Wednesday, May 14,2025. Annette’s Roundup for Democracy.
Everything Donald Trump touches dies.
During the Pete Rose era, I was a Phillies Fan. But I felt that Major League Baseball made the moral decision when it placed Rose on MLB’s “permanently ineligible” list for gambling.
Does yesterday’s reversal of Commissioner Bart Giamatti’s 1989 decision feel like surrender to you?
Commissioner Manfred’s decision, made in the shadow of Trump's ugly and incessant demands that Rose be reinstated and be eligible for the Baseball Hall of Fame, feels to me like another brick falling. The Times reported, in mid-April, Manfred met at the White House with Trump.
Even if Manfred’s arguments for reinstatement hold, the timing makes them smell bad.
“Where have you gone, Joe DiMaggio?
Our nation turns its lonely eyes to you.”
Pete Rose, other deceased players removed from MLB’s permanently ineligible list.
Major League Baseball removed Pete Rose and other deceased players from MLB’s permanently ineligible list on Tuesday, an extraordinary twist to a saga that has gone on for more than three decades. The decision, announced by commissioner Rob Manfred in a letter to the Rose family’s attorney Jeffrey Lenkov, makes the sport’s all-time hit king eligible for election to the Hall of Fame.
Rose, who died from a heart condition last September at 83, was placed on MLB’s permanently ineligible list in 1989 for gambling on his team, the Cincinnati Reds, while he managed them. Rose, who collected a record 4,256 hits, has never been considered for the Hall of Fame because of a 1991 rule change that barred players on the ineligible list from election.
According to a statement from Major League Baseball, in a letter to Lenkov, Manfred wrote, “In my view, a determination must be made regarding how the phrase ‘permanently ineligible’ should be interpreted in light of the purposes and policies behind Rule 21, which are to: (1) protect the game from individuals who pose a risk to the integrity of the sport by prohibiting the participation of such individuals; and (2) create a deterrent effect that reduces the likelihood of future violations by others. In my view, once an individual has passed away, the purposes of Rule 21 have been served. Obviously, a person no longer with us cannot represent a threat to the integrity of the game. Moreover, it is hard to conceive of a penalty that has more deterrent effect than one that lasts a lifetime with no reprieve. Therefore, I have concluded that permanent ineligibility ends upon the passing of the disciplined individual, and Mr. Rose will be removed from the permanently ineligible list.”
Manfred met in December with Lenkov, who represented Rose until his death, and Rose’s daughter, Fawn, to discuss the possibility of reinstatement. Rose’s family then filed a formal petition for reinstatement on Jan. 8, in hopes of a posthumous induction to the Hall of Fame.
Manfred’s ruling Tuesday also applies to 16 other deceased individuals, including Shoeless Joe Jackson.
In mid-April, Manfred met at the White House with President Trump, who tweeted support of Rose’s Hall of Fame case in 2020 and again after his death, writing: “Major League Baseball should have allowed him into the Hall of Fame many years ago. Do it now, before his funeral!”
Trump raised the issue again this March on Truth Social, calling for Rose to be elected to the Hall of Fame and saying that MLB “didn’t have the courage or decency” to allow him in.
“Over the next few weeks I will be signing a complete PARDON of Pete Rose, who shouldn’t have been gambling on baseball, but only bet on HIS TEAM WINNING,” Trump wrote. “He never betted against himself, or the other team. He had the most hits, by far, in baseball history, and won more games than anyone in sports history.”
Trump did not specify the infraction for which he would pardon Rose, who was not arrested for gambling. Rose served five months in prison after pleading guilty to tax evasion charges in 1990, but that was unrelated to his ban from baseball.
Rose had long been a presence on induction weekend in Cooperstown, N.Y., selling his autograph at a memorabilia shop on Main Street for years, including in 2024. Artifacts of his career are also displayed in the museum, and the library contains voluminous material and documents related to his legacy.
But Rose understood that he would never get the glory of the induction ceremony that comes with a spot in the hallowed plaque gallery.
