9 comments

  • ergonaught 34 minutes ago
    This regime, as others like it, poses the constant question, “What are you going to do about it?”

    And the answer is, largely, nothing.

    It’s a shame, really.

  • master_crab 1 hour ago
    Forget the IRS. America can balance its budget going after and fining these illegal trades and traders. MAGA!

    (edit: /s but not about making the government some money off this corruption)

    • lesuorac 28 minutes ago
      Insider traded is expected not illegal in commodity trading.

      The market is intended to support consumers and producers of the commodity and there’s no requirement for either of them to inform the market of their intentions or information prior to a trade.

      If a coffee growers knows a blight is killing their crops they can buy millions of futures before informing the market.

      • kasey_junk 24 minutes ago
        The bar for insider trading is higher but it’s not missing. Governmental employees for instance have explicit laws about their behavior as insider trading in commodities.
  • helsinkiandrew 2 hours ago
  • mhh__ 1 hour ago
    These guys are all going to end up in prison at this rate. Dems are currently predicted to win next election no?
    • cowlevel 51 minutes ago
      Even if they win, you're being extremely optimistic about what they'll do. Most of them are only slightly less corrupt than this, and definitely not enough to actively punish corruption. Most times they just say "let's move on" and grant a pardon.
      • benregenspan 4 minutes ago
        Articles like this make a pretty good case against "only slightly less corrupt than this", the difference in scale really is extreme: https://reason.com/2026/07/09/the-most-corrupt-presidency-in...
      • ourmandave 5 minutes ago
        It really is mind boggling to watch a months long committee investigation of Jan 6th and then Merrick Garland just nopes out.
      • dash2 46 minutes ago
        I never saw anything remotely close to the Trump 2 level of corruption in any previous administration, Democrat or Republican.
        • horns4lyfe 44 minutes ago
          Doesn’t mean it wasn’t there
          • specproc 19 minutes ago
            Everybody pisses in the pool, not everybody pisses from the diving board.
      • llm_nerd 21 minutes ago
        > Most of them are only slightly less corrupt than this, and definitely not enough to actively punish corruption.

        This feels like one of those "and that's why I blame the Democrats for everything Trump does, so I guess I have to vote for Trump's enablers" bit of horseshit, fwiw.

        Both parties are completely in the pocket of special interests (billionaires, Israel, among others), however on the corruption file the GOP has an absolute monopoly. The corruption in the modern Republican party is simply off the charts. And this presidency has turned the corruption to the max, in the open. Every criminal knows that if you think you're going to get caught, the first thing to do is profess your love of Trump and declare yourself a Republican, and in a moment your crimes will be exonerated and it will all be called "lawfare".

        > Most times they just say "let's move on" and grant a pardon.

        The Democrats have constantly tried to be the "high road" party. The law and order, let the process run out party. The "let's make bridges and not walls" party. The Republicans have completely taken advantage of it. If they take power -- which I think there is going to be a "Surprise" by this criminal fascist -- they need to go absolutely scorched Earth. And screw slow walking with some Merrick Garland type of snail, speed-run sending every Trump and enabler to jail. Hegseth needs to spend his remaining days rotting in a dungeon.

        I mean, Trump still sincerely calls Democrats "divisive". From the guy who gets his chuckling audience of halfwits to cheer on blowing up American cities, and who constantly attacks and disparages "blue states" and their residents.

        I cannot for the life of me understand how Americans in the better states aren't talking about secession. You simply must send some of the ignorant, garbage states packing.

    • pm90 46 minutes ago
      Depends on who actually gets elected. A centrist candidate like Buttigeg/Ossoff/Harris/Newsom would almost certainly lead to no prosecutions. Someone with actual convictions like AOC or Ro Khanna might.
    • shrubble 34 minutes ago
      The CFTC’s refusal to do anything useful serves both parties.
    • baq 1 hour ago
      Oh absolutely not. They’re going to end up very rich!
    • specproc 20 minutes ago
      So the election will be meaningless. Expect bad things in November.
    • pjc50 15 minutes ago
      You might want to have a look at what happened to Iran-Contra. Or indeed, the current President's conviction in a New York court: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criminal_trial_of_Donald_Trump...

      They're simply in the oligarch level now. Everyone understands that they're above the law. Nowhere near enough Democrats are talking about the level of corruption clearout that would be required to bring accountability. Law enforcement are heavily compromised in the opposite direction. See the raid on Ilhan Omar, for example.

  • arn3n 31 minutes ago
    The CFTC, since Trump, has become entirely corrupt. Note that the proliferation of sports gambling in prediction markets, which is explicitly illegal, largely exists because the CFTC refuses to enforce their own legal mandate against Kalshi and Polymarket.

    It’s actually worse; when states try to shut down sports betting in prediction markets, the CFTC fights on behalf of Kalshi with the reasoning that only the federal government has the mandate to regular futures and prediction markets. And then they refuse to regulate!

    The CFTC is supposed to have 5 chairs, with no more than 3 in the same party. The administration has gotten around this rule by simply removing 4 of the commissioners and then refusing to appoint replacements. In effect, the CFTC has only 1 republican chair and no opposite party representation. The level of corruption is staggering.

    • BoggleOhYeah 23 minutes ago
      Not to mention that Trump Jr is an advisor to both Kalshi (YC19) and Polymarket.
  • pards 1 hour ago
  • hn3ufz62f7 1 hour ago
    [flagged]
  • jdw64 1 hour ago
    The reason America is great is that even after electing such a corrupt president twice, the country still keeps running. I feel the greatness of the American political system.
    • usui 1 hour ago
      The counterfactual doesn't make sense. Which country would stop or grind to a halt after electing a corrupt president? I think almost all countries would keep running at a basically normal capacity until failure, yet that doesn't prove those countries have great systems.

      This will need a lot more time and hindsight to make general statements in terms of the wider picture.

      • diydsp 1 hour ago
        It'a not abt whether it keeps running. It's whether its citizens are able to maintain their rights.
        • cowlevel 51 minutes ago
          the comment specifically said whether it keeps running
      • mxkopy 1 hour ago
        I think it’s sarcasm. In other counties such corruption would trigger revolution, and the political system would grind to a halt
    • Steve16384 19 minutes ago
      What would be your definition of not running? It's like when someone says "We survived Covid!". Yes, you might have but thousands of others died.
    • mschuster91 1 hour ago
      Eventually though, the built in resiliency will be destroyed. Public services got gutted by DOGE and a bunch more called it quits.

      And in the end, that is the game they are playing. Starve the beast (aka, the US government) until not much more than the military remains.

    • phs318u 1 hour ago
      Please tell me there's an implied /s there somewhere.
    • alienbaby 47 minutes ago
      have you looked closely at the state of your institutions lately. 'The country keeps running' .. a large thing has quite a lot of momentum, it will travel quite far from that alone even if you do remove it's kneecaps.

      unless you dropped the '/s' ?

      • actionfromafar 37 minutes ago
        Russia also "keeps running". The floor is a long way down, doesn't mean it's a good idea to go in that direction.
    • LeBit 48 minutes ago
      The billions diverted from the government (tariffs, Venezuelian oil, etc) to enrich his own family and friends probably won’t make a dent in the American economy.

      America is so great , it can sustain the appetite of corrupt presidencies.

      • boesboes 21 minutes ago
        Just don't look at how the bottom half is doing!