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Trump Hosting Another 'Orgy Of Corruption' In Palm Beach To Push $Trump Memecoin

Trump Hosting Another 'Orgy Of Corruption' In Palm Beach To Push $Trump Memecoin

President Donald Trump claimed he would “drain the swamp” upon being elected, but a new report on a lavish party to be held at his Mar-a-Lago estate contradicts the promises of reform embedded in that claim: The top 297 investors in his meme coin $Trump will attend an April 25th “conference” at the swanky mansion.

“According to the invitation, the top 29 holders of $TRUMP will have a ‘VIP Reception with YOUR FAVORITE PRESIDENT, and other Superstar guests!’” reported The Daily Beast's Mary Papenfuss on Sunday. “Join the ‘most exclusive crypto and business finance conference in the world,’ the announcement gushes.”

Papenfuss added, “The last time the president mixed his crypto business with politics was at another highly controversial crypto fête a year ago at his Virginia golf club, where the top 220 $TRUMP investors gathered. Massachusetts Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren bashed the event as an ‘orgy of corruption.’ Guests spent an average of $1.37 million (in real dollars) purchasing $TRUMP, the Daily Beast reported at the time.”

Notably the earlier dinner, which netted an average investment of $1.37 million per guest, had among its guests the crypto billionaire Justin Sun who has been accused of SEC market manipulation — allegations that were quietly dropped by the Trump administration shortly before he attended. Furthering accusations that Trump is providing favors to those who pay him or his administration, he launched one billion $TRUMP coins three days before his inauguration, collecting a transaction fee on every trade as well as on the coins he directly sells.

“It is essential that Congress fully understand the extent to which President Trump and his family are profiting off of his cryptocurrency ventures," Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut and Adam Schiff of California.

Indeed, Trump’s generosity to the crypto community has even been at the expense of other crime victims. Earlier this month, The Trace released a report which revealed that the Crime Victims Fund, which was created by the 1984 Crime Victims Act to fund "state and local programs including domestic violence shelters, rape crisis centers and child abuse treatment programs,” has been effectively defunded by Trump. This is because the program is funded primarily by “criminal fines and penalties from convictions in federal cases, typically white-collar prosecutions." Yet his pardons have removed $113 million that would have gone to the fund, with most of the lost money occurring due to a single crypto pardon.

"Most of that figure is from a single case," The Trace report explained. "Last year, Trump pardoned HDR Global Trading Limited, the owner and operator of the crypto exchange BitMEX, which had been ordered to pay $100m in fines for flouting anti-money laundering laws. Trump issued the pardon, the first for a corporation, just hours before the payment was due. Because the pardon calls for the 'remission of any and all fines, penalties, forfeitures, and restitution ordered by the Court,' that $100m will never make it to the Crime Victims Fund."

Steve Derene, a co-founder of the National Association of VOCA Assistance Administrators who helped craft the original 1984 bill, told The Trace that “what really drives the fund are these very large, very few cases, which are all corporate cases. Just a couple settlements can really mean the difference in keeping this fund afloat.”


The Startling Facts That Melania Left Out Of Her Jeffrey Epstein Speech

The Startling Facts That Melania Left Out Of Her Jeffrey Epstein Speech

President Donald Trump’s wife, First Lady Melania Trump, delivered an unexpected White House statement on Thursday denying her controversial links with the late convicted sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein — yet a recent report suggests there is more to the story.

“Epstein even claimed that the first time Trump slept with his now wife was on his plane, dubbed the Lolita Express,” The Daily Beast reported. “In her statement, Melania said she had never been on his plane.”

The report added, “The pedophile spoke extensively with author Michael Wolff in August 2017 for his bestseller Fire and Fury, two years before he was found dead in his New York jail cell in 2019. Authorities say he died by suicide.”

