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Cherie Blair’s Charity Received £3.6 million from ExxonMobil

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Article by Adam Barnett republished from DeSmog.

UK barrister Cherie Blair. Credit: The Swift Hour / YouTube

The oil major has provided a significant chunk of the foundation’s income.

A charity set up by Cherie Blair has received more than £3.6 million from U.S. fossil fuel giant ExxonMobil, DeSmog can reveal.

The eponymous Cherie Blair Foundation for Women was founded in 2008 – providing training and resources, including mobile apps, for “women entrepreneurs” in low-income countries to start small businesses, according to its website.

The group has received at least $4.8 million (around £3.6 million) from ExxonMobil’s charitable arm, the ExxonMobil Foundation, since 2015.

The majority of this ($2.8 million, around £2.1 million) was received between 2020 and the ExxonMobil Foundation’s most recent filing in 2024.

The oil and gas giant provided roughly a-fifth of the Cherie Blair Foundation’s total income from 2020 to 2024, according to an analysis of the latter’s accounts.

Blair is a barrister and the wife of former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair, who last month called for the UK to abandon its climate targets and ramp-up North Sea fossil fuel exploration. There is no suggestion that Exxon funded the Cherie Blair Foundation to influence Tony Blair’s work, nor that his views have been swayed by the money provided.

The ExxonMobil Foundation is the primary philanthropic arm of ExxonMobil, the largest U.S.-based oil and gas company.

Internal company reports have revealed that Exxon knew in the 1980s that unrestrained carbon emissions have the potential to cause “great irreversible harm to our planet,” and that it predicted the exact amount of global warming the world is now experiencing. However, instead of warning the public, Exxon internally decided to publicly “emphasize the uncertainty” of climate science.

The Cherie Blair Foundation said that it is “focused on supporting women entrepreneurs in low- and middle-income countries.”

It added: “We receive funding from a range of donors to deliver programmes aligned with our mission. One of these donors is the ExxonMobil Foundation, with whom we have worked since 2015. This support has enabled us to expand access to business skills training for women entrepreneurs in Nigeria and Guyana.”

Africa is disproportionately vulnerable to climate change, with eight of the 10 countries most at risk globally located in central, west, and southern Africa.

The ExxonMobil Foundation’s available tax returns show that it gave the Cherie Blair Foundation $1 million in 2015 and 2016, $600,000 in 2024, 2023, and 2022, and $500,000 in 2021 and 2020. 

Exxon’s tax returns for 2017 to 2019 do not list any donation recipients, although the Cherie Blair Foundation’s annual accounts for those years still list Exxon as a donor.

The ExxonMobil Foundation is also listed on the Cherie Blair Foundation’s “donors and partners” list for 2011 to 2014, but details of any money provided are not available in the charity’s reports or the ExxonMobil Foundation’s tax returns.

Cherie Blair is still involved in the foundation, having given an interview to The Standard about its work in March.

The foundation added: “We are not connected to the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change or to Tony Blair’s personal or professional activities, and we operate independently in our governance, strategy and operations. Information relating to funding received is publicly available in our annual report and accounts.”

ExxonMobil was approached for comment.

Tony Blair and Net Zero

In a major intervention in May, Tony Blair called on the Labour government to “use what is left of our North Sea oil and gas resources” and sideline the UK’s net zero emissions targets. 

He also said new oil and gas was essential to power the data centres needed for the mass deployment of artificial intelligence (AI), which Blair has championed.

The U.S.-Israeli war with Iran has caused an energy crisis and a spike in the price of oil. Labour has argued the UK needs to deploy clean energy at a faster pace, while the Conservatives and Reform have been calling for the UK’s ban on new North Sea exploration licences to be lifted.

The Cherie Blair Foundation’s ExxonMobil donations are the latest example of fossil fuel interests backing Blair family initiatives.

TBI has been paid to advise the governments of several authoritarian petrostates, including Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Azerbaijan, all of which are heavily reliant on oil and gas exports.

The institute has also championed the deployment of artificial intelligence by the government and in the economy, and has supported the use of gas to power AI data centres.

