"An Orgy of Corruption"
The $Trump coin dinner.
In April 1962, when John F. Kennedy hosted a dinner honoring the Nobel Prize Winners of the Western Hemisphere, he described it as “the most extraordinary collection of talent, of human knowledge, that has ever been gathered together at the White House, with the possible exception of when Thomas Jefferson dined alone.”
Last night, Donald Trump hosted a dinner for the biggest purchasers of his $Trump memecoin in what was the most extraordinary collection of rogues, chiselers, and sleazoids that ever gathered together at a White House-sponsored event, with the possible exception of when Donald Trump dined alone.
One senator described it as “an orgy of corruption,” and, indeed, it was distinguished from Trump’s many other grifts only by the raw nakedness of the jobbery.
“Anyone who thinks those 220 people who are attending the dinner tonight who paid about $150 million for those seats just really craved to have a digital equivalent of a baseball trading card, well, you’re a little off the mark,” Senator Jeff Merkley said. “They absolutely want to buy influence over U.S. policy.”
Well, no sh*t.
The wingèd bribe of the “Palace in the Sky” was bad. This, my friends, was even worse. The “memecoins” — which have no inherent value —are the coin of the realm in Trump’s Age of Grift and Gullibility.1 Via NPR:
Meme coins are cryptocurrencies inspired by internet memes or viral trends — or in this case, a U.S. president. They are typically created for entertainment or speculative purposes and are driven mostly by hype. As speculation, they tend to enrich early investors who are able to dump their coins before their value crashes…
"Meme coins aren't investments. I wouldn't even call them speculative. They're riskier than the dog track," according to Michael Lee, the founder of Michael Lee Strategy….
There is nothing subtle or hidden about this. In TrumpWorld, the $Trump coins have become a way to buy a presidency, which is very much for sale. In other words, they are a fraud within a swindle wrapped in a naked bribe.
Not surprisingly, many of the guests who have greased the orange palms are foreign actors.2 Via CNN:
The vast majority of the top holders of Trump’s memecoin appear to be based overseas, including the top investor — a Chinese-born crypto mogul who, until recently, was facing civil fraud charges in the United States….
And because crypto is anonymous by design, the identities of the top investors — who appeared on a public leaderboard with nothing but self-selected three- or four-letter usernames and long, cryptographic digital wallet addresses — aren’t easy to pin down.
Last night, the whole squalid thing was on display. At this point the vulgarity and flagrancy are the point.
Richard Nixon once declared: “I am not a crook.” Declares Donald Trump: “I am a crook. So what?”
Happy Friday.
If you think the fight for sanity, democracy, and the rule of law is worth it, please consider supporting us. Because we can’t do this without you.
To the Contrary is a reader-supported publication. There are no investors. No sugar daddies. We’re not affiliated with any PACS. Or parties. Just me. And the dogs.
“I did it. I did this for Gaza.”
The intifada came to Washington D.C. this week. Via the Jerusalem Post:
The man who killed two Israeli embassy staff members outside the Capitol Jewish Museum in Washington, DC, on Wednesday night has been an active member of the Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL), a far-left, Marxist, pro-Palestine group.
Chicago native Elias Rodriguez, 31, held a red keffiyeh and shouted, “Free, free Palestine,” as he was being taken into custody after shooting Sarah Lynn Milgrim and her fiancé, Yaron Lischinsky.
The editors of National Review remind us that ideas — and hate — have consequences.
Ever since the October 7 massacres, chants of “Globalize the Intifada” by Hamas-sympathizing radicals could be heard regularly in protests that have taken over college campuses, blocked off city streets, disrupted traffic, and shut down access to airports. On Wednesday night, one of these radicals decided to turn those words into action.
The suspected gunman, who chanted “Free, Free Palestine” when he was later taken into custody, opened fire near the Capital Jewish Museum as attendees were leaving an event sponsored by the American Jewish Committee for young diplomats. The attack killed a young couple — 30-year-old Yaron Lischinsky, an Israeli Christian who served as a research assistant at the Israeli Embassy, and Sarah Milgrim, a 26-year-old Jewish Kansas native who organized missions and delegation visits for the embassy. Shortly after the shooting came the bitter news that Lischinsky had just purchased an engagement ring and had planned to propose to Milgrim next week in Jerusalem.
And, a reminder of the moral depravity of the Pro-Hamas movement:
The pro-Hamas Gaza Now media group celebrated suspect Elias Rodriguez, 31, as an ally against Zionism and welcomed the violent attack that killed soon-to-be-engaged couple Yaron Lischinsky, 28, and Sarah Milgrim, 26, the Middle East Media Research Institute reported.
