Saturday Morning Covfefe: 5 Things That Don’t Happen by Accident

None are isolated. All are connected.

The Justice Department just issued subpoenas to Minnesota’s governor and the mayor of Minneapolis, an unprecedented escalation following a fatal shooting by a federal immigration officer and growing criticism of the administration’s tactics. When state leaders question federal conduct and are met not with answers but criminal investigations, the message isn’t subtle: dissent itself is becoming the alleged offense. It is the deliberate weaponization of federal power.

That’s quite the backdrop, now let’s read the signals.

1. Follow the Money, Because the Scandals Keep Following It

Here’s the quiet part everyone’s supposed to ignore: Trump’s super PAC, MAGA Inc., isn’t just raking in cash, it’s attracting brand-new megadonors with serious business before the federal government. Not $25 checks. Tens of millions of dollars, often from people who’d never played at this level before.

And the timing matters. The money didn’t flood in during the campaign. It surged after Trump won, while he was governing. That’s the tell. Super PACs aren’t meant to be tip jars for regulatory relief, contracts, pardons, or executive favors, but that’s increasingly what this looks like.

Take tech and Artificial Intelligence: Executives tied to OpenAI and Palantir suddenly cut seven- and eight-figure checks as the administration rolled out AI policies, froze state guardrails, and expanded federal contracts. Crypto firms followed suit, then watched Trump embrace crypto-friendly laws. Sure. Totally unrelated.

Then Venezuela. A Chevron board member quietly drops $2 million just weeks before U.S. military action, followed by the administration encouraging Chevron to expand operations there. Timing isn’t proof, but it’s flashing red.

And it doesn’t stop at policy. Some donors had family members facing serious federal charges that later vanished. Others gave millions while angling for ambassadorships or running companies swimming in Defense Department contracts, all while the FEC can’t even investigate.

Zoom out. MAGA Inc. is sitting on nearly $300 million, gearing up to shape the 2026 midterms and enforce loyalty inside the GOP. Trump may be term-limited. The influence operation isn’t.

This is why we follow the money. Because when donors with something to gain flood the system, democracy starts looking less like representation and a lot more like pay-to-play.

💰 The Donor List Everyone Should Be Reading Closely: NBC

2. From Dog Whistles to Federal Policy

Less than two days after an ICE agent killed Renee Good in Minneapolis, DHS posted a recruitment video using a song popular in neo-Nazi spaces, built around language about reclaiming “our home” by “blood or sweat,” phrasing tied to white supremacist manifestos and real-world violence.

This wasn’t a slip-up. It was a signal.

For years, extremist rhetoric was dismissed as deniable and fringe. What’s changed is who’s using it: now these messages come directly from federal agencies with the power to detain, deport, and use lethal force. Extremism researchers warn this marks a turning point: propaganda is now coming from inside the federal government, a concern I share as a former Homeland Security official who tracked domestic extremism, and one documented in recent PBS NewsHour reporting.

Zoom out and the pattern sharpens. Official accounts lean into themes of decline, “heritage,” and reclamation as January 6 is rewritten, dissent is delegitimized, and force is framed as restoration. What’s happening here isn’t about aesthetics. It’s about the machinery of the state.

⚠️ When Extremist Propaganda Comes From the Government: The Intercept

3. Government Overreach on Campuses In Practice

What’s unfolding here isn’t about protecting students. It’s about authority pushing past civil liberties.

The Trump administration is demanding that the University of Pennsylvania turn over names and personal contact information tied to Jewish faculty, staff, and students, pressuring a university to produce religiously identifiable records for the federal government. Jewish faculty groups have been unambiguous about the risk: compiling a list of Jews makes people less safe, not more. That concern isn’t abstract. Identity-based registries create real vulnerabilities: misuse, targeting, surveillance, and chilling effects.

As a Penn alum, this hits close to home. Universities are meant to safeguard inquiry and independence, not serve as compliance pipelines for federal fishing expeditions that implicate privacy, religious freedom, and free association.

