National

Joan Walsh at The Nation says Democrats should fight all of Donald Trump’s nominees:

[S]o far, presented with these political gifts, Democrats have been fairly silent. They’ve pledged to fight Sessions, and they should, but no one else has come in for much attack, although today Senator Ed Markey said he would oppose Pruitt’s nomination to head the EPA, and Schumer had some tough words for Pudzer as labor secretary. That’s good news, but it’s not enough. On one level, I understand the need for Democrats to “pick their battles.” They may be more likely to win GOP support to actually block a nominee or two by being selective. But no one has yet marshaled an argument to Trump voters that they’ve been hoodwinked: that the outsider candidate has picked a cabinet of insiders, who make an utter mockery of his promises to look out for the “forgotten man.” Democrats should be making the case, as Ben Adler argues in The Guardian, that Trump is “a self-dealing political profiteer and a tool of the business and political elite.” Jeff Hauser of the Revolving Door Project has suggested that Democrats refuse to consider any appointments until Trump discloses and then divests himself of his global and largely secret financial empire—especially since we can’t trust Trump’s picks to monitor his self-dealing.

This is a “credit where credit is due” two for the price of one. McBride has clearly been instrumental in making the lives of Delaware’s LGBTQ community better, and Markell, for all of his retrograde trickle down economics, has been pretty good on LGBTQ issues. McBride, who was the first openly transgender speaker at a major party’s national convention, also serves on the board of Equality Delaware. She played a pivotal role in the passage of Delaware’s 2013 Gender Identity Non-Discrimination Act, which provided basic legal protections to transgender people in employment, housing, public accommodations, and insurance. “Generations of Delawareans will have better lives thanks to the work and courage of Sarah McBride,” said Gov. Markell. “On their behalf, I’m incredibly grateful.”

This is from Tom Carper's statement on Trump's selection of climate change denier and fossil fuel industry lackey, Scott Pruitt to head the EPA: Over the coming weeks, my colleagues…

“Donald Trump will continue to hold the title of executive producer for the television show ‘The Celebrity Apprentice’ after taking office, foreshadowing an unorthodox presidency in which the commander in chief has a hand in the world of reality TV,” the Washington Post reports. “Trump’s name will be listed in the credits of the NBC show that he once hosted, according to details of the arrangement confirmed by a representative of the show. Such credits in Hollywood often come with a paycheck, though the representative did not disclose whether Trump will be compensated.” So NBC will pay a salary to the President. Yeah. No conflict there at all.

“Across Mr. Trump’s business, he uses a similar web of privately held LLCs and other entities to house his assets—everything from real estate to a vintage carousel in Manhattan’s Central Park, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis of hundreds of pages of his corporate filings and personal financial disclosures. Fifteen entities, for example, are used to hold his interests in two airplanes and three helicopters.” “Unlike publicly traded companies, Delaware LLCs don’t have to publish any financial information or even disclose the identity of the owner… None of the 96 LLCs examined by the Journal appear to regularly release audited financial statements. That opacity—compounded by Mr. Trump’s decision to break with decades of precedent by declining to release his tax returns—makes it impossible to gauge the full extent of potential conflicts between his business interests and presidential role.” It is time for the Delaware General Assembly to end this practice of corruption.