Wednesday, July 29, 2026
President Donald Trump took in a staggering $2.2 billion last year while in office, a haul Democrats hope to weaponize in the midterms even as he raged at the Supreme Court on his Truth Social platform. The personal enrichment and the judicial tantrum are of a piece: a president who treats the state as a revenue stream and the courts as obstacles to be denounced when they do not comply.
The administration's contempt for legal constraints extends to the most vulnerable. Lawyers for incarcerated transgender women argued in federal court Wednesday that the Trump administration violated a court order by transferring several transgender women to a segregated prison unit. Simultaneously, the Justice Department is proposing a rule that would empower immigration judges to hold attorneys, their clients and witnesses in contempt for violating court orders — a direct threat to legal representation in a system already stacked against migrants. A federal judge separately ruled the administration cannot use its travel ban against asylum seekers, exposing the pattern: ignore courts when they block cruelty, weaponize them when they enable it. Behind the prison transfers, a failed developer named James Grossmann profits from ICE's billion-dollar detention buying spree — carceral capitalism working as designed.
On Iran, the partnership's hierarchy is naked: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu affirmed that he believes President Donald Trump and the U.S. are in charge of the U.S.-Israeli partnership, while Senator John Kennedy (R-LA) acknowledged that maintaining sanctions and a blockade will be "painful" for Americans ahead of the midterms but argued sustained pressure may move Tehran. The costs of imperial brinkmanship fall on workers; the decisions rest with capital.
Public sentiment is turning against the AI hype driving Big Tech valuations. A Bentley University-Gallup survey found 39 percent of respondents now believe AI does more harm than good, up from 31 percent, even as Mark Zuckerberg launches a full-spectrum PR campaign to sell AI's upside. Meanwhile Apple unveiled a new monthly lease program for iPhones, deepening the rental economy that extracts recurring revenue from users who can no longer afford to own their devices. The administration caps the extraction: ending subsidies for Medicare drug plans will raise premiums for millions of beneficiaries in 2027. From prisons to phones to prescriptions, the looting is systematic.