A Secretary of Education who is avoiding taxes by registering her families $40 million yacht in the Cayman Islands, all while making it harder for American students to pay for a college education.
A Secretary of the Interior who has faced investigations in the double digits, most recently for working with the CEO of an oil giant on a shady real estate project that stands to benefit his family.
Now we are just learning that Trump gave control of major decisions at the VA to cronies who pay him for membership at Mar-A-Lago, despite their total lack of experience or qualifications.
This kind of incompetence and corruption can really hurt people.
It hurts people when government is run by people who have no idea what they are doing.
Mismanagement can cause irreversible damage, as the ongoing family separation crisis brought about by the incompetence of Kirstjen Nielsen and others keeps showing.
Sometimes this kind of incompetence leads to the deaths of Americans. It isn't a joke or a game, government belongs in the hands of qualified people, not cronies or people who pay for access.
But the Republican leaders who control Congress - the officials who have power and constitutional authority to hold the Trump Administration accountable - are asleep at the wheel, or worse, they are actively helping cover it up.
Some of these Republican leaders in Congress are even, we are just beginning to learn, participating in graft and corruption themselves. rollcall.com/news/politics/…
I am standing with Democrats to offer #ABetterDeal: cleaning up corruption, passing tougher ethics laws, and returning Congress to its focus on accountability. We are committed to making Washington work #ForThePeople.
• • •
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to
force a refresh
Trump Administration has again taken American leadership a step backward since it announced an historically low refugee cap for FY19. It is mandated that they consult Congress before they announced this. They did not.
My colleagues and I are pushing back.
Last week, the Trump Administration made an announcement that the refugee cap for FY19 would be set at 30,000, a dramatic cut from the previous historic low of 45,000 of FY18. nytimes.com/2018/09/17/us/…
This cannot go unnoticed...
Trump's resettlement rate is currently the lowest in program history. He's also claiming that the Admin cannot address the asylum backlog while maintaining a strong refugee admissions level.
One of the most important things we can do to fight the growing epidemic of suicide in America is talk about it. We have a really bad problem that is getting worse quickly, but we can't help people if we ignore their problems. 1/
First a few notes on the problem, and what we've learned in recent months.
A new CDC shows that the incidence of suicide in the US has risen sharply, by about 30% over the past two decades. 2/ cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/6…
They made up new rules to assign a "committee confidential" label, without precedent, to documents that reveal Kavanaugh's beliefs on matters he would rule on during his lifetime appointment to the Supreme Court.
They are deliberately hiding important and revealing writings. 2/
Senate Republicans are rushing this nomination while hiding key facts from the public.
They cite the Presidential Records Act as justification for their unprecedented secrecy, though they have ignored numerous violations of that Act by the President. 3/ time.com/5308542/trump-…
The @USGSA Inspector General just put out a report on what may be one of Trump's most blatantly corrupt actions in office.
That investigation, into why the Administration scuttled plans for a new FBI headquarters, also revealed what looks like a cover-up by the White House. 1/
Background: for over a decade officials have warned that the FBI headquarters was structurally deficient.
The effort to move the FBI to a new building has taken years, thousands of staff hours, and millions of taxpayer dollars. It was nearly there. 2/ washingtonpost.com/news/digger/wp…
Then, last year, the Trump Administration suddenly and inexplicably threw all of that work out the window, and cancelled the plans.
The truth is that Trump isn’t “sticking it to the elites,” he’s shoveling money into their pockets.
Big banks, pharmaceutical giants, CEOs, Wall Street firms, and the wealthiest 1% are making out like bandits under Trump. They couldn’t be happier. 2/
This is *intentional*
When Trump touts “tax cuts” and “deregulation,” he’s bragging about weakening protections for public health and economic safety to make rich people richer.
It comes with a price: high deficits. They want to pay for it with Medicaid and Medicare cuts. 3/
President Trump and Acting EPA head Andrew Wheeler just teamed up with their friends in the fossil fuel industry to release a Dirty Power Plan that would open the floodgates to more carbon pollution across the country.
It is dangerous for all of us. Here's why: 1/
For a decade the EPA has regulated greenhouse gas emissions under the Clean Air Act following its "endangerment finding" that carbon pollution and other emissions represent a threat to Americans.
Trump never withdrew this finding, which still stands, binding the EPA to act. 2/
The Dirty Power Plan just issued by Trump and Wheeler will enormously weaken the US government response to something the US government still says is an active threat to our health and the planet. On purpose. 3/ washingtonpost.com/national/healt…