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Outrage Over 'Bribery' As Trump Does Favors For Firms That Funded Inaugural

An analysis released Monday in the wake of new Federal Election Commission filings shows that the Trump administration has dropped or paused federal enforcement cases against at least 17 corporations that donated to the president's inaugural fund, an indication that companies' attempts to buy favor with the White House are already paying off.

In the new analysis, the watchdog group Public Citizen cross-references FEC data released Sunday with its own Corporate Enforcement Tracker, which documents companies facing federal cases for alleged wrongdoing.

Public Citizen found that corporations facing federal investigations or enforcement lawsuits donated a combined $50 million to President Donald Trump's inaugural committee. Trump raised a record sum of $239 million for his second inauguration, the new FEC filings show.

"Corporations facing federal lawsuits and investigations aren't giving millions to Trump's inauguration out of the kindness of their hearts," said Public Citizen researcher Rick Claypool. "They are trying to buy good will. And when you're a corporation under investigation or facing prosecution, that means the government dropping enforcement actions against you. In some cases, it may even mean receiving pardons in cases in which guilty pleas have already been entered, or retractions of settlements already entered into."

Bank of America, Capital One, Coinbase, DuPont, and JPMorgan are among the corporations that donated to Trump's inauguration and subsequently had federal enforcement cases dismissed.

Public Citizen noted that Google, which donated $1 million to Trump's inaugural committee, could benefit from the Trump Justice Department's decision during an ongoing antitrust case to scrap part of a "proposed breakup plan requiring Google to sell off AI businesses."

Sundar Pichai, the CEO of Google's parent company, was among a number of high-profile corporate executives who were given prominent spots at Trump's inauguration ceremony in January.

"They really never miss an opportunity for some good old-fashioned corporate bribery."

Other inauguration donors have benefited differently from the Trump administration's actions.

As former Labor Secretary Robert Reich noted on social media late Monday, the Trump administration is poised to end the Internal Revenue Services' free Direct File program after the private tax prep giant Intuit donated $1 million to the president's inauguration.

"Apple donated $1M. Trump exempted most of Apple's imports from tariffs," Reich added. "Coinbase donated $1M. Trump's SEC dropped a major lawsuit against them. See how this works?"

The appearance of pay-to-play corruption has been stark during the opening months of Trump's second term, with critics accusing the president of effectively placing a "for sale" sign on the White House.

CBS News reported that much of the White House's Easter Egg Roll on Monday was "sponsored by corporations, a change from the traditional sponsorship by the American Egg Board."

Amazon, Google's YouTube, and Facebook parent company Meta sponsored "various stations at the event," according to CBS.

"Nothing says Happy Easter in Trump 2.0 like having corporate sponsors at the White House Egg Roll," Public Citizen said Monday. "They really never miss an opportunity for some good old-fashioned corporate bribery."

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

Texas Judge Blocks Vigilante Lawsuit Against Planned Parenthood

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos

In a small but significant victory against Texas' new draconian law limiting abortion access, a judge has temporarily blocked one of the state's largest forced-birth groups and its vigilante pals from suing the nation's largest provider of reproductive healthcare. The decision, which is by no means a permanent solution, comes as corporations headquartered or operating within the Lone Star State are also speaking out against the law.

Reuters:

Travis County District Judge Maya Guerra Gamble granted Planned Parenthood a temporary restraining order against the anti-abortion group, Texas Right to Life, blocking the group and its allies from using an unusual mechanism of the Texas law that enables private citizens to sue anyone who provides or "aids or abets" an abortion after six weeks.
[...]
Guerra Gamble said in her three-page written order that allowing the so-called private enforcement mechanism to go forward while Planned Parenthood took further legal action would cause "probable, irreparable and imminent injury" that could not be cured later.
[...]
The Travis County restraining order does not bar others from using the law against Planned Parenthood or other abortion providers in Texas. A hearing on a possible further injunction was set for Sept. 13.

As noted by Planned Parenthood Federation of America's vice president for public policy litigation and law Helene Krasnoff, while Guerra Gamble's decision is one worth celebrating, it is not enough to protect Texans' access to reproductive healthcare. "[M]ake no mistake: this is not enough relief for Texas," she said in a statement.

Meanwhile, the corporate wing of the nation is beginning to speak out. Two top dating apps based in Texas were quick to take a stance against the obscene new law.. Austin-based Bumble announced its plans on Twitter hours after the Supreme Court declined to block the law from taking effect at midnight on Wednesday.

As CNBC reported Thursday, the Match dating empire wasn't far behind.

Match Group CEO Shar Dubey also announced in a memo to employees that she would personally create a fund to support Texas-based workers and dependents who needed to seek care outside of the state, a company spokesperson confirmed to CNBC.
Match, based in Dallas, owns a bevy of dating companies, including its namesake app Match along with Hinge, Tinder and OKCupid.
"As I have said before, the company generally does not take political stands unless it is relevant to our business. But in this instance, I personally, as a woman in Texas, could not keep silent," Dubey said in the memo. "Surely everyone should see the danger of this highly punitive and unfair law that doesn't even make an exception for victims of rape or incest. I would hate for our state to take this big step back in women's rights," she added.

