Losing My Perspicacity March 11, 2025

Good morning and Happy Tuesday. I’m so glad you’re here.

Each night, I sit here and sift through the day’s news, trying to figure out what four or five news stories will make the newsletter. It’s a weird balance, trying to inform without depressing the hell out of people, especially as we watch as the Trump administration dismantles every part of the federal government that provides any service for us — the regular people. I also try to find a few things that I don’t believe are getting the coverage they deserve from the mainstream press. That’s where I want to start today.

It’s a basic tenet of our democracy that the President can not use his time in the Oval Office to enrich his personal wealth. The Constitution guards against this in two ways: The foreign and domestic Emoluments Clauses.

The domestic Emoluments Clause prohibits Congress from raising or lowering the President’s salary during his term, as the Founding Fathers rightly believed that control over a person’s ability to make a living too often translates into control over their actions. During his time in office, the POTUS can not make money, outside his salary, from the United States or any of the single states, individually.

The Foreign Emoluments Clause says this:

No Title of Nobility shall be granted by the United States: And no Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under them, shall, without the Consent of the Congress, accept of any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign State.

During Trump’s first term in office, the Foreign Emoluments Clause took center stage, especially as we learned that foreign officials were staying at Trump’s Washington DC hotel, essentially paying Trump for their DC stays. Collectively, the governments of Saudi Arabia, Malaysia, Qatar, the UAE, and China spent $750,000 staying at Trump’s hotel during his term. The domestic Emoluments Clause was implicated, as well, with the Secret Serice — funded by US taxpayers — paying Trump’s hotels $1.4 million for their stays at his various properties.

Sadly, in 2020 the Supreme Court declined to rule on multiple litigations claiming Trump violated one or both of the Emoluments Clauses, as Trump was already out of office. Oops.

But the Founding Fathers never saw Corporate America coming. Forget Trump Steaks and Trump University — POTUS has a new grift that sees him raking in millions of dollars every go around. He simply sues people who have treated him “very unfairly.”

One of the perks of being a rich guy with no moral compass is that you don’t have to pay your bills and, with a team of lawyers on retainer, you can sue anyone you want, whenever you want.

In 2023, a federal judge threw out a $475 million defamation lawsuit Trump filed against CNN for, allegedly, comparing him to Hitler:

That is quite a stretch for Team Trump, but it’s indicative of how he thinks about the media. Luckily, a judge was smart enough to see through Trump’s BS, and CNN had the cajones to fight the case in court.

But one year later, Trump is back in office, and media corporations are tripping over each other to pay Trump off. Take a look:

• 2024 - Trump sues ABC News and George Stephanopoulos for defamation, after Stephanopoulos said that Trump had been found liable for “rape,” when he’d actually been found liable for sexual abuse. ABC paid Trump $15 million to settle a suit they almost certainly would have won at trial. The money is supposed to go to Trump’s “presidential library.”

• In 2021, Trump sued Facebook parent company Meta over the suspension of his account after January 6, 2021. In January, Meta agreed to pay $25 million to settle the suit, $22 million of which will go to Trump’s “presidential library.”

• In 2021, Trump also sued Twitter (now X) for censorship over the suspension of his account after the January 6, 2021 riots. Despite winning in federal district court and appellate court, who correctly ruled that the First Amendment only prohibits restrictions on free speech by the government, Elon Musk announced this year that X will pay Trump $10 million to settle a case they would have won eventually.

• In October of 2024, Trump sued CBS and 60 Minutes for “voter interference,” claiming the network “deceptively edited” its interview with candidate Kamala Harris. Trump wants $20 billion, even though I can’t imagine how he can prove “election interference” in an election he won. CBS filed a motion to dismiss on Friday, but there have been whispers that CBS is preparing its newsroom for a settlement.

If my math is correct, that’s $47 million Trump has pulled in for his “presidential library” in 2025 alone by suing media corporations for their very unfair treatment of him. I’d love to think that CBS will carry the flag for the rest of the media and stand tough against Trump, but news media is now owned by private equity and other corporate bigwigs who care far more about the bottom line than they do the First Amendment and a robust American media. And I haven’t even gotten to Jeff Bezos and Amazon paying $40 million to license the Melania documentary (available on Prime!) that no one asked for or wants, in addition to the $1 million both Bezos and Zuckerberg donated to Trump’s inauguration fund.

Who needs to take money from foreign governments when you can just sue the media for various disingenuous claims that paint you as a perpetual victim? It’s the greatest gift the US Presidency has ever seen — sue giant media corporations over every petty complaint you have and sit back and rake in the millions. Hell, he could sue me for this newsletter and, as I don’t have millions to spend defending myself in a lawsuit, I’d probably have to settle, too. Just more money to line the king’s pockets.

Feels like someone should do something about this, no?

Boycotts work, y’all

In the aftermath of Trump’s first few days in office, several activists threw out boycotting companies that supported MAGA and Trump. The idea was met with many an eye roll and a “That will NEVER work. You can’ affect these giant corporations! You won’t even make a dent in their wallets!” comment.

Well. I want to show you two graphics.

And

Both of those images show the dive Tesla and Amazon have taken in the last month, right around the time the boycotts of both really picked up.

Boycotts work. More importantly, short-term boycotts demonstrate to consumers that they do have the power to affect giant corporations and their bottom lines. Short-term boycotts can turn into long-term avoidance once buyers realize that it is possible to live without Amazon. Elon Musk has lost more than $120 billion since mid-December. That’s not nothing.

Yeah, Elon. We can tell by the stock price and the fact that X didn’t work for more than 20 minutes at a time yesterday. By the way, X has lost more than 80 percent of its value since Musk took over.

Anyway, don’t let Bezos off the hook, either.

DOJ dropping sex abuse lawsuit

In other ways our government is behaving terribly these days, the DOJ has announced it’s dropping a Biden-era sexual abuse lawsuit against a child migrant detention center.

Surely not! You say. This can’t be real. Why on earth would they do such a thing? Well, I’ll tell you.

As a lawyer, I’ve had to represent people I would rather have not and sometimes took positions that I didn’t like. That said, I can’t imagine taking the position that the government should drop a lawsuit over the sexual abuse of minors on the grounds that it might interfere with their political agenda to be cruel to migrants.

A wise man once told me that, when you begin a job, you should identify three things you would never do, and quit after you do two of them. Lisa Blatt should have quit long ago.

Good luck running NASA with no scientists

(Heavy Sigh)

Don’t worry, I’m sure Elon has a bunch of 19-year-old Minecraft players ready to step right in.

The High Note

Each Day, I do my best to leave you with a smile on your face, a song in your heart, and the will to fight another day.

Today, please enjoy what I am choosing to believe is an entirely unscripted moment that exemplifies Rob and Kaitlin’s marriage:

alwayssunnydaily

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Survive and advance today, kids. Don’t let the bastards get you down.