#accountable.us

As U.S. President Donald Trump and congressional Republicans' so-called "Big Beautiful Bill" heads to the Senate, a watchdog group on Tuesday released a report highlighting that dozens of GOP members of Congress worth a total of $2.5 billion are set to benefit from the package, which would cut food and healthcare benefits for millions of working-class Americans.

Walter Einenkel at Daily Kos:

Watchdog group Accountable.US filed a complaint against Robert F. Kennedy Jr. alleging that he committed felony voter fraud in the 2024 general election. The complaint points out that the Democrat-turned-independent-turned-Trump supporter voted (by mail) in Westchester, New York, even thoughA a judge previously threw out his attempts to get on the state’s ballot for using a “sham address”—the same one he used on his voter registration.  In its complaint, the group highlights the court’s opinion that “petitioners have demonstrated by clear and convincing evidence that the Katonah address listed in the nominating petition was not Kennedy's residence under the Election Law.” In fact, Kennedy admitted under oath that in the 15 months he owned the property in Katonah, New York, he only spent one night there. That is one night out of an estimated 450 nights he could have slept at what he was calling his permanent home.

A federal judge on Thursday ordered the Small Business Administration to release details on coronavirus pandemic-related loans that would disclose information on businesses that benefited from $717 billion in federally backed borrowings.

The judge ordered the agency to disclose all the names, addresses and precise loan amounts issued through the Paycheck Protection Program and Emergency Injury Disaster Loan program. The decision comes after a lawsuit was filed by a dozen news organizations, charging that the agency was not fulfilling its obligations under the Freedom of Information Act.

The SBA had previously released only summarized and anonymized data for PPP loans under $150,000 — which account for about 4.5 million of the 5.2 million in total loans made — claiming they would violate borrowers’ privacy by revealing the size of their payroll.

When the SBA denied the FOIA requests by news agencies, it argued that releasing government loan information would reveal business and personal information that should be kept private.

Federal Judge James Boasberg rejected those claims, saying in his ruling that, “the significant public interest in shedding light on SBA’s administration of the PPP and EIDL program dramatically outweighs any limited private interest in nondisclosure.” The judge discounted the SBA’s claim that the size of a loan would reveal a company’s payroll, calling the assertion “fundamentally flawed.”

He noted “the PPP loan application expressly notified potential borrowers — admittedly in a form disclaimer — that their names and loan amounts would be ’automatically released’ upon a FOIA request,” and criticized the agency for offering “a series of arguments that essentially all reduce to the unavailing contention that the agency did not mean what the loan-application forms actually said.”

The SBA had no comment, agency spokesperson Jim Billimoria said in an email to NBC News. The Justice Department, representing the agency in the lawsuit, did not reply to requests for comment and whether the Trump administration plans to appeal the ruling.

“In response to the unprecedented challenges faced by small businesses this year, the Trump administration provided more than three-quarters of a trillion dollars in financial assistance to support impacted small businesses," SBA Administrator Jovita Carranza said in a recent release. "SBA lending data further reflects the extraordinary commitment this administration has made to supporting entrepreneurs in underserved communities.”

Nearly 30 percent of the PPP loans were made in low-and moderate-income communities and over 15 percent were approved for rural communities, according to the agency.

Government watchdog groups welcomed the release and pledged to begin scrutinizing the data once released.

“From the beginning, the Trump administration did everything in its power to hide the recipients of PPP loans,” Jeremey Funk, spokesman for Accountable.us, a progressive government watchdog group, told NBC News in an email. “As soon as the administration abides by the court order and releases all data, we will scour it to see whether more Trump administration officials and family members — and other well-connected folks — than previously known received the loans.”

The data was released following a FOIA request filed by 11 news organizations, including NBC News, The Washington Post and The New York Times, and was consolidated with a separate lawsuit filed by the Center for Public Integrity, a DC-based investigative journalism nonprofit.

The Sedition Caucus (AKA: The Treason Caucus) is the name given to 9 Senate members and 139 House members who in January 2021 voted to reject electoral votes for Joe Biden from Arizona, Pennsylvania, or both states. None of those 148 Republicans could provide any tangible proof of illegality or irregularities which would have disqualified the awarding of those votes to Biden. This was a naked attempt to try to steal the election for Donald Trump or at least try to placate Trump's ego as he endlessly recited The Big Lie to make excuses for him losing the election.

