Welp

20 years ago I would've said (and likely did, on this very blog) that while the US had an immense amount of ignored corruption, it was somewhat segregated from actual lawmakers themselves. Now I don't think this is true at all. Corruption in congressional offices is the norm, not the exception. 

In early 2025, the FBI opened a sweeping investigation into bribery on Capitol Hill with Graham’s steakhouse dinner at the center. Kao confessed to federal agents that his business model consisted of bribing public officials in exchange for government contracts, and that the research Navatek was providing to the government was often worthless.

The scheme involved some of the most powerful figures in Congress, he said — in both parties. In South Carolina, Kao told agents, Navatek made a campaign cash-for-contracts deal not only with Graham, but also with the state’s top Democrat, Rep. James Clyburn, and another influential Republican, Rep. Joe Wilson.

Kao told agents that Graham in particular left little room for ambiguity: “This is how much I want, and how much I am going to give you,” Kao remembered Graham saying, according to notes one agent took during their debrief in late 2024.

Resistance to new electeds who don't come from within the normal channels is to some degree about ideological and clan replication, but it is also because newcomers might be shocked to find all the gambling in the casino.

Trump made all these investigations go away.

The Supremos have made bribery an almost nonexistent crime, but something doesn't have to be a crime to be incredibly corrupt, something many journalists have been pretending to forget lately.

It's Evening In America

I keep saying this, but I do think it's important to understand that an increasingly senile malignant narcissist will happily burn the world down on his way out. Things cannot go on without him. 

His monuments (ballroom, Kennedy Center, arch, etc.) are his attempts to live forever, though in true Trump style he can't imagine doing that by putting his name on anything actually good, or spending his own money to do it.

Trump is very good at fucking things up with good intentions (I don't mean he is ever good, just that in his own mind his crackpot plans are genius). Imagine what happens when he fully turns to wrecking things on purpose?

He's already done some of this, such as destroying the Kennedy Center. That blast radius could grow.

Oh Canada

I also know nothing about Canadians politics. I don't think all separatist/independence movements should be dismissed out of hand, but this seemed to be Chud magnet.

Though in all these situations, "voting for independence" is the easy part. It's the details of the divorce agreement that matter, and can't be captured in an aspirational vote.

Nobody really knew what they were voting for with Brexit, for example, which was its own kind of separatist vote. It could've allowed for "Norway" or the shitshow they ultimately agreed to.

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 Totally Tuesday

Happy Hour

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Why They Changed It I Can't Say

Americavania, Americachusetts, Amermont, Amerhampshire, Amerorado...

Snowball

I suspect people will start missing their mortgage payments in nontrivial numbers.

Trump administration officials are preparing to impose financial penalties on millions of Americans in default on their federal student loans next year, according to five sources familiar with the matter.

The Treasury Department is moving forward with plans to hire private debt collectors, three of the sources said, possibly as soon as November. The sources said those plans are unlikely to be announced before the midterm elections.

I'm not going to yet claim that Trump will deliberately destroy the economy - he's pretty good at doing that with his brilliant ideas without intending to - but I will say that he will happily burn everything down on the way out. 

Obviously this particular consideration is in itself corrupt, but it was also true during the whole student loan discourse during Biden's term. People buried by student loans are mostly not who The Discourse imagines them to be

Last year, Treasury officials expressed concerns that too aggressively pursuing these measures could hurt low-income borrowers, two sources said. Staff also said they pointed out to senior Treasury officials that scores of Trump supporters would be seriously hurt by going after the wages and benefits of workers who are in many cases struggling to hold onto their jobs. Their message was, “This is not who you think it is. The demographics are not good for us,” one source said.

Vote Blue No Matter Who

Carville doesn't run The Democrats, of course, but his name is on half of their fundraising pleas.

Born Every Minute

We all (even me) get things wrong, but a reasonable take on the last few decades would be to see it as an era of elites being suckered by scammers over and over again, from Enron to Saddam-had-WMDs to mortgage derivatives to Theranos to Elon-Is-Tony-Stark to NFTs to various obvious fake things about Gaza/Israel to AI...

I'm sure I am leaving many things out.

It wasn't that people made mistakes, it was that the people-with-microphones shouted down anyone who disagreed, almost in unison, and then quickly moved on to embrace the next scam.

Sure some people were the cons, not the marks, but I think that often they are the same people simultaneously. Elon himself is both con and mark most of the time, in that he often does believe his own bullshit.