The issue isn’t ideology or campus politics. It’s about how far the government can push institutions to cooperate in identity-based monitoring, and whether anyone pushes back. History shows these tests rarely stay confined to one campus.

Civil liberties aren’t theoretical. They’re the line between protection and exposure, and once they erode quietly, restoring them is far harder than defending them in the first place.

👀 Faculty Warnings at the University of Pennsylvania: The Guardian

4. When the Fed Becomes a Target, Everyone Pays

Before the Justice Department turned its attention to Minnesota’s governor and mayor, the line had already been crossed. The pressure campaign started with institutions meant to be independent, including the media and most recently the Federal Reserve.

Minnesota isn’t an outlier. It’s the proof.

Guardrails don’t vanish with tanks in the streets. They disappear through legal memos, sealed investigations, and justifications that sound reasonable, until you follow where they lead.

Reports that Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell could face criminal exposure under a Justice Department increasingly aligned with Donald Trump are being dismissed as just another political fight. That framing misses the danger. Powell isn’t the point. What’s being tested is whether independence itself has become a liability.

The Federal Reserve was built to operate outside partisan pressure for a reason. Monetary policy only works if markets trust that decisions are driven by data, not presidential grievances. When that firewall holds, rates may hurt and inflation may sting, but trust remains. When it cracks, markets stop reacting to facts and start reacting to who’s in charge.

When investors believe independent officials can be punished for doing their jobs, borrowing gets more expensive. Mortgage rates rise. Credit cards and auto loans cost more. Small businesses pull back. Hiring slows.

This isn’t theoretical. Countries that politicize their central banks don’t get cheaper money, they get instability. And the first people to feel it aren’t hedge funds. They’re families living paycheck to paycheck.

As Jeffrey Sonnenfeld notes, this may backfire politically. But the deeper danger is institutional. Once independence becomes prosecutable, the rule of law turns selective.

Institutions don’t collapse overnight. They’re tested. This is one of those tests.

📉 When Politics Targets the Federal Reserve: Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, Fortune

5. Segregation Talk, Out Loud

☕ The one that made me spit out my coffee.

A leaked Signal chat shows New Hampshire’s House Education Committee chair suggesting that schools should be separated into “them” and “us,” with a remark about “imagining the scores.” When the messages became public, the lawmaker didn’t deny them; she reframed them, claiming she meant political segregation, not racial.

An education leader is openly entertaining the logic of separation while advancing legislation to purge so-called “divisive concepts” from public schools. History doesn’t give us the luxury of pretending this language is harmless, especially when it comes from people shaping policy.

This isn’t internet trolling. It’s coming from inside a state legislature—from someone with power over what children are taught, who belongs in public schools, and whose views are treated as legitimate.

That’s how ideas once considered unthinkable get tested out loud.

🚨 Segregation Talk in Leaked NH Lawmaker Chat: Boston Globe

🌅 One Thing for Your Soul

A reminder that decency still shows up, sometimes with a set of keys in hand.

A group of Buddhist monks has been walking 2,300 miles from Texas to Washington, D.C., spreading peace, compassion, and unity—often barefoot, under open sky, alongside their rescue dog, Aloka. When a distracted driver totaled their escort vehicle near Dayton, Texas, sending monks to the hospital, a local roofing company owner, Osbaldo Durán, saw the story and didn’t just feel bad. He did something. He donated a fully insured Toyota RAV4, added new tires and safety lights, changed the oil, filled the tank, and handed over the keys. No fanfare. Just heart.

Hope isn’t a slogan. It’s a choice. It’s action. It’s ordinary people stepping up when someone else’s journey matters.

🚗 A Simple Act of Kindness on a Long Walk for Peace: USA Today

I keep most of this writing free because understanding shouldn’t be gated. Some readers choose to support this work so it can stay independent and honest, and I’m grateful for that. I’ll be hosting a live Ask Me Anything next week for paid subscribers, a chance to compare notes on what you’re seeing and what might be coming next.

More soon!

-Olivia