Avert your eyes! My Sunday morning look at incompetency, corruption and policy failures:
• I’ve Covered Police Abuse for 20 Years. What ICE Is Doing Is Different. There were no promises of an impartial investigation. There was no regret or remorse. There was little empathy for her family — for her parents, her partner or the children she left behind. From the moment the world learned about her death, the administration pronounced the shooting not only justified but an act of heroism worthy of praise and celebration. (New York Times)
• We Are Witnessing the Self-Immolation of a Superpower: With Donald Trump’s actions in Greenland, Minneapolis, and Venezuela, a foreign enemy could not invent a better chain of events to wreck the standing of the United States. (Wired) see also America vs. the World: President Trump wants to return to the 19th century’s international order. He will leave America less prosperous—and the whole world less secure. (The Atlantic) see also This Is the End: Putinism abroad always morphs into Putinism at home. And we chose this path. Why? Because something-something the price of eggs. (The Bulwark)
• The rich are powering spending, with the U.S. economy in a danger zone: The health of the economy increasingly depends on rich people spending money, a new analysis of government data finds. That puts the U.S. in a fragile place because consumer spending drives growth — so the entire economy is now relying on a smaller number of people to keep things afloat. (Axios)
• When Chicago pawned its parking meters: The deal Chicago made would go down as one of the most notorious miscalculations in the history of city government. It would call into question what the government is even supposed to do, and become a textbook case on the potential pitfalls of privatization. (NPR)
• They’ve bought themselves a Congress: Coinbase calls the shots in the Senate; former New York City Mayor Eric Adams faces rug pull allegations, and a crypto executive is breaking up with Trump. (Citation Needed)
• Inside Bari Weiss’s Hostile Takeover of CBS News: The network’s new editor-in-chief has championed a press free from élite bias, while aligning herself with a billionaire class more willing than ever to indulge Donald Trump. (New Yorker)
• How Donald Trump Has Transformed ICE: A former D.H.S. oversight official on what, legally, the agency can and can’t do—and the accountability mechanisms that have been “gutted beyond recognition.” (New Yorker) see also “ICE 101″ — How Trump changed ICE and CBP into a fascist secret police: ICE and CBP are fatally flawed products of the post-9/11 War on Terror — now Trump has weaponized those very flaws to occupy America. (Doomsday Scenario)
• DOGE staffer signed deal to share Social Security data with election deniers: In an extraordinary court filing, “NOTICE OF CORRECTIONS TO THE RECORD,” government lawyers representing the SSA revealed that in March 2025, a DOGE staffer signed an agreement to share the private data of Americans with a “political advocacy group” seeking to “overturn election results in certain States.” WTF? (Popular Information)
• Rejecting Decades of Science, Vaccine Panel Chair Says Polio and Other Shots Should Be Optional: Dr. Kirk Milhoan, a pediatric cardiologist who leads the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, said a person’s right to refuse a vaccine outweighed concerns about illness or death from infectious diseases. (New York Times) see also The Quiet Misogyny of RFK Jr.’s War on Science: The burdens of so many of these proposals fall disproportionately on women, and moms in particular. (Slate)
• A Year Inside Kash Patel’s F.B.I. Forty-five current and former employees on the changes they say are undermining the agency and making America less safe. (New York Times)
Be sure to check out our Masters in Business this weekend with Zach Buchwald, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Russell Investments. The global investment firm was founded in 1936, and today has ~$370 billion in AUM. Previously, he had a 15-year tenure at BlackRock, where he served as the head of its $2 trillion Institutional Business, leading the company’s Financial Institutions Group and helped establish its Retirement Solutions and Financial Markets Advisory platforms.
The most important chart in US politics
Source: @FredLambert
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