of jobs and closes offices, families’ livelihoods are on the line.

“Any delay or interruption in payments would be catastrophic. More than 7 million Americans 65 and older receive at least 90 percent of their income from Social Security.* For many of these seniors, even a few days’ delay in receiving Social Security benefits would pose an immediate threat to their ability to pay rent and buy food. Payments made even later, or missed, would irreparably harm many more: In a January 2025 survey, 42 percent of Americans 65 and older reported “I would not be able to afford the basics, such as food, clothing, or housing [without Social Security retirement benefits].”

Disabled people and their families, likewise, would face dire straits. More than 11 million disabled Americans under the age of 65 rely on benefits administered by the SSA through either Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI), Supplemental Security Income (SSI), or both. Most SSDI recipients can’t work due to their disability, while others work limited hours and can only earn very limited amounts without forfeiting their benefits. For SSI claimants, even when they are able to work, they can only hold a few thousand dollars in gross assets without losing their benefits, subject to limited exceptions, making it essentially impossible to save. As a result, too many SSDI and SSI recipients are one missed or late payment away from not making rent or putting food on the table.”

Devin J. Stone, They're Fabricating Criminal Prosecutions Now. Legal Eagle, Mar 12, 2025. On Denise Cheung’s resignation from the DOJ because she refused to accuse the EPA and Citibank of criminal fraud.

Adam Conover, DOGE is Stealing America's Future, with Max Stier. Adam Conover, Mar 12, 2025. At the 35:30 minute mark, Max Stier discusses Trump’s decision to not prosecute the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. U.S. companies should not pay bribes in other countries to do business. U.S. companies actually wanted that law. At the 1:03:16 minute mark, Max discusses how DOGE did not understand USAID. They thought that the several grant payments that came from HHS was corruption of USAID. But this was a total misunderstanding. DOGE then fired USAID workers as retribution.

Sam Seder, Sam Debates Conservative Struggling To Understand How Social Security Works. The Majority Report, Mar 12, 2025. A short segment from Sam’s debate with MAGA supporters. Their positions and misinformation reflect GOP leaders intentionally deceiving them.

Luke Goldstein, Trump Issues Ethics Waiver For His AI/Crypto Czar. The Lever, Mar 13, 2025.

“The White House granted the waiver to David Sacks a month after Trump fired the director of the independent agency charged with enforcing federal ethics statutes.” “A crypto industry multimillionaire, Sacks has previously denied any current conflicts of interest in his new governmental role. But the new memorandum states that Sacks’s own disclosure materials note he retains financial interests in venture capital funds that “may presently have some minor digital asset industry holdings or might in the future.” Sacks’ direct venture capital interests are in Craft Ventures, Beldore Capitol LLC, and AL Ventures. Craft Ventures, which Sacks cofounded, still also has a sizable stake in numerous digital asset companies such as Lightning Labs and BitGo — the latter of which represents 2.4 percent of the fund’s portfolio, according to the disclosure listed in the memorandum. Overall, crypto investments make up 3.7 percent of Craft’s total assets.  The memorandum’s assessment does not dispute this conflict but concludes they’re “a small fraction of your and Craft Venture’s holdings.””

More Perfect Union, He Audited the Pentagon. Here’s Where the Waste Really Is. More Perfect Union, Mar 14, 2025. Since 2001, federal spending on defense contractors has tripled, from $142 to $445 billion. There are five main companies: Lockheed-Martin, RTX Corp, General Dynamics, Boeing, and Northrup Grumman. They regularly outperform the S&P500 every year, having profit margins between 9 - 20%. Contractors are now offering and providing software and service-repair contracts. Research says we could save 10s of billions per year by bringing all this back inside the government. Of all contract spending, 30 - 40% is waste, fraud, and abuse.

Lawrence Mower, Lawmakers Grill Florida Regulators About Study on Insurance ‘Accounting Tricks.’ Tampa Bay Times, Mar 14, 2025. Florida's former regulator said a state report into insurance company profits raised "red flags," and it was then immediately shut down and never published. This is how the Florida GOP operates.

“State regulators told lawmakers on Friday that a state report showing insurers losing money while their affiliates made billions “raised red flags” but was incomplete because it was never finished. During a three-hour hearing, Florida’s current and former insurance commissioners were grilled by Republicans and Democrats about why the report was left undone in 2022 and never given to the Legislature. The Times/Herald last month revealed the never-before-seen state report, which found that insurance companies funneled billions of dollars to affiliate companies while claiming to lose money between 2017 and 2019, when the state’s insurance crisis began. In response, House Speaker Daniel Perez, R-Miami, ordered a House committee to investigate whether insurers were using “accounting tricks” to hide profits. The first-of-its-kind study was commissioned by former Insurance Commissioner David Altmaier in 2021, after hearing concerns about insurers' use of affiliate companies. Insurers create affiliates that charge the insurance company for basic services, such as handling claims and writing policies, at sometimes inflated rates — allowing them to extract profits beyond what state regulators would normally allow.”

Danny Westneat, Here’s a Dead Person on Social Security in Seattle, With Plenty to Say. Seattle Times, Mar 15, 2025. DOGE clawed back $5,201 directly from his bank account, and stopped payments.

“What followed was a nearly three-week battle to resurrect himself. He called Social Security two or three times a day for two weeks, with each call put on hold and then eventually disconnected. Finally someone answered and gave him an appointment for March 13. Then he got a call delaying that to March 24.

In a huff, he went to the office on the ninth floor of the Henry Jackson Federal Building downtown. It’s one of the buildings proposed to be closed under what the AP called “a frenetic and error-riddled push by Elon Musk’s budget-cutting advisers.”

