Just wow. December 4, 2025 I remember when Agriculture Secretary Mike Espy had to resign from the Clinton Administration because Tyson Foods give his girlfriend a $1,200 scholarship that he urged her not to accept but she accepted anyway . . . and because he sometimes used a Department-leased Jeep for non-government travel. Later, the government spent $17 million on an independent counsel indicting him on 30 counts of things for all of which he was acquitted. (Among other things, he was given Super Bowl tickets by the Fernbank Museum of Natural History — which he disclosed. Details of that scandal here.) By way of collateral damage, his top aide had his life ruined. Clinton himself, and his wife Hillary, older readers may recall, lost $30,000 on a real estate investment called Whitewater. This was enormous national news for, like, forever. Not to mention the television audience of 60 million when Richard Nixon defended his acceptance of a cocker spaniel (and some some other stuff). Things like this used to be taken very seriously. All that has been thrown out the window. Thom Hartmann reflects on corruption and the Emoluments Clause. In part: . . . Donald Trump tried to convince us in his first term that he was complying with the law by calling a press conference where we were treated to huge stacks of papers and manilla file folders supposedly representing his complex estate that he was handing off to his kids, but we soon learned it was entirely a scam: Trump was getting checks to sign every two weeks in the Oval Office, and all that paper and those folders were blank. This second term he’s not even trying. He extracted millions of dollars from his suckers followers in exchange for his and his wife’s so-called digital coins (they’re just “collectible” digital images); the value of those “coins” has now fallen by 86% (Donald) and 99% (Melania) respectively. And don’t get me started on the so-called “Trump Phones” scam. But those are chump change compared to the billions he’s accumulated in crypto, and the billions being thrown at Trump-branded/licensed properties being negotiated or built right now in over 20 countries including India, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Oman, Qatar, Vietnam, Serbia, Romania, Uruguay, and the Maldives. Or the $400 million plane Qatar gave Trump, along with the billion-dollar Trump-branded resort they’re building for him, which were followed by the US giving that country — and only that country — an astonishing NATO-style security guarantee that our soldiers will shed their blood to defend that kingdom’s potentates. So, it probably shouldn’t surprise us that Jared, after taking $2 billion from the Saudis along with his $25 million/year “fee,” would insert a paragraph into the Russia/Ukraine deal that would benefit the Saudi crown prince who’s been his top benefactor. . . . But he inherited 3% inflation from Biden and has gotten it down to . . . 3% . . . solving what he has called the “affordability hoax” . . . and he has developed (though not shared) “the concept of a plan,” now nine years in development, to provide his followers with excellent health care “at a tiny fraction” of the cost . . . and he has kept taxes low for billionaires . . . and persuaded his followers that immigrants are garbage who should be disappeared without due process . . . and we are going to take the first step toward ending this unAmerican nightmare on or before January 4 when we retake the House. And, possibly, the Senate. An adequately funded opposition party is only one of the things we need to pull that off — but it is an absolutely necessary thing. Now is the time to fund infrastructure. Next summer and fall is the time to fund candidates. Please help in a big way, if you can. Democracy is hanging by a thread. Today’s Indivisible call starts at 3pm Eastern.