Showing posts with label wont get fooled again. Show all posts

Wednesday, March 18, 2026

$TRUMP Coins, Secret Dinners, and a $2.5 Billion Congressional Conflict

https://accountable.us/trump-coins-secret-dinners-and-a-2-5-billion-congressional-conflict/

$TRUMP Coins, Secret Dinners, and a $2.5 Billion Congressional Conflict

Trump Administration

June 3, 2025

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Trump Accountability Watch: Trump Profits Off the Presidency While Congressional Republicans Put Health Care on the Line

This week, Donald Trump and his allies in Congress are marching toward another betrayal of working families as they push forward deep cuts to health care and food assistance. It comes as House Republicans advanced the largest cuts to Medicaid and SNAP in history – which would result in 14 million Americans losing health coverage, 3 million households going without food assistance, and an increased burden for millions with higher education and energy costs. All while adding over $4 trillion to the deficit.

The devastating cuts are all to fund a tax giveaway to benefit Trump, his family, and their billionaire friends. A recent analysis from Accountable.US revealed that of the top 35 richest congressional Republicans, worth $2.5 billion collectively, 28 sit on key committees overseeing cuts, and all are able to take advantage of Trump-endorsed tax cuts aimed to benefit the wealthy. It’s the latest example laid bare in Accountable.US’s Cash in Congress project, which has made clear how Congressional Republicans are putting their own bottom line ahead of regular Americans.

As Americans see essential benefits intended to help those in need wiped away, Trump’s failed agenda is making it harder and harder for ordinary families to get ahead. Trump’s tariff rollercoaster is injecting chaos and uncertainty into the economy – hurting small businesses, tanking consumer confidence, shrinking American manufacturing, and driving up costs on everything from cars and electronics to shoes.

But none of that has mattered much to Trump, who continues to use the bully pulpit to sell presidential access to the highest bidder. In his latest potential pay-to-play scheme, this week, Trump’s SEC announced it had voluntarily dismissed its lawsuit against Binance, the world’s largest crypto exchange, for allegedly misleading investors about trading controls, among other accusations. The news comes after Binance was involved in a $2 billion business deal using Trump’s cryptocurrency coins – potentially generating “tens of millions of dollars a year in revenue for the Trump family and its partners at World Liberty.” While Americans struggle to get by, Trump and his family are cashing in at their expense. It comes after Trump held an openly corrupt gala for top holders of Trump’s cryptocurrency meme coin $TRUMP, in which 80% of the Top 25 winners appeared to be either foreign or regulation dodgers. Last month, Accountable.US hosted a press call sounding the alarm on the dinner, which was one of Trump’s biggest corrupt self-enrichment crypto schemes to date.

As Trump and his allies in Congress advance a massive tax scam for the wealthy, the out-of-touch records of the President’s initial judicial nominees have come to light:

Trump handpicks his defense attorney and “hatchet man,” Emil Bove for lifetime judicial nomination: Last week, Donald Trump made one of his most extreme judicial nominations to date by nominating Emil Bove III to a lifetime appointment on the Third Circuit Court of Appeals. Bove is a far-right ideologue who has emerged as Trump’s “enforcer” and his “hatchet man” in the Justice Department. At DOJ, Bove has forced transfers of top nonpolitical officials opposing political interference, fired Capitol riot prosecutors, and sought after FBI agents involved in January 6th cases. Bove repeatedly made longshot arguments, often shot down by judges. Earlier this year, Bove created chaos in the Justice Department after dropping the corruption charges against New York City Mayor Eric Adams. Eight veteran attorneys resigned in protest, and Bove represented the government himself, alone, in a highly unusual move following the internal turmoil and chaos.

Trump judicial nominees at the center of effort to revive case to ban mifepristone: Last week, new research from Accountable.US revealed that two of President Donald Trump’s initial judicial nominees, Joshua Divine and Maria Lanahan, are at the forefront of the push to revive a court case banning medication abortion. Last year, the Supreme Court ruled against an extreme far-right effort to strip the FDA of its science-based, decades-long approval of mifepristone. Now, Trump nominees Divine and Lanahan are pushing to resurrect the case with an amended complaint, which absurdly argues states are being harmed by fewer teen pregnancies because loss of potential population caused “diminishment of political representation” and “loss of federal funds.” The lawsuit also peddles false claims that mifepristone is unsafe for patients, despite over 100 scientific studies confirming the safety of the pills. Divine and Lanahan’s efforts have also been called out as a “nakedly political and judge-shopping ploy,” as the case was refiled out of state in Amarillo, Texas, to ensure it’s heard by a favorable judge.