It was like a Depression-era scene, he said, with a queue 50-deep jockeying for the attentions of two tellers. The employees were kind but beleaguered.”

Jacob Sullum, Elon Musk, Who Promised To Be 'Maximally Transparent,' Makes DOGE's Numbers Even Harder To Check. Reason, Mar 15, 2025. The cost-cutting initiative's calculation of "estimated savings" is mostly mysterious, and the parts we know about are riddled with errors.

Will McCurdy, DOGE Staffer Violated Treasury Department Data-Sharing Policies. PCMag, Mar 16, 2025. Former SpaceX and X engineer Marko Elez emailed sensitive information to another agency in violation of Treasury Department security rules, according to a court filing.

Ashton, Why We Hate Welfare Freeloaders (But Shouldn't). Type Ashton, Apr 6, 2025.

Makena Kelly, DOGE Is Planning a Hackathon at the IRS. It Wants Easier Access to Taxpayer Data. Wired, Apr 7, 2025. DOGE operatives have repeatedly referred to the software company Palantir as a possible partner in creating a “mega API” at the IRS, sources tell WIRED.

MacKenzie Sigalos, DOJ Ends Crypto Enforcement Team, Shifts Focus to Terrorism and Fraud. CNBC, Apr 8, 2025.

Santul Nerkar, Freed From Prison by Trump and Now Facing the Prospect of Going Back. New York Times, Apr 11, 2025. Jonathan Braun is a violent felon who sexually assaulted a woman who worked as his child’s live-in nanny.

“At a hearing this week, witnesses described behavior by Jonathan Braun that could result in his being locked up again… Mr. Trump commuted Mr. Braun’s 10-year sentence for drug trafficking at the end of his first term in office. The commutation came after Mr. Braun’s family used its close ties to the father of Jared Kushner, Mr. Trump’s son-in-law and a senior White House adviser at the time, to secure Mr. Braun’s release.”

David Sirota, Freddy Brewster, and Luke Goldstein,Trump IRS Pick Was Just Enriched By Tax Schemers. The Lever, Apr 15, 2025. New documents show Billy Long’s $130,000 personal debt was suddenly paid off by donors at firms policed by the tax agency he’d lead.

“In new campaign finance filings, Long disclosed an outstanding personal loan of $130,000 that he had made to his failed 2022 U.S. Senate campaign. The dormant Senate campaign committee had raised less than $36,000 in the last two years, which could have forced Long to absorb the losses on the loan. But after Trump named Long to head the IRS, the committee suddenly raked in nearly $137,000 in less than three weeks in January — money that Long then used to remunerate himself, according to disclosure documents filed this week.”

Hafiz Rashid, DOGE Seems to Be Stealing Sensitive Labor Data, Whistlebower Says. The New Republic, Apr 15. Elon Musk’s DOGE minions appear to have stolen sensitive data—and then tried to hide their tracks.

Michael Sainato, DOGE Unemployment ‘Fraud’ Discoveries Are Old Finds from Biden Era. The Guardian, Apr 16, 2025.

“In a series of late-night posts on X last week, Elon Musk and his so-called “department of government efficiency” revealed the seemingly startling findings of their “initial survey” into unemployment benefits. They cited examples of claimants who were deceased, between one and five years old, or not born yet. They even cited one case of someone with a listed birthday in 2154 allegedly claiming $41,000. News of the claims swept across rightwing media, including Fox News and Breitbart, and were attributed to Doge. They were repeated by the secretary of labor, Lori Chavez-DeRemer, who declared during a cabinet meeting with Donald Trump that the revelations were the latest to be “exposed by our partners at Doge”. But there was, in reality, a “sanity check” of unemployment claims years before Doge launched its blitz of the federal government – including under Joe Biden. People previously involved with the process say Doge’s claims are lifted from it.

Back in 2023, the office of inspector general at the US Department of Labor identified potential fraud involving individuals over 100, or under the age of 14, receiving unemployment benefits. Some of the claims may not actually have contained the ages of the people filing, Stettner noted, as some states created pseudo identities to protect identity-theft victims.

A 2023 Department of Labor memo found that while one state appeared to be paying benefits to scores of claimants 100 years or older, the state clarified that this was not, in fact, happening. “Rather, this was the result of how the state ensured victims of fraud were not unfairly prevented from accessing benefits,” the memo said.”

Kyle Kulinsky, Venture Capitalist MAGA Bro Accidentally Tells The Truth. The Kyle Kulinski Show, Apr 15, 2025. Billionaire Chamath Palihapitiya said Trump and his team are far more responsive than Democrats. He shows inadvertently that the Republicans are far more corrupt than the Democrats.

Krystal Ball and Saagar Enjeti, Elon Admits DOGE Savings Fail. Breaking Points, Apr 17, 2025.

Rachel Maddow, Busted: Report Paints Vivid Picture of Trump Corruption. The Rachel Maddow Show | MSNBC, Apr 19, 2025. Vietnam offered to buy Boeing jets, Starlink from Elon Musk, and to accelerate a deal to build a $1.5 billion Trump resort in Vietnam. Crypto company Binance offered to buy Trump crypto in exchange for a pardon for its billionaire founder.

Elizabeth Williamson, What Elon Musk Didn’t Budget For: Firing Workers Costs Money, Too. New York Times, Apr 24, 2025. “An expert on the federal work force estimates that the speed and chaos of Mr. Musk’s cuts to the bureaucracy will cost taxpayers $135 billion this fiscal year.”

