On the Take
Corruption is Now Apparently Completely Above Board
It used to be that there was shame in being corrupt, for taking money to compromise one’s principles or livelihoods. Anyone who would do so would be demonstrating to the world their complete and utter lack of morality. It’s one of the reasons celebrities were always hesitant to be seen endorsing products and “selling out.” But if there was money to be had, dirty money finds a way. For those celebs, it was always done under the table in various ways, such as requiring that any advertisements be played only overseas. Nowadays, celebrity gets you to become an “influencer,” and the whole point of being an “influencer” is actually get paid to hawk stuff online; being a personality online is the biggest grift in the world. Money always finds an open loophole.
Politics has a long history of corruption below the table. It’s one of the oldest professions right up there with prostitution, prostitutes being more reputable than corrupt officials mind you. When you make decisions that can result in massive outcomes resulting in fortunes being made, people are willing to throw a kickback or two their way. However, we have such things as ethics laws, emoluments clauses and anti-corruption laws that prevent elected officials from flat out taking bribes to change their views. This is not just because it’s shady, but because the will of the people and the public trust gets neglected because of it. Integrity of the system matters. Everything works best when you can rely on people doing thigngs for the overall good, and that gets undermined when it can be upended by a wealthy benefactor dumping a wad of money in someone’s lap.
But Donald Trump is different.
With him, the grift is all above board. It’s out in the open. It’s transparent. EVERYONE sees it in broad daylight. Everyone KNOWS it’s a payoff. It’s so gallingly audacious that people look at these things and say “Ain’t someone gonna do SOMETHING about it?” But two things prevent this; 1) a compliant DOJ and Attorney General unwilling to make an argument who often justifies Trump’s corrupt practices and 2) an impotent GOP Congress unwilling to speak out against it or start impeachment because of it (even though if any Democrat did the exact same thing Impeachment proceedings would begin that very day). SMDH.
Just this week, the country of Qatar, known for funding HAMAS and Hezbollah and whose past bribery scandals actually got them the World Cup Soccer tournament, “gifted” to Trump a $400 million 747 jumbo jet. Trump claimed that it was a gift to the United States, since it will be used as Air Force One while he’s President, and then when he leaves office it will go to his Presidential Museum. The whole story is utterly ridiculous and clearly bribery, but was signed off by Attorney General Pam Bondi, who just happened to lobby on behalf of Qatar prior to being appointed by Trump to run the Department of (in)Justice.
And that’s just one loophole from which “the Don” is profiting. Check out how he conjured a “meme coin” out of thin air, with no underlying value whatsoever, only to have people from around the world dump money into it. Normally, foreign influence of a public official would be cause for concern; not with TrumpCoin however! Because its a cryptocurrency, all the wallets contributing to it are part of a public ledger. You can tell the money is from overseas because many of the exchanges that purchase it are not available in the United States. So Trump can withdraw the money and put it in his pocket. The same goes for his social media platform Truth Social, whose stock price is another end around corruption laws to funnel money to Mar-A-Lago. Trump may as well just walk around in a t-shirt that says “Open for business.” What’s scary is the damage he can do to the well being of Americans by siding with foreign governments and figures willing to drop some money on the table.
One can only watch in horror and shake their head at the racket.
One of the reasons we don’t allow such things is that the wanton graft and outlays of bribes, payoffs, kickbacks and other sums of money erodes the very integrity of our institutions. ANY institution. Just ask Pete Rose. Pete Rose was Major League Baseball’s all time hits leader, and certain Hall of Famer. That is, he was until evidence of his gambling turned up, including betting on games of which he was playing or coaching. That’s a big no-no in sports. I you can bet on a game in which you can determine the outcome, you can fix it in favor of your (and some shady organized crime figures’) pocketbooks. Pete Rose was banned from MLB for life by Commissioner Bart Giamatti.1 This is similar to when the Chicago White Sox were accused of tanking the 1919 World Series in the famous “Black Sox” scandal. Eight men on the White Sox took money from gamblers to throw the World Series, including famed player “Shoeless” Joe Jackson. Jackson had a career batting average of .356, the fourth highest in MLB history. Despite accepting $5,000 in gamblers' cash to throw the 1919 World Series, Jackson batted .375, didn't make an error and hit the series' only home run. Yet he had the black mark placed upon him just as all the others; you can’t bet on baseball or take bribes if you’re playing the game.