After the assault on the US Capitol by pro-Trump terrorists many corporations and trade groups pledged to stop making political contributions to the Sedition Caucus.

A year ago, violent rioters attacked the U.S. Capitol, armed with Trump’s Big Lie and bolstered by a cabal of extreme-right Congress members who refused to certify the results of the 2020 presidential election. Insurrectionists stormed the halls, breaking into the Senate Chamber and the House Speaker’s private office.  

[ ... ]

In the aftermath, Corporate America declared enough was enough. By the week’s end, nearly every major company in the U.S.—from consumer retailers to defense contractors to pharmaceutical companies—condemned the deadly attack, and dozens committed to cutting off the lawmakers involved.  

That promise was broken by a lot of high profile companies after only a few months.  Shame! Shame! Shame!

At least 85 percent of the corporations that we profiled—17 of the 20—are major contributors to the Sedition Caucus and either pledged to or publicly considered pausing or reviewing their political spending after the January 6 insurrection. 

The link to Accountable.us describes large donations from promise-breaking anti-democracy companies to members of the Sedition Caucus. You can forward graphics for each Sedition Caucus recipient to people you know.

The next time you buy gas at an Exxon station, rest assured that some of your money is going into the pockets of that weasel Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA-23).

A U.S. watchdog group on Tuesday slammed Republicans in Congress for trying to kill the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's overdraft rule as U.S. President Donald Trump and billionaire Elon Musk target the CFPB as a whole.

The Accountable.US statement came in response to Senate Banking Committee Chair Tim Scott (R-S.C.) and House Financial Services Committee Chair French Hill (R-Ark.) recently introducing a Congressional Review Act (CRA) resolution to overturn the rule that capped most overdraft fees at $5, which was finalized in December, near the end of the former President Joe Biden's term.

"Overdraft fees affect a huge portion of American families with 17% of households with checking accounts paying overdraft or [nonsufficient funds] fees in 2023," Accountable.US noted. "This action would open the door for $35 overdraft fees—a decision that would cost American households an average of $225 each year."

The watchdog's executive director, Tony Carrk, declared that "undoing the CFPB's overdraft fee rule is a gift to big banks and a gut punch to the wallets of millions of Americans across the country."

"Deceitful and excessive overdraft fees cost Americans billions of dollars every year, but the Trump administration and Republicans in Congress don't seem to care any longer about lowering costs for Americans now that they're in charge," he continued. "This is just the latest broken promise from Republicans, who have used their short time in power to already cater to special interests over hardworking Americans."

When the Republican chairs introduced their CRA resolution last week, Scott called the Biden-era CFPB rule an example of the "pursuit of political headlines over sound policies," and Hill described it "midnight rulemaking" and "another form of government price controls that hurt consumers who deserve financial protections and greater choice."

Meanwhile, when the CFPB finalized the rule, the agency said that it "took action to close an outdated overdraft loophole that exempted overdraft loans from lending laws." At the time, the bureau was still directed by Biden appointee Rohit Chopra, who highlighted that large banks' exploitation of the loophole had "drained billions of dollars from Americans' deposit accounts."

The rule "was scheduled to become effective in October," but "because of acting Director Russ Vought's unlawful order stalling all CFPB work, the effective date has been suspended," The American Prospect reported Monday. "If Congress passes the CRA resolution, the overdraft rule could not come back in any 'substantially similar' form. So it matters if congressional Republicans decide to support allowing banks to impose additional junk fees worth billions of dollars."

The outlet also pointed out that "because CRA resolutions cannot be stopped by a filibuster, they represent some of the most likely legislative actions of the early Trump term," given Republicans' narrow majorities in Congress.

It's not just the rule that's in jeopardy; the entire agency is at risk. Trump and Musk, the leader of the president's Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE)—though perhaps not on paper—are working to gut the federal workforce and slash spending, and they have the CFPB in their crosshairs.

An agreement reached Friday in federal court halted mass firings at the CFPB and barred the bureau and its temporary leader, Vought—who also leads the Office of Management and Budget—from purging data or defunding the agency while the case moves forward. However, Trump and Musk are expected to continue their effort.

“Americans will know how the Trump administration and its allies are working for themselves, big corporations, and the wealthy, not the American people,” said Accountable.US. Tesla CEO Elon Musk (R) speaks on stage as he joins Donald Trump during a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania on October 5, 2024. (Photo: Jim Watson/AFP via Getty Images)~~ With the incoming Trump administration taking…