Hello Reader,
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The president decides whether to pay himself with taxpayer funds. Pardons are granted for profit. Military deployments hinge on personal relationships. These are the hallmarks of collapsing republics—where influence replaces institutional integrity and power answers only to itself.

A More Perfect Union

1. Trump's Taxing Tariffs Face Supreme Showdown
2. Trump's $230 Million Absurdity
3. Trump Pardons—and Profits
4. Silicon Valley Spares San Francisco
5. American Renegade of the Week

Some GOP spines finally stiffened on Tuesday, as the Senate delivered a welcome rebuke against Trump's 50% Brazil tariff. Five Republicans broke ranks. Paul, Collins, and Murkowski were expected. But former Senate Majority Leader McConnell and Tillis’ opposition was significant. Trump imposed tariffs after Jair Bolsonaro convicted of plotting a coup to overturn Brazil’s 2022 election—received a 27-year prison sentence.
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Trump contends this constitutes an “emergency” threatening America. The House won't allow a vote until January.
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Then came the tantrum. When Ontario aired a commercial featuring Ronald Reagan criticizing tariffs, Trump terminated trade negotiations and imposed an additional 10% tariff on Canada. His grievance? Ontario refused to pull the ad from World Series broadcasts fast enough. After Trump declared Reagan "LOVED TARIFFS,” the WSJ Editorial Board thoroughly debunked his claim.
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​According to a new study from the center-right Tax Foundation, Trump's tariffs constitute the largest U.S. tax increase as a percent of GDP since 1993—an average household tax increase of $1,300 in 2025 and $2,000 in 2026. Historical evidence confirms consumers pay the price. The government will collect $2.3 trillion over the next decade, but tariffs will shrink GDP by 0.5% and eliminate 489,000 jobs.
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Meanwhile, grocery prices inch upward and the labor market softens, leading the Fed to cut rates a quarter point despite sticky inflation. Let’s see what happens to the rate hike’s lone dissenter.
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On November 5, the Supreme Court hears arguments on constitutionality. Article I grants Congress—not the President—tariff authority. Trump invoked the 1977 IEEPA, enacted to freeze assets during "unusual threats." But IEEPA was never intended as a tariff statute. Two lower courts have ruled Trump exceeded his authority.
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This week, the Senate delivered a symbolic blow to Trump's tariff regime. On November 5^th, I expect the Supreme Court to deliver the fatal one.
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​Late breaking update: the Senate had voted to revoke Trump’s authority to impose tariffs on Canada.

"It's awfully strange to make a decision where I'm paying myself," Trump told reporters from the Oval Office this week.
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Strange doesn't begin to capture it.
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Before his reelection, Trump filed administrative claims under the Federal Tort Claims Act seeking roughly $230 million in taxpayer funds, alleging "malicious prosecution" over the 2022 Mar-a-Lago search and violations during the Russia investigation. An administrative claim is a mandatory first step before filing a lawsuit, giving the government a chance to settle before going to court.
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Yes, the politically motivated investigations imposed substantial legal costs. But the Federal Tort Claims Act specifically bars claims arising from discretionary or policy actions, meaning a president seeking compensation for law enforcement investigations into his own conduct falls well outside the statute's scope—precisely what Congress designed the exception to protect.
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The process is normally handled by career officials in Justice's civil division, deliberately insulated from political interference. But Trump’s former defense attorney, Todd Blanche, now serves as Deputy Attorney General—making him one of the officials who would decide whether Trump will receive one of the largest DOJ payouts ever to an individual.
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For perspective, Trump's demand dwarfs the $144.4 million awarded for the Sutherland Springs shooting families. Trump claims he'll donate it to charity, joking he may use it to “help pay for the ballroom.”
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The circular absurdity of President Trump deciding whether claimant Trump receives taxpayer money for investigations into citizen Trump speaks for itself.

