At this point, it's not exactly dropping a dime to say that the Trump family's effort to make a quick buck by turning the presidency into a crypto cash cow is going to cost America's reputation a pretty penny—enriching a family that shouldn't have two nickels to rub together while much of America struggles to afford the dollar store. At this point, the financial shenanigans are a dime a dozen, but perhaps none have been as brazen as the selling of access to the president of the United States to a leaderboard of purchasers of his coinage. "The memecoin dinner ... was unlike anything in recent American history — not a campaign fund-raiser but a gathering arranged by the president’s business partners to directly enrich the first family. As guests were flowing into the club, protesters held signs with slogans like 'Stop Crypto Corruption,' 'Release the guest list' and 'No Kings.'" Knowing the Trumps, those signs will probably be made into NFTs that will be sold off the highest bidder. NYT (Gift Article): Hundreds Join Trump at ‘Exclusive’ Dinner, With Dreams of Crypto Fortunes in Mind. Senator Jeff Merkley, Democrat of Oregon described the dinner as the Mount Everest of corruption. (Imagine an event standing out for its bribery and corruption during a week when Trump took ownership of a gifted 747.) Can America retain the trust and status required to be the world's economic leader with a self-dealing, access-selling president in the Oval Office? Honestly, it's probably a coin toss. 2The Court of Lower OpinionNYT (Gift Article): Judge Blocks Trump Effort to Bar International Students at Harvard. "The administration action, and Harvard’s response, signified a dramatic escalation of the battle between the administration and Harvard. And the university’s forceful and almost immediate response served as evidence that stopping the flow of international students to Harvard, which draws some of the world’s top scholars, would destabilize Harvard’s very existence." This isn't just harming students. One of America's key global advantages has been the ability to attract and often keep the world's brightest minds. However this battle plays out, why would future students want to risk coming here? 3Two Way RoadWe hear a lot about the flow of dangerous drugs from Mexico to the United States. We hear a lot less about the flow of something even more dangerous going in the opposite direction. And the numbers are staggering. The Conversation: Mexican drug cartels use hundreds of thousands of guns bought from licensed US gun shops – fueling violence in Mexico, drugs in the US and migration at the border. "To estimate weapons flow, we gathered trafficking estimates and combined them with previous research, firearm manufacturing totals and the ATF trace data. We generated a model that arrived at a conservative middle estimate: About 135,000 firearms were trafficked across the border in 2022. By way of comparison, consider that Ukraine, engaged in a war with Russia, received 40,000 small arms from the United States between January 2020 and April 2024 – an average of 9,000 per year. That is just under 7% of the trafficked firearms flow that our model showed from the U.S. to Mexico." 4Weekend WhatsWhat to Watch: Sarah Silverman's latest comedy special is less of her traditional standup and more of a reflection on her parents who recently died a few days apart. Postmortem. 5Extra, ExtraA Tax of the Killer Tomato: "President Trump on Friday said he had run out of patience with trade negotiators from the European Union and has decided to set the tariff on imports at 50% starting on June 1 ... The president warned in a separate post that he would put a tariff of at least 25% on imported iPhones, and said he had warned Apple CEO Tim Cook to move his manufacturing to the United States." Even with a 25 percent tariff, Apple has little incentive to bring manufacturing back home. (The phones made here would still be more expensive. Never mind the nonsense required to tell Apple to start the manufacturing process in the US in a few weeks.)
6Feel Good Friday"The Ditch Weekly, a paper by middle and high schoolers in Long Island, is covering the Hamptons from a new angle." NYT(Gift Article): They’re 15. Wait Until You Read Their Newspaper. And yes, it's actually paper.
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