Contributors

Tuesday, January 30, 2018

Kickback Nation

The real goal of Trump and his enablers has now become clear: get rich off their government connections and government programs.

Trump, of course, holds all his events at Trump properties, making money off the government in the process by charging federal agencies for using facilities at his golf courses, Trump Tower and Mar a Lago required to provide protection for Trump and his family. Which is basically half the time.

Foreigners freely admit they do business with Trump's hotel in Washington to curry favor with the administration.

Michael Flynn cashed in on his position by selling access and influence to Turkey and Russia.

Jared Kushner and his family cashed in numerous ways, from selling green cards to Chinese nationals, to getting money from Russian banks, to using his phony Middle East "peace" initiative as a cover for soliciting cash from Israeli investors.

Montana business associates of interior secretary Ryan Zinke used his position to get an outrageously overpriced contract with Puerto Rico to repair the power transmission infrastructure, until the deal was exposed and canceled.

The border wall is just a giant scam to funnel Homeland Security cash into the pockets of corrupt companies.

Betsy DeVos is dismantling regulations that prevent for-profit colleges and charter schools from ripping off students, as well as screwing over students with gigantic debts to private lenders incurred obtaining worthless degrees from for-profit institutions.

When a photographer leaked a photograph of energy secretary Rick Perry hugging former coal execute and convicted felon Robert Murray, the photographer was fired. Murray was convicted of ignoring mine safety regulations, which resulted in the deaths of nine miners in 2012. Perry tried and failed to give coal mining companies a handout which would have cost ratepayers $12 billion.

The Trump administration is cutting staff at federal prison facilities, sending inmates to private prisons, which are more poorly staffed and have a long history of inmate abuse.

And, of course, the entire tax bill was a huge quid pro quo for Republican campaign donors, a fact which numerous Republican congressmen admitted. Republican Chris Collins of New York said, "My donors are basically saying, 'Get it done or don't ever call me again.'"

Congress passed a law that requires the Trump administration to impose restrictions on Putin and the Russian oligarchs who enable him for Russian interference in elections in the United States and countries like Germany, France and the Czech Republic, but the Trump administration isn't going to enforce them.

You'd think this last action would be sufficient to prove that Trump is directly colluding with the Russians. But Republicans in Congress are instead attacking the FBI with a phony memo.
This kind of backroom dealing and influence peddling is exactly the kind of thing that Trump voters said they hated when they talked about draining the swamp in Washington. But Trump is dialing up the corruption to 11.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Nice to see you have discovered outrage over the opportunities for graft that most politicians, federal, state and local, constantly take advantage of. Until you, just once, criticize democrats doing the same things, which they do by a factor times 1000, then you'll have some credibility to speak on the issue. Until then, don't pretend to be outraged by these things.