What Do We Do with This?

Yesterday, I wrote that it wasn't possible to come up with adjectives to describe the corruption of Trump and his administration. As Chris Hayes said last night, the news of his stock trading and then promoting the same companies alone would normally be the biggest presidential corruption story of all time, if we didn't have the now-$1.8 billion IRS extortion scheme to talk about. 

Here is one day's worth of the best BlueSky posts I saw on the IRS story. These are in chronological order: 

Even by Trump standards, reading his “settlement” with the IRS made me feel insane. Every lever of this thing is controlled by Trump, or some lackey he controls. A diabolical little Rube Goldberg machine of corruption, to the tune of $1.8 billion in public resources. Vile stuff. Trump doesn’t literally decide who gets the money. But everyone on the commission is appointed by the AG, and can be removed by Trump *at any time*. It’s a machine to reward his allies. I promise you, not one dollar will go to anyone he doesn’t deem worthy of getting rich at your expense.
Jay Willis

the president is raiding the treasury to put your tax dollars into this man's personal checking account as a reward for what he's doing in this picture:


Andrew Lawrence

So you CAN get reparations you just have to be a reactionary white person who tries to overthrow the government because black votes shouldn’t count
Adam Serwer

In a sane world, we'd be discussing giving a million dollars to Jeffrey Epstein's victims and not to the traitors on January 6.
Christine Slemmer @slem63.bsky.social

An American president sues/extorts his own government, then settles with his own justice department to funnel money to his criminal allies. He will go down in history as the president who came up with forms of corruption never contemplated before.
Rick Stengel

Ask yourself: Why would a settlement over leaked tax filings include a prohibition on examinations of previously filed returns? One answer, which lots of people are missing: For years, Trump has been fighting an IRS audit that could have resulted in a $100M bill. No longer, apparently.
Connor Ewing

look trump can have his government sign any docs he wants; either the next democratic government throws all the corrupt motherfuckers in jail and seizes all their assets, or it's pointless anyway.
David M. Perry @lollardfish.bsky.social

A canny lawyer friend always says "A contract is just a starting point for a negotiation." The most generous fallback option the Dems should offer is "give it all back and retire from public life." Next best is "live the balance of your days in jail or embroiled in 25 concurrent prosecutions."
Daniel Suitor

Every day brings a new set of headlines that if you'd predicted them in October 2024, you'd have been diagnosed with a terminal case of Trump Derangement Syndrome:


Matthew Gertz

There should be more screaming about all the corruption. And a corruption-watch/tally/list updated daily. Plus projections on DC federal buildings and airplanes trailing banners. Also Trump in jail.
Rebecca Solnit

I think the reason I've been a little ambiently mad all day is because January 6th rioters are statistically the most likely group of pedophiles in the world and they clubbed a guy to death and they're going to be rich from the tax money that I give to the country I live in.
Tim Onion @bencollins.bsky.social

I’m not sure why this isn’t being mentioned more, but: IRS policy for 50 years has been that the sitting president and VP get audited every year, in an effort to reassure the public they’re not corruptly abusing the office to enrich themselves.
Julian Sanchez @normative.bsky.social

And that's not even mentioning the 14th Amendment argument against the scheme. 

What do we do with this? What do we do with this?