Trump exempts himself from ethics pledge as watchdogs sound alarms
Trump exempts himself from ethics pledge as watchdogs sound alarms
Trump appears to have excluded himself from following the same guidelines he signed into law four years ago
Summary
Donald Trump has exempted himself from key ethics guidelines required under the Presidential Transition Act, which he signed into law in 2020.
By rejecting federal funding for his transition team, Trump avoids donor limits and disclosure requirements, raising concerns about conflicts of interest and transparency.
Critics, including Senator Elizabeth Warren and government watchdogs, warn that Trump’s refusal to submit an ethics plan undermines accountability and could open the door to corruption.
This move marks a break from precedent and has sparked alarm over potential personal enrichment during his presidency.
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lol. Watchdogs. Hilarious. Let me know when we have a government again.
Don't hold your breath.
it usually takes 4-6 years or so for democrats to fix most of whatever republciants screw up.
donvict part 1 will take a generation, at least.
donvict part 2 will take a lot longer and require practically-impossible coordination and commitment to get non-republicants to the levels of representation needed for amendment ratifications and impeachments.
The "United" States of America is over.
We're gonna end up with the "Blue States of America" and the "Republic of Jesusland"
you see that's the thing, its not exactly blue stats. its blue city's, islands surrounded by hundreds of miles of red oceans
Mostly empty oceans
Lets be honest, average iq of the red ocean is negative, theres no "people" there. And for the record i live in red ocean
I'm in the purple ocean! But our laws are very very red
Rural/urban divide is not unique to the US in any way whatsoever. Also, expect polarization to self perpetuate as blue voters move to blue states and red states to move to red states.
Turkey is very similar in this regard. Progressive cities, backwards countryside.
It’s also roughly the size and population of Texas alone. Does it have a wildly unfair Electoral College?
Whoa, lets call it like it is. There will be blue states, and there will be welfare states.
Me in Europe for the first time a long time ago asking the same question in every country and getting the truth from a woman in Rome: "oh, we don't hate the Jews. You're fine here.... But leave the cities.... Yeah, it's like anywhere"
That red ocean is like 3 people on a fucking farm or in a trailer.
An ocean of empty land.
I saw a post about that the other day, it showed a map of all the states with populations smaller than LA county. Almost every single red state was highlighted. Really shows you how silly the electoral college system is.
it usually takes 4-6 years or so for democrats to fix most of whatever republciants screw up.
Liberals never actually fix what conservatives screw up. We never closed Gitmo and we still have troops based in Iraq. We never actually ended the War on Drugs (which has left Republicans a loophole to ban contraceptives by listing them as controlled substances). We never truly repealed Jim Crow and much of the country still relies on forced labor even in liberal bastions like California or New York.
Trump's just pulling back the curtain on how much has rotted.
Liberals never actually fix what conservatives screw up.
Clinton fucking balanced the budget.
The real problem is Republican spend 4-8 years screwing everything up. Over the next 4 years, with the slimmest of margins, Democrats roll back 80% of it. Then you come in and say "both sides".
If we want things to stop racheting to the right, we have to elect Dems more than half the time.
Clinton fucking balanced the budget.
For what? A few months? And largely by balancing off the SS Trust, a trick you can only do once (as Bush Jr discovered when he was too far in debt to privatize it).
The real problem is Republican spend 4-8 years screwing everything up.
Half the Democratic Party was along for the ride on the Bush agenda. Kennedy embraced NCLB, Clinton and Kerry fully endorsed the AUMF, Joe Biden authored much of the Patriot Act Hell, Graham-Leech-Biley was signed under Clinton, queuing up the financial crash of 2008.
This isn't just Republicans. The problem is broadly bipartisan.
Liberals never actually fix what conservatives screw up.
They do, it's just they mostly concern themselves with the economic screw ups, less-so the rights ones.
Think 'gay people can marry and have kids to give us more economic slaves' vs. 'gay people can't marry, can't have kids, and we're going to use them as a scapegoat for our issues.'
Liberals (which I'm taking to mean Democrats) didn't "fix" gay marriage. Right up until the Iowa Supreme Court decision, in the early 2000's, the argument in Democratic circles was that gay-rights organizations should pipe down, settle for civil unions, and stop making gay marriage an issue. They were afraid of handing the Republicans a weapon. It was the gay-rights organizations that pushed it through the courts, and prominent Democratic politicians like Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and Joe Biden "evolved" their positions to support it. I mean no criticism by the use of quotes. Kudos to them for changing their minds, but it wasn't liberals that made it happen.
