Trump's Incoherence Continues

As do his corrupt actions

Why is there not more outcry and legal action or something against Trump monitizing the office of the president? Where is the recourse for that? Here is a piece in the NY Times and it lays out all the ways Trump is abusing the office.

“By conventional Washington standards, according to students of official graft, the still-young Trump administration is a candidate for the most brazen use of government office in American history, perhaps eclipsing even Teapot Dome, Watergate and other famous scandals.

“I’ve been watching and writing about corruption for 50 years, and my head is still spinning,” said Michael Johnston, a professor emeritus at Colgate University and author of multiple books on corruption in the United States.

Paul Rosenzweig, who was council to Ken Starr in the investigation of Bill Clinton, surmises that the public may never have really cared about ethics in Washington. “Outrage hasn’t died,” Mr. Rosenzweig added. “It was always just a figment of elite imagination.” I don’t agree. What Trump is doing is corruption, pure and simple, and the public cares about it. I would suggest that most Americans believe that our public servants should be ethical people who do things for the good of the country, not to enrich themselves and other rich people.

Because Trump has set the government up so that there is little to no oversight, there will be no investigations or hearings. But Senator Chris Murphy believes that we need to keep being loud about this corruption to affect the next Congressional races.

“It is unlikely he is going to be held accountable through traditional means,” Mr. Murphy said in an interview. “There are going to be no special counsels; there’s going to be no D.O.J. action. And so it’s really just about public mobilization and politics. If Republicans keep paying a price for the corruption by losing special elections throughout the next year, maybe that causes them to rethink their complicity.”

Trump is an outlier not only in the amount of money he is making, but in his brazen actions, in not being ashamed of making the money off the office of the Presidency just for himself. His base apparently likes that about him: in the past he has bragged that it would be stupid not to take advantage in situations like this. Being rich and gaming the system, screwing people, is to be admired, I guess.

NPR has sued Trump over his executive order to cut funding, claiming it violated the Constitution and the First Amendment’s protections for freedom of speech.

Trump has ordered an end to all federal ties to Harvard.

The New York Times listed the many lawsuits against the Trump administration and noted that as of May 23, at least 177 rulings “have at least temporarily paused some of the administration’s initiatives.” That is good news, but the Trump administration is repeated attacking and threatening judges, creating an atmosphere of fear in order to ultimately get what they want.

In Heather Cox Richardson’s excellent letter today, she writes: Conservative judge J. Michael Luttig noted: “It is an extraordinary and unprecedented development in American history that the Nation’s Federal Judiciary would have to consider having its own security force because federal judges cannot trust the U.S. Marshal’s Service under this President and his Attorney General. They cannot trust this president and this Attorney General to ensure their protection.”

He continued: “I had to admit that, given the continuing unprecedented and vicious personal attacks and threats on the federal courts and federal judges by the President, Vice President Vance, Attorney General Pam Bondi, and Donald Trump’s Cabinet and senior White House advisors, I would never rely upon the U.S. Marshal’s Service for my protection, were I still a sitting federal judge. How could anyone?”

Trump continues to sound unhinged, largely incoherent. This can be seen in his commencement address at West Point yesterday, during which he talked about "trophy wives,” among other unrelated to the solemnity of the moment. He wore a Maga hat throughout his speech. This is partisan; the President is supposed to represent all Americans.

But here is a great commencement address from CBS News’ Scott Pelley at Wake Forest College. His anger is powerful and very inspiring.

We need more like this.

Thanks for being here, happy Tuesday! I will see you tomorrow.