TBI received $130 million (around £96.5 million) between 2021 and 2023 from billionaire tech entrepreneur Larry Ellison, founder of data software company Oracle and an ally of U.S. President Donald Trump. In total, Ellison has donated or pledged at least £257 million to TBI.

“Neither Tony nor Cherie Blair can be taken seriously when it comes to climate change, energy policy or human rights when their organisations have taken so much money from oil companies and oil dictators,” a spokesperson for the Green Party said.

Former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair. Credit: Kmu.gov.ua (CC BY-4.0)

In a 5,000-word essay published on the TBI website in May, Blair listed “the net-zero acceleration and phasing out of the British oil and gas industry” among Labour’s 2024 manifesto commitments which he considers a mistake.

He wrote that Labour should “remove those parts of the net-zero agenda which prioritise clean energy over cheaper energy”.

Blair, who was prime minister from 1997 to 2007, concluded: “We must prioritise cheaper energy and electrification over net zero and use what is left of our North Sea oil and gas resources. This is essential for our competitiveness and for taking advantage of AI.”

Renewable energy from wind and solar power are consistently the cheapest form of energy. High energy bills are caused by the price of oil and gas, while new North Sea exploration will do little to cut energy bills.

Data centres are currently using six percent of electricity in the UK and U.S., according to a report earlier this month by the International Data Center Authority, an industry body. The average data centre uses enough energy to power roughly 5,000 UK homes, and between 11 million and 19 million litres of water per day, the same as a town of between 30,000 and 50,000 people.

Up to 100 data centres in the UK are reportedly looking to use gas power to meet this demand, threatening emissions reduction targets. The Labour government has yet to state whether it will prevent gas-powered data centres from being built in the UK.

Last month, the government admitted that it had under-estimated the potential carbon emissions of data centres by a factor of more than 100.

Last year, Keir Starmer’s administration – which has close ties to Blair and TBI – signed a ‘Tech Prosperity Deal’ with the U.S. government through which big tech companies pledged to heavily invest in AI development in the UK. While Trump paused the deal in December, it’s unclear to what extent these investments are also on pause.

Article by Adam Barnett republished from DeSmog.

Continue ReadingCherie Blair’s Charity Received £3.6 million from ExxonMobil

Bovino Launches Exploratory Committee for Presidential Campaign With Pledge to Deport 100 Million People

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Article by Stephen Prager republished form Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

A graphic posted to the website for former Border Patrol commander Gregory Bovino’s 2028 presidential exploratory committee on June 4, 2028. (Graphic from Bovino2028.com)

Bovino’s plan to purge the country of one-third of its population has been described as an “ethnic cleansing” proposal. He recently discussed it at a conference with European neo-Nazis.

Fresh off his appearance at a fascist conference in Portugal focused on “remigration,” President Donald Trump’s ex-Border Patrol Commander Gregory Bovino has teased a run for US president in 2028 centered around his fantasy of deporting 100 million people from the United States.

Amid public backlash following the killing of two US citizens by his federal agents in Minneapolis, Bovino was kicked from the helm of Trump’s mass deportation crusade in January and sent into early retirement.

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But as he later discussed with The New York Times, he departed with a sense of unfinished business, unfulfilled that he could not exact what was described as a “master plan” to purge a third of the country.

As News Nation reported on Monday, Bovino is not one to give up on dreams easily. The 30-year Border Patrol veteran told the network that he was launching an exploratory committee for a White House run in 2028 and planned to move ahead with a formal campaign “if it all comes together.”

The website for his committee, Bovino2028.com, which features an image of Bovino in his signature SS-style trenchcoat flanked by the phrase “House Bovino. Men Fight Back,” gives a sense of the campaign he seeks to run.

The website describes a future President Bovino leading the US with a “warrior mindset,” “quelling the foreign hordes that have subsumed our nation’s cities,” and creating a “department of youth masculinity” to turn young men into “warriors for freedom,” and calls for the reestablishment of Elon Musk’s failed Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).

His website also does not shy away from acknowledging his role in a conference in late May were he appeared alongside representatives of the global far-right. As Charles R. Davis described late last month for The Redoubt:

The “Remigration Summit 2026,” so called, was held May 30 at the Salmanha Residence hotel just south of Porto, Portugal, and its organizers were not subtle.