Speaking at her unexpected press conference, the First Lady denied any links to Epstein. She also claimed that her name was not mentioned in any of the documents in the Epstein Files. Some of her claims were demonstrably false. For example, in 2002 Melania Trump sent an email to Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell in which she initiated by saying “HI!” and signed it “Love, Melania.” Maxwell meanwhile referred to then-Melania Knauss as “sweet pea.” Additionally, a 2016 email to Epstein from a redacted sender mentioned that Melania first met her future husband through Epstein.

“I remember flying back with Donald on his plane the first weekend I went to visit you in Florida was the weekend he met Melania and he kept on coming out of the bedroom saying’ wow what a hot piece of a--,’” the unknown sender wrote in the email.

"Be cautious about what you believe," Melania Trump said during her Thursday press conference. "These images and stories are completely false. I am not a witness or a named witness in connection with any of Epstein's crimes. My name has never appeared in court documents, [unintelligible] victim's statements, or FBI interviews surrounding the Epstein matter."

Wolff is currently in the middle of a lawsuit with Melania Trump, confirming on his Substack on Thursday that at least some of the details about which he is being sued are unrelated to Epstein. Wolff said that Melania Trump does not live anywhere near the White House, with her relationship to Trump himself being “remote at best.” Although the Trumps want to move the lawsuit from New York where Wolff lives to Florida, where they allegedly live, Wolff argued that Trump actually lives in New York, especially while her son attended New York University.

"Basically, she has never left New York. She is trying to live the life of a superstar in New York," Wolff alleged.

Reprinted with permission from Alternet

Critics Roar As Trump Delivers 'TACO Tuesday' With Iran Ceasefire

Critics Roar As Trump Delivers 'TACO Tuesday' With Iran Ceasefire

President Donald Trump threatened to destroy Iranian civilization unless it capitulated to American demands on Tuesday morning, then walked back his pledge on Tuesday evening — continuing his “Trump Always Chickens Out” (TACO) pattern, which many on social media quickly pointed out.

"After promising to destroy Iran, Trump agrees to a ‘TACO Tuesday’ two-week ceasefire,” wrote AF Post shortly after Trump’s Iran announcement. Similarly an account called “Republicans Against Trump” pointed out the president’s convenient flip-flop.

"BREAKING: Donald Trump agrees to suspend U.S. bombing of Iran for two weeks, ‘This will be a double sided CEASEFIRE!’” the account posted. “TACO.”

Similarly Kyle Kulinski, a talk show host, immediately drew attention to Trump’s vacillating on his vow to commit genocide against Iran.

“Trump TACO hits,” Kulinski posted on X. “Any minute now Iran will say they didn’t agree to anything at all. Genocidal threats and war profiteering market manipulation. Get this man THE F--- OUT OF THE OVAL OFFICE & INTO PRISON.”

Another X user, who goes by Ross Hendricks, described how he believes Trump’s TACO tactics in Iran will negatively impact gas prices.

“For those who care… I’m officially out of the long #oil trade,” Hendricks wrote. “Had a good run, bought many dips on endless TACO headlines, but this one feels different. Stakes are simply too high for Trump not to TACO here. As always, I could be wrong and maybe we’re headed for $200. But the easy money has been made IMO and Im happy to simply watch from the sidelines”

Journalist Tara Palmeri, noting how Trump used Pakistan’s diplomatic overtures as a pretense for backing off on his threat, used that fact to make a culinary pun off of Trump’s reversal.

“So Trump is ordering Pakistan to make him a TACO, but definitely do it, please,” Palmeri wrote. Perhaps thinking of the same fears that motivated Trump to back down, X user Oliver Alexander posted about how the president may have still inspired violence despite his reversal.

“Iran waiting until the second Trump posts his TACO ceasefire on Truth Social to launch a ballistic missile volleyball at Israel is peak 2026,” Oliver wrote.

Earlier this month ABC's Kathryn Diss pointed out that Trump’s TACO strategy, though seemingly able to extract concessions from Iran, could have blowback in the long term.

"As someone who tends to shoot from the hip, it is conceivable to imagine that Mr. Trump didn't fully comprehend the global impact his threat would have," Diss said. "Or perhaps he even thought that Iran would back down."

