This (gift link) is simply a straight up pay-to-play scheme. I mean Trump is not even bothering to create some sort of pretext, no matter how flimsy or absurd. It’s just “bribe me.”

The flashy online announcement called it “the most EXCLUSIVE INVITATION in the World,” a chance to have “an intimate private dinner” with President Trump at his members-only golf club in Virginia, followed by a tour of the White House.

A seat would be reserved for each of the top 220 investors in $TRUMP, a cryptocurrency that Mr. Trump launched on the eve of his inauguration.

In an astonishing escalation of the Trump family’s efforts to profit from crypto, a website promoting $TRUMP, the president’s so-called memecoin, announced on Wednesday that the coin’s largest buyers would be invited to meet him. The effort was, in effect, an offer of access to the White House in exchange for an investment in one of Mr. Trump’s crypto ventures.

“Have Dinner with President Trump and the $TRUMP Community!” the invitation said. “Let the President know how many $TRUMP coins YOU own!”

For months, Mr. Trump’s forays into crypto have created ethical conflicts with little precedent in presidential history. As he markets digital currencies to the public, Mr. Trump has also appointed regulators who are scaling back crypto enforcement and called for legislation that would boost the industry’s prospects in the United States.

As news of the dinner invitation spread on social media, the memecoin’s price surged more than 60 percent, suggesting that investors were rushing to accumulate enough coins to qualify for a dinner seat.

“This is really incredible,” said Corey Frayer, who oversaw crypto policy for the Securities and Exchange Commission during the Biden administration. “They are making the pay-to-play deal explicit.”

This sentence in particular sums up the surreal quality of our historical moment:

The effort was, in effect, an offer of access to the White House in exchange for an investment in one of Mr. Trump’s crypto ventures.

The story’s journalists or editors — and to be fair the story is on the whole very straightforward — reflexively add “in effect,” when there’s no “in effect” about it: IT’S NOT IMPLICIT! IT’S RIGHT THERE IN THE AD!

The assumption that a scandal has to have some element of a cover up is so deeply embedded in the journalistic limbic system that it’s basically impossible to dislodge.

This is the equivalent of a law school dean sending a law professor an email that says “I am violating your federal civil rights by taking away job privileges, because you complained to me about being discriminated against.”

In other words, is the kind of thing that just can’t happen, because people in positions of high authority aren’t that stupid or brazen.

Or so I have read.

The post It’s not really a scandal if it’s right out in the open appeared first on Lawyers, Guns & Money.

I continue to wonder why Musk’s goons don’t get bodily removed from more offices. By now, Trumpies are in charge of enough agencies that they can order that computer access be turned over to the invaders, and, as in the takeover of the US Institute of Peace, armed guards play a part. We need to hear more about how the takeovers happen.

A whistleblower, Daniel Berulis, has provided information on what happened after the goons took over the computers at the National Labor Relations Board. When Berulis tried to raise concerns internally, someone physically taped a threatening note to his door that included sensitive personal information and overhead photos of him walking his dog that appeared to be taken with a drone.

His disclosure to Congress and other federal overseers includes forensic data and records of conversations with colleagues that provide evidence of DOGE’s access and activities. NPR wrote a long article summarizing the disclosure.

Matt Johanson nicely summarized the disclosure on Bluesky.

Highlights (or lowlights):

• DOGE were given “tenant owner” privileges, which allowed them full control over NLRB’s cloud.
• They disabled logging tools so that their actions wouldn’t be logged.
• 10+ GB spike in outbound data.
• Within 15 minutes of DOGE accounts being created, attackers in Russia tried logging in using those new creds. Correct usernames and passwords.

The DOGE teams seem to use their “official” status to gain access to computers, but disabling logging tools suggests that they are not working for the federal government. If they were, logging would be part of the job. It’s been clear for some time that DOGE is taking a lot of sensitive data (our formerly private and personal data) for themselves. The Russian attack is a bit of a surprise; they also disabled some of the safeguards like two-factor login, so it could have been part of the continuing Russian attacks to hack government data. I will leave you to imagine other possibilities.

Cross-posted to Nuclear Diner

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NEW HAVEN, CT—Calling such concern for linguistic precision a clear indicator of a thriving country, a panel of historians from Yale University issued a statement Thursday announcing that quibbling over the exact definition of a concentration camp was a sign of a healthy society. “Studies of the past tell us that nitpicking the particular semantics of the term ‘concentration camp’ as they pertain to a place the government is actively sending people with no criminal history is highly associated with national stability,” said historian Kristen Boyd, who added that the more pedantic one’s reasoning for a facility not fully satisfying the criteria for a true concentration camp, the better that bodes for a country’s future. “Time and time again, history shows us that caveat-laden arguments about what is or isn’t a concentration camp only occur in countries with sound political systems. When people are splitting hairs over the specific methodology and intent behind mass detention and human rights abuses, that’s when you know you’re looking at a vibrant, civilized society. It’s as true today as it was a hundred years ago. Civilizations are healthier when citizens are raising trivial objections to the use of the term ‘concentration camp’ on the grounds that their neighbor’s rendition to an oversight-free mass prison still technically exists within a legal framework, at least on paper.” Boyd went on to state that blindly insisting that anyone who wound up in a concentration camp must have done something wrong to get there has historically always been a sign of a healthy conscience.

The post Historians: Quibbling Over Exact Definition Of Concentration Camp Sign Of Healthy Society appeared first on The Onion.

EAST HANOVER, NJ—As part of the health secretary’s highly publicized pledge to determine the cause of the disorder in the next five months, a wild-eyed Robert F. Kennedy Jr. reportedly shouted “Show me where autism is made!” Thursday while storming the Sour Patch Kid factory. “Attention Sour Patch Factory people: Give me the autism and no one gets hurt,” said the 71-year-old Cabinet member and vaccine skeptic, who cocked his gun and kicked down the door of the facility, grabbing workers, shooting bullets at conveyor belts, and kicking down enormous vats of bright colored gelatin before demanding to see the “head autism scientist” so he could kill him and “end autism forever.” “Enough! You can try to hide autism all you want, but I know it’s in here. I can smell it! I have searched high and low—at the Skittles factory, at the Warheads factory, and at the Nerds Gummy Clusters factory. But it ends today. Autism, prepare to eat lead!” At press time, Kennedy could be heard screaming “Oh no, the autism’s got me!” and begging a factory worker to put him out of his misery.

The post ‘Show Me Where You Make Autism!’ Shouts RFK Jr., Storming Sour Patch Kids Factory appeared first on The Onion.