November, 19 2020, 11:00pm EDT
Progressive Groups Launch Grassroots Efforts To Lobby Against Corporate Cabinet, Release List of Corporate Insiders Biden Should Reject
Today, five progressive organizations led by the Demand Progress and the Revolving Door Project launched the "No Corporate Cabinet" campaign, dedicated to keeping corporate insiders out of the Biden administration. Partners include Climate Investigations Center, Documented, and True North Research.
WASHINGTON
Today, five progressive organizations led by the Demand Progress and the Revolving Door Project launched the "No Corporate Cabinet" campaign, dedicated to keeping corporate insiders out of the Biden administration. Partners include Climate Investigations Center, Documented, and True North Research.
The website will serve as a central hub for information and activism related to the Biden transition, with a trove of information on corporate insiders shortlisted for Biden administration posts. It also offers tools through which people can take action and contact key decision makers, which are expected to be used by tens of thousands of people. You can check out the website here.
Yesterday, a distinct parallel campaign launched in partnership between Daily Kos, Demand Progress, and more than 20 other progressive and good governance organizations, including MPower Change, Public Citizen, Presente, Ultraviolet, and the Working Families Party. The groups are asking activists to email, call, and tweet at the Biden transition and Senate Democrats to urge them "to appoint public-minded progressives instead of corporate lobbyists and executives for key roles" in the Biden administration.
The Persons of Interest page on the "No Corporate Cabinet" website will single out key corporate-friendly insiders in Biden's orbit who must be stopped - including one who has already been announced this week - and details their troubling pasts. At this time they're calling for the rejection of the following Persons of Interest, with more to be added based on news reports and other intel about who is under consideration.
- Brian Deese: After advising Obama on climate policy (defending the production of fossil fuels and necessity of oil and gas), Deese took a job as the chief greenwasher at the world's largest investor in fossil fuels: BlackRock.
- Larry Fink: Larry Fink is the CEO of BlackRock, which is the fossil fuel industry's top banker and quietly exerts massive influence over the U.S. government and economy.
- Mark Gitenstein: While working as a corporate lobbyist, Mark Gitenstein listed many successes including weakening whistleblower laws and packing federal courts with business-friendly judges.
- Tony James: Tony James has taken it upon himself to improve private equity's well-deserved poor public image, all the while being credibly accused of market-rigging and collusion.
- Ernest Moniz: Even though he believes that climate change is real, Ernest Moniz has maintained unusually close ties with the fossil fuel industry throughout his career in public life, refusing to adopt climate policies which might anger his friends in coal, oil, and gas.
- Gina Raimondo: Gina Raimondo has been a steadfast ally of Wall Street and corporate America throughout her time in politics, selling out pensioners to hedge funds, slashing social services, and making enemies of labor unions.
- Bruce Reed: Bruce Reed was a key intellectual architect of the Democratic Party's turn toward neoliberal economic policy and conservative social policy.
- Steve Ricchetti: Steve Ricchetti has spent his entire career shuffling through the revolving door, lobbying on behalf of corporate interests from both K Street and within the halls of government -- which is why it's deeply disappointing and dangerous that he's in line to serve as senior counselor to the president in Biden's administration.
- Heather Zichal: Heather Zichal served as the Obama White House's actions "chief ambassador to oil and gas companies" before leveraging her relationships into a job with a natural gas company.
- Jason Bordoff: Jason Bordoff rarely sees a fossil fuel project he doesn't support, which isn't surprising because nearly all of his professional positions are currently funded by fossil fuel corporations.
"President-elect Biden is assembling this administration after four years of egregious corruption under the Trump administration and in the depths of a historic crisis," David Segal, Demand Progress Executive Director, said. "If Biden is serious about 'building back better' in a way that remedies the longstanding ills of the country, his administration must be run by people dedicated to working in service of the general welfare. Our message is clear: Joe Biden should not let corporate interests run the government - and, if needed, senators must hold him accountable."
"The Biden administration has a daunting task ahead, to both undo the corruption of the Trump years and guide the country out of interlinked crises of health, economics, racial injustice, and climate change," Jeff Hauser, Revolving Door Project Executive Director said. "None of that can happen if Biden appoints to his government the same corporate leaders whose profits skyrocketed under Trump, and whose influence over the last four decades generally has led to surging inequality and a crisis of faith in government. If Democrats fail to take back the Senate, executive-branch powers will be one of Biden's only ways of tangibly improving Americans' lives. He cannot trust corporate America if he hopes to do that."
