Podcast Episode: “There’s A Bad Moon On The Rise”

Pip: Into The Fray — where the news is bad, the analysis is sharp, and the democracy is apparently optional. Tom has been watching the current political moment closely, and this episode is built around what he found.

Mara: The territory today is the assault on democratic institutions — specifically a slush fund designed to reward political violence, and what it means for the constitutional order. It's a single, sustained argument. Let's start with the bad moon rising.

There's A Bad Moon On The Rise

Mara: The post opens with January 6th — not as history but as prologue. The question it forces is whether what's happening now is a continuation of that assault, just with a Treasury account attached.

Pip: The post names it plainly. Here's the line: "This is the biggest, most corrupt attempt to date to destroy our democracy and to ensure that one man stays in power unconstrained by rules, regulations or laws."

Mara: And the mechanism is specific. Trump and Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche announced a 1.776 billion dollar fund — the Anti-Weaponization Fund — to pay individuals convicted at trial by juries of their peers, on the premise that they were persecuted.

Pip: A slush fund premised entirely on lies, built on a lawsuit that never went to court, and named with a founding-era date. The branding alone deserves a moment of silence.

Mara: The constitutional stakes are direct. The post argues this "completely castrates Congress" — their power of the purse, the one reliable check on executive spending. Appropriations authority belongs to Congress. This move routes around it entirely.

Pip: And buried in the paperwork is something even more specific. The addendum released the day after uses language in all capitals — the post quotes it verbatim: "the United States RELEASES, WAIVES, ACQUITS and FOREVER DISCHARGES each of the Plaintiffs from" prosecution or pursuit of essentially everything Trump, his family, and associated entities have ever touched.

Mara: So the upshot is that Trump, his family, and a broad set of affiliated entities may never face IRS audit or tax investigation again. The post notes he's believed to owe over a hundred million dollars from past filings. That debt, under this agreement, disappears.

Pip: There are already lawsuits. The problem, as the post notes, is standing — it may be wrong, it may be evil, but under current law it may not be illegal.

Mara: The post closes on a structural argument: this isn't about relitigating 2020. It's a forward-looking signal that loyalty to Trump will be rewarded and that the J-6 insurrectionists are Exhibit A. Pardoned first, paid second.

Pip: The Founders built checks and balances. They didn't anticipate that Congress would simply go home — which is exactly what the Speaker and Majority Leader did, adjourning both chambers as the pushback was building.

Mara: The throughline here is that the mechanisms meant to constrain power are being routed around one by one — and the window to reinforce them keeps narrowing.

Pip: The bad moon, as the song goes, is already risen. Next time, we'll see what else has come up in the interim.