Diss added: "The Hormuz crisis, which has crippled global energy markets, has become a key issue preventing Mr. Trump from ending the war. With global energy markets reeling, it's likely the president's advisors informed him that carrying through on the ultimatum could send markets spiralling further, causing global chaos. And this is something Donald Trump doesn't want."

Former Republican consultant Rick Wilson shared a similar observation earlier in April.

"Have we reached the point where the TACO trick only works if he actually TACOs, you know?” Wilson explained. “And he hasn't. He's still going all in on this war."

Reprinted with permission from Alternet

'Not Good': Trump's Courtroom Bullying Could Backfire In Humiliating Loss

'Not Good': Trump's Courtroom Bullying Could Backfire In Humiliating Loss

President Donald Trump may have attended Wednesday’s Supreme Court session in person to intimidate the judges, but if so his effort likely backfired, according to one expert.

“President Donald Trump bulldozed yet another longstanding norm of American government on Wednesday by becoming the first modern president to attend an oral argument of the Supreme Court,” CNN’s Aaron Blake wrote on Wednesday. Characterizing this as an effort to “browbeat” the judges, Blake elaborated that “Trump has made no secret that he wants these justices to feel the pressure. He savaged Kavanaugh in 2021 for occasionally ruling against him despite Trump having stood by his nominee during an arduous confirmation process in 2018. Trump has also frequently attacked Justice Amy Coney Barrett as she has emerged as a tough vote for him. And after the tariffs decision in February, Trump said both Barrett and Justice Neil Gorsuch were an ‘embarrassment to their families.’”

Yet Blake noted that despite Trump’s obvious desire to change the Supreme Court’s tune on cases pertaining to his administration, “he chose to do this at a particularly inauspicious time. Over the last few weeks, a series of rulings have gone against him on some high-profile issues” including those involving his efforts to kill the Voice of America, exclude mainstream media for Defense Department briefings and sanction Anthropic for not allowing the Pentagon to do whatever it wants with their technology.

“On Tuesday alone, judges both overturned Trump’s order ending NPR and PBS funding and halted Trump’s efforts to build a new ballroom on the White House grounds — which might be one of Trump’s most prized initiatives right now,” Blake added. “None of these cases are over. But they add to an increasingly ugly picture of how Trump’s policies have fared in court. (Because the courts take a while to act, that picture has come into focus slowly.)”

For these reasons, Blake anticipated Trump’s effort to strong arm the Supreme Court with his presence could backfire.

“It could make the justices — and other judges — feel more like they have to stand up for their branch of government, lest it look like Trump is controlling them to some extent,” Blake said.

Independent of Trump’s arrival, there are reasons to believe the Supreme Court will rule against Trump. He is challenging birthright citizenship, which was enshrined in the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution in 1868 and guarantees citizenship to every human being born in the United States. Because a constitutional amendment can only be changed by ratifying a new amendment, and not through executive orders as Trump has tried, the case against his effort seems cut-and-dried.

Per Supreme Court reporter Jimmy Hoover from Law.com, "After a friendly question from Justice Clarence Thomas, Chief Justice John Roberts right out of the gate expresses skepticism of the Trump administration's central argument: that children of undocumented immigrants are not 'subject to the jurisdiction' of the United States. He calls the [solicitor general’s] argument 'very quirky.'"

Justices Neil Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barrett also seemed ready to reject Trump’s argument, and even Brett Kavanaugh pushed back several times. Because the three Democratic judges are also expected to vote against Trump, this means the president could lose by a margin as high as 6-3 or 7-2.

"It was clear over the past few hours that the justices, the majority of them, are deeply skeptical about his executive order limiting birthright citizenship,” CNN reporter Paula Reid said on Wednesday about the Supreme Court hearing. “Even the three conservative justices he appointed do not appear to be willing to side with his administration's interpretation of the 14th Amendment.”

Legal analyst Elliot Williams, a former federal prosecutor, told CNN that things could tilt against Trump in a way shocking even to contemporary observers.