"Americans are exhausted. We have spent the last four years watching the Trump administration repeatedly put the interests of big businesses and corporate lobbyists over the well-being of everyday people, causing untold suffering--especially during the COVID-19 pandemic," Carolyn Fiddler, the Communications Director of Daily Kos said. "That's why it is imperative that the Biden administration appoint a cabinet that puts the American people's interests over corporate agendas. Now more than ever, we need leadership that is experienced in corporate accountability and will check the interests of big corporations while advocating for policies that center the health and success of all Americans, especially Americans of color."
"There are a finite number of cabinet positions. Any cabinet post given to a recent corporate lobbyist is one less seat that could be filled by a well-qualified person whose record demonstrates a deep commitment to advancing public good rather than private gain," said Lisa Graves, executive director of True North Research, a partner on the No Corporate Cabinet initiative. "Especially after the massive financial conflicts in the Trump cabinet, the new administration should take extra steps to avoid the conflicts of interests that have made the revolving door so lucrative to the distinct disadvantage of the real needs of Americans whose lives are in tumult due to the pandemic and callous indifference of a Senate majority led by Mitch McConnell. Personnel is policy and We the People deserve a better cabinet in the Biden Administration, one that reflects the true needs of the American people rather than greed of huge corporations."
This new website comes just a week after Demand Progress and The Revolving Door Project led a group of 50+ organizations in sending letters to President-elect Joe Biden as well as Democratic senators and senators-elect, urging them to reject corporate insiders for cabinet positions.
Demand Progress amplifies the voice of the people -- and wields it to make government accountable and contest concentrated corporate power. Our mission is to protect the democratic character of the internet -- and wield it to contest concentrated corporate power and hold government accountable.
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Netanyahu to Press for 'Another Round of War With Iran' in Meeting With Trump This Week
Amid a growing rift between Israel and the White House, one foreign policy analyst says the meeting "will signal whether Washington is prepared to continue underwriting open-ended escalation."
Dec 28, 2025
As Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu heads to Mar-a-Lago to meet with US President Donald Trump on Monday, amid a growing rift with the president and his advisers, reports say he'll seek to push the US back toward war with Iran.
Last week, NBC News reported that at the meeting, "Netanyahu is expected to make the case to Trump that Iran’s expansion of its ballistic missile program poses a threat that could necessitate swift action" and that "the Israeli leader is expected to present Trump with options for the US to join or assist in any new military operations."
"Netanyahu plans to press Donald Trump for US backing for another round of war with Iran, now framed around Iran’s ballistic missile program," said Sina Toossi, a senior fellow at the Center for International Policy. “Netanyahu’s pivot to missiles should therefore be read not as the discovery of a new threat, but as an effort to manufacture a replacement casus belli after the nuclear argument collapsed."
He noted criticisms levied against Netanyahu by Yair Golan, chair of the Democrats, a center-left party in Israel, earlier this week: "How is it possible that last June, at the end of the war with Iran, Benjamin Netanyahu solemnly declared that ‘Israel had eliminated Iran’s nuclear threat and severely damaged its missile array’; and that this was a ‘historic victory’—and today, less than six months later, he is running to the president of the United States to beg for permission to attack Iran again?" Golan said.
Iran is just one of several areas the two will likely discuss on Monday. According to Israeli officials who spoke to the Washington Post, Netanyahu also reportedly wants Trump to "take a tougher stance on Gaza and require that Hamas disarm before Israeli troops further withdraw as part of the second phase of Trump’s 20-point peace plan."
The chief of Israel's armed forces suggested earlier this week that its occupation of more than half of Gaza would be permanent, but walked those comments back after reported behind-the-scenes outrage in the White House. Meanwhile, Trump—invested in his image as a peacemaker—has reportedly balked at Israel's routine violations of the ceasefire agreement he helped to broker in October.
Near-daily strikes have resulted in the death of at least 418 Palestinians, according to the Gaza Media Office. Meanwhile, Israel's continued blockade of humanitarian aid has left hundreds of thousands of people—displaced from homes destroyed by Israeli bombing—to languish in the cold without tents. Desperately needed fuel, food, and medicine have entered the strip at far lower numbers than the ceasefire agreement required.
As Axios reported on Friday, Trump's advisers increasingly fear that Netanyahu is intentionally slow-walking and undermining the peace process in hopes of resuming the war.
Netanyahu also seeks Trump's continued backing of Israel's territorial expansion in Syria. Earlier this month, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) pushed through a UN-monitored demilitarized zone between Israeli and Syrian-held positions in the Golan Heights, which Israel illegally occupies.
This push into southern Syria went against the wishes of the Trump administration, which feared it could destabilize the Western-backed government that rules in Damascus following the ouster of former President Bashar al-Assad.
Israel has also routinely struck Lebanon in violation of the US-brokered ceasefire it signed with Hezbollah in late 2024, with bombings becoming a near-daily occurrence in December. Last month, the UN reported that at least 127 civilians, including children, had been killed in Israeli strikes since the ceasefire began.