Kyle Kulinski, Trump Regime Now Arresting Judges. Secular Talk, Apr 25, 2025. A 50 minute video. The judge arrest may have been justified. But the other issues are deeply troubling. A U.S. citizen was detained by DHS for ten days; they made him sign a sworn statement without reading it to him despite his learning disability and inability to read. ICE moved another Venezuelan man from PA to TX after a federal judge forbade it. A family learned that their adult son was sent to El Salvador without notice. Trump directs his DOJ to investigate ActBlue, a small donor website for the Democratic Party. Trump offers to host a dinner with the top 220 holders of his crypto scam memecoin. Yale and Cornell police criticism of Israel’s genocide of Palestinians.

Sam Pollack, Workers Overheated and Died Under Trump’s Workplace Safety Nominee. The Lever, Apr 30, 2025. “As David Keeling led companies’ safety operations, workers fell ill and died amid extreme temperatures. Now he could dismantle federal heat protections.”

Katya Schwenk and Luke Goldstein, The Corporate Crusade Of Trump’s Top Retirement Cop. The Lever, May 2, 2025. “Potential pension chief Daniel Aronowitz wants to give retirement fund managers a free pass for price-gouging workers and bungling their savings — and his company stands to profit from it.”

Nick Turse, The Trump Administration Is Hiding American Casualties of War. The Intercept, May 2, 2025. “The U.S. government is keeping American casualty numbers for the undeclared war on Yemen secret. This is not normal.”

Jake Pearson, DOGE Aide Who Helped Gut CFPB Was Warned About Potential Conflicts of Interest. ProPublica, May 7, 2025. Before he helped fire most Consumer Financial Protection Bureau staffers, DOGE’s Gavin Kliger was warned about his investments and advised to not take any actions that could benefit him personally, according to a person familiar with the situation.

Nick Turse, Elon Musk Set to Win Big With Trump’s Trillion-Dollar Pentagon Budget. The Intercept, May 7, 2025. “Trump’s proposal cuts SpaceX competitors out of the NASA budget and could add billions to the company’s defense contracts.”

Brian Slodysko and Steve Peoples, Trump Wants to Investigate Democrats’ Fundraising, But His Own Campaign Has Issues. PBS, May 27, 2025. “ActBlue, the Democrats’ online fundraising juggernaut, which has acknowledged receiving over 200 potentially illicit contributions last year from foreign internet addresses. Trump’s announcement contained a glaring omission — his political committees also received scores of potentially problematic contributions. An Associated Press review of donations to Trump over the past five years found 1,600 contributions from donors who live abroad, have close ties to foreign interests or failed to disclose basic information, often making it difficult, if not impossible, to identify them and verify the legality of their donations Among those was $5,000 linked to a derelict building, and $5,000 from a Chinese businessman who listed a La Quinta Inn as his address. Another sizable donation — $1 million — was made by the wife of an African oil and mining magnate. It’s against the law for U.S. candidates and political committees to accept contributions from foreign nationals.”

Jon Cirincione, Trump’s “Golden Dome” Won’t Work—but It’ll Make Elon Musk Richer. The New Republic, May 25, 2025. For 40 years, missile defense has never been about keeping America safe. It’s all about the contracts.

Tad Stoermer, George Washington's Murder Confession: The 18th-Century Lie We're Still Living. Tad Stoermer, May 28, 2025.

“On this day, May 28th, 1754, a single volley fired in the Pennsylvania wilderness didn't just kill French Ensign Joseph Coulon de Villiers, Sieur de Jumonville; it set in motion events that would ignite a global war and expose the terrifying fragility of truth itself. At the center was a young, ambitious, and dangerously inexperienced George Washington. This isn't the sanitized history you learned in school. In this dive, we head into the messy reality of the Jumonville affair:

• Washington's Blunder: Explore how Washington’s ingrained assumptions – born from the power dynamics of enslaver America – led him to fatally misjudge his Indigenous allies. We examine how his inability to control the situation led directly to Jumonville’s death.

• The "Assassination" Confession: Touch on the story behind Washington’s humiliating surrender at Fort Necessity and the damning document he signed, admitting, in French, to l'assassinat. Was it ignorance, desperation, or a combination? We spotlight the document and its immediate implications.

• The Birth of a Myth: Consider Washington's first, and perhaps most crucial, victory – not on the battlefield, but in the war of narratives. Think about how he and his supporters spun a tale of heroism from a disaster, laying the groundwork for a national mythology built on strategic omissions and convenient fictions.

• Voltaire, Walpole & The Crisis of Truth: Journey across the Atlantic to 1768, as Voltaire’s pointed questions about the Jumonville affair land on the desk of Horace Walpole. Delve into Walpole’s world – a London awash with literary "impostures" like Macpherson's Ossian and Chatterton's forgeries – and understand why he saw Washington's story as a symptom of a broader "epistemological crisis."

• Seeing Power Clearly: Understand how Walpole connected the dots between historical lies, contemporary hoaxes, and Washington's "confession," seeing that the destabilization of truth wasn't just an intellectual problem – it was a tool of power. He saw how a public unable to discern reality becomes vulnerable to manipulation and control.

• The Enduring Echo: Draw the clear line from these 18th-century anxieties to our current moment, where disinformation campaigns, "alternative facts," and attacks on historical truth are deployed daily to legitimize power grabs and undermine democracy.

Let’s discuss how an 18th-century incident involving a future president and a cynical English aristocrat reveals the timeless, and ongoing, battle for "Honest History" as resistance the powerful forces of myth and manipulation.”

U.S. House of Representatives Ways and Means Committee Chairman Jason Smith, Law Enforcement Forced to Halt Investigations of Unemployment Fraud; Senate Action Needed to Stop “Get Out of Jail Free” Cards for Criminals. U.S. House Committee on Ways and Means, May 30, 2025.