"You could see an 8 to 1 decision here,” Williams said. “It's not out of the question. Certainly, there are five votes that were quite skeptical of the president and probably more. This was just not good."

Reprinted with permission from Alternet


'Not The Owner!': Bush Judge Emphatically Rejects Trump's Gaudy Ballroom

'Not The Owner!': Bush Judge Emphatically Rejects Trump's Gaudy Ballroom

President Donald Trump must stop demolishing the White House’s East Wing in his effort to build a ballroom, ordered a judge appointed by one of Trump’s fellow Republican presidents.

“The President of the United States is the steward of the White House for future generations of First Families. He is not, however, the owner!” Judge Richard Leon, who had been appointed by President George W. Bush, said in his decision. Denying Trump’s assertion to preexisting authority to destroy parts of the White House and pay for the new construction with private funds, Leon agreed with the National Trust for Historic Preservation in the United States that likely “no statute comes close to giving the President the authority he claims to have. As such, I must therefore GRANT the National Trust's Motion for a Preliminary Injunction, and the ballroom construction project must stop until Congress authorizes its completion.”

Leon later reiterated, “unless and until Congress blesses this project through statutory authorization, construction has to stop!"

Journalist and lawyer Julie DeCaro commented that Leon’s decision, though legally correct, came far too late to prevent the destruction of the historic building wing.

"It would have been great to get this opinion before he demolished the East Wing, but no one moved fast enough,” DeCaro posted on Bluesky. “It's a metaphor for his entire administration."

DeCaro is not alone in feeling dismayed that Trump was able to destroy the East Wing without meaningful resistance. After Trump first announced his destruction of the East Wing, the White House received over 9,000 pages of public comments and almost none of them were supportive. Observations included "complete DISASTER,” an “eyesore,” an “abomination,” "NO GAUDY FAKE GOLD STUFF ALL OVER THE PLACE,” “no one wants to be in an adjunct building in a large crowd with lengthened security protocols” and “appalling.” D.C. preservationist, Alison Hoagland, said that “constructing a ballroom is possible, but it should be deferential to the White House, not overwhelming,” while Rep. Michael Turner (R-OH) spoke out in protest.

"The stark images of the East Wing demolished in mere days were deeply disturbing to Americans who cherish preservation of our nation's history," Turner said. Similarly former Rep. Joe Walsh (R-IL) referred to Trump as a “jackass” for destroying the East Wing.

"This jack—— in the f—— White House is destroying a permanent structure that can't come back," Walsh said. "He can't do this on his own! There's a rigorous, rigorous process to mess with the restructuring, structural changes of the White House, and he just blows right through all of that!"

In addition to destroying the East Wing, Trump announced earlier in March that he will destroy Tennessee Flagstone pavers on the West Wing Colonnade installed by President Thomas Jefferson to replace them with a black granite installation, which he also says he will pay for himself. The Jeffersonian originals will be sent to a nursery for safekeeping. On this occasion, ripping out Jefferson’s physical legacy symbolizes Trump’s opposition to his political legacy.

“[Jefferson’s] 'empire of liberty' offered the potential to dismantle the artificial hierarchies inherited from the past and imbue all aspects of life with the promise of freedom and happiness," Dean Caivano, an assistant professor of political theory at Lehigh University and author of A Politics of All: Thomas Jefferson and Radical Democracy, told this author for Salon Magazine in 2024. "Although this idealized image of a free and harmonious American society is undeniably marred by the institution and legacy of slavery, overlooking the role of education and science as prerequisites for freedom and equality diminishes our ability to assess the historical and contemporary limits of American democracy critically."

Caivano contrasted this with Trump’s attitude toward science, which "relies on reactionary, draconian, and dogmatic thinking. By launching a direct assault on the scientific community, Project 2025 undermines the foundation of an enlightened citizenry that Jefferson held in high regard. The project advocates for dramatic cuts to research and development, promotes climate denialism, and seeks to hyper-politicize public health and STEM fields."

