September 9, 2025 ❧ Greta Thunberg’s boat attacked, Milei’s new corruption scandal, and SCOTUS approves racial profiling

Plus: The cops’ hiring standards get even lower, good news for animals in Colombia, and indestructible squirrels!

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HERE & ABROAD

❧ DEEP DIVE: A libertarian president accused

of bribery? Shocking! ❧

Last month, the Argentinian YouTube channel Carnaval Stream released audio of the then-director of Argentina’s National Disability Agency describing a kickback scheme where senior government officials accepted hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes. In particular, the sister of Argentina’s extremist libertarian president Javier Milei was accused of taking $500,000 in bribes in exchange for government pharmaceutical contracts. And if you think a national corruption scandal breaking on YouTube isn’t strange enough, wait until you learn about Karina Milei. 

Before entering politics, Karina worked as an Instagram-based cake maker and tire company executive. She reads tarot on the side and uses her powers to help Javier communicate with his dead dog, Conan. (Conan is the same dog who Javier Milei had cloned into five copies, one of which he also named Conan.) Karina is also the second most powerful person in Argentinian politics, standing only behind Javier. She is his most trusted adviser; he regularly compares her to Moses (yes, from the Bible), and she ran his presidential campaign. She is now his general secretary—a catch-all position that seems to include everything from managing Javier’s schedule to running his political party.

Karina Milei (right) with her presidential brother at a 2023 gala.

(Image: Wikimedia Commons)

This is not the first time Ms. Milei has been accused of unethically wielding her position. On Valentines’ Day this year, Javier Milei promoted a cryptocurrency called $Libra that had been created only 23 minutes before his announcement. Its value quickly soared, then plummeted when its largest shareholders sold their coins, devaluing the currency and leaving everyone else on the hook for $250 million in losses. Victims are suing in U.S. court, alleging that they were defrauded by Milei’s endorsement of the scam, and importantly, an architect of the scheme texted associates that he “owned” Milei because “I send $$ to his sister.”

As to this corruption scandal, it remains to be seen how government investigators will follow up. A federal judge ordered investigations into employees of the National Disability Agency, but more recently, police raided the homes and offices of journalists who procured the leaked audio. No action has been taken against Karina yet. In the short term, this scandal has harmed the Milei government in advance of October’s midterm elections. Driven in part by fears of corruption, voters handed Milei’s party a “crushing defeat” in Buenos Aires’ recent provincial election. 

❧ In Other News ❧

❧ BREAKING: The Sumud aid flotilla has been struck by a drone as it travels toward Gaza. Activists aboard the ships—including Greta Thunberg, Portuguese politician Mariana Mortagua, and Instagram personality Quentin Quarantino, a friend of Current Affairs—report on Telegram that one of their main boats was “struck by a drone in Tunisian waters” last night. According to the flotilla organizers, “fire damage was caused to the main deck,” but no one was hurt. For their part, it appears the Tunisian government is attempting to downplay the incident, with the country’s interior minister claiming that “a fire broke out on the vessel itself” and allegations of a drone strike have “no basis in truth”—an account that’s contradicted by CCTV footage of the incident, which clearly shows an incendiary device falling onto the Sumud boat from above:

Obviously, the most likely suspect here is Israel and its allies. But the activists are forging ahead regardless, saying that “acts of aggression aimed at intimidating and derailing our mission will not deter us.” We’ll keep you posted. 

Quentin Quarantino (left) with Greta Thunberg aboard the Sumud flotilla. (via Instagram)

❧ The Israeli Supreme Court has ruled Palestinian Prisoners are being starved. On Sunday, the Israeli Supreme Court ruled that the country must feed prisoners enough food to ensure “a basic level of existence.” In what some outlets are calling “a highly rare exercise of wartime legal restraint” and Current Affairs is calling “the bare fucking minimum,” Israel will now have to feed the nearly 10,000 Palestinians imprisoned on vague “security” grounds. 3,500 of those inmates are being held without charges—and one such prisoner, 17-year old Walid Ahmeed, died in March after suffering severe malnutrition. 

❧ A deeply American thing happened in America. What happens when you combine security theater, tech bros, and surveillance capitalism? In this case, you get Nexar. Nexar sells dashcams, and then Nexar (often without users’ knowledge) sells those dashcams’ recordings to third parties, as a sort of “virtual CCTV.” But according to reporting by 404 Media, hackers were able to access an immense number of recordings after less than two hours of work. Even better, the hacked images include video taken inside secure Department of Defense facilities! Do you feel secure yet?

❧ Police agencies are lowering hiring standards. This year, the NYPD and Dallas PD cut some education requirements for recruits, part of a growing trend as local, state, and federal law enforcement agencies are struggling to recruit and retain officers. Fewer cops is undoubtedly a good thing, but police become more dangerous when the bar to becoming an officer gets lowered. Research shows that officers with college degrees use less force and receive fewer complaints than officers without degrees. 