“It has been over two months since the statute of limitations to prosecute criminals who stole billions in COVID-era unemployment insurance (UI) benefits began to expire, forcing law enforcement to abandon ongoing fraud investigations. In March, the U.S. House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed the bipartisan Pandemic Unemployment Fraud Enforcement Act (H.R. 1156) to extend the statute from 5 to 10 years and give law enforcement more time to go after fraudsters and recover taxpayer dollars. The U.S. government estimates as much as $135 billion in UI benefits were stolen from American taxpayers during the pandemic; and yet, to date, the U.S. Senate has not taken action. As the months continue to pass, more and more criminals will be let off the hook to continue to use false identities to intentionally target government programs and divert public funds away from vulnerable workers and families.”

Peter Zeihan, Musk Pulls the Carpet Out from Under DOGE. Zeihan on Geopolitics, Jun 17, 2025. The CBO says DOGE’s cuts have resulted in only $20 billion in cuts because DOGE neglected to include what the cabinet secretaries had to do. To not go to prison, bureau heads and cabinet secretaries had to rehire people, in some cases, contractors. Once you had that cost of $120 billion back in, $20 billion is all that’s left. And Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill” codified only $9.5 billion.

Hannah Allam, “The Intern in Charge”: Meet the 22-Year-Old Trump’s Team Picked to Lead Terrorism Prevention. ProPublica, Jun 4, 2025. “One year out of college and with no apparent national security expertise, Thomas Fugate is the Department of Homeland Security official tasked with overseeing the government’s main hub for combating violent extremism.”

Eloise Goldsmith, Warren Report: Musk Leveraged Government Access for Personal Gain. Common Dreams, Jun 3, 2025. "Since Election Day, Musk's staggering net worth has increased by over $100 billion," the report states.

Sam Biddle, Trump’s Big Beautiful Gift to Anduril. The Intercept, Jul 9, 2025. “The One Big Beautiful Bill Act requires all new border surveillance towers to be certified "autonomous." Only Anduril's fit the bill.”

Chris Hedges, Trump, Epstein and the Deep State. The Chris Hedges Report | Substack, Jul 12, 2025. The Trump administration’s refusal to release the Epstein files and videos is done not only to protect Trump, but the ruling class. They all belong to the same club.

Ben Meiselas, OMG! Ghislaine Goes Nuclear as Trump Covers It Up. Meidas Touch, Jul 14, 2025. After Trump and Bondi said there were no Epstein Files at the DOJ, Ghislaine Maxwell, convicted for 20 years for child trafficking, called for a retrial.

Michael Popok, Trump DOJ Crumbles with Mass Exodus?!? Legal AF | Meidas Touch, Jul 15, 2025. Could be another fallout from EpsteinFileGate. Or Trump's attacks on Birthright Citizenship, free speech at universities, and other unconstitutional power grabs. "Almost 70 Trump Administration DOJ lawyers have quit almost en masse to protest the lawlessness of the Adminstration, all from the main division responsible for defending Trump's most depraved policies in court..."

Karen Yourish and Lily Boyce, Trump Insists the Epstein Case Is a Hoax. Here’s What His Supporters Say. New York Times, Jul 17, 2025. Venn Diagram of MAGA politicians and media influencers.

Benjamin Mullin, F.C.C. Approves Skydance’s Merger With Paramount. New York Times, Jul 24, 2025.

“In recent weeks, Paramount has been engulfed in turmoil stemming from the company’s strained relationship with the Trump administration. Earlier this month, the company paid $16 million to settle a lawsuit brought by President Trump. Critics — including CBS’s “Late Night” host Stephen Colbert — said the settlement was effectively a payoff to secure approval from the Trump administration, claims the company flatly rejected.

Mr. Colbert said last week that the company was ending his show next year, leading some prominent Democrats to claim that the move was politically motivated. The company has denied that, saying the program was canceled for financial reasons.

In recent days, Skydance took steps to assuage Mr. Carr, telling the agency that it would install an ombudsperson at the news division to ensure fairness in it journalism and committing to avoiding diversity, equity and inclusion programs at the company. In his statement, Mr. Carr lauded these steps, saying it would “begin the process of earning back Americans’ trust.””

Saagar Enjeti and Krystal Ball, Trump Goes Nuclear After Stock Trading Ban Advances. Breaking Points, Jul 31, 2025.

Krystal Ball and Saagar Enjeti, Trump Breaks Rules: Transfers Ghislaine To 'Club Fed'. Breaking Points, Aug 4, 2025.

Lisa Friedman and Eileen Sullivan, Military Raised Water Level of River in Ohio for JD Vance’s Family Boating Trip. New York Times, Aug 7, 2025. “The Secret Service said the boats the agency uses for security are usually motorized and need deeper waters to operate.”

Alan Blinder and Michael C. Bender, Trump Wants U.C.L.A. to Pay $1 Billion to Restore Its Research Funding. New York Times, Aug 8, 2025. “The Trump administration has ended about $500 million for the Los Angeles-based university. The president said he wanted nearly double that to restart the flow of funds.”

Katya Schwenk, Before A Steel Plant Exploded, Trump’s EPA Hid Risks From The Public. The Lever, Aug 12, 2025. “The Pittsburgh plant that exploded on Monday had a history of chemical accidents — and the Trump administration made that secret.”

Max, Trump's Crypto Scheme MUST Be Stopped. UNFTR, Aug 15, 2025. This is the single best explanation of stablecoin.

“Donald Trump has laid the groundwork to become one of the wealthiest people on the planet by personally making money from every dollar printed in the United States. And the worse the economy gets, the more money he stands to make. The House has already passed three crypto bills that would make this potential a reality by allowing the Trump family to control the global stablecoin market. Now it’s up to the Senate. It’s a wild story that the media won’t report on because they don’t get it. But some very powerful people have figured it out and now the race is on to stop Trump from becoming the shadow central banker to the world.”

