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Abbreviated Pundit Roundup: The culture of corruption [1]
['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']
Date: 2025-06-08
We begin today with Ben Rhodes writing for The New York Times about the totality of the corruption of the Trump regime and who will ultimately pay for it.
President Trump has more than doubled his personal wealth since starting his 2024 election campaign. Billions of foreign dollars have flowed into his family’s real estate and crypto ventures. A plane that doubles as a “palace in the sky” has been given for Mr. Trump’s use by the government of Qatar. [...] No country has more leverage over the global economy. Through tariffs announced on every country on earth, Mr. Trump has personalized that power. Tariffs give him the authority to move markets. He can turn the dial up or down. He has bypassed Congress and cast efforts to constrain him as anti-American, lashing out at “USA HATING JUDGES” on a trade court that tried to limit his tariff authority. This creates limitless opportunities for profit. [...] The American people will be losers in this process. Mr. Trump has ideological and personal reasons to perpetuate tariff uncertainty to maintain his power. Even if he succeeds in extracting some trade concessions, American businesses, investors and consumers have to expect continued volatility, higher prices and only temporary resolutions to trade tensions. In the medium term, countries like Vietnam or blocs like the European Union will most likely pivot away from the United States to protect themselves from an erratic American president and a dysfunctional American system. Why keep a noose around your neck when you can shift trade, supply chains and investment elsewhere — perhaps to a more predictable China?
Paul Rosenzweig of The Atlantic says that the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Trump v. United States granting immunity for “official” acts is the underpinning for the “autopen” investigation of former President Joe Biden.
On a legal level, one thing is striking about the text of the memo: The order does not explicitly target Biden himself, at least not directly—only the aides who supposedly facilitated Biden’s use of the autopen and suppressed evidence of his decline. Biden’s absence as a direct target is almost certainly the result of last summer’s Supreme Court decision in Trump v. United States granting presidents immunity for “official” acts. That decision was intended to stanch a cycle of retribution. The Biden administration’s investigation of Trump, the argument goes, would beget the vengeful Trump investigation of Biden. And so on, the Court feared, ad infinitum, with each successive turn of the political wheel. By this logic, the decision is what is now protecting Biden from just the sort of retribution the Court hoped to avoid. [...] To begin with, the absurd investigation of Biden’s cognitive decline was almost certainly encouraged by the immunity decision itself—in the sense that the grant of presidential immunity frees Trump from any personal responsibility for his own “creative” use of the law. In a rational world, Trump might face legal consequences for his illicit abuse of the criminal-justice system—in the form, say, of a civil suit for malicious prosecution. But thanks to Trump v. United States, Trump is free to undertake any plausibly official act with complete impunity, including ordering nonsensical investigations of those who worked for his predecessor. Even if Biden is protected, the Court’s immunity calculus failed to account for Trump’s obsession and left open the possibility that an opponent’s aides would be targeted. Which brings us to the final and, perhaps, most insidious aspect of Trump’s order: a possible further expansion of presidential immunity. Following the Trump decision, some defenders of the Court contended that the adverse impact of granting presidents criminal immunity would be minimal. Aides to the president, through whom he acted, would, they argued, remain subject to criminal prosecution and thus be deterred from partaking in criminal activity. And so, the argument went, the grant of presidential immunity was no big deal in the grand scheme of things.
Thea Sebastian and Hanna Love write for The Hill that the steep cuts in medical and food assistance in the Republican budget bill will not only affect public health but also public safety.
But it’s not just health in the crosshairs — public safety is too. If lawmakers pass the package as it stands now, their actions are likely to increase crime nationwide, in red states, blue states, cities, rural areas and everywhere in between. As researchers, our work focuses on the “social determinants of safety,” the underlying social and economic factors that affect the likelihood of crime, violence, and community stability. By addressing the building blocks of safe communities, including education, youth programs, health services, the built environment and economic stability, states can meaningfully prevent violence and save billions in downstream costs from jailing and hospitalization. In many cases, these investments may not seem directly related to public safety. It’s not obvious, for example, that a grant for home repairs in low-income neighborhoods might help reduce homicides by more than 20 percent. It’s also not immediately obvious why something as simple as summer jobs might reduce youth arrests for violent crime by 43 percent.
