With few hardcore values, Trump has always been the ultimate transactional politician. With a supporting cast of adoring loyalists, this transactional nature has gone fully transparent, leaving us with a government transformed. In Popular Information, Judd Legum provides one relatively minor example of the way things work in Trump's Trans Am. How to buy your way out of a federal lawsuit. "On June 6, 2023, the SEC filed charges against Coinbase, a crypto trading platform, alleging that the company was operating as an unregistered securities broker." You may recall that June 6, 2023 falls into a time period when laws mattered; an era that ended roughly three months ago. Cut to Feb 21, 2025 when the Coinbase CEO wrote that the SEC had dropped the suit in exchange for zero changes to the business and zero dollars in fines. But that doesn't mean no money changed hands. A few bucks toward the election, a few bucks toward the inauguration, a few favors to the top dog and a reminder that you find him simply transcendental. It's really not complicated. In fact, it's about as uncomplicated as it gets. Except when it comes to ethics. But even those are getting easier as CEOs explain away these transgressions by explaining that they have a responsibility to shareholders and besides, everyone, including America'sbiggest companies, is transitioning to the new transactional economy. It's transmutational and transcontinental. It's the new cost of doing business. And in fairness, they didn't transform America. Voters did.

+ The new transactional rules even apply to transportation. Musk’s Starlink gets FAA contract, raising new conflict of interest concerns.

2

Punch Drunk Gov

"With no clear leader to voice our opposition and no control in any branch of government, it’s time for Democrats to embark on the most daring political maneuver in the history of our party: roll over and play dead. Allow the Republicans to crumble beneath their own weight and make the American people miss us." James Carville in the NYT (Gift Article): The Best Thing Democrats Can Do in This Moment. I'm seeing a lot of anger at this piece on my socials. And I get it. But it's worth watching the growing protests across the country, the challenges the GOP might have passing a budget with no Dem support, and the reactions of the markets and increasingly unconfident consumers. Even Bitcoin is down to where it was right after the election. And some shareholders are pushing back against the DEI obsession. People wanted cheap eggs, not this.

Carville concludes his argument with a shoutout to the strategy deployed by Muhammad Ali: "Facing George Foreman, who was rolling off 37 knockouts and 40 wins, Ali deployed the famous rope-a-dope strategy, retreating to the ropes of the ring, evading punches right and left, absorbing small jabs, until Foreman’s battery was depleted — and in Round 8 deployed a decisive knockout blow." It pays to remember, though, that even for Ali, taking too many punches had longterm deleterious effect. Instead of playing dead, I think it would be wise to dramatically narrow the scope of the counter-attacks to Carville's former focus: It's the economy, stupid. Aim everything at that one issue. The DOGE firings: A billionaire is cutting your benefits. USAID: A billioniare is starving kids and endangering allies. The budget fight: Tax cuts for billionaires will steal school lunch money from your kids. Turn the overwhelming onslaught of everything into one thing. If Democrats can't find a winning message to counter the images of an unhinged billionaire with a chainsaw dancing on the grave of the American safety net, then this really is over.

3

It's Always Been a Matter of Trust

Yes, the efforts of DOGE are intended to destroy government effectiveness and expertise in certain areas, and to create disillusionment among federal employees. But the strategies being deployed, along with the lies used to justify those strategies, are also accelerating a dangerous trend. Brooke Harrington in the NYT (Gift Article): Trust Was Once an American Superpower. "This promises to be a tough way for Americans to learn a critical fact too often overlooked — that one of our country’s greatest and least-appreciated assets has been public faith and trust in a variety of highly complex systems staffed by experts whose names we’ll never know. In fact, high levels of trust used to be one of our superpowers in the United States: specifically, that meant trust in our government to operate with reasonable competence and stability, and without the kind of corruption that has hobbled other societies."

+ Not everyone is getting with the program. Federal technology staffers resign rather than help Musk and DOGE. "We will not use our skills as technologists to compromise core government systems, jeopardize Americans’ sensitive data, or dismantle critical public services. We will not lend our expertise to carry out or legitimize DOGE’s actions."

