Crypto Corrupto . . . And Pride June 10, 2025 But first . . . Barack: “It won’t be as easy as just shouting” (60 seconds). Imagine! A President who respects the role of Congress. AOC: Fox News and the right wing would have you believe that my American values are something out of the communist manifesto. But I don’t believe in healthcare, labor, and human dignity because I’m an extremist. I believe these things because I was a waitress. Because I’ve worked double shifts to keep the lights on. Because I did lose a parent to cancer and I saw my mom open the hospital bill a couple of days later. Because on my worst day, I know what it feels like to feel left behind. I don’t want any of us to live like this anymore. We deserve better. And now . . . Sawyer Hackett: How Trump personally profits from the tariffs Congress never authorized (90 seconds). And: Trump Profits Like No Other President When Hillary Clinton was first lady, a furor erupted over reports that she had once made $100,000 from a $1,000 investment in cattle futures. Even though it had happened a dozen years before her husband became president, it became a scandal that lasted weeks and forced the White House to initiate a review. Thirty-one years later, after dinner at President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate, Jeff Bezos agreed to finance a promotional film about first lady Melania Trump that will reportedly put $28 million directly in her pocket — 280 times the Clinton lucre and in this case from a person with a vested interest in policies set by her husband’s government. Scandal? Furor? Washington moved on while barely taking notice. . . . The Trump family and its business partners have collected $320 million in fees from a new cryptocurrency, brokered overseas real estate deals worth billions of dollars and is opening an exclusive club in Washington called the Executive Branch charging $500,000 apiece to join, all in the past few months alone. Just last week, Qatar handed over a luxury jet meant for Trump’s use not just in his official capacity but also for his presidential library after he leaves office. Experts have valued the plane, formally donated to the Air Force, at $200 million, more than all of the foreign gifts bestowed on all previous American presidents combined. And Trump hosted an exclusive dinner at his Virginia club for 220 investors in the $TRUMP cryptocurrency that he started days before taking office in January. Access was openly sold based on how much money they chipped in — not to a campaign account but to a business that benefits Trump personally. 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. . . . Retorts the White House: “The American public believes it is absurd for anyone to insinuate that this president is profiting off of the presidency.” Really? The dollar is our superpower. We just print money and the world accepts it — “as good as gold.” (Our other two? The “soft power” we accumulated over 80 years, beginning with the Marshall plan, a mix of generosity and moral clarity that Trump tossed into the trash. And our unmatched “hard power,” the kind that tyrants like Putin and Kim Jong-Un rely on.) Yet Trump is doing all he can to weaken the dollar (and strengthen crypto). Our enemies are thrilled. Trump doesn’t care. He’s long crypto. And that Qatari 747? Sure it’s a white elephant costing $23,000 an hour to run . . . but that will be the taxpayers’ $23,000 if he becomes president for life like Putin and Xi. Or chickenfeed if he has to pay it himself out of the billions he’s accumulating as President. He made money bankrupting casinos. He’s making money bankrupting America. PRIDE > Sally Ride — first woman in space, closeted until death — debuts Monday. Here’s the trailer. Here’s a review. > Gina Ortiz Jones won San Antonio’s mayoral race Saturday. How the world has changed now that gays and lesbians don’t have to hide who they are and we can love and celebrate straight people, as we always have, but their LGBT+ brothers and sisters, too. As someone one recently noted: “Homosexuality has been observed in over 1500 species. Homophobia is found in only one: humans. So based on science, the only thing that’s unnatural is homophobia.”