"Netanyahu’s visit unfolds against a backdrop of unresolved fronts, with widening disputes with Washington over the second phase of the Gaza ceasefire, including postwar governance, reconstruction, and Turkish involvement," Toossi said. "At the same time, Israel is seeking greater latitude to escalate again against Hezbollah in Lebanon, an end to US accommodation of Syria’s new leadership, and firm assurances on expanded military aid."
“Taken together, Netanyahu’s visit is less about resolving any single crisis than about postponing strategic reckoning," he continued. "The outcome will signal whether Washington is prepared to continue underwriting open-ended escalation, or whether this meeting marks the beginning of clearer limits on Israel’s regional strategy.”
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Khanna Hits Back as Silicon Valley Oligarchs Threaten Primary Challenge Over California Billionaires Tax
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Dec 28, 2025
US Rep. Ro Khanna defended California's proposed tax on extreme wealth Saturday after a pair of prominent Silicon Valley venture capitalists threatened to launch a primary bid for his California House seat.
The proposal, which advocates are gathering signatures to place on the ballot in 2026, would impose a one-time 5% tax on those with net worths over $1 billion to recoup about $90 billion in Medicaid funds stripped from the state by this year’s Republican budget law. The roughly 200 billionaires affected would have five years to pay the tax.
While higher taxes on the superrich are overwhelmingly popular with Americans, the proposal has rankled many of California’s wealthiest residents, as well as California’s Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom, who said earlier this month that he’s “adamantly” against the measure.
On Friday, the New York Times reported that two of the valley's biggest powerbrokers—venture capitalist and top Trump administration ally Peter Thiel and Google co-founder Larry Page—were threatening to reduce their ties to California in response to the tax proposal.
This has been a common refrain from elites faced with proposed tax increases, though data suggests they rarely follow through on their threats to bail on cities and states, even when those hikes are implemented. Meanwhile, the American Prospect has pointed out that the one-time tax would still apply to those who moved out of the Golden State.
Khanna (D-Calif.), who is both a member of the House's progressive faction and a longtime darling of the tech sector, has increasingly sparred with industry leaders in recent years over their reactionary stances on labor rights, regulation, and taxation.
In a post on X, the congressman reacted with derision at the threats of billionaire flight: "Peter Thiel is leaving California if we pass a 1% tax on billionaires for five years to pay for healthcare for the working class facing steep Medicaid cuts. I echo what [former President Franklin D. Roosevelt] said with sarcasm of economic royalists when they threatened to leave, 'I will miss them very much.'"
Casado, who donated to Khanna’s 2024 reelection campaign according to OpenSecrets, complained that “Ro has done a speed run, alienating every moderate I know who has supported him, including myself.”
"Beyond being totally out of touch with [the moderate] faction of his base, he’s devolved into an obnoxious jerk," Casado continued. "At least that makes voting him the fuck out all the more gratifying."
Casado's post received a reply from another former Khanna donor, Garry Tan, the CEO of the tech startup accelerator Y Combinator.
"Time to primary him," Tan said of Khanna.
Tan, a self-described centrist Democrat, has never run for office before. But he is notorious for his social media tirades against local progressives in San Francisco and was one of the top financial backers of the corporate-led push to oust the city's liberal former district attorney, Chesa Boudin, in 2022.
Casado replied: "Count me in. Happy to be involved at any level."
Progressive commentator Krystal Ball marveled that “Tech oligarchs are now openly conspiring against Ro Khanna because he dared to back a modest wealth tax.”
So far, neither Casado nor Tan has hinted at any concrete plans to challenge Khanna in 2026. If they did, defeating him would likely be a tall order—since his sophomore election in 2018, a primary challenger has never come within 30 points of unseating him.
But Khanna still felt the need to respond to the brooding tech royals. He noted that he has "supported a modest wealth tax since the day I ran in 2016," which prompted another angry retort from Casado, who accused the congressman of "antagonizing the people who made your district the amazing place it is" with a tax on billionaires.
Khanna hit back at his critics with a lengthy defense of not just the wealth tax, but his conception of what he calls "pro-innovation progressivism."
"My district is $18 trillion, nearly one-third of the US stock market in a 50-mile radius. We have five companies with a market cap over $1 trillion," Khanna said. "If I can stand up for a billionaire tax, this is not a hard position for 434 other [House] members or 100 senators."
"The seminal innovation in tech is done by thousands, often with public funds," Khanna continued. "Yes, we need entrepreneurs to commercialize disruptive innovation... But the idea that they would not start companies to make billions, or take advantage of an innovation cluster, if there is a 1-2% tax on their staggering wealth defies common sense and economic theory."