Reprinted with permission from Alternet


Mike Cernovich, Original MAGA Influencer And Pizzagate Promoter, Turns On Trump

Mike Cernovich, Original MAGA Influencer And Pizzagate Promoter, Turns On Trump

President Donald Trump is losing many once-staunch members of his right-wing base because they view him as “a lame duck and a loser,” according to a conservative commentator.

“Mike Cernovich is not just one of the original MAGA influencers, he’s arguably a paradigm case—the ever-active operative/influencer who just won’t stop coming up with crazy new ideas,” wrote The Bulwark’s Will Sommer on Monday.

Describing Cernovich’s evolution from a manosphere influencer in the early 2010s to a pro-Trump conspiracy theorist in 2016, Sommer pointed out that Cernovich in November described Trump’s D.C. “as a city consumed by corruption, with Trump appointees filling their pockets with impunity.” He added that Cernovich himself commented, “During recent visit in DC, the talk of everyone was how overt the corruption was. It’s at levels you read about in history books. In nearly every department. Lots of, ‘Do people just think Democrats will never win and they’ll all get away with this?’” On March 25 he tweeted about big trades that seem to coincide with major Trump administration news, “It was a scandal when Hunter Biden did less than this. New MAGA does not care.”

Sommer noted that Cernovich is not only upset with corruption.

"Whatever effects the ayahuasca may have had on his mind, Cernovich’s case is interesting to me because it signifies a generational fissure breaking out within MAGA,” Sommer observed. “A massive, multi-front fight over Israel, antisemitism, and the assassination conspiracy theories surrounding Charlie Kirk has been driving much of the discontent on the right. But there is also a class of original Trumpers like Cernovich who appear to be pivoting away from the president. They are convinced that he has fallen short on his promises and have been around D.C. enough to see how unethical and corrupt the administration is acting. They also increasingly look at Trump, embattled by the Jeffrey Epstein case and the Iran war, as a lame duck and a loser.”

Cernovich is not alone among Trumpers who are turning on Trump. Earlier in March, right-wing podcaster Joe Rogan said “America is great. Make America greater? I’m down. But Make America Great Again, and then it becomes a movement of a bunch of dorks. A lot of them are these really weird, f------ uninteresting, unintelligent people who have got something that they cling to.”

Shortly after Trump invaded Iran, Rogan described the war as “crazy” and the president’s supporters as having been “betrayed,” adding, “He ran on no more wars: End these stupid, senseless wars. And then we have one that we can’t even really clearly define why we did it.”

On Monday The Bulwark’s managing editor Sam Stein told MS NOW that Trump is “losing control” of his own movement.

“I think the risk for Trump here is twofold,” Stein told MS NOW host Katy Tur referring to both Rogan and another right-wing podcaster who has recently turned on Trump, Andrew Schulz.

“These are the podcasts that were gateways to a whole slice of the electorate that was just politically curious — not politically active — but they did get involved in 2024, and they got involved largely on behalf of Donald Trump,” Stein said. “Andrew Schulz, Rogan, and others activated them. But the other risk is that they're now potentially turning Donald Trump into a cultural punchline — that he's an idiot, that his supporters are dorks, that he's been fooled into doing all this stuff, and that he is a failure.”

He added, “Donald Trump, for better or for worse, has had an incredible ability to shape perceptions of himself and the cultural relevance that he has. And to a degree, he loses that control when these people turn on him — when his own supporters turn on him. That hasn't really happened in the entirety of his political career.”

Reprinted with permission from Alternet

Kent Conundrum: Nazi-Adjacent Trump Aide Resigns To Protest Iran War

Kent Conundrum: Nazi-Adjacent Trump Aide Resigns To Protest Iran War

President Donald Trump is denouncing Joe Kent, his former director of the National Counterterrorism Center, for resigning in protest over his invasion of Iran. Now a respected columnist is warning Trump’s critics that although Kent may be correct in opposing the Iran war, that does not mean he is on the side of anti-Trumpers.