“I’ve come to the conclusion – I hope I’m wrong – that I’ll make the Hall of Fame after I die,’” Rose said 10 days before his death in an interview with John Condit, a sportscaster in Dayton, Ohio. “Which I totally disagree with, because the Hall of Fame is for two reasons: your fans and your family. That’s what the Hall of Fame is for. Your fans and your family. And it’s for your family if you’re here. It’s for your fans if you’re here. Not if you’re 10 feet under.”
Players are initially voted on by a group of 400 or so baseball writers, but that window closes 15 years after the player’s final game. Players not elected by the writers are considered by a 16-person committee (with Hall of Famers, front-office members and historians) on a rotating basis, with candidates grouped from different eras.
“The National Baseball Hall of Fame has always maintained that anyone removed from Baseball’s permanently ineligible list will become eligible for Hall of Fame consideration,” Hall of Fame Chairman of the Board Jane Forbes Clark said in a statement Tuesday. “Major League Baseball’s decision to remove deceased individuals from the permanently ineligible list will allow for the Hall of Fame candidacy of such individuals to now be considered. The Historical Overview Committee will develop the ballot of eight names for the Classic Baseball Era Committee – which evaluates candidates who made their greatest impact on the game prior to 1980 – to vote on when it meets next in December 2027.”
If he makes it onto that ballot, Rose would need 12 of 16 votes to be enshrined.
Rose was banned by Commissioner Bart Giamatti after a report by investigator John Dowd confirmed that he had violated Rule 21 (d) (2), which states: “Any player, umpire, or Club or League official or employee, who shall bet any sum whatsoever upon any baseball game in connection with which the bettor has a duty to perform, shall be declared permanently ineligible.”
Giamatti – who implored Rose to “reconfigure” his life as a condition of possible reinstatement – died of a heart attack eight days after the decision. Manfred is the third commissioner since then, following Fay Vincent and Bud Selig, and had rejected Rose’s petitions for reinstatement in 2015 and 2020.
“While it is my preference not to disturb decisions made by prior Commissioners, Mr. Rose was not placed on the permanently ineligible list by Commissioner action but rather as the result of a 1989 settlement of potential litigation with the Commissioner’s Office,” Manfred wrote Tuesday. “My decision today is consistent with Commissioner Giamatti’s expectations of that agreement.
“Commissioner Giamatti’s comments were completely reasonable given that, at the time, the Hall of Fame did not have a rule barring people on the permanently ineligible list from Hall of Fame consideration,” Manfred wrote. “In fact, Shoeless Joe Jackson was afforded the opportunity to be voted upon in 1936 and again in 1946.” (The Athletic).
Will anything or anyone stop Trump’s corruption?
Call your elected officials.
As Trump Courts Gifts and Dangles Access, Congress Sits on the Sidelines.
Republicans on Capitol Hill seem unlikely to challenge President Trump as he pushes ethics guardrails around profiting from the presidency to the breaking point. (New York Times)
May 12, 2025. Letters from an American.by Heather Cox Richardson
The biggest news over the weekend was silence: the silence of Republicans. They refused to disavow White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller’s statement that the administration is looking at suspending the writ of habeas corpus, that is, essentially declaring martial law. They have also stayed quiet after the administration announced it was planning to accept a gift of a $400 million luxury Boeing 747-8 plane from the Qatari royal family. President Donald J. Trump would use the plane as Air Force One during the rest of his presidency and take it with him when he leaves office.
This is in keeping with the refusal of 53 Republican senators to answer questions from Rolling Stone’s Ryan Bort after NBC’s Kristen Welker asked Trump, “Don’t you need to uphold the Constitution of the United States, as president?” and he answered: “I don’t know.” Only Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) went on the record, posting on social media: “Following the Constitution is not a suggestion. It is a guiding force for all of us who work on behalf of the American people. Do you agree?”
It seems as if Republicans who are not on board the MAGA train are hoping the courts or reality will stop Trump’s authoritarian overreach. As Steve Vladeck noted on Friday in One First, there is “near-universal consensus…that only Congress can suspend habeas corpus—and that unilateral suspensions by the President are per se unconstitutional.” In addition, Miller’s insistence that it would be appropriate to suspend the writ of habeas corpus because the United States is under attack—a position Trump echoed yesterday when he posted, “Our Country has been INVADED by 21,000,000 Illegal Aliens, many of whom are Murderers and Criminals of the Highest Order”—has failed repeatedly in court.