See also this update: Yanis Varoufakis & Wolfgang Munchau, Trump’s $6 Trillion Crypto Plot. The Econoclasts, Nov 26, 2025.

Chris Hayes, Hayes Blasts Trump: Most Pro-Criminal President in My Lifetime. All In | MSNBC, Aug 26, 2025. Starting from the first day in office, Trump has pardoned convicted criminals.

More Perfect Union, We Found the Most Corrupt Stock Traders. More Perfect Union, Sep 2, 2025. “How do members of Congress get so rich? Hint: It’s not from side-hustles or second jobs. Not only are members of Congress overwhelmingly wealthy, but they're also scoring record returns in the stock market, raising questions about their use of insider information. Thank you to Unusual Whales for the opening graph of members’ returns.”

Saagar Enjeti and Emily Jashinsky, Saagar Breaks Down Full Epstein 'Vile' Birthday Book. Breaking Points, Sep 10, 2025.

Glenn Thrush and Alan Feuer, A ‘Broken’ Trust: F.B.I. Agents Fired by Patel Speak Out. New York Times, Sep 16, 2025. “The two agents’ accounts offer an inside view of a bureau buffeted by politics and upheaval, adding to the scrutiny of the F.B.I. director as he prepares to testify to Congress.”

Stephen Colbert, We Are All Jimmy Kimmel | The Easy Way Or The Hard Way | Trump Urges NBC To Cancel Fallon And Mey…. The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, Sep 18, 2025. An entertaining but painful expose of monopoly power being more vulnerable to Trump’s thin-skinned, anti-free-speech attack on comedians. “ABC yanked “Jimmy Kimmel Live” off the air following a threat from FCC chair Brendan Carr, and President Trump celebrated his administration’s success in blackmailing media companies in order to silence his critics.”

Liz Oyer, Trump Erases Hundreds of Millions in Debts Owed to Fraud Victims. @Lawyer_Oyer, Sep 20, 2025. $1.3 billion owed by wealthy Americans owed to victims of crimes. This week, the SEC abandoned proceedings against 3 of Trump’s wealthy donors: Trevor Milton who defrauded investors in his electric car company, Carlos Watson who cheated investors in his media company, and Devon Archer who owed $60m in penalties for stealing money from workers’ pension funds and a Native American tribe. In total, Trump has cancelled $2b in debts owed to US citizens.

Landry Ayres, The Most Corrupt U.S. Presidency Ever: A Video Roundup. The UnPopulist, Sep 26, 2025. Our late-September collection of clips on the MAGA man's monetization mission.

Heather Cox Richardson, October 9, 2025. Letters from an American | Substack, Oct 10, 2025.

“Today Trump appointee Lindsey Halligan did what President Donald J. Trump placed her at the position of U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia to do: deliver an indictment of New York attorney general Letitia James for alleged mortgage fraud. The previous U.S. attorney there, Erik Seibert, refused to take either the James case or a case against former FBI director James Comey for allegedly lying to Congress to a grand jury for an indictment, believing there was not enough evidence to convict.

Seibert resigned in the face of Trump’s fury at his decision, and Trump replaced him with Halligan, a former aide and Trump’s personal lawyer. It is not clear that Halligan holds her position legally, but she has now delivered the indictments Trump demanded.”

Michael Gold and Grace Ashford, Santos Is Released After Trump Commutes His Sentence. New York Times, Oct 17, 2025. “George Santos’s lawyer said the disgraced former congressman was freed from a New Jersey prison around 10 p.m. on Friday. He served less than three months on his fraud conviction.” Santos will not have to pay back the people he defrauded.

Liv McMahon, Trump Pardons Binance Founder Changpeng Zhao. BBC, Oct 23, 2025. See also Alan Jaffe, Addressing Trump’s Claims About the Pardon of Binance Founder. Fact Check, Nov 12, 2025. See also Kevin Breuninger, Binance Sued by Oct. 7 Victims’ Families for Allegedly Aiding Hamas Through Crypto Exchange. CNBC, Nov 25, 2025.

Liliana Segura, The Absurd Prosecution of a Man Who Posted a Charlie Kirk Meme. The Intercept, Oct 23, 2025. Larry Bushart Jr. posted trolling memes on a Facebook thread about a vigil for Kirk. He’s been in a Tennessee jail ever since.

Bandy X. Lee, Narcissism in U.S. Politics. The Newsletter of Bandy X. Lee | Substack, Oct 24, 2025. Two Anonymous Authors Explain why Those with Excessive Narcissism Should Never be Leaders

Norman Eisen, Trump’s $230 Million Heist Is Unconstitutional. The Contrarian, Oct 25, 2025.

“Dear Contrarians, Donald Trump’s shenanigans this week were so outrageous that reinforcements were in order to push back! So, I invited George W. Bush White House ethics lawyer Richard Painter and Clinton White House ethics lawyer Virginia Canter to join me—the Obama White House ethics lawyer—to write about Trump’s misconduct.

The president‘s outrageous request for $230 million from the federal government is not only an abusive attempt to raid the coffers of the Treasury, but it’s also an apparent violation of the Domestic Emoluments Clause—a constitutional provision that expressly prohibits the president from taking any emolument from the United States other than his statutory salary. And, unlike the Foreign Emoluments clause, the domestic clause is applicable solely to the president of the United States, and Congress has no power to waive it. We should know: The three of us served as ethics officials to President Barack Obama, President George W. Bush, and President Bill Clinton and brought suit against Trump in his first term for violating the Foreign Emoluments Clause.”

