Peter Thiel's Inner Circle Jerk

Welcome back to the Jerks of the Week, where we bring you the lowlifes behind the headlines. Here are our top five this week.

PETER THIEL. First up is the billionaire rounding up elites from around the world to talk about cults and sex–and it isn’t who you’re thinking. Since 2006, MAGA funder, tech boss, and all-around weirdo Peter Thiel has been holding retreats for a select group of tech billionaires and American and foreign officials called Dialog to chat about anything and everything “off the record.” What do they chat about? According to a leaked schedule for one such retreat, the topics include “Bring Back Nuclear,” “Build-a-Cult,” and “How’s Your Sex Life?” Creepy, to say the least.

But what’s even more concerning is who is mixing off the record at these events. The leaked documents also show that they include a crop of Trump Administration officials and other high-ranking members of the government, including Rep. Jim Himes, who just so happens to oversee the agencies Palantir (of which Thiel is a co-founder) contracts with. Sounds a little shady to me. And since no MAGA party would be complete without him, records show that the creep-of-all-creeps, Jeffrey Epstein, received an invitation in 2014, six years after his first conviction as a sex offender. Tell me you’re up to no good without telling me you’re up to no good.

TRUMP’S DOJ. Speaking of shady deals, the Justice Department is continuing to cry wolf at Donald Trump’s enemies while turning a blind eye to his friends. On Monday, California Gov. Gavin Newsom revealed that the DOJ is going after his wife on allegations related to her taxes. The probe began last year, and investigators have interrogated people close to the couple and gotten their hands on the family’s financial documents. The DOJ claims it was set off by whistleblower reports, and that Trump’s allies in the DOJ headquarters weren’t involved. But it’s hard to miss how targeted it is, especially when the department has been tripping over itself to back up Paramount’s buyout of Warner Bros., even as its own antitrust lawyers said they should file a lawsuit to block it. Instead, the deal was greenlit before those lawyers could officially issue a recommendation. In Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s words, it “reeks of corruption.”

NEVADA REPUBLICAN PRIMARY VOTERS. On Monday, Republican voters chose Jim Marchant as their nominee for Nevada Secretary of State. In case you’re not familiar, Marchant is a notorious voting conspiracy theorist and denier of the 2020 election results. He’s said that he wouldn’t have certified the 2020 elections results–something he would be in charge of if elected–and he’s tied to Trump’s “fake elector” scheme to remain in office after he was defeated. In other words, he’s the absolute last person who should be in charge of any election. Nevada’s Republicans chose him anyway. Good luck with that, voters.

THIRD CIRCUIT COURT OF APPEALS. Also making a bad choice this week was the Third Circuit Court of Appeals, whose judges gave the Trump Administration a free pass to revise history when it ruled that the city of Philadelphia doesn’t have the final say on exhibits in the President’s House Site. The administration has been trying to remove an exhibit at the site on the people enslaved by George Washington, but was blocked by a federal judge, who called it out for trying to conceal historical facts. But that didn’t matter to the Third Circuit judges, who unanimously ruled to overturn the injunction put in place by the judge. Jerks, through and through.

THE POOL GUYS. Last up are the guys responsible for the latest disaster in Trump’s campaign to Mar-a-Lago-ify the nation’s capital. A few months ago, Trump had the characteristically ridiculous idea of painting the Lincoln Memorial reflecting pool in what he called “American flag blue.” Unfortunately, his taste in contractors is just about as bad as his taste in decor. This week, observers noticed that a section of the paint job had peeled off and floated to the surface. Meanwhile, the pool has turned a sickly shade of green as algae blooms have erupted all across it. That’s despite the $1.7 million contract Trump handed to a company connected to one of his groupies to install a water purification system in the pool. The good news is that the hideous paint job is now covered up. The bad news is that the National Mall looks like an industrial waste site. You literally had one job, pool guys.

Of course, the biggest jerk of the week, month, year, and decade is always Donald Trump himself, but there’s only so much space here to write about all the horrible things he does in a single day, much less a week. Fuck Trump.

Now scroll down for our Heroes of the Week!

Amid the daily onslaught of infuriating news, we have to acknowledge the heroes among us. The list continues to grow, as more and more of us stand up to the tyrant and his fascist regime. Courage is infectious. Be brave!

THE WORLD CUP. If Trump and his cronies are showing off the jerky side of America, the World Cup is bringing out the heroic one. On the field, the U.S. men’s national team is killing it. They’re on a winning streak that’s gotten them further into the tournament than they’ve been in almost a century. Then there are the foreign tourists. From a Japanese fan whose mind was blown by free chips and salsa in Mexican restaurants to Scottish fans loving New England beer, World Cup fans are experiencing what makes America so special. Maybe best of all are the anti-ICE activists using the event to show the world that America isn’t behind the Trump Administration’s immigration policies. They’ve launched a poster series in cities hosting games to make that point. ICE Out!

HUNTER BIDEN. Then there’s former first son Hunter Biden, who took to social media to tell Joe Rogan why the White House UFC fight was wrong. With an eloquence I’m sure went right over Rogan’s shiny head, Hunter patiently explained that while he respects the UFC and its fighters, it had no place in our “sacred” public spaces. The White House, he explained, “belongs to the people,” and presidents are not “emperors” who can just throw Colosseums up on it. Hunter has had his problems, but I respect anyone who finds their way back. And Hunter has. Good on him.

THE JUDICIARY. For every court making a jerky ruling these days, there seems to be two making heroic ones. That was the case this week. In South Carolina, a federal judge ruled that the Trump Administration’s termination of grants supporting communities suffering from climate change was “arbitrary and capricious and unlawful.” In Massachusetts, another judge ruled that state attorneys general and pro-democracy organizations can carry on fighting Trump’s assault on mail-in voting in the courts. Good moves, judges.

PRESIDIO MUNICIPAL DEVELOPMENT DISTRICT. Another hero in the courts is Texas’ Presidio Municipal Development District, which is suing the Trump Administration over flooding risks created by border walls it plans to build in the county. The planned section of wall would cross over levees, and the lawsuit says construction could damage them and lead to dangerous flash floods. What’s more, the Trump administration bypassed the usual review by the Army Corps of Engineers and refused to share its flood assessment. A year after deadly flooding hit Texas, this district is taking on the feds to protect its people. That’s the kind of fight we need.

UKRAINE. Finally, as Trump was at the G7 summit grumbling that the U.S. has “nothing to do” with the war in Ukraine, Ukraine was busy demonstrating how far from giving up they are. Ukrainian forces took the fight to Moscow, with drone strikes taking out the city’s largest oil refinery. At the same time, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky secured a loan worth tens of billions, renewed pledges for military aid, and a definitive statement of “unwavering support” from the other G7 countries. Trump might not respect you, Ukraine, but we do. Keep up the good fight.

Did we miss anyone? Send your heroes our way!

Good Reads for This Week

• The Parties Are Losing the Country —The Great Transformation with Mike Madrid

• They Knew and They Did Nothing —Light Against Empire

• Democrats Need to Lead the Second Reconstruction —The UnPopulist

• The Iran Peace Deal Is What Trumpism Looks Like —The Dispatch

• The Price of Trump —Real Patriotism