It just means that “it’s getting crowded under” the bus under which Trump keeps throwing people.

“How does media ― legitimate media ― cover a story in which a bad person does the right thing?” wrote Bill Goodykoontz of the Arizona Republic. “File under: A stopped watch is right twice a day. And more chaos from the Donald Trump era, and how that has affected media coverage.”

Goodykoontz then praised CNN anchor Dana Bash for explaining when covering the news that “Kent is not a typical intelligence official. He is a Trump appointee known for his ties to White nationalists, Nazi sympathizers and an embrace of the Jan. 6 conspiracy theories that we have seen so much (of) on the far right."

Goodykoontz said that “that is the perfect way to place Kent into context, and it should be repeated every time the story is updated. Good for Bash. (All the cable news networks covered the resignation, but Bash's was the most clear and efficient that I saw.)”

As for Kent’s fate, Goodykoontz expressed a rather blase attitude.

“Who gets thrown under the Trump bus next, and how will the media cover it?” Goodykoontz said. “It's hard to say, but it's getting crowded under there.”

Trump’s invasion of Iran is also harshly criticized by many of his fellow conservatives. Contributing to the conservative publication The Bulwark on Tuesday, commentator Jonathan V. Last wrote that Trump’s behavior is “stupid,” citing as one example that “mining the Strait of Hormuz is the single biggest danger America faced heading into any conflict with Iran. How did our commander-in-chief plan to deal with it?”

He added, “Six months ago the Navy decommissioned its four Avenger-class minesweepers that had been stationed in Bahrain precisely to deal with Iranian mines.”

Joe Rogan, a popular right-wing podcaster who openly supported Trump in the 2024 presidential election, admitted earlier in March that some Trump supporters felt “betrayed” by his invasion of Iran.

“Well, it just seems so insane, based on what he ran on. I mean, this is why a lot of people feel betrayed, right?” Rogan said in an episode of his podcast The Joe Rogan Experience. “He ran on, ‘No more wars,’ ‘End these stupid, senseless wars,’ and then we have one that we can’t even really clearly define why we did it.”

Reprinted with permission from Alternet

Nuclear Expert Says Trump's Iran Argument Lacks Even 'A Scintilla Of Evidence'

Nuclear Expert Says Trump's Iran Argument Lacks Even 'A Scintilla Of Evidence'

President Donald Trump, like the previous Republican president George W. Bush, incorrectly claimed that the Middle Eastern country he wished to invade possessed a nuclear weapon. Unlike Bush, however, Trump never even attempted to create a convincing argument as to the nukes' existence.

“Trump hasn’t presented a scintilla of evidence that Iran represents an imminent nuclear or missile threat to America,” wrote Joseph Cirincione, national security analyst and anti-nuclear activist, wrote on his Substack on Sunday. “He has skipped the laborious process of manipulating the intelligence, presenting false reports and assessments, of trying to convince the American people, the Congress, our allies and the United Nations that there was an urgent necessity to go to war.”

Instead of creating a large body of supposed evidence that could be presented to the public, Cirincione said that Trump relies “on friendly and compliant media to amplify his lies over and over” and a “slavish Republican majority in the House and Senate who parrot his lies and refuse to hold any open hearings on the war or debate an authorization resolution.” The president has even tried to curtail the First Amendment right of the press to critique their activity.

“As part of his effort to consolidate Trump’s authoritarian rule, his Federal Communications Commission Chair Brendan Carr is threatening to revoke the licenses of broadcasters who ‘want us to lose the war’ by reporting stories unfavorable to the administration,” Cirincione wrote. “Trump is also aided by legions of well-funded groups backing the far-right government of Israel who are happy to support a war that they believe will destroy a country they consider the arch-enemy of Israel.”

The anti-nuclear activist also commented that Trump is better serving the agenda of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu than he is his own.

“I have been in Washington for over 40 years and I cannot remember a time when Netanyahu did not want to invade Iran,” Cirincione wrote. “His persistence paid off. He finally found an American president so stupid that he would do what every Republican and Democratic president since Ronald Reagan refused to do: start a pointless, enormously costly war with an adversary on the other side of the globe that, however odious, posed only secondary threats to America.”

