The $1.776 Billion Slush Fund

I am so distraught and angry that I can physically feel my stomach churn:

The latest and most egregious example of the Trump administration’s corruption is the outrageous $1.776 billion slush fund to reward his loyal subjects who claim the government was “weaponized” against them, particularly those who rioted at the Capital on January 6. I’d call that an insurrection aiming to keep President Trump in office.

Tied to this slush fund, the president’s personal attorney who now heads the Justice Department “negotiated” a deal to protect the president, his family, and businesses from IRS audits or future claims — despite a federal law that bars the president from interfering with the IRS.

Add all the stock trades timed to benefit from the president’s insider knowledge, the jet from Qatar, and the blatant business deals enriching his family.

(Hunter Biden was such an amateur.)

The president claims his administration is the most transparent in history. Yes, the most transparently corrupt.

This week when I filled my car, I paid $4.19 a gallon for the lowest grade of regular, the highest price since the president unilaterally attacked Iran. There’s no end in sight regardless of his yo-yo optimism, well timed to play the market.

Despite the war with Iran and the escalating cost of living, the president seems more interested in his big beautiful ballroom. I recall he said it would be funded with private donations; now he wants Congress to kick in $1 billion.

All these billions, not counting the to-be-defined cost of the Iran war, yet Republicans say we must cut programs that benefit Americans, like Medicaid and the tax credits to reduce the cost of health insurance.

By enabling the president to do whatever he wants, the Republican Congress is abetting his authoritarian hold on the country and undermining the Constitution. The words of Liz Cheney ring in my ears:

“I say this to my Republican colleagues who are defending the indefensible: There will come a day when Donald Trump is gone, but your dishonor will remain.”

Hagiography

Hagiography. A new word in my lexicon.

I’ve heard it from several pundits who are responding to the assassination of Charlie Kirk. None is applauding or justifying the killing. Quite the opposite, they are decrying the use of violence as a means of disagreement. Invoking hagiography, they are noting that many of the responses to his martyrdom are diminishing the divisive and hateful messages he promoted.

A good example from Jamelle Boule worth reading:
Charlie Kirk Didn’t Shy Away From Who He Was. We Shouldn’t Either.

Overwhelmed Yet Taking Notes

Nearing seven months of the second Trump presidency, I’m overwhelmed with the steps this administration has already taken to pervert and dismember our democracy. Their strategy of flooding the zone is working. Every day, something egregious, at least one if not multiple actions.

Commenting on Robert Hubble’s Substack post today, a reader copied a list of Trump’s authoritarian actions published by the Caledonian-Record, a conservative newspaper in St. Johnsbury, Vermont (in the northeast corner of Vermont, not far from New Hampshire). This is the publisher’s list:

For the record, our concern about Donald Trump’s leadership is not about party loyalty; it’s about democratic norms. His record includes:

Capturing the justice system through politicized prosecutions and intimidation of judges and lawyers;

Purging and politicizing the civil service via loyalty tests, watchlists, and removals;

Overusing emergency powers to bypass Congress on trade, immigration, and security;

Manipulating elections through extreme gerrymandering, weakening voting-rights enforcement, and politicizing election machinery;

Using domestic militarization for routine policing and threatening cross-border military actions;

Pressuring universities and civil society through funding freezes, punitive settlements, and licensing leverage;

Politicizing science by deleting datasets, blocking research, and controlling grant decisions;

Undermining independent media through defunding, blacklists, and legal harassment;

Profiting from public office through conflicts of interest, foreign gifts, and opaque schemes;

Weaponizing tariffs against allies;

Undermining immigration rights, including birthright citizenship;

Attacking diversity, equity, inclusion, and civil rights infrastructure;

Rolling back equal-protection enforcement;

Weakening social programs such as Social Security, Medicare, and student debt relief.

We believe these are not conservative values — they are authoritarian ones. Between the loss of local journalism and the normalization of such tactics, all Americans, regardless of politics, stand to lose.

Now, if I’m asked why I don’t support the president, rather than staring like a deer in the headlights at the incredulity of the question, I can simply show this list and say, “Pick one.”