Dating apps aren't the only businesses speaking out.

Lyft and Uber Technologies Inc. said they will cover all legal fees for the ride-hail companies' drivers sued under a law that puts in place a near-total ban on abortion.
Lyft will also donate $1 million to women's health provider Planned Parenthood, chief executive Logan Green said on Twitter.
[...]
Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi tweeted in response to Green's announcement that his company would cover drivers' legal fees in the same way, thanking Green for taking the initiative.

Yet, as The New York Times notes, other companies' silence on the issue is deafening.

When Texas lawmakers advanced a restrictive voting rights bill this year, American Airlines and Dell Technologies, two of the state's biggest employers, were early and vocal critics of the effort.
But this week, as a law that prohibits most abortions after about six weeks took effect in Texas, both companies declined to comment on the measure.
[...]
Two dozen major companies contacted by The New York Times on Friday either did not reply or declined to comment. Among those that would not say something were McDonald's, a sponsor of International Women's Day; PwC, a major supporter of diversity and inclusion efforts; and Coca-Cola and Delta Air Lines, which led a corporate backlash last year against a restrictive voting bill in Georgia, where they have their headquarters.
Many of the biggest employers in Texas, including AT&T, Oracle, McKesson and Phillips 66, declined to comment. Even companies that are quick to speak up on social issues, including Patagonia and Levi's, did not say anything about the new law. And Catalyst, a nonprofit organization that teams up with big companies to "build workplaces that work for women," declined to comment.

After Texas Gov. Greg Abbott crowed about companies' support of the anti-choice law, namedropping Tesla's Elon Musk, the electric car pioneer offered a lukewarm response.

As Fortune noted on Friday, the seeming indifference of corporations to the Texas law is startling … and a bit of a change.

In 2019, almost 200 corporate leaders stood up for abortion rights. Amid a rash of antiabortion legislation throughout the U.S. South, they said: no more. Abortion restrictions are bad for business.
[...]
And yet this time around, the business backlash is missing.
"Their silence is shameful," says Shelley Alpern, director of shareholder advocacy for Rhia Ventures who has worked to galvanize companies around reproductive rights. "Their very integrity is at stake."

Fortune reached out to "about a dozen" companies about the new law, but most did not respond. What will it take to get the nation's industry to flex their significant capital and muscle when it comes to reproductive rights? It's unclear. But as Fortune notes, recent research indicates that as much as two-thirds of the college-educated workforce would refuse a new job in Texas due to the new law.

Republicans Attack ‘Woke’ Companies At Their Peril

Mitch McConnell has been presented with the spectacle of giant American corporations taking sides on a political issue, and his eyes were seared by the sight. The Senate Republican leader could not have imagined Delta Air Lines and Coca-Cola, much less Major League Baseball, coming out against a piece of legislation. Processing the trauma may require years of therapy.

"I'm talking about taking a position on a highly incendiary issue like this and punishing a community or a state, because you don't like a particular law that passed — I just think it's stupid," he said Tuesday. "So my warning, if you will, to corporate America is to stay out of politics."

This is not quite what you would expect from a politician who last year got more than $250,000 in campaign contributions from chief executives of major companies. Nor is it quite in line with his longstanding view that corporations enjoy the same First Amendment rights as individuals. But McConnell hastened to add that he was not referring to business people making political donations, a practice he assured them is "fine."

The apparent problem for him is not that corporations are getting involved in politics; it's that they are getting involved in a way that conflicts with Republican needs. One of those needs is making it harder for Democrats to win elections in the previously red state of Georgia. McConnell objects to the corporate criticism of a new voting law that is designed to tilt the scales in favor of his party.

Major League Baseball decided to move this year's All-Star Game from Atlanta to Denver to register its disapproval. Delta and Coca-Cola issued statements denouncing the election measure. But these were hardly the first time that professional sports or other businesses have intruded into the political realm.

Team owners use their leverage to extract public funds for stadiums and other arenas, notes Chris Lamb, author of the book Conspiracy of Silence: Sportswriters and the Long Campaign to Desegregate Baseball. They host politicians in their luxury suites. They make campaign contributions. Says Lamb, "I wish owners would stick to sports."

They also lend support to various causes that are inseparable from politics. All those military flyovers at ballgames are an implicit endorsement of our militaristic foreign policy. After 9/11, baseball teams started playing "God Bless America" during the seventh-inning stretch, a gesture of support for President George W. Bush's war on terrorism.

McConnell doesn't long for the era when big companies had no political agendas, because there was no such era. He longs for the time when they could pursue their political agendas without enduring nonstop scrutiny from their customers or employees.

Today, Americans often take account of the political activities of companies when making their purchasing decisions. Some companies see speaking up for social justice and racial equity as a matter of conscience — and a way of appealing to consumers who agree. They also know that silence merely invites criticism from either side.

Michael Jordan famously justified his avoidance of political controversy by saying, "Republicans buy sneakers, too." Nike took the risk of alienating customers with an ad campaign featuring San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick, who gained notoriety by kneeling during the national anthem. The Nike shoe decorated with his image sold out the first day.

