"Bribery has gone in a few short months from a prohibited activity to the coin of the realm in Trump's America."

[Demovictory9]

The American Prospect's David Dayen wrote following news of the UnitedHealth settlement.

"It seems that if you're a company and can pony up the money," Dayen added, "you can get whatever regulatory treatment you wish. Bribery has gone in a few short months from a prohibited activity to the coin of the realm in Trump's America."

[republianmushroom]

1. Yup

[Mysterian]

2. Good thing the fake judges on the Supreme Court gave the gangster immunity

Or there could be consequences someday. We must hold the gangster accountable for his crimes regardless of the corrupt court.

[Bettie]

8. They take bribes as well

look at their all expenses paid vacations and other gifts from wealthy donors.

[MLWR]

10. And their bribe-taking has gone on for years, not just 8 months.

[lame54]

3. Right out in the open

[sinkingfeeling]

4. 2025 will be remembered as the Year of Presidential Bribes.

[Botany]

6. Trump has a model of the bribe plane that Qatar gave him right out in the open.

Btw Qatar had been trying to get rid of that 747 for years and only Trump was dumb enough to take it.



Btw that is white marble above the fireplace it did not need that tacky gold shit mounted on it.

[slightlv]

11. Yippers...

...only Trump was dumb enough to take it.

And WE'RE paying for all the millions of dollars of retrofitting, just so trump can abscond with it when he finally gets off his throne.

[Botany]

15. The current Air Force One is just fine it has all the state of the art avionics, communication systems, and anti attack

…. systems. It is up to date in every way but that 747 he was “given” is way out of date and should have been scrapped
a long time ago.


Trump reminds me of what Lincoln said about one of the members of his government during the Civil War
and that was the man would steal anything and the only reason he hasn’t stolen the wood stove already
is because it is too heavy and hot.

[slightlv]

16. LOL!!!

[usonian]

5. It's GOOD BUSINESS!

"How Big Tech is paying its way out of Trump's tariffs"

Cook and friends are so far up Trump's ass that he'll burp them out any moment.

https://www.cnbc.com/2025/08/13/nvidia-amd-and-apple-big-tech-is-paying-its-way-out-of-trump-tariffs.html

Top tech executives are at the forefront of a recent swathe of unprecedented deals with U.S. President Donald Trump.

In just the last few days, the White House confirmed that two U.S. chipmakers, Nvidia
and Advanced Micro Devices
, would be allowed to sell advanced chips to China in exchange for the U.S. government receiving a 15% cut of their revenues in the Asian country.

Apple
CEO Tim Cook, meanwhile, recently announced plans to increase the firm’s U.S. investment commitment to $600 billion over the next four years. The move was widely seen as a bid to get the tech giant out of Trump’s crosshairs on tariffs — and appears to have worked for now.

[erronis]

7. David Dayen's full post.

https://prospect.org/blogs-and-newsletters/tap/2025-08-08-unitedhealth-merger-lobbyist-justice-department-antitrust/

Well worth the whole read.

[liberalla]

17. Thank you for the link! I was about to go look it up

[PatSeg]

9. 37,000 posts!

Cool milestone.

So now bribery is just an accepted tool or tactic? What next? Armed robbery or even murder?

[Demovictory9]

14. Thank you!!

[live love laugh]

12. America is now Trump's casino 🎭

[markodochartaigh]

13. I really like David Dayan, however,

the US has long had a system of regulatory capture where government officials cycle in and out of corporate boardrooms. It isn't even just the c-suite which is corrupt, upper management is often corrupt. The difference between US corruption and corruption in most of the developing world is that corruption in the US is far more common the higher up you go, rather than being common at all levels of society.

That said, Trump's regime is astoundingly corrupt, and proud of it! All of those people we've heard over the years say that "we need a businessman for president" and "the US government should be run like a business", well, they got their wish, and now he's giving us the business.