Sure, Elon

 

Centrist Democrat: this gift should be means-tested! Why should rich kids get SpaceX shares, too?

Vive

I haven't said anything about what's happening in France because I have no idea what's happening in France.

I have long recognized that I know absolutely nothing about the politics of countries other than the US and the UK, and almost everyone non-French weighing in on such things knows as much as I do.

"We" scoff at the opinions/knowledge of mostly clueless American swing voters when they express themselves to a NYT reporter, and those people know much more about American politics than almost every generalist US pundit knows about France.

Our politics is often incredibly stupid, and so is the politics of France and every country. If you don't have any sense of the stupid bits, you don't really have any sense of what's happening, ever.

Morning

Suck it up, buttercups.

Inside the Khole

I struggle to believe there are any suckers left who buy this, but...

He is taking $250,000 deposits for a product that will supposedly start being produced, not sold, in 2028.

Falling Down

I don’t hate the cold, so much, but I have come to loathe the short days of winter.

Grifts Inside Grifts

I get that people are corrupt, but I have a hard time understanding the fairly common mindset of people who see everything as an opportunity to grift.

The White House investigation into a dispute between two prominent Trump supporters, Richard Grenell and Alina Habba Mildon, centers on a bank transfer from the Democratic Republic of Congo to a Texas defense company, people familiar with the matter said.

Mrs. Mildon, a former personal lawyer for President Trump, stormed into the Oval Office last week accusing Mr. Grenell of siphoning millions of dollars from a business transaction in 2025 organized by a Turkish investor who later became her husband. Part of the money, she claimed, was meant to be set aside for a donation to the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts but was never delivered to the institution. Mr. Grenell ran the Kennedy Center at the time.

...

Mrs. Mildon initially told White House officials that the money, $17.6 million, came from her now-husband, Turhan Mildon, whom she married last month. The initial set of documents that her husband’s lawyer submitted to the White House, however, redacted the name of the sender, according to the people familiar with the matter.

The White House later learned that the transfer was made from a bank account affiliated with the Congolese government, the people said. Mr. Mildon has previously acknowledged to The Times, through a spokesman, that he serves as an adviser to the Congolese president and holds a diplomatic passport of the country.

Americas Worst Humans

Thomas Teepell

In the now-viral video, we see a young white man in a gray long-sleeve shirt standing up in a crowd and shouting a question: “Will you disavow the Muslim Brotherhood?” He aimed his question at Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed at a town hall event in Caro, Michigan, on Saturday. From the stage, El-Sayed met it with steely resolve. “Why are you asking the question?” he replied. “What are you implying?”

...

The Handbasket is first to report that Tommy is Thomas Teepell, who, according to his X and Facebook profiles, currently lives in Detroit. Teepell served as Operations Director for Missouri Republican Senator Josh Hawley until February of this year, according to Legistorm. He then took a job as Political Director for the failed gubernatorial campaign of Philip Sarnecki, a Republican businessman in Kansas.

Tommy’s father is Timmy Teepell, a Republican strategist who worked for congressman and then Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal from 2004 to 2011; he also ran Jindal’s ill-fated presidential primary campaign in 2015. He joined the consulting firm OnMessage in 2011, and helped the virtually unknown Hawley get elected Attorney General of Missouri in 2016. Two years later, he helped Hawley become a United States Senator.

This is Tommy. Tommy had a question about my allegiances. Listen to the end to hear about his.

[image or embed]

— Abdul El-Sayed (@abdulelsayed.bsky.social) October 18, 2026 at 2:17 AM

Morning

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If European Politicians Weren't Shit

They would be turning Musk in public enemy #1.

Elon Musk approached Donald Trump with the idea of slowing down Starlink in Ukraine, The Telegraph can reveal.

...


However, after what was described as a “night of carnage” in Kyiv because of the blackout, a senior source said Mr Musk had been alarmed about the possibility of adverse consumer reaction in Europe.

He shouldn't just be worried about the consumer reaction.

If only people had listened to me about Elon, years ago...

Nobody listens to Atrios.

Ah, Well, Nevertheless

These Daily Mail stories aren’t just tabloid trash, they’re simply made up. Up and down the White House, everyone has been thoroughly impressed with Katie in just a few short days on the job. At the end of this second term, she’ll be remembered as one of the all-time greats. https://t.co/DLHxX9d2wq

— Steven Cheung (@StevenCheung47) October 14, 2026

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