Many athletes, despite being told things like "shut up and dribble," insist on using their public visibility to advance causes dear to them, regardless of who objects. Players for the WNBA Atlanta Dream wore T-shirts endorsing Democratic Senate candidate Raphael Warnock in his race against Kelly Loeffler, who happened to be one of the team's owners.

Consumer boycotts over political activity have become an unavoidable feature of the marketplace. Critics who denounce these efforts as ugly manifestations of "cancel culture" use the same tactic when it suits them. Former President Donald Trump, with his usual flair for falsehood, urged: "Boycott baseball and all of the woke companies that are interfering with Free and Fair Elections. Are you listening Coke, Delta, and all!"

Good luck with that. Fear of the MAGA crowd didn't stop The Walt Disney Company, a shining symbol of wholesome American fun, from announcing last year that it would give $5 million to organizations fighting for social justice.

Republicans often accuse the left of hating America. But it's not liberals who find themselves at odds with baseball, Coke and Mickey Mouse.

Steve Chapman blogs at http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/chapman. Follow him on Twitter @SteveChapman13 or at https://www.facebook.com/stevechapman13. To find out more about Steve Chapman and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com

Why The American Majority Despises Trump’s Washington

Donald Trump, never lacking in self-esteem, bragged in 2016: “I know words — I have the best words.”

Well, sometimes he does put together a coherent sentence, using some very fine words that convey great promise, such as this one: “I’m going to fight for every person in this country who believes government should serve the people — not the donors and special interests.” And, if those words are too highbrow for you, Trump made the same promise with some punchier words, declaring he would “drain the swamp” to rid Washington of those creepy, crawly corporate lobbyists.

Excellent words! But words only matter if the speaker actually means them, backing their rhetorical promise with action. As we’ve seen though, far from draining the swamp, this president proceeded immediately to convert the White House itself into a fetid cesspool of self-serving corporate executives, lobbyists, and banksters.

His transition team was almost exclusively made up of those swamp critters. His $100-million, glitzy inaugural celebration was bankrolled by Big Oil, Big Coal, Big Pharma and other Bigs that attached their legislative and regulatory demands to the checks they donated. Most of his cabinet members, agency heads and top aides came straight out of Wall Street and corporate suites, turning Trump’s government into a gold-plated sump pump that’s routinely funneling trillions of our dollars and thousands of special favors to the moneyed elite.

Asked why he appointed only multimillionaire Wall Street hucksters to design and administer his economic policy, he offered this scramble of words that inadvertently revealed his true, plutocratic soul: “I love all people, rich or poor. But in these positions, I just don’t want a poor person.”

Really? Not even one official who understands poverty from firsthand experience, rather than from the bias of right-wing ideologues? And what about those hard-hit middle-class workers Trump always talks about? Nope. He’s not appointed even one to a top policy position. So, forget Trump’s words. If the poor and middle class aren’t in his government, they’re neither in his heart nor in his policies.

It’s odd that Washington Republicans are so publicly high-fiving each other and loudly crowing about their strictly partisan passage last December of the Trump-McConnell-Ryan tax law. Odd, because the people outside of Washington hate that law.

Yes, hate. With a dismal public approval rating of only 30 percent, the GOP’s trillion dollar Christmas present to multinational corporations and multimillionaires has been tagged by a top surveyor of public opinion as Congress’ second-most disliked domestic bill in the past quarter-century. Second only to the Trump-McConnell-Ryan trio’s attempts last year to take away the healthcare coverage of 23 million Americans – a mingy move that only 23 percent of the public supports.

Why do these doofuses keep trying to shove such wildly unpopular measures down people’s throats? Because, as The Daily Beast columnist Michael Tomasky succinctly explained, “They are serving their mega-rich donors and the most extreme elements of their base.” In today’s rigged, convoluted political system, the special interests of the narrow minority trumps the will of the great majority.

That is where America’s fast-expanding, socially destructive inequality comes from. The tax giveaway to the corporations, for example, guts our public treasury, so the Republican Congress, White House, and army of corporate lobbyists are now demanding cuts in the Social Security, Medicare, and other essential programs the majority of us need.

To pretend that they give a damn, the plutocratic powers are presently pulling a trickle-down PR trick on us. The GOP’s bill drastically reduced their taxes and increases many of ours, so to dodge public fury, they’re making a show of awarding a tiny portion of their bonanza to workers — not as pay raises, but as one-time “bonus” payments. Bank of America, for example, is doling out about $130 million in worker bonuses, while keeping $2.6 billion it will get next year alone from Trump’s tax bill.

If the corporate-GOP syndicate wonders why they’re so despised, there it is.

Populist author, public speaker, and radio commentator Jim Hightower writes The Hightower Lowdown, a monthly newsletter chronicling the ongoing fights by America’s ordinary people against rule by plutocratic elites. Sign up at HightowerLowdown.org.

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Smart. Sharp. Funny. Fearless

Outrage Over 'Bribery' As Trump Does Favors For Firms That Funded Inaugural

Texas Judge Blocks Vigilante Lawsuit Against Planned Parenthood

Republicans Attack ‘Woke’ Companies At Their Peril

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