Kleptocracy -- Joyce Vance
https://joycevance.substack.com/p/kleptocracy
The opening paragraphs are exactly right. Please read her whole article.
When everything is bad, nothing is bad. People get desensitized. They can no longer keep track of it all. It's all so awful that none of it gets processed anymore.
So I need you to hear me when I say tonight: This is bad. Really, really bad. MS Now's Ari Melber called it "worse than Watergate". He was right.
Here's the bottom line. Donald Trump wants to take $1.8 billion dollars of money that taxpayers like you and me have paid to the government, and he wants to give it to his most hardcore followers, the people who stormed the Capitol on January 6. Trump calls them victims of Joe Biden's weaponization of the Justice Department. It's corruption. Corruption in plain sight. Trump is going to give his supporters taxpayers' money.
One of the most troubling things about Trump's second presidency is that fraud and corruption have been completely normalized. There's no call for accountability. And it's a long list. Trump crypto. Trump pumping up Palantir stock after buying a sizable amount for himself. The Campaign Legal Center has a 38-page report, last updated in February, called "Trump's Corrupt Transactions." But it all pales in comparison to what began to unfold last week.
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Here's the irony: Trump does this stuff with a straight face as though his claims of weaponization are legitimate. But the people he wants to give our money to were convicted by juries or pled guilty in front of judges. The Biden Justice Department didn't decide that they were guilty, the criminal justice system did. And now, Trump is going to reward them for it.
The people in this picture will be able to ask Donald Trump to give them your money if this plan goes forward.
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