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April 25, 2025 | Watchdog Weekly
Corruption Calendar Week 14: The All-American Meme Coin Oligarchy Wants To Extract Oil and Gas At National Monuments
This week, Trump once again leveraged his office to boost the price of his meme coin, $Trump. Meanwhile, firms that donated to Trump’s campaign or lobbied aggressively seem to be securing exemptions to his tariffs. But as the oligarchs are finding clever ways to enrich themselves, the risks of public health and environmental crises have grown. Read below for the full overview of corruption this week:
April 18, 2025 | Watchdog Weekly
Corruption Calendar Week 13: No Need To Rely On Luck When Cash Dictates Outcomes In MAGA World
In unlucky number 13, we tackle more corruption and pay to play stories in the administration. From Zaslav to Zuckerberg to selling gold visas we have all of the stories.
April 17, 2025
Option A: No More Tax Days for the 1 Percent
This year’s Tax Day was particularly dreary. Headlines outlined the many ways the Trump-Musk administration is attacking the government’s ability to provide public services using tax revenue, while weaponizing the IRS’s access to taxpayer data to terrorize undocumented people, enrich Trump’s allies, and potentially attack Trump’s political enemies. Placed against the backdrop of nine states seeing extended tax filing deadlines due to the continuing impact of fossil-fueled climate disasters, a bleak image of our reality emerges.
April 11, 2025 | Watchdog Weekly
Newsletter Corruption CalendarDepartment of JusticeDOGEDoug BurgumElon MuskEthics in GovernmentScott BessentTrump 2.0
Corruption Calendar Week 12: Ethics Be Damned
This week’s stories show that from the Justice Department to the Federal Housing Finance Agency, the Trump admin is simultaneously eroding, side-stepping, and outright defying the checks and balances that distinguish a government that is accountable to the public from one that exists simply to enrich the elite.
April 09, 2025 | Revolving Door Project Newsletter
Trump’s FAA Nominee Led Republic Airways In Fighting Unions, Safety Regulations
FAA nominee Bryan Bedford’s revolving door path creates a shocking conflict of interest.
April 04, 2025 | Watchdog Weekly
Corruption Calendar Week Eleven: Incomprehensible AI Number-Crunching Slop Sets The Scene Of Trump’s Global Tariff Shakedown
This week has been defined by yet more chaos, as the gaggle of incompetent buffoons that seemingly make up the policy infrastructure of this administration continue to play at political theater while doing all that they can to ruin the rest of our lives. From crashing the global economy to giving corporations free license to do whatever they want, they’re succeeding.
April 02, 2025 | Revolving Door Project Newsletter
Polluters Get A Presidential Exemption From The Law
Are you a highly polluting industrial facility? Maybe a coal-fired power plant, or a coke oven, or a chemical manufacturer, or a commercial sterilizer? Do your neighbors complain about the eye-watering, throat-choking clouds that billow from your stacks? Are you tired of being the bad guy just because your operations emit arsenic, ethylene oxide, mercury, and lead into the air and water, which can cause cancer, brain defects, and other illnesses? Well, President Trump has got your back.
March 28, 2025 | Watchdog Weekly
Corruption Calendar Week 10: Bad Signals All Around
As Trump expanded his crypto ventures, Trump’s CFPB sought to return money it had previously obtained from a mortgage lender that settled with the agency over claims of racial discrimination.
March 26, 2025
IRS Cuts and the Signal Chat Scandal: The Latest Indicators of the Trump Administration’s Recklessness
While national security adviser Michael Waltz’s Signal chat security breach debacle has dominated headlines this week, it’s not the only act of reckless disregard for the safety and security of Americans in the news. This week also saw projections that Trump-Musk cuts to the IRS could lead to a $500 billion tax revenue shortfall this year, with a slump already in effect at this point in tax season.
March 21, 2025 | Watchdog Weekly
Corruption Calendar Week 9: Trump’s Crypto Business Beats Keeping Contaminants Out Of Our Drinking Water
Among many instances of blatant corruption, this week saw huge gains for Trump’s crypto firm and huge losses for the EPA’s scientific research arm.
March 19, 2025 | Revolving Door Project Newsletter
Trump Officials Are Openly Defying Judges’ Orders
“We’re not stopping. I don’t care what the judges think.”
These were the words of Trump’s Border Czar Tom Homan after the Trump administration violated multiple court orders and deported people without due process. Are we in a constitutional crisis yet? (Yes, and this is not the first time Trump officials have refused to obey the courts; we are tracking these violations here.)
March 14, 2025 | Watchdog Weekly
Corruption Calendar Week Eight: The White House Clown Car Dealership
While the lion’s share of this weeks’ news cycle surrounds a potential partial government shutdown (readers of this newsletter know that the government already is substantially shut down by DOGE), Trump and his lackeys continue churning the corruption machine for their own benefit. Trump, Musk, and their underlings shamelessly use the government to get even richer while decimating the government’s capacity to help poor people, farmers, students, women, and well, all of us.
March 12, 2025
Republicans Reveal Their True Intentions At The 11th Hour
Even on the brink of a shutdown, the GOP remains committed to shutting down the federal government.
March 07, 2025 | Watchdog Weekly
Newsletter Corruption CalendarCryptocurrencyEthics in GovernmentFinancial RegulationHealthRevolving Door
Corruption Calendar Week Seven: One Nation Under God, Indivisible
The seventh week of Trump’s presidency was a stark reminder of how little the public’s wellbeing factors into his administration’s decisions. This week, the administration reiterated its position that it’s open season for corporate predators, RFK Jr. moved to abolish public input into public health regulations, co-president Elon Musk found new ways to exploit the federal contracting system, banking regulators chose Wall Street over Main Street, and a corporate lobbyist stepped in to facilitate the sale of precious public lands to lumber companies.