Ethics in Government

Trump’s SEC continues the administration’s poor track record on corporate enforcement and the EPA pulls back regulations on another cancer-causing toxin.

Can you blame Donald Trump for absurdly claiming that Americans will make a “lot of money” from skyrocketing oil prices? His administration is filled with the select individuals likely to profit as the prices at the pump trend upwards.

Rather than making the lives of students better, McMahon chooses to elevate the political ambitions of a North Carolina Senate hopeful. In doing so, she may have violated the Hatch Act.

Last month, when the Supreme Court agreed to grant a petition from two oil companies, Suncor and Exxon, in a long-running dispute over whether the companies can be held liable under state law by Boulder, Colorado, for climate damages ensuing from their corporate misconduct, the most notable sentence was the one that was missing: “Justice Alito took no part in the consideration or decision of this petition.”

The consequences of the Trump administration’s unending depravity will be far reaching

Donald Trump ascended to the presidency for a second time by pledging to bring down the rising cost of groceries and housing, essentials that every American needs, but increasingly few find affordable. Then he flipped that promise on its head. Instead of putting the full weight of the presidency behind addressing economic insecurity, the president’s first year was a blatant exercise in how to turn corruption into a governing principle, enriching the already rich by extracting wealth from the same people bearing the brunt of rising costs.

Warsh’s record suggests commitment to class and personal self-interest, not a broader dedication to an intellectually consistent view of the public interest. 

On Monday, Senator Elizabeth Warren gave a speech at the National Press Club about how Democrats can rebuild durable trust with voters, win elections, and enact systemic change. She spoke with energy about how Democrats cannot win back a lasting majority by watering down their economic vision, and how candidates in future elections must “credibly demonstrate that they will take on a rigged system in order to fix it.” In other words, she called for the members of her party to refashion themselves as willing fighters. 

Democrats have a golden opportunity to be the anti-corruption party, but the House caucus is not seizing it.

It’s hard times at the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), one of the three principal bank regulators in the country, along with the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and the Federal Reserve. All three, plus other financial institution regulators at the National Credit Union Administration and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, have been gutted to varying degrees over the first year of Trump 2.0.

The administrative state’s Kafkaesque transmogrification into the mafia state