Pretty soon, the Simpsons episode where Marge becomes a cop

after training for one weekend will just be reality.

CURRENT-EST AFFAIRS

What’s new in the magazine this week?

“Yes, Please Call it the War Department” by Current Affairs editor-in-chief Nathan J. Robinson. “Donald Trump has abandoned the myth that the U.S. military is engaged in ‘defense.’ Good. That will make it easier to defund.”

As a bonus, now the “you can’t fight in there, it’s the War Room!”

joke from Dr. Strangelove works again. 

❧ In More News ❧

❧ Colombian animals rejoice! Colombia’s Constitutional Court has upheld a ban on bullfighting enacted in 2024. Until now, the ban had been opposed by bullfighting aficionados, who argued that they had an artistic right to engage in the cruel “sport.” The court also ordered bans on cockfighting, citing similar concerns for animal well-being. 

ROBE RAGE

This Week In The Courts:

Racial Profiling is Back in Vogue.

This week’s Robe Rage segment was supposed to be about Amy Coney Barrett and the new book she is promoting. This was going to be a hilarious, insightful debunk of the notion that the Court operated above politics when it overturned Roe v. Wade. Alas, the Court ruined our day by yet again undermining a core constitutional right. Let’s break it down. 

In July, a Federal District Court judge put some of Trump’s immigration agenda on pause, arguing that in its aggressive push for deportations, ICE agents were unconstitutionally stopping people without reasonable suspicion. In an unusually honest move for this president, the administration admitted that ICE agents were looking at four factors before approaching suspects: their apparent race or ethnicity, if they spoke Spanish or accented English, the location where they were found (ie., at a bus station or on a farm) and the type of job they worked. 

If you’ve ever read the term “racial profiling” before, you probably recognize what’s happening here. The administration said, explicitly, that they were pulling people over, at least in part, on the basis of their skin color. And yesterday, the Supreme Court undid the lower court’s injunction, allowing this profiling to resume. Because the case was decided on the shadow docket, the conservative majority was not required to—and in fact did not—explain its reasoning. But Brett Kavanaugh wrote a concurrence with reasoning as strong as you could expect from a guy who spent college doing “Devil’s Triangles” with a drinking buddy called “Squee.” 

Remember folks, it’s an apolitical institution! It just happens to give Trump

what he wants all the time. Pure coincidence. (Image: Trump White House)

Kavanaugh’s argument against the injunction is a technical one. It first has to do with standing, which is the legal principle underpinning when one can bring a lawsuit. In this case, the plaintiffs are men who were unconstitutionally stopped by ICE. That is an injury that warrants bringing a lawsuit against the government. But as Kavanaugh argues, because the plaintiffs don’t know with certainty that they will be stopped again in the future, Kavanaugh wrote that they lack standing to request a court to prevent ICE from making future stops. 

But the second prong of Kavanaugh’s argument is what raises concern. He writes that “the Government has a fair prospect of succeeding,” meaning that he thinks the stops are likely constitutional. He concedes that “apparent ethnicity alone” is not enough to warrant a stop, but he leaves open the door that “it can be a relevant factor.” Of course, he couches this within the notion that this “means only that immigration officers may briefly stop the individual and inquire about immigration status,” which is absolutely not what has happened to the many U.S. citizens mistakenly detained and deported by ICE. 

Sotomayor, who dissented alongside the court’s other liberals, noted that Kavanaugh’s description of ICE activity is misleading at best. She notes that ICE operates in LA by simply “seizing individuals on sight, often before asking a single question.” There often is no opportunity for a legal, but brown U.S. resident to tell ICE why they should not be detained. Apparently, the six conservative justices see nothing constitutionally wrong with that.

“FLYING” MAMMAL FACT OF THE WEEK

Squirrels can survive a fall from any height!

Squirrels are a cute, fluffy mess in a small package. But all that fluff means that when falling, squirrels generate enough air resistance that their terminal velocity is less than 25 miles an hour. A fall of that speed isn’t fast enough to injure a squirrel, meaning that they can survive any fall. It’s not quite flying, but it’s close enough. 

This animal fact comes courtesy of Current Affairs’ most recent issue, which was entirely animal rights-focused! If you, your friends, or your enemies love these facts,

subscribe here to get a magazine full of ‘em.

(Image: Jeffrey Gammon)

Writing and research by Grady Martin. Editing and additional material by Alex Skopic and Nathan J. Robinson. Header graphic by Cali Traina Blume. This news briefing is a product of Current Affairs Magazine. Subscribe to our gorgeous and informative print edition here, and our delightful podcast here.

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