“Weimar conditions require Weimar solutions,” argues Afonso Gonçalves, chief organizer of the event. He’s the founder of the far-right group Reconquista, so named for the mass expulsion of Muslims from the Iberian Peninsula. That’s who Bovino was photographed standing next to after he landed in Europe.

Martin Sellner, an extremist from Austria, is best known for pushing the “great replacement” conspiracy theory— that Jewish elites are seeking to exterminate the white race via mass migration—that has motivated mass shooters from Pennsylvania to New Zealand.

He was the other man standing next to Bovino.

Other speakers included a Belgian fascist convicted of Holocaust denial and the founder of a Swiss neo-Nazi group called “Junge Tat” who is quite open about his fondness for “National Socialism.”

Bovino is not looking to hide his affiliations with prominent neo-Nazis. The site prominently features a photo of himself with Sellner, who at a previous summit outlined a plan for the forced expulsion of “non-assimilated” citizens of immigrant backgrounds from Germany.

The ex-Border Patrol commander said during the conference that his and Sellner’s ideas “mirror each other.”

Gregory Bovino poses with Martin Sellner in an image posted to his 2028 website.(Photo from Bovino2028.com)

Confirming that he was considering a presidential run on Monday, Bovino wrote on social media: “My one and only priority is deporting the 106 million illegals who are here. That’s it.”

According to May data from the Center for Migration Studies, the number of undocumented immigrants actually in the United States was only about 14.6 million as of 2024, meaning that what Bovino is actually proposing is the mass expulsion of tens of millions of legal immigrants, as well as naturalized and US-born citizens.

David J. Bier, an immigration expert at the libertarian Cato Institute, testified about this plot by Bovino in front of the Senate Budget Committee in March, describing it as a plan for “ethnic cleansing”—and pushing back when one Republican senator dismissed the claim as “hyperbole.”

Polls indicate Americans have overwhelmingly turned against Trump’s crusade to round up millions of immigrants, with strong majorities having negative views of his tactics and of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). In early March, just over a month after Bovino’s tenure ended, a record 50% of Americans said in a YouGov poll that they would support abolishing ICE.

But Bovino said the “grassroots support” he’s seeing indicates that “the polls are completely wrong.”

He said: “If I’m getting this much energy, it’s probably because 90% of the country wants mass deportations, and the media just isn’t asking the right questions.”

While it is difficult to see Bovino achieving mass appeal on the back of an immigration crusade even more extreme than Trump’s, Oliver Willis, a writer for the Daily Kos said it was a sign of where the base of the GOP could be heading.

“The Republican Party has increasingly tied itself to the white supremacist movement through continued support of Trump and the rising influence of figures like conservative podcaster and neo-Nazi Nick Fuentes,” he wrote. “Bovino considering a 2028 presidential bid shows that the party—and the wider conservative movement—isn’t moderating at all.”

Article by Stephen Prager republished form Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

Elon Musk urges you to be a Fascist like him, says that you can ignore facts and reality then.
Elon Musk urges you to be a Fascist like him, says that you can ignore facts and reality then.
Continue ReadingBovino Launches Exploratory Committee for Presidential Campaign With Pledge to Deport 100 Million People

As the Climate Crisis Heats Our Ocean, Trump Is Tossing the Thermometer

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Article by Erika Spanger

A National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration data collecting buoy is moored in the Indian Ocean. (Photo by David Zimmerman/ NOAA)

At a time when ocean heat, the slowing of the Gulf Stream, and other major changes are sending shock waves through scientific and decision-making circles, we need greater understanding of what we’re facing, not self-imposed blind spots.

It’s easy for us land dwellers to forget that we live on a water planet, more than 70% of it covered by a vast ocean. But we are entering an age—or more accurately, have created an age—when that fact will be impossible to ignore. With global climate change, the seas are rising, yes, but they are also warming, slowly but steadily, and that warmth is now reaching levels that can drive profound changes here on land. Many of those changes have begun, many are on display this year, and some will have seismic consequences going forward.