+ But who needs people? Wired: DOGE Is Working on Software That Automates the Firing of Government Workers.

4

Ozempics or It Didn't Happen

"Kalundborg's economy has seen ups and downs. Once a shipbuilding centre, it then boomed in the 1960s manufacturing Carmen Curlers, a hair roller that was popular in the US until fashions changed. Now it's seemingly on a roll again." And this roll is whole lot bigger than a hair curler. Hotdogs and motorways: The ripples created by Denmark's Ozempic and Wegovy boom.

5

Extra, Extra

USAID and Abetting: "Perhaps the best advertisement for U.S.A.I.D. is that autocrats tend to hate it." Jon Lee Anderson in The New Yorker: Growing Up USAID. "As a child in postings around the world, the author witnessed the agency’s complex relationship with American empire—and with autocrats everywhere." (Even if you don't care about the human cost to USAID workers and clients, you might care that China is moving quickly to fill the void.) Meanwhile, the administration is not following a judicial order to release funds. Judge gives Trump administration two days to release billions of dollars in blocked foreign aid. (What does Trump think he has legal immunity or something?)

+ Forced Arms: Wapo (Gift Article): "The Washington Post spoke to a dozen trans people for this article. Many of them spoke on the condition of anonymity — or insisted that only their first name be used — for safety reasons. All said they were arming and educating themselves about guns because they were scared of what Trump’s presidency will bring." (With the relentless attacks, can you blame them?)

+ Laid Bare: Tired: Eggs come from chickens. Wired: Eggs come from Turkey. Turkey to export 15,000 tons of eggs to US to ease bird flu disruptions.

+ Ready or Not: "People who’ve spent their lives working within a system of laws and civic institutions may be particularly unsuited to respond to that system’s failure. But an F.B.I. run by Patel and Bongino is a sign that the system — which for all its manifold flaws has provided Americans a level of stability uncommon in history — is falling apart." Michelle Goldberg in the NYT (Gift Article): Trump’s New Deputy F.B.I. Director Has It Out for the ‘Commie Libs.'

+ Stage Fright: "With the establishment of an unstable cease-fire last month, the Hamas show has taken to broadcasting scenes of public humiliation of Israeli hostages to the world via Al Jazeera and social media. Eli Sharabi, 52, was compelled to speak at his release about how he looked forward to reuniting with his wife and daughters—his captors knew, but didn’t tell him, that they had been murdered on October 7 ... And on Saturday, just two days after the bizarre Bibas body swap, 22-year-old Omer Shem Tov was instructed by a masked cameraman to kiss his captors onstage, resulting in a viral social-media clip." The Atlantic (Gift Article): Hamas’s Theater of the Macabre.

+ Shield Bearer: "'If I had reacted just a little bit quicker. And I could have, I guess,' a weeping Hill told Mike Wallace on CBS' 60 Minutes in 1975, shortly after he retired at age 43 at the urging of his doctors. 'And I'll live with that to my grave.'" Clint Hill, the Secret Service agent who tried to shield the Kennedys, dies at 93.

+ Gen Zzzing at Home: "In years past, Tully would be called a boomerang kid: someone who moved out with a plan for an independent life but wound up back under mom and dad’s roof. In the old days, this trajectory might suggest that the kids—or the parents—were screwups. Incapable. Incompetent. The proper course of action, the one instilled in me, my friends and many of the parents I interviewed for this story, was this: you graduate high school. You get some education. And you get out. That idea has flown out the childhood bedroom window." McClean's on Canada's households. Why Gen Z Will Never Leave Home. (Gen Z is on their phones so much, I barely notice them when they're here...)

6

Bottom of the News

There's one thing that hasn't changed and that still connects all Americans. We love us some animal photos. Winners of the 2025 World Nature Photography Awards.

+ The Onion gets me. Virtually Imperceptible Facial Expression Sends Shock Wave Through ‘White Lotus’ Fan Base.