However, the announcement of the dinner last month, which urged investors to load up on $TRUMP to secure one of 220 spots at the “intimate private dinner,” has sparked a new level of backlash.
“Donald Trump’s dinner is an orgy of corruption,” Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) said Thursday. “That’s what this is all about. We are here today to talk about exactly one topic: corruption, corruption in its ugliest form.”
“Donald Trump is using the presidency of the United States to make himself richer through crypto, and he’s doing it right out there in plain sight,” she added. “He is signaling to anyone who wants to ask for a special favor and is willing to pay for it exactly how to do that.”
Democrats rip Trump ahead of meme coin dinner: ‘Orgy of corruption’
After a hearing on Wednesday, Baraka was caught on hot mic saying of the judge: ‘Jesus, he tore these people a new a–hole. Good grief.’
U.S Magistrate Judge André Espinosa lambasted Trump’s prosecutors for the misdemeanor charges against Baraka and said at the virtual hearing.
‘An arrest of a public figure is not a preliminary investigative tool. It is a severe action,’ he said.
Habba told the Daily Mail that the case was dismissed due to prosecutorial discretion.
“Prosecutorial discretion” = stupid prosecutor Alina “Bimbo #4” Habba knew she was about to get her ass handed to her on a platter, so she dropped the charges so as to avoid any further embarassment.
However, continuing the prosecution of Congresswoman Rep. LaMonica McIver is going to boomerang even more badly. 😀
Alina Habba fires back after NJ mayor caught on hot mic insulting her
Alina Habba isn’t worried about Newark Mayor Ras Baraka’s derogatory comments toward her legal team after she dropped charges against him.
ABC News obtained audio of Frank Bisignano’s staff meeting with managers.
The newly sworn-in head of the Social Security Administration told agency staff this week that when he was first offered the job in the Trump administration, he wasn’t familiar with the position and had to look it up online.
Frank Bisignano, a former Wall Street executive, said during a town hall with Social Security managers from around the country on Wednesday that he wasn’t seeking a position in the Trump administration when he received a call about leading the SSA.
“So, I get a phone call and it’s about Social Security. And I’m really, I’m really not, I swear I’m not looking for a job,” Bisignano said, according to an audio recording of the meeting obtained by ABC News. “And I’m like, ‘Well, what am I going to do?’ So, I’m Googling Social Security. You know, one of my great skills, I’m one of the great Googlers on the East Coast.”
“I’m like, ‘What the heck’s the commissioner of Social Security?'” said Bisignano, who now oversees one of the largest federal agencies that’s responsible for distributing retirement, disability, and survivor benefits to more than 70 million Americans.
“A former Wall Street executive”, once the head of a major financial services firm, has to use Google to find out what the Commissioner of Social Security does? He seems relatively harmless compared to F’Elon Musk and his band of DOGE stooges, but I’m still not impressed.
I’ll bet I’m a lot better with Google than he is. Am I qualified for the job? 😀
New head of Social Security, hired from Wall Street, tells staff he had to Google the job when he was offered it
Newly sworn-in Social Security chief Frank Bisignano, who previously was a Wall Street executive, told staffers he had to Google the SSA job when it was offered to him.
Between a barrage of executive orders, foreign trips and norm-shattering proclamations, Donald Trump has also been busy raking in cash.
The president has amassed a war chest of at least $600 million in political donations heading into the midterm elections, according to three people familiar with the matter. It’s an unprecedented sum in modern politics, particularly for a lame-duck president who is barred by the U.S. Constitution from running again.
The only way for MAGA & King Donald to survive is to buy their way through the mid-term elections in 2026.
Trump’s $600 million war chest: How he plans to wield his power in the midterms and beyond
Between a barrage of executive orders, foreign trips and norm-shattering proclamations, President Donald Trump has also been busy raking in cash.
Referencing Trump’s business moves while in office, an ethics expert said, “His is one of the most blatant and appalling instances of selling access to the presidency I’ve ever seen.”
