Trump Says He Dislikes Prediction Markets. His Family Invests in Them.; The New York Times, April 24, 2026

  Ben Protess, The New York Times ; Trump Says He Dislikes Prediction Markets. His Family Invests in Them.

The White House has warned staff not to wager on government decisions, but his family’s involvement with these firms undermines the president’s message.

"When a U.S. soldier was indicted on Thursday on charges of using classified information to place prediction market bets, it seemed to confirm President Trump’s lament just hours before that “the whole world unfortunately has become somewhat of a casino.”

“I was never much in favor of it,” Mr. Trump said from the Oval Office, when asked about concerns that federal employees might be leveraging insider information on the prediction markets. “I don’t like it conceptually. It is what it is. I’m not happy with any of that stuff.”

Yet Mr. Trump and his family stand to profit from the very same industry.

The president’s publicly traded media company unveiled its own prediction market product last year. And the president’s eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., has ties to two of the industry’s top firms, including Polymarket, the platform that prosecutors say was used by the soldier for well-timed bets.

The result, ethics experts say, is a jarring juxtaposition between Mr. Trump’s public comments and his family’s private business."

Trump’s Pardon for Cocaine Juan: A jury found Honduras’s former President guilty. Why set him free?; The Wall Street Journal, December 2, 2025

 The Editorial Board, The Wall Street Journal; Trump’s Pardon for Cocaine Juan: A jury found Honduras’s former President guilty. Why set him free?

"President Trump, like other politicians, sometimes does something unpopular to please his base. But what is the audience for Mr. Trump’s pardon of former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández?"

Former President of Honduras Is Freed From Prison After Trump Pardon; The New York Times, December 2, 2025

 William K. Rashbaum, Maggie Haberman, Kenneth P. Vogel and Jonah E. Bromwich, The New York Times; Former President of Honduras Is Freed From Prison After Trump Pardon

"President Trump formally pardoned former President Juan Orlando Hernández of Honduras on Monday evening, fulfilling a vow he had made days before to free an ex-president who was at the center of what the authorities had characterized as “one of the largest and most violent drug-trafficking conspiracies in the world.”"

Trump’s pardon of Honduras’s ex-president shows counter-drug effort is ‘based on lies and hypocrisy’; The Guardian, December 1, 2025

 Tom Phillips, The Guardian ; Trump’s pardon of Honduras’s ex-president shows counter-drug effort is ‘based on lies and hypocrisy’

"He was a Latin American president accused of colluding with some of the region’s most ruthless narco bosses to flood the United States with cocaine.

“[Let’s] stuff the drugs right up the noses of the gringos,” the double-dealing politician once allegedly bragged as he lined his pockets with millions of dollars in bribes and turned his country into what many called a narco-state.

The description might sound like a sketch of Venezuela’s authoritarian president, Nicolás Maduro, who Donald Trump’s administration has accused of being a “narco-terrorist” kingpin and is trying to topple with a $50m bounty and a huge display of military might off the South American country’s Caribbean coast.

But it is actually a portrait – painted by US prosecutors, no less – of the former Honduran president, Juan Orlando Hernández, who Trump last week pledged to pardon, despite the fact that Hernández was sentenced last year to 45 years in prison for allegedly creating “a cocaine superhighway to the United States”."

Former US social security head predicts ‘interruption of benefits’ amid Doge cuts; The Guardian, April 25, 2025

 Robert Tait  , The Guardian; Former US social security head predicts ‘interruption of benefits’ amid Doge cuts

[Kip Currier: The excerpted statements (see below) by U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick are moronic and deceitful. American workers have paid into Social Security and they reasonably expect and have earned the right to receive their fair share of the contributions they've made, when they decide to do so. 

Billionaires like Lutnick and Elon Musk think nothing of using every tax loophole or corporate write-off they can to make more money for themselves. Yet, these same billionaires want to deny American workers from accessing benefits from the system that they've faithfully paid into and rightfully earned.

We've all seen this "bad movie plot" before, right?

We see through the hypocrisy, sophomoric tricks, and bad faith efforts to rip off -- and take for themselves through billionaire tax cuts -- what U.S. workers have lawfully earned, don't we?

Yeah, we do! We see through your disinformation and deceptive antics, Lutnick and Musk et al. 

Call your state and federal representatives and tell them you want billionaires like Lutnick and Musk to keep their hands off the Social Security you've earned:

Directory of U.S. House Representatives: https://www.house.gov/representatives

Directory of U.S. Senators: https://www.senate.gov/senators/index.htm ]

[Excerpt]

"Howard Lutnick, the commerce secretary and also a billionaire, added further fuel by suggesting only fraudsters would complain if there was an interruption to social security payments – the very scenario O’Malley has warned of.