Changpeng Zhao pleaded guilty in 2023 to violating anti-money laundering laws, admitting he prioritized profits over compliance while terrorists and sanctioned regimes funneled $890 million through his Binance exchange. He served four months in prison.
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In May, an Abu Dhabi state fund invested $2 billion in Binance using USD1, a stablecoin issued by World Liberty Financial. The Trump family holds a substantial stake in WLF, co-founded by the son of Trump's special diplomatic envoy, Steve Whitkoff. The Abu Dhabi deal strengthened the stablecoin by treating it as legal tender, creating direct financial benefit for Trump family interests.
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Days later, Zhao applied for clemency. This week, Trump granted it.
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The Trump administration claims Zhao was unfairly targeted in Biden’s war on crypto, but even Trump’s allies are recoiling. Palantir co-founder Joe Lonsdale warned the pardon "makes it look like massive fraud is happening around him."
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The founders designed the pardon power as protection against injustice, requiring presidential restraint. Instead, Trump has transformed constitutional mercy into currency, where admitted criminals who enrich the First Family walk free.

The phone rang at 8 PM last Wednesday. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang had Trump's ear and one message: talk to San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie before you deploy troops.
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For days, Lurie's office had fielded panicked calls as Customs and Border Protection agents massed at a Coast Guard base on the bay. The president had promised Fox News viewers "We're going to go to San Francisco"—federal troops for quasi-police operations, just like he'd done in Los Angeles, Chicago, Memphis, and D.C.
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The showdown began when Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff told the New York Times on October 10th that the National Guard was "needed to combat crime"—handing Trump the justification he'd been fishing for. Angel investor Ron Conway immediately resigned from the Salesforce Foundation in protest. Benioff apologized a week later, but Trump had already made his move.
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This week, a Wall Street Journal exclusive revealed what followed: major policy decisions flowing through personal connections rather than evidence. Huang called Trump directly and gave him Lurie's number. OpenAI's Sam Altman, who'd served on Lurie's transition team, lobbied for the mayor. Tech executives coordinated their message: deployment would trigger mass protests, paralyzing the AI boom's epicenter and rippling through the national economy.
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No crime statistics were discussed. No analysis of whether federal deployment was warranted. Just a 25-minute phone call Wednesday night between Trump and Lurie—brokered by tech CEOs whose influence determined whether troops would patrol American streets.
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By Thursday morning, Trump had backed down.

American Renegade of the Week: Masih Alinejad

Through her Brooklyn window in 2022, Masih Alinejad came face to face with death. The man outside clutched an AK-47 assault rifle loaded with 66 rounds—sent by Iran's Revolutionary Guard to silence her—for daring to expose their cruelty.
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She fled. Minutes later, NYPD officers pulled the triggerman over for blowing a stop sign. Inside his car: the assault rifle, a ski mask, gloves, and $30,000 in blood money.
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This week, two Russian mobsters received 25-year sentences for orchestrating the $500,000 hit—part of Tehran's relentless campaign to eliminate their most dangerous enemy.
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Born in a tiny Iranian village, Alinejad became a parliamentary journalist who refused to be intimidated. In 2005, she exposed lawmakers secretly awarding themselves massive New Year bonuses while claiming pay cuts. Expelled from Parliament, she kept digging. She compared President Ahmadinejad's followers to "hungry dolphins" performing tricks for food scraps, forcing her editor to publicly apologize under regime pressure. After Iran's 2009 fraudulent elections, she published the names of 57 protesters killed in the crackdown. Facing torture and possible execution, she fled to the U.S.
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In 2014, she launched “My Stealthy Freedom” on Facebook, inviting Iranian women to post photos without hijabs. The campaign exploded to nearly nine million followers, transforming into “White Wednesday” protests inside Iran, in which hundreds of women were arrested for peacefully defying the regime’s brutal morality police.
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Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei rails against her in speeches. Iran kidnapped her brother, imprisoning him for two years. Now an American citizen, she’s endured four plotted assassination attempts—including one targeting her and Trump in 2024.
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Wednesday morning, she faced her would-be killers in court." I looked these men in the eyes," Alinejad declared afterward, "and am still standing."

Gaffes, Corrections, and Utter Humiliations

Last week, I fell into the trap I criticize the mainstream media for: dramatizing language to fit my narrative. In the October 25th essay, I characterized the Trump administration's purchase of minority stakes in Intel and other companies as a "seize"—a word implying force rather than voluntary transaction.
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An astute reader caught the error and offered valuable context: unlike Biden-era corporate subsidies under the CHIPS Act, which attached unrelated social policy requirements, these minority stakes give taxpayers potential upside if the companies succeed. The distinction matters.
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I aspire to better precision. My thanks to that reader, who asked to remain anonymous.
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