Reality will trip up Trump’s plan to take possession of the Qatari gift. As David Kurtz noted this morning in Talking Points Memo, retrofitting the luxury plane with the defense capabilities and security protections necessary for Air Force One will take years, not months. (Air Force One is not a specific airplane; it is the call sign given to any Air Force aircraft carrying the president of the United States).
Still, the Republicans’ silence matters. Whether Trump’s plans are all possible is not the point: he and the members of his administration are deliberately attacking the fundamental principles of our democratic republic. That lawmakers who swore an oath to uphold those principles are choosing to remain silent makes them complicit in that attack.
The framers of the U.S. Constitution recognized that democratic government was a new departure from a world in which the world’s monarchs made deals amongst themselves. They placed strong guardrails around the behavior of future chief executives to make sure they would not sell the American people out to foreign leaders. “[N]o Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under [the United States], 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,” they wrote in the Constitution. An emolument is a payment.
Until the Trump administration, the expectation was that presidents would not accept foreign gifts, let alone bribes. As Jonathan Yerushalmy of The Guardian explained today, U.S. law prohibits presidents from accepting gifts worth more than $480. Gifts worth more than that are considered a gift to the American people and are transferred to the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), the same agency that oversees presidential libraries. President George W. Bush gave up a puppy that was a gift from the leader of Bulgaria. When he left office after his first term, experts estimate, Trump retained more than $250,000 worth of gifts.
Trump loyalist Attorney General Pam Bondi and Trump’s top White House lawyer, David Warrington, signed off on Trump’s acceptance of the Qatari jet. They concluded it was an acceptable gift because while it will be exclusively for Trump’s use, the “flying palace” will be transferred from the Qataris to the U.S. Air Force and then to Trump’s presidential library, and that it is not tied to a specific presidential act. In 2019, Bondi was a registered lobbyist for Qatar, earning $115,000 a month.
In defending his planned acceptance of the plane, Trump turned the emoluments clause on its head. That, in turn, turned on its head the idea of a democratic republic in which the government rejects the idea of foreign leaders colluding for their own profit and reached back to that world the framers of the U.S. Constitution rejected.
He posted: “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!!! MAGA”
In The Bulwark, William Kristol observed: This is the voice of old-world autocracy…. Those who care that our republican government not be dependent on foreign states, that our elected leaders not take favors from foreign princes, they are losers.”
This is corruption, and not just in the sense that a government official is getting a payoff. It is corruption in the old-fashioned meaning of the term, that the body politic is being corrupted—poisoned—by a sickness that must be cured or it will be fatal. That corruption is the old-world system the framers tried to safeguard against, and it is visible anew in the relationship of the Trumps with Qatar.
The Trump family’s connections to Qatar are longstanding. In 2022 the chair of the Senate Committee on Finance, Ron Wyden (D-OR), and the chair of the House Committee on Oversight and Reform, Carolyn B. Maloney (D-NY), wrote to Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin III, asking for information in their “ongoing investigations into whether former Senior White House Adviser Jared Kushner’s financial conflicts of interest may have led him to improperly influence U.S. tax, trade, and national security policies for his own financial gain.”
Kushner is married to Trump’s daughter and was a key presidential advisor in Trump’s first term. The letter explained that Qatar had repeatedly refused to bail out the badly leveraged Kushner property at 666 Fifth Avenue (now known as 660 Fifth Avenue) in 2018. But after Kushner talked to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates and the two states imposed a blockade on Qatar, Qatar suddenly threw in the necessary cash. Shortly after, the Saudi and UAE governments lifted the blockade, with Kushner taking credit for brokering the agreement.
Wyden and Maloney noted that “[t]he economic blockade of Qatar may have been used as leverage for the 666 Fifth Avenue bailout and was not supported by other officials, including the Secretaries of State and Defense.” They warned that Kushner “may have prioritized his own financial interests over the national interest. The pursuit of personal financial gain should not dictate U.S. tax, trade, and national security policies.”
