Swamp Watch – 7 December 2016

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Another cabinet appointment today? Does Donald Trump even pretend to vet any of these folks? Beats me. But yes, there’s a third appointee today: Linda McMahon, of professional wrestling fame, will head up the Small Business Administration. (This is a cabinet-level post, so it goes on the list.) McMahon and her husband founded the WWE empire and are worth over $1 billion, so that’s officially the third billionaire in his cabinet. Plus there’s Trump himself, of course, so that’s four. That’s 0.7 percent of all the billionaires in the country—so far.

Among other things, the McMahons have nearly single-handedly funded the Trump Foundation since 2007. Earlier this year they gave $6 million to Trump’s campaign. Normally this gets you an ambassadorship to, say, Sweden, but the McMahons are longtime pals, so Linda gets a spot in the cabinet instead. The official excuse is that she helped build the WWE from a small business into an empire, so she knows just what small businesses need. Works for me.

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BEFORE YOU CLICK AWAY!

“Lying.” “Disgusting.” “Scum.” “Slime.” “Corrupt.” “Enemy of the people.” Donald Trump has always made clear what he thinks of journalists. And it’s plain now that his administration intends to do everything it can to stop journalists from reporting things they don’t like—which is most things that are true.

No one gets to tell Mother Jones what to publish or not publish, because no one owns our fiercely independent newsroom. But that also means we need to directly raise the resources it takes to keep our journalism alive. There’s only one way for that to happen, and it’s readers like you stepping up. Please help with a donation today if you can—even a few bucks will make a real difference. A monthly gift would be incredible.

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