“In a moment of courage, he decided to make his voice heard and boldly confront the killers,” the group wrote on Telegram, referring to the embassy workers, one of whom was working to get more humanitarian aid into Gaza.
The pro-Hamas group was joined by the Palestinian Mujahideen Movement in celebrating the attack.
The Palestinian Mujahideen Movement — whose military wing held slain hostages Shiri Bibas and her two toddlers, Ariel and Kfir — echoed that the shooting was evidence of the “growing global anger” against Israel over the war in Gaza.
The group, which is affiliated with the Iran-backed militias operating in Iraq, described the murder as a “heroic attack” against “the Zionist entity,” according to their Telegram channel.
The GOP’s BBB: What Could Go Wrong?
Besides blowing a massive hole in the deficit? The historic upward transfer of wealth? The millions of folks who will lose their health care? And all the other policy turds buried in the bill passed in the middle of the night?
Over at The Dispatch, Nick Catoggio writes that “one might think Republicans would want to seize the opportunity to put the country on the proverbial right track, particularly knowing that Senate Democrats can’t stop them under the simple-majority rules of budget reconciliation.
“Instead, what they’ve barfed up makes sense only as a sort of formal surrender of America’s status as a serious country.”
It reminds me of the New York magazine story that went viral a few weeks ago about rampant cheating among college students using artificial intelligence. Letting a computer generate your work product isn’t something you do if you’re striving to improve yourself by learning the material. It’s something you do when you don’t care about self-improvement and are living only for the moment, hoping to pass the class by whatever means.
House Republicans have given up on trying to improve the country. All they wanted was to pass the class, which they did this morning by a single vote on the House floor. The One Big Beautiful Bill is to legislation what an AI-generated essay is to education.
Meanwhile: US bond sell-off is creating a debt spiral - UnHerd
Donald Trump’s “Big, Beautiful Bill” of tax and spending cuts passed through the House… despite the government’s auction of 20-year bonds the previous day causing yields to leap. This response from bond vigilantes has rumbled on into today, much like when, in the aftermath of “Liberation Day”, investors dumped US Treasury paper until Trump backed down and suspended his tariffs.
This is to say that if the government continues to spend on credit, and offers no clear path for arresting the growth of its debt, investors will demand ever higher interest rates on the money they lend to it. That could risk locking in a spiral of rising debt costs which ultimately chokes off the economy. It’s no wonder the US stock market is floundering, as its own investors question what the country’s growth prospects will be amid this kind of impasse.
**
And, this morning, our government by whim continues to have consequences: “Dow falls 300 points as Trump threatens new tariffs against the EU and Apple.”
Apple shares shed more than 2% after Trump posted on Truth Social that iPhones sold in the U.S. must be made in the U.S. and if they are not “a tariff of at least 25% must be paid by Apple.”
The move against Apple by Trump is the first against a specific company in his tariff rollout this year.
BONUS TAKE:
Nota bene
Yascha Mounk: Trump’s Assault on Harvard Is an Astonishing Act of National Self-Sabotage
Even among this litany of increasingly radical attacks on higher education, the Trump administration’s latest broadside against Harvard stands out for the extent of its cruelty.
In a letter she promptly posted on X, the Secretary of Homeland Security, Kristi Noem, informed Harvard that, “effective immediately,” she was revoking the institution’s ability to certify foreign students and visitors for visas. Unless courts intervene or the administration makes a U-turn, this will force the vast majority of Harvard’s 6,793 international students, over a quarter of its overall student body, to leave the university. Some might be able to transfer to other American institutions; most would in a matter of days or weeks have to abandon their studies and return to their countries of origin.
Trump’s action would deeply disrupt the lives and the careers of thousands of talented young people, the vast majority of whom have done absolutely nothing to provoke the administration’s ire against their institution. It would have a highly negative impact on important research happening across the university, with some leading labs in fields from medical research to quantum physics effectively ceasing to function.
It would lastingly damage America’s hard-earned reputation as the world’s most coveted destination for ambitious researchers. In short, it would lead to the most remarkable—and the most distinguished—exodus of talented students in the history of American higher education.
Friday dogs
Auggie likes scratches.
In his last few weeks, Pete enjoyed basking in the orchard. Three years ago.
Alex Dumas explains in The Dispatch:
Unlike traditional cryptocurrencies, memecoins like $Trump do not have any inherent function or utility beyond their novelty. Cryptocurrency “coins” like Bitcoin and Ether operate on their own native blockchains, meaning they derive some portion of their value from the underlying utility of their blockchain technology. Ether, for example, powers activity on the Ethereum blockchain, where users can build decentralized applications and create smart contracts—automated agreements that execute actions like transferring funds when certain conditions are met. So while some investors treat it purely as a speculative asset, Ether also derives value from its actual utility in digital ecosystems.
