With few hardcore values, Trump has always been the ultimate transactional politician. With a supporting cast of adoring loyalists, this transactional nature has gone fully transparent, leaving us with a government transformed. In Popular Information, Judd Legum provides one relatively minor example of the way things work in Trump's Trans Am. How to buy your way out of a federal lawsuit. "On June 6, 2023, the SEC filed charges against Coinbase, a crypto trading platform, alleging that the company was operating as an unregistered securities broker." You may recall that June 6, 2023 falls into a time period when laws mattered; an era that ended roughly three months ago. Cut to Feb 21, 2025 when the Coinbase CEO wrote that the SEC had dropped the suit in exchange for zero changes to the business and zero dollars in fines. But that doesn't mean no money changed hands. A few bucks toward the election, a few bucks toward the inauguration, a few favors to the top dog and a reminder that you find him simply transcendental. It's really not complicated. In fact, it's about as uncomplicated as it gets. Except when it comes to ethics. But even those are getting easier as CEOs explain away these transgressions by explaining that they have a responsibility to shareholders and besides, everyone, including America'sbiggest companies, is transitioning to the new transactional economy. It's transmutational and transcontinental. It's the new cost of doing business. And in fairness, they didn't transform America. Voters did. 2Punch Drunk Gov"With no clear leader to voice our opposition and no control in any branch of government, it’s time for Democrats to embark on the most daring political maneuver in the history of our party: roll over and play dead. Allow the Republicans to crumble beneath their own weight and make the American people miss us." James Carville in the NYT (Gift Article): The Best Thing Democrats Can Do in This Moment. I'm seeing a lot of anger at this piece on my socials. And I get it. But it's worth watching the growing protests across the country, the challenges the GOP might have passing a budget with no Dem support, and the reactions of the markets and increasingly unconfident consumers. Even Bitcoin is down to where it was right after the election. And some shareholders are pushing back against the DEI obsession. People wanted cheap eggs, not this. 3It's Always Been a Matter of TrustYes, the efforts of DOGE are intended to destroy government effectiveness and expertise in certain areas, and to create disillusionment among federal employees. But the strategies being deployed, along with the lies used to justify those strategies, are also accelerating a dangerous trend. Brooke Harrington in the NYT (Gift Article): Trust Was Once an American Superpower. "This promises to be a tough way for Americans to learn a critical fact too often overlooked — that one of our country’s greatest and least-appreciated assets has been public faith and trust in a variety of highly complex systems staffed by experts whose names we’ll never know. In fact, high levels of trust used to be one of our superpowers in the United States: specifically, that meant trust in our government to operate with reasonable competence and stability, and without the kind of corruption that has hobbled other societies." 4Ozempics or It Didn't Happen"Kalundborg's economy has seen ups and downs. Once a shipbuilding centre, it then boomed in the 1960s manufacturing Carmen Curlers, a hair roller that was popular in the US until fashions changed. Now it's seemingly on a roll again." And this roll is whole lot bigger than a hair curler. Hotdogs and motorways: The ripples created by Denmark's Ozempic and Wegovy boom. 5Extra, ExtraUSAID and Abetting: "Perhaps the best advertisement for U.S.A.I.D. is that autocrats tend to hate it." Jon Lee Anderson in The New Yorker: Growing Up USAID. "As a child in postings around the world, the author witnessed the agency’s complex relationship with American empire—and with autocrats everywhere." (Even if you don't care about the human cost to USAID workers and clients, you might care that China is moving quickly to fill the void.) Meanwhile, the administration is not following a judicial order to release funds. Judge gives Trump administration two days to release billions of dollars in blocked foreign aid. (What does Trump think he has legal immunity or something?) 6Bottom of the NewsThere's one thing that hasn't changed and that still connects all Americans. We love us some animal photos. Winners of the 2025 World Nature Photography Awards.
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