Summary

Donald Trump’s transition team is raising unlimited funds from undisclosed donors, including foreign nationals, bypassing federal transparency rules by refusing to sign agreements with the Biden administration.

This breaks from tradition, sparking concerns about potential conflicts of interest and influence over the incoming administration.

The team has also failed to enable FBI background checks for appointees and has not submitted an ethics plan required for pre-inauguration access to federal agencies.

Critics warn that this secrecy undermines accountability during the critical handover of power.

Non-paywall link

  • themeatbridge@lemmy.world
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    29 days ago

    I think the big takeaway is that the only thing atanding between our government and corruption is “tradition.”

    • cmbabul@lemmy.world
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      29 days ago

      Way too much of how our institutions function was built on the honor system. And now it’s too late to harden those safeguards

      • WalnutLum@lemmy.ml
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        28 days ago

        I think a lot of It was written with the implied “and if they don’t somebody will just shoot them”

        • cmbabul@lemmy.world
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          28 days ago

          I wouldn’t completely disagree although I would say he cranked the corruption to 11 more than anyone previously

          • capital_sniff@lemmy.world
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            28 days ago

            Of course he’s going to go ham this season. Why wouldn’t he? He was never held to account for any of the corruption and crime during his first term. The new Trump admin won’t be like the last one where some people were able to obstruct the most ridiculous requests. I predict we will nuke at least one hurricane in the coming 4 years.

        • Steve@communick.news
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          28 days ago

          I’d say you’re assuming modern context.

          The institutions were created centuries ago by the constitution.
          It was written with a presumption of a certain kind of honor. One that’s no longer shared by modern sensibilities.
          I believe that’s what cmbabul was referring to.

    • dutchkimble@lemy.lol
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      28 days ago

      (Insert Morpheus pic)

      What if I told you…The only thing linking government and corruption is tradition

  • ModestMeme@lemm.ee
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    29 days ago

    Oh look, the NYT is suddenly reporting an actual issue with Trump Co. instead of casually sanewashing him. Too late. We will spend decades fixing this sh*t. Literal decades.

    • rockSlayer@lemmy.world
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      28 days ago

      NYT realized how much credibility they lost between the election and gaza reporting and are trying to pretend none of it happened.

      • Viking_Hippie@lemmy.world
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        28 days ago

        Just like they did when they wrote glowingly about that German fellow with the funny moustache. The NYT REALLY loved him at first.

        • Corkyskog@sh.itjust.works
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          28 days ago

          To be fair, newspapers in Germany owned by the same Jews that would later be persecuted supported or sucked up to Hitler too… It’s actually strikingly similar to how our own media has acted around Trump. Direct parallels with what just happened to morning Joe.

    • skuzz@discuss.tchncs.de
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      28 days ago

      They’ve been shit for most of their existence. Although in the early 1900s they were very good at reporting about if people were wearing hats or not.

  • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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    29 days ago

    But he won’t be that bad, am I right? That’s what I keep being told now that the “a vote for Kamala his a vote for genocide” people got their way.

    By the way, I wonder what dialect of Russian those foreign nationals speak…

    • fukhueson@lemmy.world
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      28 days ago

      https://www.reuters.com/world/us/muslims-who-voted-trump-upset-by-his-pro-israel-cabinet-picks-2024-11-15/

      Hassan Abdel Salam, a former professor at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities and co-founder of the Abandon Harris campaign, which endorsed Green Party candidate Jill Stein, said Trump’s staffing plans were not surprising, but had proven even more extreme that he had feared.

      “It’s like he’s going on Zionist overdrive,” he said. “We were always extremely skeptical … Obviously we’re still waiting to see where the administration will go, but it does look like our community has been played.”

    • Grimy@lemmy.world
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      28 days ago

      The dems complete incompetence led to this. Tired of seeing people think being vocal about genocide is somehow a bad thing.

      If you keep blaming anyone but the idiots that sat on their hands and decided a status quo with a side of genocide was the appropriate response to fascism, all your doing is signaling them they can try the same shit next time.

      They praised fracking at the debate ffs, it’s like they were trying to alienate voters. I blame them and no one else.

      • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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        28 days ago

        Translation: “I had nothing to do with this. All I did was repeatedly tell people not to vote for Harris and then they didn’t vote for Harris and Harris lost and now I got my way and I’m mad about it.”

        • Grimy@lemmy.world
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          28 days ago

          I didn’t. I was very vocal about voting for Harris anyways. I knew that the dems had already decided to roll the dice and it was up to us to knudge it along because trump was worse (including for palestinians). But I was banging my head against the walls wondering what the fuck they were thinking.

          Not only was enabling genocide morally disgusting, it was politically stupid as well. And it wasn’t just that, the dems ran on a platform of apathy. They needed to bring out people that usually don’t vote to win and they didn’t even try, while the fascist spent 12 years building a personality cult.

          If they don’t do something radically different next time, hoping trump doesn’t complete cement his dictatorship, they will lose again. They need to be held accountable.

