Editor's Picks: Mindboggling Corruption, ICE Death Cards, and Making the Poor Poorer

It's been another wild week, but here are two stories you may not have seen. A half-billion-dollar business deal between President Trump and the brother of the President of the United Arab Emirates may well be his most blatant act of corruption yet.  ICE is dropping "death cards." Big Tech and Big Landlords conspire to fleece the poor.

An absolutely stunning level of corruption—even for Donald Trump

Just days before Donald Trump’s 2025 inauguration, Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan, a member of the Abu Dhabi royal family, made a secret $500 million investment to own 49% of World Liberty Financial, a cryptocurrency venture co-founded by members of the Trump and Witkoff families. Soon after, the Trump administration approved the UAE's access to advanced AI chips, despite concerns that we don't have enough of them and those we sell could wind up in the hands of China or other adversaries. 

Documents reviewed by the Wall Street Journal, which broke the story, showed that Al Nahyan's lieutenants agreed to pay half up front, steering $187 million to Trump family entities, and at least $31 million to entities affiliated with the Witkoff family.

The stunning nakedness of this level of corruption is astounding. However, because we are literally swimming in a sea of presidential corruption deeper than the Mariana Trench, the story is getting far less attention than it deserves. 

Let this sink in: an Abu Dhabi royal known as the "spy shiekh," whose brother is President of the United Arab Emirates, and who himself serves as the UAE’s national security adviser and head of the country’s largest wealth fund, owns half of the American President's Primary business interest. That's right, crypto-related "deals" have quickly become Trump's chief wealth-making enterprise. 

This should be the greatest presidential scandal in American history, but, because it's Trump, it is just another day that ends in Y.

ICE has taken its soldier cosplaying to a new and disgusting level

The Intercept reports that ICE agents dropped customized Ace of Spades playing cards, popularly known as a “death card,” that read “ICE Denver Field Office” at sites where they took people into custody. The practice is copying something that some U.S. soldiers did during the Vietnam War. Soldiers would drop the cards on the bodies of North Viet Namese soliders (or even civilians) they killed.

Predatory creditors are capitalizing on sky-high Rent Prices with “Rent Now, Pay Later” loans

A report issued after a joint investigation by Protect Borrowers and Towards Justice charts the rise of “Rent Now, Pay Later” loans, short-term, high-cost loans similar to payday loans, and shows how predatory creditors are capitalizing on sky-high rents by driving families into debt.

"Big banks and Big Tech are cashing in on the affordability crisis by hawking exploitative loans to Americans who are just trying to keep a roof over their heads," said Ben Kaufman, Protect Borrowers senior fellow and coauthor of the report. "With political leadership at the federal level sabotaging consumer protection, it’s critical that state and local lawmakers, policymakers, and law enforcement take action to safeguard Americans from being pushed deeper into debt just from paying their rent."

Rent Now, Pay Later companies push risky loans, usually carrying sky-high interest rates, while obscuring other fees by mislabeling charges and misleading their customers. With home prices remaining stubbornly inflated, rents have skyrocketed.  The median household spends an average of 31 percent of its income on rent, a number that goes up as you go down the income ladder.