More Perfect Union, We Investigated Hundreds of Trump Donors: What We Found Will Shock You. More Perfect Union, Oct 28, 2025. Trump appears to be using antitrust law as a stick motivation to get corporate donations.

Francesca Bria, José Bautista, How Tech Billionaires Are Building a Post-Democratic America — And Why Europe Is Next. The Authoritarian Stack. Nov 1, 2025.

This project maps the "Authoritarian Stack"—a network of firms, funds, and political actors turning core state functions into private platforms. Based on an open-source dataset of over 250 actors, thousands of verified connections, and $45 billion in documented financial flows. The map aggregates and categorizes information from existing online sources to chart actors, institutions, and their relationships. Data handling and normalization were performed by the Autonomy Institute Data Unit. All entries were manually reviewed and verified. The map reflects connections as of October 2025 and is a living, collaborative resource.

Liz Dye, The DOJ Indicted a YouTuber (Kat Abu), and It's Crap. Legal Eagle, Nov 3, 2025.

Emily Ryan and Alyssa Mastromonaco, Pam Bondi: Everything You Didn't Know About Her Sh*tty Past. Hysteria, Nov 8, 2025. Pam Bondi was involved in Florida’s foreclosure fraud practices prior to 2008. See the first 8 minutes.

Justin Elliott, Joshua Kaplan, Alex Mierjeski, Kristi Noem-Linked Firm Secretly Got Money From $220 Million DHS Ad Contracts. ProPublica, Truth Out, Nov 15, 2025. DHS invoked the “emergency” at the border to skirt competitive bidding rules for the taxpayer-funded campaign. See also Jen Psaki, New Report Exposes Massive Corruption in Kristi Noem's Department of Homeland Security. MS Now, Nov 14, 2025. See also ProPublica, ProPublica Investigation Finds Kristi Noem Secretly Took a Cut of Political Donations. ProPublica, Jul 1, 2025.

Amanda Moore, Pardoned Capitol Rioter Tried to Hush Child Sex Victim With Promise of Jan. 6 Reparation Money, Police Say. The Intercept, Nov 17, 2025. “Andrew Johnson claimed to an alleged child molestation victim that Trump’s pardon entitled him to multimillion-dollar reparations.”

Bailey Allen, Town of Brookline Declares Trump Unfit for Office, Calls for Removal. Wicked Local, Nov 25, 2025.

Harry Litman, Trump Rocked as DOJ Revolt Threatens to Bring It All Down! Talking Feds with Harry Litman, Dec 1, 2025. The Solicitor General’s office in the DOJ has lost 9 of 16 attorneys. This mass exodus of career attorneys amid the Trump administration attests to Trump’s erosion of the rule of law.

Edith Olmsted, Trump Spirals When Asked Why He Pardoned Notorious Drug Trafficker. The New Republic, Dec 1, 2025. “Donald Trump has previously bragged about stopping the flow of drugs into the United States.”

More Perfect Union, Foreign Oligarchs Bought Trump: What They Got Will Shock You. More Perfect Union, Dec 5, 2025. “Since 2016, Qatar has spent $250 million to influence the US government. Now they’re getting a training facility in Idaho and defense commitments from the US military.” Qatar has influence with Steve Witkoff, Pam Bondi, Jared Kushner, and others.

Patrick Boyle, Elon Musk Admits DOGE Was a Failure! Patrick Boyle, Dec 14, 2025. Elon initially boasted off script that he and DOGE could save $2 trillion. By the end of February 2025, Musk revised that number downward to $1 trillion. By April, Musk was publicly musing that the savings would be around $150 billion. Boyle ran the numbers himself, using the “wall of receipts” on Musk’s own website. By November 2025, Reuters checked on DOGE and the Office of Personal Management Director said that DOGE does not exist.

Musk’s stated strategy was to bring a “startup culture” to government. He recruited venture capitalists and data programmers, including 19 year old Edward Coristine, nicknamed “Big Balls.” The IRS was damaged by revolving leadership and a projected $64 billion in lost tax revenue over the next decade because of low staffing. The IRS Direct File tool was cancelled, which would have allowed taxpayers to file their taxes for free and much more easily, and was widely praised. The digitization of past records stalled because low staffing.

By cutting USAID, the world’s richest man killed the world’s poorest children. DOGE managed to cut regulations for Musk’s companies.

Federal outlays for FY2025 was $7.01 trillion, compared to FY 2024 (Biden’s last year in office), at $6.75 trillion (a 4% increase). DOGE may have cost taxpayers $135 billion in rehiring costs.

Finally, a mechanism for finding waste and fraud already exists: the False Claims Act. It dates back to the Civil War. It allows private citizen whistleblowers to sue companies or individuals for defrauding the government. They get to keep a portion of the recovered funds. In 2023, the FCA recovered $379 million to whistleblowers for financial misconduct.

Who’s Profiting from ICE? A Google Maps data set.

Trevor Hayes, I Tracked Down The Companies Bribing Trump. More Perfect Union, Jan 21, 2026. “We took a deep dive into Trump's tariffs, and his real approach became painfully clear. Make tariff threats, extract money from companies willing to pay, then grant exceptions to those who play the game.It's another lucrative scam for a wildly corrupt president.” These companies include: meat packing companies Pilgrim’s Pride (donated $5 million in January 2020, their largest ever campaign donation) and JBS; the big automakers Ford and GM (donated $1 million each); big tech companies (donated $1 million each to the inaugural fund); plastics companies like Reyes Holdings (donated millions, as regular GOP donors). Industries with concentrated power and political access get exemptions. Countries, too: Switzerland was facing a 39% tariff but mounted a charm offensive with gold trinkets, and Trump dropped tariffs to 15%. But who cannot afford to bribe Trump? Soybean farmers who sold to China.