“Let’s say social security didn’t send out their checks this month, my mother-in-law – who’s 94 – she wouldn’t call and complain,” Lutnick told a business podcast last month. “She’d just think something messed up and she’d get it next month. A fraudster always makes the loudest noise, screaming, yelling and complaining.”"

Jeff Bezos’s Hypocritical Assertion of Power; The Atlantic, February 26, 2025

 Joshua Benton, The Atlantic; 

Jeff Bezos’s Hypocritical Assertion of Power

His decision will only make The Washington Post a weaker institution. 

"But the scale of the hypocrisy on display here is eye-watering, and this decision can only make the Post a weaker institution.

Let’s get the motivation out of the way. This is the same Jeff Bezos who decided to cancel the Post’s endorsement of Kamala Harris just before the election—a move that led more than 250,000 paying Post readers to cancel their subscriptions within days. The same Bezos who flew to Mar-a-Lago to cozy up to Donald Trump after the election. The same Bezos whose Amazon donated $1 million to Trump’s inauguration fund and paid $40 million for a Melania Trump documentary—the most it had ever paid for a doc, nearly three times what any other studio offered, and more than 70 percent of whichwill go directly into Trump’s pockets. All of that cash seems to have served as a sort of personal seat license for Bezos, earning him a spot right behind the president at the inauguration. The tech aristocracy’s rightward turn is by now a familiar theme of the postelection period, and it doesn’t take much brain power to see today’s announcement as part of the same shift."

Elon Musk’s Cringey Chainsaw Act Exposes a Deep Ignorance Fueling DOGE; The New Republic, February 21, 2025

Michael Tomasky, The New Republic; Elon Musk’s Cringey Chainsaw Act Exposes a Deep Ignorance Fueling DOGE

[Kip Currier: Read and share this New Republic article with as many people as possible. We must work to raise awareness of what the Trump/Musk alliance is perpetrating and inflicting.

Matthew 20:16: "So the last shall be first, and the first last."

As this article unpacks, even catching a glimpse of the richest man on Planet Earth perversely fetishizing a chainsaw on stage -- as he elatedly wreaks havoc on the lives of Americans and the world -- is both stomach-churning and heart-breaking. We see before us a WWE-esque caricature of a human; a performative individual who is profoundly lacking an ethical center and values like compassion, reason, and integrity.

Elon the Oligarch can buy whatever access his heart desires. He can attain whatever healthcare he or his family needs. Musk also has unfettered access to lucrative government opportunities for self-enrichment, despite having clear conflicts of interest and supporting the abrogation of government ethics rules. The unchecked damage that Team Musk is unleashing will be far-reaching for millions.

Consider just a few examples:

• The veteran who has served this country and may need, say, a pair of hearing aids or a cancer treatment regimen but may not now be able to get the healthcare they need and deserve. 

• The recent college graduate who wants to serve their country in the FBI, FDA, or FAA but who was summarily fired because they were one day shy of finishing their probationary period before DOGE jubilantly sacked them and countless other probationary federal employees sharing their expertise and service.

• The university researcher who has been performing medical research that is leading to new insights and treatments for common and rare diseases but whose funding and research studies may now be halted and eliminated altogether.

Musk wants us to feel guilty for government programs that we support with our tax dollars, while he games the system to advance his aim of being the world's first trillionaire.

When the time comes to vote, remember the politicians who unabashedly are supporting Elon the Tyrannical right now, and the administration giving him a free hand to take a chainsaw to programs that assist persons in need and empower other people to help their fellow humans in need.]

[Excerpt]

"At the Conservative Political Action Conference on Thursday, Elon Musk appeared on stage in oversized sunglasses, a black gothic MAGA hat, a thick gold chain around his neck—and wielding a chainsaw. Ha ha. Over at Politico’s Playbook, the new team may not have heard of the New Deal, but thank goodness they do have enough sense to know that the richest man in the world and the president he works for (or is it the other way around?) might—make that will—come to rue that cringey image.

The way Musk’s DOGE is going about these cuts is the equivalent, as I heard former Biden administration official Mitch Landrieu say on TV this week, of a man thinking he needs to lose 30 pounds and deciding to saw off his leg. That’s funny, and true. But this is even worse. A man sawing off his leg hurts only himself. What Musk is doing will hurt millions of people in ways that we’re only beginning to see.

Here’s one small example, which you likely haven’t read about but which I take a little personally. If you’re one of my regular readers, you know that I was born in Morgantown, West Virginia, and went to my hometown university, West Virginia University, or WVU (not UWV, thank you). A week ago, West Virginia Watch, a small nonprofit news organization in the state, moved a story noting that the university expects to lose $12 million annually in funding that supports cancer and vascular research. 