Ironically, Trump spent months prior to invading Iran (and, before that, Venezuela) demanding that he be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

“Considering your Country decided not to give me the Nobel Peace Prize for having stopped 8 Wars PLUS, I no longer feel an obligation to think purely of Peace, although it will always be predominant, but can now think about what is good and proper for the United States of America,” Trump told Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre earlier in March regarding being snubbed. He later added, “I’m no longer interested in it [the Peace Prize]."

In the words of Steve Schmidt, a Republican strategist who advised Bush, Trump’s exchange with Støre showed Trump has no interest in peace and wishes to wage war.

“No man of violence and venom can resist the siren song of modern warfare, which, after all, is just a game,” Schmidt wrote for his Substack, employing the term “game” sarcastically “This is Trump’s team: Hegseth, Rubio, Vance, Cain, Bondi, Noem, Kushner, Witkoff, Musk, Weiss, Ellison, Hannity, Graham, Patel. Never have so many nitwits commanded so much power. They are a terrifying bunch, to say the least.”

Schmidt concluded by writing “war is no game. Yet, it is treated as such by a group of vile men and women who are playing with human life as if they were gods. Trump is no god. There is no divinity lurking around Trump. There is only blackness. Only death. Only misery. Only wreckage. Only corruption.”

Earlier this month, a former employee for Trump expressed concern that the president will ultimately cause a nuclear war over Iran.


“Few Americans realize how close the president took us to the brink of nuclear war in his first term before aides talked him down,” Miles Taylor, the Department of Homeland Security chief of staff during Trump’s first term, wrote regarding the president’s warmongering against North Korea at that time. “What the public didn’t know at the time — and until years later — was that the president’s team was worried he might start a nuclear war.”


Now That White House Has Finally Booted Noem, Will Bondi Be Next?

Now That White House Has Finally Booted Noem, Will Bondi Be Next?

President Donald Trump fired Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem on Thursday — and, according to a prominent columnist, Attorney General Pam Bondi ought to be next.

“Back in Trump 1.0, Noem’s firing would have been just another Thursday,” wrote The Guardian’s Arwa Mahdawi on Saturday, pointing out that Trump frequently fired advisers and cabinet secretaries during that administration. Yet Mahdawi argued Noem’s firing may indicate a reversal of that trend, given that there is “currently a target on attorney general Pam Bondi’s back.” Five House Republicans joined their Democratic colleagues on Wednesday to subpoena Bondi to learn more about her controversial handling of the Jeffrey Epstein files. One day later, Rep. Shri Thanedar (D-MI) filed articles of impeachment against Bondi.

“While the Bondi subpoena is unlikely to result in justice for Epstein’s victims anytime soon, it is nevertheless a welcome development,” Mahdawi wrote. “Unlike her televised testimony before the House judiciary committee in February, this will be a closed-door hearing where she will be under oath and subject to perjury laws. This means she may be forced to answer questions more directly instead of just talking about the stock market.” The columnist added that forcing Bondi to testify keeps the Epstein files in the news despite the president’s attempts at distraction.

Mahdawi also drew attention to the contents of recently-released Epstein files that the Justice Department had previously withheld involving a woman making sexual assault accusations against Trump.

“These accusations have not been verified and the Guardian reported last week that some of the claims appear to contradict what is known about Epstein’s life in the early 1980s,” Mahdawi reported. “Nevertheless, there are a lot of questions currently being asked as to what other documents the justice department may have ‘accidentally’ not released. No doubt Bondi will soon be able to give us all some non-answers.”

When Bondi testified before the House regarding the Epstein files, Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) asked Bondi to apologize to the survivors for how the incomplete way in which the Epstein files have been released up to this point.