Sarah Taber, Why Farmers Voted For Trump: Free Government Money. Farm to Taber, Jan 25, 2026. “I'm a small family farmer, and people keep asking me "Why do farmers keep for Trump?" And it's actually pretty simple. Republicans give farmers more free money. So let's learn more about how America's political parties treat our nation's biggest, thirstiest welfare queens: farmers.”

Matt Stoller, Why America Spends Billions Policing Immigrants — And Pennies Policing Corporations. The Lever, Jan 27, 2026. “From Minneapolis to Davos, the state shows who it polices — and who it protects.”

Timothy Noah, Trump’s First National Bank of Scams Is Coming. The New Republic, Jan 30, 2026. “The kleptocratic nightmare we’re all living in is about to get worse.”

Alexander Willis, Witness Told FBI Trump Threatened to ‘Disappear’ Girl and Have Her ‘Whole Family Killed’. Raw Story, Jan 31, 2026.

Krystal Ball and Saagar Enjeti, Explosive Audio: Epstein Pushes Palantir To Former Israeli PM. Breaking Points, Feb 2, 2026. Trump could be working for Netanyahu via Epstein. This needs to be investigated -- which the DOJ does not want to do. In a 2018 email to Ehud Barak, Epstein added a happy face after "you should make clear I don't work for mossad." In 1999 AND in 2011, Epstein anonymously FOIA'd the CIA to obtain any records linking him to Israel's spy agency, Mossad. Recall that Netanyahu told Pres Bill Clinton he knew about his affair with then WH intern Monica Lewinsky -- before it had gone public. It *could* all be nothing. But it needs to be investigated. What does the DOJ want to hide? What does Trump want the DOJ to hide? Also: Notice how a happy face emoji changes things? “It could all be nothing ;) ”

Krystal Ball and Saagar Enjeti, Epstein Files: US Elites Protected While UK Gov Seeks Justice. Breaking Points, Feb 3, 2026.

Allison Gill, Live: Epstein Files Tipster Identifies Missing Docs!!! Meidas Touch, Feb 1, 2026. Allison is in direct contact with one of the complainants from the Epstein tips documents released this week, and shares what she told the FBI; but the FBI form 302 is missing! Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said that there will be no more files released (perhaps 3 million more) because some relate to supposedly “ongoing investigations.” But highlighted documents were published to the DOJ portal, temporarily removed, and then restored. Those documents referred to Donald Trump. One woman made a report to the FBI about a female friend who had been involved in the Trump Modeling Agency which he operated in the 1990s. The allegation is that Trump trafficked young girls from other countries who barely spoke English over to Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell. Another report is missing: The 1996 report given by Maria Farmer. The reports she made of Trump are missing.

Ellie Quinlan Houghtaling, New Evidence Torpedoes Pam Bondi’s Claim About Trump and Epstein. The New Republic, Feb 16, 2026. “A DOJ slideshow suggests that the FBI spoke with an Epstein victim who accused President Trump of assault.”

Brian Tyler Cohen, Bombshell Reason for Trump’s Iran Attack Surges Into Focus. Brian Tyler Cohen, Feb 28, 2026. Trump posted falsely that Iran interfered in the 2020 and 2024 elections. In addition, Trump’s team wrote a memo on how to declare a national emergency and assert control of state-level elections for the 2026 midterm elections. Significantly, contra Trump, the Supreme Court just declared that the emergency powers doctrine did not give Trump legal authority to levy tariffs. How, then, does Trump believe he can do this?

Laura Esposito, Sinister Trump Plot to Steal GOP Rebel’s Staff Revealed. The Daily Beast, Mar 3, 2026. “Rep. Thomas Massie alleges a pressure campaign that included poaching his own staff… The White House reportedly made similar overtures to the MAGA-aligned women in Congress who joined Massie and his Democratic ally, Rep. Ro Khanna, in spearheading the Epstein effort—including former Georgia lawmaker Marjorie Taylor Greene, South Carolina’s Nancy Mace, and Colorado’s Lauren Boebert.”

Corey G. Johnson, Brandon Roberts, and Al Shaw, Documents Reveal a Web of Financial Ties Between Trump Officials and the Industries They Help Regulate. ProPublica, Mar 5, 2026. “ProPublica is releasing a trove of disclosure records that detail the finances of more than 1,500 Trump appointees, including former lobbyists, industry executives and at least a dozen officials who declined to identify former clients.”

Mitchell Black and Marilyn W. Thompson, Fuzzy Memories and Hard Facts: An SC Accuser's Claims Against Epstein, Trump Examined. Post and Courier, Mar 8, 2026. This incident dates back to 1984, which does cast some doubt, especially on Trump’s involvement. Nevertheless, this is important as far as Pam Bondi’s DOJ conduct is concerned.

Ellie Quinlan Houghtaling, Pete Hegseth Blew Billions on Fruit Basket Stands, Chairs, and Crab. The New Republic, Mar 9, 2026. “The Defense Department went on a $93 billion spending spree in 2025.”

“Some of the frivolous September purchases made under Secretary Pete Hegseth’s stewardship include a $98,329 Steinway & Sons grand piano for the Air Force chief of staff’s home, $5.3 million for Apple devices such as the new iPad, and an astronomical amount of shellfish, including $2 million for Alaskan king crab and $6.9 million worth of lobster tail. (Lobster tail is apparently a favorite of Hegseth’s Pentagon—the department spent more than $7.4 million total on the luxury item in March, May, June, and October.)