Under dynamic Dean Clay Marsh, a native of the state recruited back to West Virginia from Ohio State by WVU President E. Gordon Gee (and the son of hell-raising newspaper editor Don Marsh, who once upon a time made The Charleston Gazette one of the most aggressive regional newspapers in the country), the cancer institute has made tremendous strides. The cuts, a university spokeswoman told West Virginia Watch, could cost the school the faculty it has recruited to do the research and conduct the clinical trials that could lead to the breakthroughs that would save a lot of lives in the state with the third-highest cancer mortality ratein America.

And if it’s $12 million at the smallish West Virginia University Health Sciences Center, imagine what it is at New York University, or UCLA, or Johns Hopkins, or even much larger state research hospitals in Florida or Washington. And it’s happening to every state university medical system in the nation."

Comey’s testimony changed everything — and not in Trump’s favor; Washington Post, June 9, 2017

Jennifer Rubin, Washington Post; Comey’s testimony changed everything — and not in Trump’s favor

"Before Comey, Republicans and Democrats had many bones to pick with Comey. After Comey, both sides avoid questioning his integrity. Republicans carped about his refusal to rebuke the president in the Oval Office (for a group that has never seriously confronted Trump on much of anything, this is rich). They made hay out of — gasp!– a leak of unclassified materials after Comey was fired. Not once, however, did any senator say he disbelieved Comey’s account or try to shake his recollection. Aspects of Comey’s factual account can be supported now by others, which will further bolster his own credibility and diminish Trump’s. Comey may be prickly, overly concerned with his own reputation and even a little schoolmarmish, but few will argue that he is a liar."

Where Are the United States Attorneys?; New York Times, June 6, 2017

Editorial Board, New York Times; 

Where Are the United States Attorneys?

"Three months after President Trump abruptly fired half of the nation’s 93 United States attorneys, following the resignations of the other half, he has yet to replace a single one.

It’s bizarre — and revealing — that a man who called himself the “law and order candidate” during the 2016 campaign and spoke of “lawless chaos” in his address to Congress would permit such a leadership vacuum at federal prosecutors’ offices around the country. United States attorneys are responsible for prosecuting terrorism offenses, serious financial fraud, public corruption, crimes related to gang activity, drug trafficking and all other federal crimes.

As is usually the case when confronted with his own incompetence, Mr. Trump has spent his time looking for somebody else to blame...

There are two other obvious, and perhaps simpler, explanations, and both may be correct. Mr. Trump does not actually believe in or care about his campaign claim of “lawless chaos” in our streets. And Mr. Trump is not a good manager — not of his businesses, certainly, and not of the vastly larger, more complex organization he now runs, the one that matters to the well-being of every American."

No, Trump, We Can’t Just Get Along; New York Times, 11/23/16

Charles M. Blow, New York Times; No, Trump, We Can’t Just Get Along:

"[Donald Trump] ended the meeting by saying:

“I will say, The Times is, it’s a great, great American jewel. A world jewel. And I hope we can all get along well.”...

You slammed Clinton for destroying emails, then Newsweek reported last month that your companies “destroyed emails in defiance of court orders.” You slammed Clinton and the Clinton Foundation for paid speeches and conflicts of interest, then it turned out that, as BuzzFeed reported, the Trump Foundation received a $150,000 donation in exchange for your giving a 2015 speech made by video to a conference in Ukraine. You slammed Clinton about conflicts of interest while she was secretary of state, and now your possible conflicts of interest are popping up like mushrooms in a marsh.

You are a fraud and a charlatan. Yes, you will be president, but you will not get any breaks just because one branch of your forked tongue is silver.

I am not easily duped by dopes.

I have not only an ethical and professional duty to call out how obscene your very existence is at the top of American government; I have a moral obligation to do so.

I’m not trying to convince anyone of anything, but rather to speak up for truth and honor and inclusion. This isn’t just about you, but also about the moral compass of those who see you for who and what you are, and know the darkness you herald is only held at bay by the lights of truth."

‘You should resign': Elizabeth Warren excoriates Wells Fargo CEO John Stumpf; Washington Post, 9/20/16

Jena McGregor, Washington Post; ‘You should resign': Elizabeth Warren excoriates Wells Fargo CEO John Stumpf:

"In at least a couple of instances, she used the bank's own words against him. She began by reading from the bank's "vision and values statement," which says "we believe in values lived, not phrases memorized," and "if you want to find out how strong a company's ethics are, don't listen to what its people say. Watch what they do."

So, she said, "let's do that," noting Stumpf had repeatedly said "I'm accountable." Then she drilled into questions where he was unable to affirmatively answer that he had resigned, handed back money he'd earned or fired any senior executives."

Superintendent; Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 6/22/16

Rob Rogers, Brewed on Grant, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette; Superintendent