President Donald Trump dined with 220 investors who plowed a combined $148 million into his crypto venture, boosting the growing crypto industry and inviting a torrent of criticism about the ethical implications.
Black-tie dinners with the wealthy are nothing new for Trump. But this event, which took place on the evening of May 22 at his golf club in Sterling, Virginia, stood out among the annals of presidential dining.
The dinner with the president was a reward for making the leaderboard in a contest to be among the top purchasers of the $TRUMP meme coin, a type of cryptocurrency. The top 25 buyers spent more than $111 million and were granted a private VIP reception with Trump, while the top four also received a limited edition Trump Tourbillon watch that sells for $100,000.
This is corruption and influence-peddling at is finest. King Donald is for sale!
Trump’s crypto dinner: Black ties, a Chinese billionaire and ethics questions
Trump hosted a black-tie dinner at his Virginia golf club for 220 investors who gave a combined $148 million to his crypto venture.
The CBO said the GOP’s megabill would lead to $500 billion in cuts to Medicare. Two days later, 215 House Republicans voted for it anyway.
As the fight over the Republicans’ so-called One Big Beautiful Bill Act unfolded, much of the focus turned to Medicaid, and for good reason. Despite Donald Trump’s promise not to cut the health care program, the GOP legislation would cut roughly $700 billion from Medicaid in the coming years, and with just hours remaining before the bill reached the floor, party leaders added new and punitive Medicaid provisions to shore up support from far-right members.
But as important as the future of Medicaid is, the legislation’s impact on Medicare matters, too.
If people were to dig into the 1,000-page bill to look for the provisions related to Medicare cuts, they won’t find them. But there’s a difference between the literal text of the legislation and the practical effects of the legislation.
In fact, as The Washington Post reported, the Congressional Budget Office found that the Republicans’ megabill would add so many trillions of dollars to the national debt, “it could force nearly $500 billion in cuts to Medicare” — with some cuts taking effect as early as next year. As the Post noted, the higher deficits would force budget officials “to mandate across-the-board spending cuts over that window that would hit the federal health insurance program for seniors and people with disabilities.”
…
But that doesn’t change the bottom line: The CBO told the House that the Republicans’ reconciliation package would lead to $500 billion in cuts to Medicare, and two days later, 215 House Republicans voted for it anyway.
It’s not just Medicaid: Why the Republicans’ bill would likely force Medicare cuts, too
The CBO said the GOP’s megabill would lead to $500 billion in cuts to Medicare. Two days later, 215 House Republicans voted for it anyway.
Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) broke ranks to deliver a stark warning that President Donald Trump’s “Big, Beautiful Bill” was a time “bomb” in a scathing Titanic-inspired takedown that argued the policies will send the U.S. full speed toward a fiscal “iceberg.”
During a combative stretch of floor debate into the early hours of Thursday, House Democrats lambasted the legislation as a cynical giveaway to the ultra-wealthy that guts federal health and nutrition programs, Massie joined them in protest to offer what he called a “dose of reality.”
“I’d love to stand here and tell the American people, we can cut your taxes and we can increase spending and everything’s going to be just fine. But I can’t do that because I’m here to deliver a dose of reality.
“This bill dramatically increases deficits in the near term, but promises our government will be fiscally responsible five years from now. Where have we heard that before? How do you bind a future Congress to these promises? This bill is a debt bomb ticking.”
…
“We’re not rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic tonight. We’re putting coal in the boiler and setting a course for the iceberg,” he warned.
House Republican Shreds Trump’s ‘Big Beautiful Bill’ as ‘Titanic’-Level ‘Debt Bomb’
“Either you’re lying, or you’re not the one making decisions,” Democratic Sen. Patty Murray told Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
When Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. sat down with CBS News last month, the network’s chief medical correspondent Dr. Jon LaPook, pressed the Cabinet secretary on some of his most controversial decisions from recent months. RFK Jr., however, repeatedly said he wasn’t aware of the actions LaPook was describing.