In this administration the corruption is even more direct. On May 1, 2025, the Trump Organization cut a deal with Qatari Diar, a company established by Qatar’s sovereign wealth fund in 2005 to “coordinate the country’s real estate development priorities.” Together with Saudi Arabian company Dar Global, which has close ties to the Saudi government, the Qatari company will build a $5.5 billion Trump International Golf Club in Qatar.
Trump heads to the Middle East tomorrow to visit Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates—three of the world’s wealthiest nations—in search of business deals.
Republicans spent the four years of Democratic president Joe Biden’s term calling to impeach him for allegedly accepting a $5 million payment from Ukraine. The source for that story later admitted to making it up and pleaded guilty of lying to the Federal Bureau of Investigation. And yet the Republicans are silent now. (From May 12, 2025, Heather Cox Richardson, Letters from an American)
I wouldn’t count on Schumer to save us, but, at least, and at last, Schumer says he will resist.
Schumer to block Trump DOJ nominees over Qatar airplane.REUTERS
WASHINGTON, May 13 (Reuters) - Multiple congressional Republicans raised concerns on Tuesday about President Donald Trump's desire to accept a $400 million airplane from Qatar, with at least one noting doing so could pose a security risk.
Trump said on Monday that it would be "stupid" for him to refuse Qatar's offer of the Boeing (BA.N), opens new tab 747-8 airplane, which would be used as U.S. "Air Force One," the jet American presidents travel on when they fly around the globe.
The aircraft eventually would be donated to Trump's presidential library.
"There will be plenty of scrutiny," Republican Senate Majority Leader John Thune of South Dakota told reporters. "There are lots and lots of issues around that, that I think will attract very serious questions."
Senate Commerce Committee Chair Ted Cruz of Texas, a Republican who has long been critical of Qatari foreign policy, told CNBC that he had concerns about such a deal.
The aircraft eventually would be donated to Trump's presidential library.
"There will be plenty of scrutiny," Republican Senate Majority Leader John Thune of South Dakota told reporters. "There are lots and lots of issues around that, that I think will attract very serious questions."
Senate Commerce Committee Chair Ted Cruz of Texas, a Republican who has long been critical of Qatari foreign policy, told CNBC that he had concerns about such a deal.
"The plane poses significant espionage and surveillance problems, so we’ll see how this issue plays out," he said.
The Defense Department is already in the process of procuring a replacement for the current, aging Air Force One, with delivery by Boeing (BA.N), opens new tab expected within a couple of years.
Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer earlier vowed to block all of Trump's nominees to the Justice Department until the agency reports what it knows about the Qatari offer. Three nominees are currently before the Senate.
"The attorney general must testify before both the House and Senate to explain why gifting Donald Trump a private jet does not violate the emoluments clause (of the U.S. Constitution), which requires congressional approval," he said in a speech to the Senate.
Schumer, of New York, said he wants answers to whether the Qatari government will pay for modifications of the aircraft needed to protect the president, secure communications and provide special configurations for what is in practice an airborne Oval Office workspace.
If the U.S. government must bear those costs, Schumer said, "why are American taxpayers being asked to spend hundreds of millions of dollars or more on a plane that will only be used for year or two?"
A White House spokesperson on Monday said details of the gift were still being arranged. A new commercial 747-8 costs approximately $400 million.
Outside ethics experts have listed a range of Trump activities that could point to the president using his office to enrich himself or his family. Schumer specifically mentioned a $TRUMP meme coin, plans for a new Trump hotel in Dubai and a new golf course in Qatar.
Republican Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky, one of the most rebellious members of his party, said Trump taking the plane would be a mistake.
“I think it's not worth the appearance of impropriety,” he told Fox News' "Jesse Watters Primetime" program late on Monday. "I wouldn't take it." (Reuters).
STEWART: “Trump’s gonna take a $400 MILLION jet from people he would expel from Columbia University.” #SwampForceOne ✈️ pic.twitter.com/mhSMnRzm9F
— The Tennessee Holler (@TheTNHoller) May 13, 2025
What CEOs are with Trump in Saudi Arabia?
Don’t assume all of these are Trumpers. Some may simply be afraid that the Trump will hurt the companies - the shareholders, the employees - they are entrusted with. You might write to them and ask why.
Enjoy these words from Leo XIV.
Share them.