"Attorney General Bondi, you apologized to the survivors in your opening statement for what they went through at the hands of Jeffrey Epstein. Will you turn to them now and apologize for what your Department of Justice has put them through with the absolutely unacceptable release of the Epstein files and their information?" Jayapal asked Bondi. She refused to reply, instead criticizing former Attorney General Merrick Garland.

"I will reclaim my time because I asked a specific question that I would like you to answer," Jayapal repeated. "Will you turn to the survivors? This is not about anybody who came before you. It's about you taking responsibility for your Department of Justice and the harm that it has done to the survivors who are standing right behind you and are waiting for you to turn to them and apologize for what your Department of Justice —"

Bondi also controversially deflected a question about the Epstein files by demanding that Trump receive credit for then-recent gains in the stock market. When Ranking Member Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) seemed to laugh at Bondi's evasion of the question, she said "I don't know why you're laughing, I hear you're a great stock trader.” Other Democrats could be heard shouting, "What does the stock market have to do with it?"

Bondi has also failed to successfully pursue Trump’s political enemies as the former president wanted. Conservative commentator Tim Miller wrote in The Bulwark earlier this week that “another big loss for the Trump Justice Department in their Keystone Cop efforts to go after their political foes. For all of you know, the awful fascist advances of this administration, the one thing that continues to bring us joy is just the utter incompetence and failure in their effort to weaponize the Justice Department to get revenge against their political foes.”

Miller then pointed out that both Trump and his attorney general, Pam Bondi, had promised to prosecute former President Joe Biden for using an autopen and stealing the 2020 presidential election (which he did not do).

“Remember all those? Has anybody gone to jail for any of those yet?” Miller asked. “Supposedly Joe Biden stole the election in 2020. It's interesting that some of the biggest proponents of that case — Donald Trump, [FBI Director] Kash Patel, Pam Bondi — haven't been able to find any of the ‘perpetrators.’ So nobody's in jail for that."

Reprinted with permission from Alternet



Trump Brings Back Spicer And Priebus In White House Roles

Trump Brings Back Spicer And Priebus In White House Roles

Reprinted with permission from Alternet

President Donald Trump has rehired his former chief of staff Reince Priebus and former press secretary Sean Spicer almost three years after both men unceremoniously departed the White House.

Priebus and Spicer will each join the President’s Commission on White House Fellowships, according to a White House announcement Tuesday. As a part of the commission, the pair will interview and recommend to their former boss national finalists for appointments.

Spicer, who resigned in July 2017 out of dissatisfaction with the hiring of Anthony Scaramucci as communications director, courted controversy for repeatedly telling lies on behalf the president. Among those were false claims that Trump’s inauguration had the biggest crowds in history, that the president would have won the popular vote in the 2016 if not for voter fraud, that former President Barack Obama wiretapped Trump Tower and that Adolf Hitler had not used chemical weapons.

Spicer has become something of a pop culture fixture since his exit from the White House. He joined the reality competition show “Dancing With the Stars,” in which he and other famous contestants were paired with professional ballroom dancers as they competed for the mirror ball trophy, last year. He announced on Cameo that he would record Valentine’s Day messages for people who were willing to pay him $199 earlier this week.

Priebus, whose six-month tenure as chief of staff was the shortest in history for anyone who did not hold the position on an interim basis, was fired in July 2017. A number of reasons cited for his termination, including: Trump’s disappointment with Priebus’ stewardship of the campaign to repeal the Affordable Care Act and a belief that Priebus lacked the strength to run the White House.

Scaramucci also accused Priebus of being a leaker, telling Ryan Lizza of The New Yorker that “Reince is a f*cking paranoid schizophrenic — a paranoiac” and that “if you want to leak something — he’ll be asked to resign very shortly.”

Priebus joined the Navy after leaving the White House, going through a months-long application process before becoming an ensign and being sworn in by Vice President Mike Pence. Spicer attended Priebus’ swearing in ceremony and publicly congratulated his former colleague on Twitter at the time. Prior to his gigs at the White House and in the Navy, Priebus served as both chairman of the Wisconsin Republican Party and the Republican National Committee.

Photo Credit: Gage Skidmore