Last week, the spectacularly unqualified HHS secretary ran into a similar problem during back-to-back appearances before House and Senate committees: Lawmakers kept asking Kennedy about steps he and his department have taken, and he kept responding with answers such as “When did I do that?” and “I don’t know about that.”
This week, it happened yet again, during Kennedy’s appearance before the Senate Appropriations Committee. Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois, for example, asked about HHS cutting funding for ALS research. The secretary said the senator’s question was the first he’d heard about this.
As the hearing progressed, and the problem persisted, Democratic Sen. Patty Murray of Washington raised a highly provocative point.
“Secretary Kennedy, listening to your testimony last week frankly left me pretty confused and concerned about what’s happening at your department,” the senator said. “You repeatedly claimed that staffing and funding cuts that have been reported on publicly and even confirmed by [HHS] staff are not happening. So either you’re lying, or you’re not the one making decisions.”
Or perhaps the brain worms have left him hopelessly debilitated? Perhaps a fresh road-kill buffet would help?
Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., warned HHS’ proposed budget for 2026 would “leave America sicker and weaker.”
In her opening statement, Sen. Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin, the top Democrat on the subcommittee, noted that under the proposed budget, NIH funds would be cut by nearly $18 billion compared with the previous fiscal year.
“That would have a devastating impact on research into lifesaving cures and treatments,” Baldwin said, warning it would set “back medical innovations by decades.”
Baldwin said that while the hearing was meant to focus on next year’s budget, the proposal provided insight into what Kennedy was doing at the agency now, in fiscal year 2025. Since Donald Trump returned to the White House, HHS has cut more than 20,000 jobs and slashed billions of dollars for scientific research as part of the Department of Government Efficiency’s effort to reduce the federal budget.
Baldwin questioned the secretary over the department’s withholding funds that were already appropriated by Congress, including thousands of dollars in grants for research on rare diseases, Alzheimer’s and cancer. “We’re not abandoning any lifesaving research,” Kennedy answered. “We’ve cut administrators, we’re cutting waste, we’re cutting duplicative programs.”
The senator also pressed Kennedy about the proposed cuts to NIH and asked whether the lack of funding would slow the development of treatments and cures. “We are the sickest country in the world, so that money has not been well-spent,” Kennedy replied.
Keep in mind that this is a Secretary of Health and Human Services who had brain worms, eats bush meat and road kill, and takes his grandchildren swimming in a creek polluted with raw sewage. And he’s lecturing us on health?
Republicans love to pay lip service to rural voters, and farmers especially. But actions speak louder than words.
So I was especially troubled to see that House GOP leadership and Republicans in the House Agriculture Committee ignored decades of tradition and did not bother to gain bipartisan support for their farm bill proposals. Why is this important? Because bipartisan legislation is typically more thoughtful, resilient and more likely to stand the test of time. Remember, Republicans aren’t right all the time and Democrats aren’t wrong all the time.
In a press release, Rep. G.T. Thompson of Pennsylvania claims his committee’s section of the House’s new reconciliation bill is “strengthening the farm safety net and delivering critical support to the farmers, workers, and communities that keep America fed.” I argue it’s a prime example of one-sided, partisan deal-making.
And Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., agrees. “Instead of working with Democrats to lower costs from President Trump’s across-the-board tariffs, House Republicans have decided to pull the rug out from under families by cutting the SNAP benefits that 42 million Americans rely on to put food on the table — all to fund a tax cut for billionaires. That’s shameful,” said Klobuchar, the ranking member of the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry.
…
House Republicans want to push through their reconciliation bill as quickly as possible. And they don’t seem to care whether it’s actually good for the American people. My advice would be to go back to the drawing board. Maybe then, they could actually come up with a modern proposal for the 21st century that would both help feed our nation and boost our agricultural production.
Opinion | How the GOP’s one-sided deal-making will hurt farmers — and the people they feed
Republicans love to pay lip service to rural voters, and farmers especially. But actions speak louder than words.