Heather Cox Richardson discusses the corruption of known American history by the Trump regime and what she and other historians can do about it.
The Trump administration claims to be deeply concerned about American history. In March, Trump issued an executive order calling for “restoring truth and sanity to American history.” It complained, as Trump did in his first term, that there has been “a concerted and widespread effort to rewrite our Nation’s history, replacing objective facts with a distorted narrative driven by ideology rather than truth. This revisionist movement seeks to undermine the remarkable achievements of the United States by casting its founding principles and historical milestones in a negative light.” The document ordered the secretary of the interior to reinstate any “monuments, memorials, statues, markers, or similar properties” that had been “removed or changed to perpetuate a false reconstruction of American history, inappropriately minimize the value of certain historical events or figures, or include any other improper partisan ideology.” It spelled out that the administration wanted only “solemn and uplifting public monuments that remind Americans of our extraordinary heritage, consistent progress toward becoming a more perfect Union, and unmatched record of advancing liberty, prosperity, and human flourishing.” [...] Trump’s enthusiasm for using history to cement his power has little to do with actual history. History is the study of how and why societies change. To understand that change, historians use evidence—letters, newspapers, photographs, songs, art, objects, records, and so on—to figure out what levers moved society. In that study, accuracy is crucial. You cannot understand what creates change in a society unless you look carefully at all the evidence. An inaccurate picture will produce a poor understanding of what creates change, and people who absorb that understanding will make poor decisions about their future. Those who cannot remember the past accurately are condemned to repeat its worst moments.
Ramon Antonio Vargas of the Guardian previews an interview by CBS Sunday Morning’s Robert Costa with former Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden.
Hayden’s comments to the CBS national correspondent Robert Costa provide a first-hand glimpse at the unceremonious way she was fired from a post to which the US Senate confirmed her in 2016. She had been thrust under political pressure by a conservative advocacy group that had pledged to drive out anyone deemed to be standing in the way of the Trump White House’s rightwing agenda. That organization, the American Accountability Foundation (AAF), leveled accusations against Hayden and other library leaders that they had promoted children’s books with “radical content” as well as literature by opponents of the president. Hayden then received an email on 8 May that read: “Carla, on behalf of President Donald J Trump, I am writing to inform you that your position as the Librarian of Congress is terminated effective immediately. Thank you for your service.” Asked by Acosta whether her tenure really ended “with one missive that’s electronic”, Hayden replied: “That was it.” She also remarked: “I was never notified beforehand and after.”
Finally today, Antoni Gutiérrez-Rubí of El País in English writes Part 4 in his continuing series “Trump Observatory” about Trump being a bully.
In voters’ eyes, Trump was seen as less moral, less trustworthy, and even less likable than his rival. But he had guts — he had the strength to push his proposals through. And for many, that was enough to earn their vote — especially among those who were eager to blow up the system. [...] To maintain that image of a strongman, the Republican has relied on the same tactic from the beginning: attack and ridicule. Trump behaves like the schoolyard bully — the kid who doesn’t care about being liked because he knows he can get what he wants through fear and insults, by overpowering the weaker ones. [...] Moreover, his aggressive style reinforces his image as an anti-establishment figure — a man who has come to tear down the existing order, a core element of his narrative. That’s why he never backs down, never retreats from his mission to steamroll his opponents and certain social groups, both politically and personally.
Do read the three previous installments of the Gutiérrez-Rubi series, that “obscure” and notorious “Catalan operator” and “pawn of the international left,” lol. That’s a lot!
Everyone have the best possible day that you can!
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