ACCOUNTABLE.US IN THE NEWS:

Bloomberg: Trump’s World Liberty to Mainly Sell Digital Tokens to Investors Outside the US: “‘Congress should demand the President disclose who’s paying him tribute in the shadows to assess whether the public interest is being compromised,’ said Tony Carrk, executive director of Accountable.US, a nonprofit interest group that has set up a ‘Trump Accountability War Room; online. Accountable found that at least 14 of the top 50 holders of World Liberty Financial tokens have also used cryptocurrency services that aren’t available in the US. Bloomberg’s own analysis found an additional eight wallets that did so. World Liberty disclosed in November that its initial $300 million offering was primarily being marketed offshore.”

Rolling Stone: TRUMP FAMILY’S CRYPTO VENTURE NETS $25 MILLION INVESTMENT FROM FIRM SUSPECTED OF FRAUD: “As noted in research from Accountable.US, DWF has come under scrutiny for alleged market manipulation. In 2024, The Wall Street Journal reported that Binance had responded to a 2023 lawsuit by the SEC over alleged misuse of customer funds and illegal operations within the U.S. by beefing up its market surveillance team and hiring outside financial investigators to root out fraud. These investigators found that DWF, a ‘VIP’ client of Binance, had ‘manipulated the price of YGG and at least six other tokens, and made over $300 million in wash trades in 2023,’ violating Binance’s terms and conditions. After the team recommended removing DWF from the platform, Binance instead had the team itself investigated and concluded that there was ‘insufficient evidence’ of the alleged market manipulation, then fired the lead investigator, with others laid off over the next few months. ‘Something smells rotten about the Trump administration squashing its crypto crime unit one business day after a Russia-tied foreign investor suspected of illegal market manipulation poured millions into one of the opaque Trump family crypto ventures,’ Accountable.US executive director Tony Carrk tells Rolling Stone. “President Trump has deliberately left the barn door open for potential corruption and self-enrichment by maintaining ties to his largely unregulated crypto interests, and even jumping into more since taking office. If the President’s business is going to continue openly taking foreign money this way, including from likely criminal elements, he must be transparent about what these foreign investors are asking for in return.’”

Reuters: Dinner with the president: Trump meme coin surges on offer to top buyers: “Trump’s planned dinner with $TRUMP coin holders is ‘a race to the bottom for presidential grifting,’ said Tony Carrk, executive director of Accountable.US, a nonpartisan government ethics watchdog group. ‘There has never been a clearer case of a president using their office to put money in their pocket, or greater potential for special interests to buy an administration’s favor that could threaten the public interest,’ Carrk said.”

HuffPost: Company Boasts Spending Up To $20 Million On Trump Crypto Coin To Buy Influence: “An international trucking logistics firm is buying as much as $20 million worth of President Donald Trump’s crypto coins to influence the administration’s trade policy — the precise sort of corruption that experts warned Trump was encouraging when he unveiled his venture. […] ‘It’s just another day for Donald Trump that an international freight company is paying a $20 million tribute towards the Trump family fortune after openly wishing it will lead to administration tariff relief,’ said Tony Carrk, executive director of Accountable.US. The watchdog group discovered Freight Technologies’ plan through a social media post bragging about it by GetTrumpMemes.com, the company that sells the Trump coins. […] ‘There’s little doubt this company is expecting some administration policy relief in return for their generous investment in the growing Trump crypto empire,’ Carrk said. ‘It’s an indictment in and of itself that the president has paved the way for so much potential corruption for his own personal gain and at the public expense that few can keep up.’”

CNBC: What the House Republican budget bill means for your money: “As a result of the changes in the bill, which include stricter work requirements to qualify for the programs, 14 million individuals may lose health coverage, while 3 million households may go without food assistance, according to Accountable.US, a nonpartisan watchdog group.”

Scripps News: Trump’s private crypto dinner draws criticism over access and the president’s ties to cryptocurrency: “During a press call organized by Accountable.US, a nonpartisan watchdog group in the crypto space, Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) also harshly criticized the President’s dinner. ‘What’s happening tonight at Trump’s golf course — where he is hosting a dinner for the top investors in his meme coins — is in effect, putting a ‘For Sale’ sign on the White House. It’s auctioning off access,’ said Senator Blumenthal.”

HuffPost: 2 Of Trump’s Court Picks Argued Abortion Pill ‘Starves The Baby To Death’ In Womb: “‘Donald Trump is picking up right where he left off using the courts to impose an agenda that takes away our rights and control of our lives,” Caroline Ciccone, Accountable.US president, told HuffPost. Ciccone said Divine and Lanahan have a ‘record of eliminating Americans’ freedoms’ which ‘is out of step with the vast majority of the public and calls into question their ability to rule impartially.’”