…

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A more representative, less terra-centric view of our 70% water planet. (Photo by NOAA/NASA GOES via Smithsonian)

…

Most recently, the administration ordered the “descoping” of the National Science Foundation’s Ocean Observing Infrastructure Project, a system of sensing and data gathering infrastructure distributed in the North Atlantic and Pacific. Information is still sparse about this dismantling; the process is not transparent. What’s clear is that, at a time when ocean heat, the slowing of the Gulf Stream, and other major changes are sending shock waves through scientific and decision-making circles, we need greater understanding of what we’re facing, not self-imposed blind spots. Sending taxpayer-funded ships on taxpayer-funded missions to essentially unplug functional taxpayer-funded ocean monitoring systems is baffling. Given the fossil fuel industry’s influence on the Trump agenda, it could look like a massive attempted cover up, except that the crime—warming the planet—is ongoing, and there’s really no covering up the changing climate, because we live here.

The ocean has become easy for the wealthier people of the world to ignore: a place to extract resources and dump waste. But this titan is now rumbling into a new kind of activation, more central character than backdrop. It’s hard to think of a more monumental failure than overheating an ocean planet and handing it off to younger generations. History won’t look kindly on the leaders of this time who ignore the science and the obvious signals. May it reflect that they were forced by their people, in time frames that made a difference, to phase out fossil fuels and invest in a safe and just climate future for all on this rare water planet. invest in a safe and just climate future for all on this rare water planet.

Article by Erika Spanger

Edited since this article is not published under a CC licence

Donald Fuhrump says that Amerikkka doesn't bother with crimes or charges anymore, not being 100% Amerikkkan and opposing his real estate intentions is enough.
Donald Fuhrump says that Amerikkka doesn’t bother with crimes or charges anymore, not being 100% Amerikkkan and opposing his real estate intentions is enough.
Donald Trump urges you to be a Climate Science denier like him. He says that he makes millions and millions for destroying the planet, Burn, Baby, Burn and Flood, Baby, Flood.
Donald Trump urges you to be a Climate Science denier like him. He says that he makes millions and millions for destroying the planet, Burn, Baby, Burn and Flood, Baby, Flood.
Orcas discuss rotting brain, front Orca says disinhibition and swearing are typical and common symptoms
Orcas discuss rotting brain, front Orca says disinhibition and swearing are typical and common symptoms

Continue ReadingAs the Climate Crisis Heats Our Ocean, Trump Is Tossing the Thermometer

Unions Condemn Executive Order Allowing Trump to Replace Federal Workers With ‘Political Loyalists’

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Article by Stephen Prager republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) president Everett Kelley speaks alongside Rep. Don Beyer (D-Va.) at a press conference on federal workforce rights outside the US Capitol on March 28, 2025 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)

The head of America’s largest federal workers union called it “a blatant attempt to corrupt the federal government by eliminating employees’ due process rights so they can be fired for political reasons.”

Labor unions are warning that an executive order signed this week by President Donald Trump will allow his administration to replace thousands of career civil servants with “political loyalists.”

The order, signed on Wednesday, converts around 8,000 federal workers—most of whom are at senior levels in the civil service with major influence over policy decisions—to Schedule Policy/Career (P/C) status, formerly known as Schedule F, effectively making them “at-will” employees whom the president can fire at his discretion.

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While a small number, around 4,000, of the roughly 2 million federal workers are considered political appointees, most federal employees cannot be removed purely for failing to serve the agenda of the president and can usually only be fired for issues like inadequate performance or misconduct, which involves an appeal process.

But as part of the Trump administration’s effort to dismantle what it’s described as a “deep state” of disloyal bureaucrats, a major objective of the Heritage Foundation’s right-wing manifesto Project 2025, those 8,000 employees may now be fired for “subversion of presidential directives.”

According to the US Office of Personnel Management, this could be just the beginning—with as many as 50,000 employees potentially in consideration to be rescheduled.

A fact sheet released by the White House said that despite the reclassification, “these remain ‘career’ positions and the non-partisan hiring processes, competitive status, and other aspects of these roles will not change,” while “removal decisions will also be made without respect to political affiliation.”