In other pricey food purchases, the government decided to drop $15.1 million for ribeye steak (again, just in September), $124,000 for ice cream machines, and $139,224 on 272 orders of doughnuts.”

Liz Dye, Bondi Demands DOJ Exempt From Ethics Oversight. Legal Eagle, Mar 10, 2026. “Facing a record number of ethics complaints, Pam Bondi declares that State Bar Associations cannot investigate DOJ attorneys.”

Matt Bernstein and Krystal Ball, What I Learned From 12 Hours of DOGE Bro Depositions. Matt Bernstein and Breaking Points, Mar 20, 2026. Perhaps the last word on DOGE and the supposed budget cutting they did, which resulted in an increased budget with other ideological goals achieved. Matt and Krystal comment on the two former DOGE employees — young, White men named Justin Fox and Nathan Cavanaugh — who were deposed in a lawsuit brought by organizations who want the money that Congress appropriated to them. “Meritocracy” is often code for White, male identity politics.

Maxine Joselow and Brad Plumer, Trump Administration to Pay $1 Billion to Energy Giant to Cancel Wind Farms. New York Times, Mar 23, 2026. “In exchange, the French company TotalEnergies would invest in oil and natural gas projects in Texas and elsewhere.”

Heather Cox Richardson, March 23, 2026. Letters from an American, Mar 24, 2026. Trump posted on his social media that Iran-US peace negotiations were heading in a positive direction, which caused a stock market rally. But there appears to have been insider trading. See again, Jonathan Rausch, One Word Describes Trump. The Atlantic, Feb 24, 2025. That word is patrimonialism.

““What is happening here?” wrote Adam Kobeissi about the stock market in his newsletter. The answer to which social media posters jumped was market manipulation. Economist Paul Krugman suggested the same in a post today, noting that someone who had insider knowledge “could have sold a bunch of crude oil futures, at very high prices, Brent was over $112 over the weekend, then bought them back immediately after Trump’s announcement of triumphal progress, but before the Iranians said that is not happening. And you could have turned a very, very nice, very large profit.” Indeed, by the end of the day, reporters like Yun Li at CNBC noted that about fifteen minutes before Trump’s announcement there had been a sudden and sharp jump in S&P 500 futures and oil futures.”

Salvador Rizzo and Andrew Ackerman, Prosecutor Admits Government Lacks Evidence of Misconduct by Fed Chair. Washington Post, Mar 25, 2026.

Finn Hartnett, Bombshell Jack Smith Report Reveals Why Trump Hoarded Classified Docs. The New Republic, Mar 25, 2026. “One of the documents Trump kept was so sensitive that only six people were authorized to view it.” “Former special counsel Jack Smith concluded that Trump took the documents to help advance his business interests, according to case records obtained by Democrats and reviewed by MS NOW.

Alisa Valdes-Rodrigues, Jeffrey Epstein Wasn't Rich. But the Secret Zionist Club That Funded Him Was.‍ ‍The Pugilist with Alisa Valdes-Rodriguez | Substack, Apr 1, 2026.

Jermaine Fowler, Gambling on Death. The Humanity Archive | Substack, Apr 5, 2026. “This weekend, a betting market opened on whether an American soldier bleeding in an Iranian mountain would be found alive. Yesterday, he was found.”

Mary Sherman, Trump Accounts: Who Benefits? Likely Not Your Kids. The Lever, Apr 10, 2026. “Sold as a lifeline for the next generation, Trump Accounts risk deepening inequality while delivering limited gains to the children they’re intended to help.”

Ivan Taylor, Trump Administration Funding Cut Threatens Future of Catholic Charities Program for Migrant Children in Miami. CBS News, Apr 16, 2026. Ewan Palmer, Trump Yanks Millions From Catholic Charities Amid Pope Feud. Daily Beast, Apr 16, 2026.

Liz Oyer, Crisis and Opportunity at DOJ. @Lawyer_Oyer, May 12, 2026. Approximately 11k people have left the DOJ. Trump’s DOJ is desperately trying to hire people because they are so understaffed.

Kali Holloway, The Devastating Double Standard for January 6 Rioters. The Nation, May 13, 2026. “The Trump administration wields the full strength of its punitive power against immigrants, political opponents, and marginalized groups—and pardons January 6 offenders.”

Meet the Press, Former Government Watchdog Says Trump Stock Trades ‘Completely Unprecedented’. NBC News, May 15, 2026.

Krystal Ball and Saagar Enjeti, Revealed: Trump Buys Palantir, Pumps Stock. Breaking Points, May 18, 2026. Actually, lots of major American companies like NVidia, Palantir, Paramount, Boeing, Tesla, Apple, Meta, Visa, CITI, Qualcomm, and GE Aerospace just in the first few months of 2026. This was first reported by Emily Herbert and Ian Hodgson, Trump Discloses Hundreds of Millions of Dollars in Trades in First Quarter, Financial Times, May 15, 2026.

The Korean Vegan, Trump vs. IRS Explained. The Korean Vegan, May 20, 2026. A 3 minute short explainer. Trump took advantage of a conflicts checks provision that kicked the case to the plenary control of the DOJ, led by his personal lawyer Todd Blanche. “This is like a basketball team reffed by the other team’s coach.”

Jason Linkins, Trump Is Now a World-Class Kleptocrat. The New Republic, May 23, 2026. “The president’s demand for a slush fund to pay billions of dollars to his cronies places him among the planet’s most infamous political criminals.”

Natalie Bettendorf, The Spy Planes That Helped Jeffrey Epstein Take Off. The Lever, May 28, 2026. “How the convicted sex trafficker built his power in the shadows of the Iran-Contra affair — and why no one stopped him.” Just one more thing that Ronald Reagan gifted us with.