      • lennivelkant@discuss.tchncs.de
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        28 days ago

        This is one of the nasty cases of “multiple parties fucked up to let this happen, and all of them are to blame”. The fascists themselves obviously bear the most blame, followed by their enablers, including various media outlets that went terribly softball on one side while picking apart the other at every opportunity. The Dems’ continuous lurch to the right and resulting voter disillusionment also counts among those, the lack of education, the Reps’ skill at pinning all the issues they cause on the Dems…

        The list is long. It also includes the voters who, faced with the question “genocide with or without fascism?” threw up their hands in frustration and said “Do whatever you want, go install the fascist for all I care” as well as the relentless “bOtH SiDeS” bullshit.

        The Dems fucked up, badly and consistently. They deserve to lose their political standing, to be usurped by an actually progressive left wing party. But achieving that through a fash victory is like weeding your garden with incendiary bombs: Sure, it might burn away the visible part of the weeds, but it’ll probably kill the crop too and still leave an invisible part ready to become a nuisance in the future.

  • The Quuuuuill@slrpnk.net
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    29 days ago

    oh, did i miss the memo that we would be swapping the meanings of the words “secret” and “russian?”

    • Infinite@lemmy.zip
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      28 days ago

      Also

      Mr. Trump is … provoking alarm among ethics experts.

      Like, yes, we know. That’s what he does. I don’t think this is news to anyone.

  • boreengreen@lemm.ee
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    28 days ago

    USA is going to be run by FSB. I wonder how many american assets are being recommended to disapear right now.

  • Gammelfisch@lemmy.world
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    28 days ago

    Whiskey Tango Foxtrot! The f’n MAGATs want transparency in the government…LOL! They’re filling the their swamp with Russian SVR RF assets and white Christian lunatics hell bent on creating the US version of 1979 Iran. Fuck that shit. I would welcome the Canadians to annex all the Blue States.

    • fukhueson@lemmy.world
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      28 days ago

      I would welcome the Canadians to annex all the Blue States.

      The answer to voting in a fascist is to cede the majority of the nation’s territory to them? Those poor fools who weren’t fortunate enough to live in a blue state…

      Reminds me of what Abraham Lincoln said to the Confederacy: “If you’re too stupid not to realize slavery is bad, make your own country. Surely your slaves will realize that blue states are better.”

    • TurboWafflz@lemmy.world
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      28 days ago

      Only for other people, all the other presidents have to be APAB (assigned president at birth) but he’s allowed to be president even though he’s ADAB (assigned dumbass at birth). It’s just his usual hypocrisy

  • Stupidmanager@lemmy.world
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    28 days ago

    You know, there was this TV show some time back, sliders, I think. One episode has everyone wearing truth collars that shock you when you lie. Fuck tradition, make our leaders wear truth collars that shock the fuck out of them when they lie.

    • Razzazzika@lemm.ee
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      28 days ago

      They’ll just become smart like the Fae in a lot of fantasy literature, they can’t lie but they can tell you half truths and let you fill in thr blanks yourself to mislead you to an improper conclusion.

    • fukhueson@lemmy.world
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      28 days ago

      I truly don’t understand this line of reasoning.

      “I can’t treat the patient so I’m not gonna tell them about their disease.”

        • fukhueson@lemmy.world
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          28 days ago

          Are you bending my perfectly apt analogy to insinuate the US is over and to lose hope? Because only you are insinuating anything terminal.

          Let me just see what even Google AI says about this obvious fallacy:

          The fallacy of arguing that we shouldn’t report on issues we can’t directly change is often called the “do-nothing fallacy” or “perfectionist fallacy”; it essentially states that because a perfect solution isn’t available, we should not report on a problem at all, effectively dismissing important information and ignoring potential avenues for awareness and discussion.

          Key points about this fallacy:

          Ignoring the value of awareness:

          Just because a direct action can’t be taken immediately doesn’t mean reporting on an issue can’t raise public awareness, prompt further investigation, or encourage future policy changes.

          Oversimplification of complex issues:

          It often ignores the potential impact of public discourse on shaping public opinion and influencing decision-makers.

          Potential for silencing important voices:

          This fallacy can be used to discourage reporting on issues that may be uncomfortable or politically sensitive.

          Damn, good points Google, I absolutely agree.

          https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nirvana_fallacy

          The nirvana fallacy is the informal fallacy of comparing actual things with unrealistic, idealized alternatives. It can also refer to the tendency to assume there is a perfect solution to a particular problem. A closely related concept is the “perfect solution fallacy”.

          By creating a false dichotomy that presents one option which is obviously advantageous—while at the same time being completely unrealistic—a person using the nirvana fallacy can attack any opposing idea because it is imperfect. Under this fallacy, the choice is not between real world solutions; it is, rather, a choice between one realistic achievable possibility and another unrealistic solution that could in some way be “better”.

          It is also related to the appeal to purity fallacy where the person rejects all criticism on basis of it being applied to a non ideal case.

          “We can’t outright fix the problem right now, so we may as well not report on it.” Hmm…

          Edit: gotta love ninja edits… So now you’re saying it’s “terminal but treatable and we decided to do nothing”? Why did you back down from just “terminal”? Please restore your original comment. That doesn’t break your argument from the fallacy I described above.

          Edit 2: now they’ve deleted their comments. Put em back up, own your fallacy.