But Trump-loyal department heads—everywhere from the Department of Justice to the Pentagon—have systematically purged employees across executive departments that are perceived as Trump’s political enemies.

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AFL-CIO president Liz Shuler said on Thursday that “Schedule P/C is the next phase in Trump’s anti-worker agenda to replace government workers with political loyalists who answer only to him.”

“As we’ve seen from his first day in office, the president is determined to tear down the architecture of our federal government and replace it with a system of corruption to benefit powerful CEOs and billionaire union-busters,” she said.

It’s part of a broader attack on the federal workforce in Trump’s second term. Through a combination of firings, layoffs, and forced resignations, he has reduced the number of government employees by nearly 300,000, causing chaos and understaffing at many agencies. He’s also stripped more than 1 million unionized federal workers of their right to collective bargaining, though courts have blocked the implementation for some workers.

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Everett Kelley, the president of the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), which represents more than 800,000 federal workers, said Wednesday’s order was “a blatant attempt to corrupt the federal government by eliminating employees’ due process rights so they can be fired for political reasons.”

“The practical implications of this action are clear. Workers who once felt comfortable reporting waste, fraud, abuse, and mismanagement at their place of employment because they were protected from retaliation will now be afraid for their jobs if they speak out,” he said. “That is a disservice to them and to the millions of Americans who rely on the federal government every day.”

William Shackelford, president of the National Active and Retired Federal Employees Association, added that the order “threatens expanded political cronyism, increasing the risk that executive actions will be decided by the size of political contributions rather than the faithful execution of the law.”

“That increases the risk of politically motivated enforcement of laws, threatening individual liberty; politically determined tariff exceptions and contract and grant awards, threatening greater corruption and waste of taxpayer dollars; and politically selective provision of services, threatening failure of government operations for disfavored groups or localities,” he said.

The legal watchdog Democracy Forward has filed a lawsuit against Trump’s rebranding of Schedule F as Schedule P/C at the start of his second term, which the group argued allowed several positions in the traditional nonpartisan civil service to be effectively recast as political appointees.

“For generations, our country has relied on a professional, nonpartisan civil service,” said Skye Perryman, the group’s president and CEO on Wednesday. “The people responsible for protecting our public health, safeguarding our environment, delivering our mail, managing our airports, protecting our public lands, and enforcing our laws should be allowed to do their jobs, not targeted by the same government they serve.”

“When government experts can be fired without cause,” she added, “it’s not just federal workers who are harmed—it’s the people across the country who rely on these essential services every day.”

Article by Stephen Prager republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

Donald Fuhrump says that Amerikkka doesn't bother with crimes or charges anymore, not being 100% Amerikkkan and opposing his real estate intentions is enough.
Donald Fuhrump says that Amerikkka doesn’t bother with crimes or charges anymore, not being 100% Amerikkkan and opposing his real estate intentions is enough.
Donald Trump urges you to be a Climate Science denier like him. He says that he makes millions and millions for destroying the planet, Burn, Baby, Burn and Flood, Baby, Flood.
Donald Trump urges you to be a Climate Science denier like him. He says that he makes millions and millions for destroying the planet, Burn, Baby, Burn and Flood, Baby, Flood.
Orcas discuss rotting brain, front Orca says disinhibition and swearing are typical and common symptoms
Orcas discuss rotting brain, front Orca says disinhibition and swearing are typical and common symptoms

Continue ReadingUnions Condemn Executive Order Allowing Trump to Replace Federal Workers With ‘Political Loyalists’

‘Pay-to-Play Loyalty Program’: Trump Ballroom Donors Have Been Handed $50 Billion in Federal Contracts

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Article by Stephen Prager republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

US President Donald Trump holds artists’ renderings as he talks to reporters about his proposed White House ballroom next to the worksite on May 19, 2026 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

“Corporations wrote big checks to build Trump’s golden ballroom,” said Rep. Jason Crow. “Now they’re receiving billions of dollars in kickbacks—paid for by your tax dollars.”