I'd say it was liberals that made it happen once there was overwhelming public support, which again, is performative, but drastically different from actively suppressing it. Someone has to pass the things into laws, and in the US it's either Republicans or Democrats, and across the board any services those poor people do have was introduced through Democrats.
Again, under duress, I don't argue otherwise. Up here in Canada it was the Liberals being forced to put Healthcare as a 'universal'* right by the NDP (our Left wing party), then the NDP again to force Liberals to put Dental care through. But they actually did it, and the Conservatives don't.
Think ‘gay people can marry and have kids to give us more economic slaves’ vs. ‘gay people can’t marry, can’t have kids, and we’re going to use them as a scapegoat for our issues.’
Gay marriage was legalized under a majority conservative court system way back in 2003. When it went to a poplar vote in the bright blue State of California in 2008, Prop 8's plan to kill it passed by a healthy margin
This was the same year Obama was tiptoeing around full legalization of gay marriage for fear of pissing off too many swing voters in the Midwest.
Gay marriage wasn't fully legalized into 2015, again by the conservative courts. Efforts to legislate civil rights for LGBT people have largely failed even when the Pres and Leg were fully in Dem control.
Gay marriage was legalized under a majority conservative court system way back in 2003.
Again, under a Liberal government. And I keep saying over and over -- I know they phone it in and constantly give bigot 'swing voters' things they want. I've never said anything against that. It had a 60% approval by the public in 2015 when it was fully legalized. So again, for like the fifth goddamn time -- Liberal governments can be forced to do these things by popular will. Conservatives won't (I'm sure there's like two examples someone will bring up, again, exception proves the rule.)
To sum: Liberals have to be forced to allow LGBT rights by popular opinion. Conservatives do this.
Again, under a Liberal government.
The Republicans controlled every branch of government in 2003, as well as a majority of state legislatures and governorships.
What broke for gay marriage in 2003 was a libertarian strain of conservatism defecting from the mainstream. Liberals accepted the change with the same passivity as they accepted the status quo.
It had a 60% approval by the public in 2015 when it was fully legalized.
Again by a majority conservative court. The Obama legislature dragged its heels.
Liberal governments can be forced to do these things by popular will.
They can be forced to do things by powerful socio-economic interests. In this case, a big chunk of the legal community broke for gay marriage and Obama didn't try to get in the way.
But they didn't do anything. They just let the change happen.
https://newrepublic.com/post/169392/full-list-republicans-vote-against-same-sex-marriage
and here's some anti LGBT-youth stuff https://leg.colorado.gov/bills/hb20-1144
You'll notice that in each and every case, the anti LGBT stuff is all Conservative, because Conservatives have that 'call to the past' or whatever; where 'the way things were' in the past is always better, and in the past women didn't have rights, LGBT people couldn't marry, etc.
Liberals don't actively fight against rights unless it's an overall popular voter opinion. Conservatives do regardless.
I say this as someone who's about as far left as one can go. I think you're A. grossly underestimating how useful 'letting change happen' is when it comes to popular opinion on rights, and grossly underestimating how much damage Conservatives clawing and gnashing at allowing rights for more people is.
“Hey! You’re not supposed to do that!”
“Is there a specific law being broken?”
“Well…no, not exactly. But it breaks with tradition!”
It does seem a bit silly to focus on this, but you know how the news is. Let’s not forget about Obama in that tan suit sending republicans off the deep end.
From a republican, about a tan suit:
"There's no way, I don't think, any of us can excuse what the president did yesterday. I mean, you have the world watching"
"Dont enforce democratic norms with tradition" should be in the historical rulebook. Right next to not printing money to pay bills, not invading Russia in winter, and not touching Americas boats
Even if there was a law being broken, time has shown that Trump is pretty much above the law at this point.
They're gonna be barking a whole lot more the next four years.
I wonder if falling out of windows will be a common thing.
Maybe someone should pair the watchdogs with guard dogs to do the biting when the former bark
If we allow the government to have control of either group, the guard dogs will just kill the watch dogs.
Maybe the people should start biting.
That is a very good point. The people should be controlling the government, after all.
Well, the people wanted this
I don't think they did. A minority voted for this, but I don't think they actually grasped or knew the extent of what they were voting for.
Those poor dogs. Someone should call the SPCA and repo.... Defunded you say?
Maybe a network of volunteers can foster care for some, a few have sweet temperaments ?
I can volunteer some pet food