And it’s not just baseball. NBA ref Tim Donaghy bet on basketball games including games he was reffing. His M.O. was to use the biases he knew certain refs had towards certain players and their propensity of calling fouls (or not if they liked certain players). Donaghy made a lot of money gambling this way, and drew suspicion when some of his betting associates drew mob attention and their betting behaviors would change lines. NBA officials found him out. Even though nobody ever pointed to a single call he made changing the outcome of a bet, and even though he was always rated one of the best and most consistent refs in the NBA, he was kicked out for good. Once you’ve been caught in something like this, you can no longer consider yourself fair or unbiased, and the integrity of the institution suffers. Donaghy’s reputation, just like Rose’s and Jackson’s, suffered the immortal stain of untrustworthiness.
But we live in different times now.
Just watch ESPN for an hour and count how many gambling commercials you see. On Sunday mornings during football season, during their flagship program SportsCenter, count how many time point spreads, parlays and prop bets are discussed. Gambling is now a huge part of the business of sports entertainment, and provide ample opportunities to hype up upcoming sporting events. With so much money at stake in individual games, how do you vouch for the integrity of the game, ANY game, any more? NFL replay calls are always made by officials in the Headquarters in NY; you don’t think they would favor teams with greater followings, or have more at stake? You don’t think they would side with their stars who draw in crowds and more viewers? This is the world we live in now.
And that’s perhaps why Pete Rose and Shoeless Joe were reinstated Tuesday by MLB. The current Commissioner Rob Manfred re-interpreted the previous lifetime bans and announced the bans end when the player dies. So Pete Rose comes in, Shoeless Joe Jackson, and the rest of the 1919 Chicago Black Sox. If gambling is no longer an issue, what about, say Steroids? Mark McGuire, Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens would love to have that discussion. If the rules put in place to prevent ugly events from casting a shadow on the sport no longer matter, then what good is the sport? Is it cheating if you now do it in broad daylight and nobody cares?
Which brings us full circle back to Trump and that Jumbo Jet.
It appears some Republicans are raising the alarm a little bit based on the facts that it was someone questionable Qatar2 giving him the plane and the extremely questionable security issues that would arise because of that. Not that Trump would care. He would accept a gold plated penthouse that had listening bugs galore if it was a step up from his current digs; he’s a narcissist and a glutton so appealing to those non-virtues is easy. But whenever something like this comes up, whether its a Jet, a golf course, a balloon payment on a NY real estate, or some other obvious payoff, all it does is underscore how uniquely unqualified he is for public service. He has no interest in serving the public. He’s always just used the levers of government to benefit himself.
And it’s the public institutions that suffer for it.
PurpleAmerica’s Obscure Fact of the Day
In order to facilitate his drug empire when police were starting to give him trouble, Pablo Escobar ran for and won elective office in Colombia. He got the names of all the police officers in the country and handed the list to his deputies for them to shakedown or intimidate the officers.
PurpleAmerica’s Final Word on the Subject
One of my favorite lines in the Untouchables is “In Roman times when a fellow was convicted trying to bribe a public official they would cut off his nose and sew him in a bag with a wild animal, and throw that bag in the river.” It’s said after a corrupt alderman tried to bribe Eliot Ness on behalf of Al Capone.
I don’t know if that first part is true, but I love the way Kevin Costner delivers the line while throwing the envelope full of cash back at him.
We need integrity back in public service again. Not the subjective “our side good, their side bad” application of ethics, but bona fide, “This crosses a line” ethics that we all agree on. What Trump is doing, monetizing the Presidency as he is, crosses many lines.
LIKE WHAT YOU SEE? MAKE SURE TO SUBSCRIBE AND SHARE!!!
Footnotes and Fun Stuff
He is the father of noted actor Paul Giamatti.
They say politics makes for strange bedfellows. Well on this issue, LAURA LOOMER is calling out Donald Trump’s corruption. Whatdoyaknow?
A cursory examination of Trump’s life story reveals that his entire existence has been purely and obviously parasitical. He does serve a valuable service in signaling the ethical emptiness of anyone supporting him.