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Nigerian Village Bombed by Trump Has 'No Known History' of Anti-Christian Terrorism, Locals Say
“Portraying Nigeria’s security challenges as a targeted campaign against a single religious group is a gross misrepresentation of reality,” said Nigeria's information minister.
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When President Donald Trump launched a series of airstrikes in Nigeria on Christmas, he described it as an attack against "ISIS Terrorist Scum in Northwest Nigeria who have been targeting and viciously killing, primarily, innocent Christians."
But locals in a town that was hit during the strike say terrorism has never been a problem for them. On Friday, CNN published a report based on interviews with several residents of Jabo, which was hit by a US missile during Thursday's attack, which landed just feet away from the town's only hospital.
The rural town of Jabo is part of the Sokoto state in northwestern Nigeria, which the Trump administration and the Nigerian government said was hit during the strike.
Both sides have said militants were killed during the attack, but have not specified their identities or the number of casualties.
Kabir Adamu, a security analyst from Beacon Security and Intelligence in Abuja, told Al Jazeera that the likely targets are members of “Lakurawa,” a recently formed offshoot of ISIS.
But the Trump administration's explanation that their home is at the center of a "Christian genocide" left many residents of Jabo confused. As CNN reported:
While parts of Sokoto face challenges with banditry, kidnappings and attacks by armed groups including Lakurawa–which Nigeria classifies as a terrorist organization due to suspected affiliations with [the] Islamic State–villagers say Jabo is not known for terrorist activity and that local Christians coexist peacefully with the Muslim majority.
Bashar Isah Jabo, a lawmaker who represents the town and surrounding areas in Nigeria's parliament, described the village to CNN as “a peaceful community” that has “no known history of ISIS, Lakurawa, or any other terrorist groups operating in the area.”
While the town is predominantly Muslim, resident Suleiman Kagara, told reporters: "We see Christians as our brothers. We don’t have religious conflicts, so we weren’t expecting this."
Nigeria, Africa's most populous nation with more than 237 million people, has a long history of violence between Christians and Muslims, with each making up about half the population.
However, Nigerian officials have disputed claims by Republican leaders—including US Sen. Ted Cruz (Texas)—who have claimed that the government is “ignoring and even facilitating the mass murder of Christians.”
The senator recently claimed, without citing a source for the figures, that "since 2009, over 50,000 Christians in Nigeria have been massacred, and over 18,000 churches and 2,000 Christian schools have been destroyed" by the Islamist group Boko Haram.
Cruz is correct that many Christians have been killed by Boko Haram. But according to reports by the US-based Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project and the Council on Foreign Relations, the majority of the approximately 53,000 civilians killed by the group since 2009 have been Muslim.
Moreover, the areas where Boko Haram is most active are in northeastern Nigeria, far away from where Trump's strikes were conducted. Attacks on Christians cited in October by Cruz, meanwhile, have been in Nigeria's Middle Belt region, which is separate from violence in the north.
The Nigerian government has pushed back on what they have called an "oversimplified" narrative coming out of the White House and from figures in US media, like HBO host Bill Maher, who has echoed Cruz's overwrought claims of "Christian genocide."
“Portraying Nigeria’s security challenges as a targeted campaign against a single religious group is a gross misrepresentation of reality,” said Nigerian information minister Mohammed Idris Malagi. “While Nigeria, like many countries, has faced security challenges, including acts of terrorism perpetrated by criminals, couching the situation as a deliberate, systematic attack on Christians is inaccurate and harmful. It oversimplifies a complex, multifaceted security environment and plays into the hands of terrorists and criminals who seek to divide Nigerians along religious or ethnic lines."
Anthea Butler, a religious scholar at the University of Pennsylvania, has criticized the Trump administration's attempts to turn the complex situation in Nigeria into a "holy war."
"This theme of persecution of Christians is a very politically charged, and actually religiously charged, theme for evangelicals across the world. And when you say that Christians are being persecuted, that’s a thing," she told Democracy Now! in November. "It fits this sort of savior narrative of this American sort of ethos right now that is seeing itself going into countries for a moral war, a moral suasion, as it were, to do something to help other people."
Nigeria also notably produces more crude oil than any other country in Africa. Trump has explicitly argued that the US should carry out regime change in Venezuela for the purposes of "taking back" that nation's oil.
Butler has doubted the sincerity of Trump's concern for the nation's Christians due to his administration's denial of entry for Nigerian refugees, as well as virtually every other refugee group, with the exception of white South Africans.
She said: "I think this is sort of disingenuous to say you’re going to go in and save Christianity in Nigeria, when you have, you know, banned Nigerians from coming to this country."
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