However, memecoins are typically built on top of existing blockchains, and therefore offer no unique utility to their owners. Instead, memecoins serve as a digital collectible and are often subject to speculative trading and high price volatility.
Andy McCarthy notes that this sort of reign influence-buying is exactly what the Founders worried about. And it keeps getting shadier and sleazier.
Late on Tuesday, the Times reported that a foreign tech company with a Chinese subsidiary has secured an astonishing $300 million in funding to buy $TRUMP meme coins.
The company, GD Culture Group, is an e-commerce business that operates on TikTok, the China-controlled video-sharing platform. TikTok, you may recall, is no longer supposed to be China-controlled because of a divestment statute that Congress enacted last year and that the Supreme Court upheld just three days before Trump’s inauguration. But the president has unconstitutionally declined to execute that law.
GD Culture Group is a public company, which trades on the Nasdaq. Its Chinese subsidiary is called Shanghai Xianzhui. This subsidiary is subject to Chinese laws that require Chinese companies to assist the communist regime as directed.
According to its filings, GD Culture Group has just eight employees and generated zero revenue last year. Only last month, the company disclosed that it had failed to meet certain financial benchmarks necessary to keep its Nasdaq listing. Yet it has now somehow raised $300 million by selling its stock to an unidentified entity formed in the Virgin Islands — where, as the Times explains, investors seeking to maintain anonymity can easily set up shell companies. And this week, just as Trump negotiated a face-saving retreat on tariffs with Xi Jinping’s government, the China-tied company has announced that it believes the best use of its newfound wealth is to buy President Trump’s meme coins.
To put it starkly, an obscure company with no apparent revenue-generating operations but with a partner accountable to the Chinese government has obtained $300 million from an unidentified source and has decided to pay it to the president of the United States — ostensibly by “investing,” through the president’s partners, in digital tokens that have sharply declined in value and may, in the foreseeable future, be worthless.
Not quite what the Framers had in mind.
Sadly, it is my duty to report that of all the bad precedents and bad behavior that we have seen coming out of the White House since 2017 -- with a too-brief interruption of formerly normal class, decency, and sanity in the middle -- the worst one of all has been how DJT has normalized it all and made it mind-numbingly acceptable to the masses, who simply no longer notice or care about the grifting. And the lies. And the abusive personal behavior. And the felonies. And the incompetent support staff. And on and on and on.
It is now standard fare. We see it every day. And it works, that thing they called "flooding the zone." There is no outrage left among people who have become so apathetic and accustomed that, if they notice it at all, they simply shrug it off as "Donald being Donald." And therein lies the secret to the "success." Creating, even fostering, the indifference to (even sometimes enjoyment of) the bad behavior has created the ultimate permission structure for him, combined with a friendly Supreme Court giving him immunity to test any limits he desires and wish troubles away into the cornfield as long as he can claim it to be part of his job duties.
How many of the rest of us get that sort of treatment? Exactly zero. It's no surprise at all that if you create a climate in which evildoers have no responsibility for their words and actions, it takes merely nanoseconds for them to begin to abuse the privilege and create a whole new reality for the rest of us, as they get theirs at our collective expense. The only surprise is the extent to which it really is no surprise at all, when there are no guardrails left to keep the bus from going over the cliff.
In July 1945 Vannevar Bush, who was Director of the government’s Office of Scientific Research and Development, submitted a report to President Truman: “Science, the Endless Frontier.” But unlike most reports of this kind, this one resulted in action.
By the end of the war, there was near universal agreement that scientific knowledge had played a major role in the victory – radar, mathematics and computational science , chemistry, nuclear physics, aeronautics, and much more. But prior to the 1940s much of the research that had led to these developments had occurred in Europe. Bush argued that the United States government should take the lead in promoting and funding basic scientific research. It was essential for the nation’s security and future economic development. As Bush put it, “basic research is the pacemaker of technological progress.”
The nation took up Bush’s challenge and for 80 years it has been the United States that has been the global leader in basic research. And we have reaped the benefits. But now all of this seems to be changing. Across the board, funding for scientific research is being cut drastically and what remains is subject to political censorship. Cutting funding to universities and government research laboratories has little immediate impact on the budget deficit, although it has enormous implications for public welfare and future economic growth. .
So, as we consider current and future fiscal policy, where, as a nation, do we stand on the importance of government investments in the nation’s scientific enterprise? The Trump administration and Republicans in Congress have decided we are going to cede the future to China.