We are living in a time where the mores and morals that were supposed to be part of the Oval Office has been steamrolled by a deranged right-wing failed businessman.

You might have heard that over the weekend, the latest grift, er, “controversial decision” by Semi-Sentient Rotting Carrot was the acceptance of a gift of an airliner from the Qatari Royal Family.

So this is going to be the new Air Force One, which has been something of a minor obsession since his first term. This was from a story on CNN in 2018.

For months, the President has been fixated on a new plane and has repeatedly told his aides that he wants the plane to be completed for his second term. It’s an open question whether that can happen – given a lengthy Air Force testing time.

Like everything else with Trump, this entire subject is a demonstration both of Trump’s incredible level of greed and his incredible level of not understanding how things work. He bitched and grumbled about not having a tip-top Trump plane and wanted it NOW, security and safety risks be damned.

It is not really beyond the pale to wonder if Qatar noticed Trump’s desire for a Mar-A-Lago of the Sky, and stepped up. As I am sure many of you have noticed, Trump has taken it upon himself to match the White House to his own personal aesthetics, which is basically New Money Louie the XVI. Oil nation royalty seems to have very similar tastes, so I am sure the Flying Mar-A-Lago will already feature the kind of gold-plated tackiness that is as Trump as Big Macs and delusional economic ideas.

There is a problem with this, as Atlantic writer and author Anne Applebaum pointed out yesterday on Bluesky.

"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"- U.S. constitution abcnews.go.com/Politics/tru…

— Anne Applebaum (@anneapplebaum.bsky.social) 2025-05-11T12:51:18.386Z

Applebaum has been a vital voice on our slide into corruption and autocracy, and the Flying Mar-A-Lago gift grift is just one in the latest of a long parade of open Trump corruption. Conflict of interest is a feature, not a bug.

This of course includes shady things involving oil-rich nations, so Qatar giving Trump a flying luxury yacht is not out of the ordinary (with expectations of something in return). But it is, as Applebaum outlines the prior link, most likely as illegal as the other shady things.

Part of the problem that led us to this moment is the normalization of the corruption and the grift within the media, the collective shrug that is “Trump being Trump.” This never made a lick of sense, because saying “that’s just a criminal being a criminal” should never be a thing.

However, this might be different.

The plane is not to be used as Air Force One after Trump thankfully leaves office. At that point, it will be part of the Trump Presidential Library, which has all the potential of being the worst presidential library in American history. This, of course, means that Trump will probably use the plane until the Grim Reaper decides the world has had enough and takes him off our hands.

The question of whether this is crooked is seemingly obvious. In the first link above, which is to the New York Times article about this insane grift:

“Even in a presidency defined by grift, this move is shocking,” said Robert Weissman, a co-president of Public Citizen, a consumer advocacy organization. “It makes clear that U.S. foreign policy under Donald Trump is up for sale.”

You said it, Bob. There are also many questions about intelligence, security, and safety that accepting a plane from a foreign nation entails. But, of course, the Trump administration is not hearing it.

Official Trump Administration Minister of Lies Karoline Leavitt put out the following statement:

Any gift given by a foreign government is always accepted in full compliance with all applicable laws. President Trump’s administration is committed to full transparency.

There are no reports of her being struck by lightning or being sucked up into a Vortex of Irony after posting that, but would not be too shocked if either of those things happened. Trump naturally responded with a very reasoned and measured thought that demonstrates his deep emotional maturity.

So the fact that the Defense Department is getting a GIFT, FREE OF CHARGE, of a 747 aircraft to replace the 40 year old Air Force One, temporarily, in a very public and transparent transaction, so bothers the Crooked Democrats that they insist we pay, TOP DOLLAR, for the plane. Anybody can do that! The Dems are World Class Losers!!!

One can almost see the flying bits of Big Mac spraying out of his grotesque maw.

I certainly hope that the DC media and Very Serious Minds of the Great American Discourse continue to raise the alarm about this. I also hope that Democrats (looking at you, Amy Klobuchar) don’t decide to write this off as “a distraction” from “kitchen table issues.” You can walk and chew gum, go after Trump’s outrageous level of grift, AND shine a light on how his economic plan will wreck American home budgets.

Because ignoring the grift will only invite more, and worse, grift.

The last word goes to Pink Floyd (special nod to our own RCB30 for the idea for this Last Word song):