RECENT RELEASES FROM ACCOUNTABLE.US:

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Friday, January 30, 2026

Anti-ICE protests to be held across US as organizers urge national strike

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jan/30/ice-protests-friday-strike

Anti-ICE protests to be held across US as organizers urge national strike

Activists call for Friday ‘blackout’ in protest against administration’s violent immigration crackdown

Activists are calling for a nationwide shutdown on Friday, advocating “no work, no school, no shopping” in a protest against the Trump administration’s sweeping immigration crackdowns.

Organizers say Friday’s “blackout” – or general strike, as some are calling it – is part of a growing non-violent movement to combat ICE’s aggressive enforcement tactics, which have come under renewed scrutiny following a series of fatal shootings involving federal agents.

Those deaths include Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis, Keith Porter in Los Angeles, and Silverio Villegas González in Illinois. Friday’s national protest leaders, many of them students at the University of Minnesota, are calling for ICE to leave the city after its nearly month-long operation. They say economic pressure through work stoppages and consumer boycotts is just one way to demand accountability and reform.

“We are calling for this strike because we believe what we have been doing in Minnesota should go national,” said Kidus Yeshidagna, president of the Ethiopian Students Union at the University of Minnesota and one of the students organizing the strike.

“We need more people and lawmakers across the country to wake up.”

Yeshidagna is part of a coalition of student groups that organized the Minnesota shutdown last Friday, in which thousands of people flooded the streets in sub-zero temperatures and hundreds of businesses shut their doors to demand justice for Good, who was shot by an ICE agent while trying to protect a neighbor. Last weekend, agents killed Pretti, another resident who was observing agents’ activities.

The student groups – including the associations representing Black, Somali, Liberian, Ethiopian and Eritrean students and the graduate labor union – first gathered on 21 January to plan the calls for local and national strikes. “We came out in huge numbers despite the cold,” he said, referencing last week’s actions. “We are now doing it again.”

From restaurants and clothing retailers to bookstores and coffee shops, businesses across dozens of cities have announced that they are closed.

Protesters in Philadelphia, New York, Boise and Columbus are gathering at city halls, courthouses, statehouses and legislative buildings, according to an action tracker. Students at high schools and colleges in Florida, California and other states are staging walkouts.

In Milwaukee and in Buffalo, Wyoming, people are gathering at parks and on street corners. Some protesters, including those in Washington DC, are gathering outside Target stores. After ICE violently detained two Target employees in Richfield, Minnesota, activists have increased calls to sustain the boycott on the retail giant.

Support for the strike has grown throughout the week. The neighbors and family members of Good and Pretti contacted the student organizations to share their support for the protests, Yeshidagna told the Guardian. Hundreds of organizations, including student groups in other states, unions, and major organizing groups, including 50501, have thrown their support behind the action.

“We want to obstruct the pillars that are upholding the Trump administration,” Gloriann Sahay, a national coordinator with 50501, told the Guardian. “By showing up, we are showing we are more in number and that we are not afraid of this terror being reigned down upon us.”

Celebrities including Ariana Grande, Macklemore and Pedro Pascal have also called for a strike. “When I got out of class, I saw that Ariana posted our flyer,” said Yeshidagna. “That was crazy. It is awesome that she is bringing light to this.”

Yeshidagna, who grew up in St Paul, said he was in high school and 15 minutes away from where George Floyd was killed by a Minneapolis police officer in 2020. He protested as a student and continues to lead protests now. Since Trump sent ICE officers to Minnesota, he and his peers in the student organizations have watched his friends and family members be targeted.

“We’ve been seeing clear racial profiling in Minnesota,” Yeshidagna said. “This isn’t just an immigrant issue. This is a human rights issue that is also affecting US citizens.”

Friday’s protests coincide with a looming partial government shutdown as Senate Democrats – and some Republicans – have said they will oppose any spending bill that includes funding for the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE. Democrats are pushing for a variety of reform measures, including banning agents from wearing masks and having ICE obtain warrants to make arrests.

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Sunday, January 11, 2026

The Who - Won't Get Fooled Again (Shepperton Studios / 1978)

The Who’s iconic anthem from 1971’s Who’s Next album performed here on B-Stage at Shepperton Studios on 25 May 1978 Filmed by Jeff Stein for the closing sequence of The Kids Are Alright. Sadly this was to be the very last performance ever by Keith Moon.

some songs

Wednesday, March 18, 2026