Sen. Elizabeth Warren suggested President Donald Trump is running a “pay-to-play loyalty program for wealthy donors” after a report on Thursday revealed that more than half the companies that contributed to his White House ballroom project have been awarded government contracts over the last six months, totaling over $50 billion.

Examining the 27 publicly known corporate donors to the president’s $400 million gold-plated vanity project, the watchdog group Public Citizen found that 14 of them—more than half—had received either new or expanded contracts over the past six months after donating millions to the ballroom and appearing at a lavish White House banquet in October as Trump prepared to demolish the building’s East Wing.

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Senate Dems Take Aim at Trump's $1 Billion 'Let-Them-Eat-Cake' Ballroom as US Economic Suffering Grows

Senate Dems Take Aim at Trump’s $1 Billion ‘Let-Them-Eat-Cake’ Ballroom as US Economic Suffering Grows

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Over two-thirds, 19 of the 27 companies, received government contracts since fiscal year 2021, totaling over $338 billion. At least 16 out of 27 are also either facing federal enforcement actions and/or have had them suspended by the Trump administration.

“These giant corporations aren’t funding the Trump ballroom fiasco out of the goodness of their hearts. They have massive interests before the federal government, and they hope to curry favor with, and receive favorable treatment from, the Trump administration,” said Public Citizen democracy advocate Jon Golinger, an author of the report.

By far the biggest monetary beneficiary has been the military contractor Lockheed Martin, which received a $43.8 billion in new or expanded contract funding over the past six months after it pledged $10 million to fund the dance hall last fall.

Booz Allen Hamilton, a consulting company that serves military and intelligence agencies and pledged at least $5 million to the project, received $4 billion in contracts over the same period.

Meanwhile, Palantir—the data-mining surveillance giant with deep ties to the Trump administration—reaped over $1 billion in contracts after giving its own $5 million donation.

“Millions to fund Trump’s bizarre fever dreams are nothing compared to the billions they’re getting back in contracts and favorable government enforcement decisions,” Golinger said. “The American people are paying the price.”

Other ballroom benefactors that have brought in more than $100 million worth of contracts over the past six months include Microsoft, Amazon, HP, and Caterpillar, while T-Mobile, Google, NextEra Energy, and Comcast have all brought in more than $10 million.

Public Citizen noted that while the White House has publicized some of the ballroom donors and others have been revealed by news organizations, not all of the companies that have contributed to the project are publicly known, since the secret funding agreement obtained by the group through a Freedom of Information Act request allows their identities to remain private.

In a statement to The Washington Post, White House spokesperson Davis Ingle suggested that critics should be grateful that Trump was soliciting donations from the wealthy for this very important undertaking.

“The same critics who are alleging fake conflicts of interest would also complain if American taxpayers were footing the bill for these long-overdue renovations,” he said, ignoring the fact that Trump has previously pressured Republicans in Congress to appropriate hundreds of millions in taxpayer funding to secure the ballroom.

Ingle added that “the donors for the White House ballroom project represent a wide array of great American companies and generous individuals, all of whom are contributing to make the People’s House better for generations to come.”

But several Democratic members of Congress have pointed to it as evidence of Trump selling out the government “to the highest bidder.”

“Corporations wrote big checks to build Trump’s golden ballroom,” said Rep. Jason Crow (D-Col.). “Now they’re receiving billions of dollars in kickbacks—paid for by your tax dollars.”

“Wild coincidence or taxpayer-funded corruption?” said Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.). “You be the judge.”

Rep. Mike Levin (D-Calif.) said that “the part that should make your blood boil” is the fact that many of the companies identified in the report “were facing federal enforcement actions, antitrust reviews, labor cases, [or] securities charges.”

“Many of those cases have been quietly dropped or scaled back since Trump took office. You write a check, your legal problems disappear,” Levin said. “That’s not a coincidence.”

“You cannot afford to donate to Trump’s ballroom, so he does nothing to improve the quality of your life,” said Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.). “But for those who can, there are billions in government contracts.”

Article by Stephen Prager republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

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Continue Reading‘Pay-to-Play Loyalty Program’: Trump Ballroom Donors Have Been Handed $50 Billion in Federal Contracts