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Activists of the group Remove Trump stand in-line during a "Swarm the Senate" protest at Senate Russell Office Building January 13, 2020 on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC. The group held the event to call on the removal of U.S. President Donald Trump from office. (Photo: Alex Wong/Getty Images)
Dear President Trump:
The disabling and dismantling of the federal health and safety agencies under your cruel command has been leaving a trail of American fatalities, injuries, and property destruction without precedent even among past Republican Administrations. Your criminal negligence toward federal agencies like the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) is an impeachable offense. You are obsessed with corporate profits, obeisant to the corporate CEOs funding your campaigns. You deliberately selected corrupt henchmen to run these lifesaving agencies into the ground, under the guise of "deregulation."
Constitutional law scholars declare that refusing to "faithfully execute laws" was seen by our Founders to be a major impeachable violation, sufficient for removal from office by the Senate. Your failure to appoint capable leaders, for required Senate confirmation, to head life-saving federal agencies is abhorrent and violates the appointments clause of the Constitution, Article II: Section 2, Clause 2.
Nonetheless, the media has not caught up with the full scope of your lawless commercial drive to "Make America Dread Again."
Consider a recent address at Used Car Week 2019 in Las Vegas last November by Jerry Cox, a consultant to many businesses in trouble. Here is an excerpt from his remarks, elaborated in greater details in his forthcoming book, Killer Airbags:
Your government will do almost anything to protect the industry and nothing to protect you. At the start of 2020--the final year of the first Trump Administration--NHTSA still had no Administrator. Instead, President Trump installed Takata's lawyer [Steven Bradbury] as general counsel of the Transportation Department in 2017 and as Acting Deputy Secretary in 2019. Unbelievably, the guy who negotiated the sweetheart deals that allowed Takata executives to keep selling defective airbags and avoid criminal prosecution was put in charge of every government employee responsible for enforcing auto safety laws.
Shame and guilt on you, Donald Trump! You were willing to start an undeclared war with Iran last week, had their missile attack taken one American soldier's life, but when American lives are threatened by crony capitalism, you do nothing. It is the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration's duty to save American lives on the highways from vehicle design and construction defects, yet under you the agency becomes even more toothless. You are leaving tens of millions of American motorists defenseless. Some will lose their lives if more Takata airbags disintegrate and hurl lethal shrapnel into their bodies. American drivers and passengers must receive protection by your Administration.
Will you stop your time-wasting 24/7 tweeting, and your prevaricatory assaults on the truth and reputations of innocent Americans? Will you pay attention to the Takata horrors and name a safety advocate to reinvigorate the enfeebled NHTSA? Will you start doing your job?
Sincerely,
Ralph Nader
Dear Common Dreams reader, It’s been nearly 30 years since I co-founded Common Dreams with my late wife, Lina Newhouser. We had the radical notion that journalism should serve the public good, not corporate profits. It was clear to us from the outset what it would take to build such a project. No paid advertisements. No corporate sponsors. No millionaire publisher telling us what to think or do. Many people said we wouldn't last a year, but we proved those doubters wrong. Together with a tremendous team of journalists and dedicated staff, we built an independent media outlet free from the constraints of profits and corporate control. Our mission has always been simple: To inform. To inspire. To ignite change for the common good. Building Common Dreams was not easy. Our survival was never guaranteed. When you take on the most powerful forces—Wall Street greed, fossil fuel industry destruction, Big Tech lobbyists, and uber-rich oligarchs who have spent billions upon billions rigging the economy and democracy in their favor—the only bulwark you have is supporters who believe in your work. But here’s the urgent message from me today. It's never been this bad out there. And it's never been this hard to keep us going. At the very moment Common Dreams is most needed, the threats we face are intensifying. We need your support now more than ever. We don't accept corporate advertising and never will. We don't have a paywall because we don't think people should be blocked from critical news based on their ability to pay. Everything we do is funded by the donations of readers like you. When everyone does the little they can afford, we are strong. But if that support retreats or dries up, so do we. Will you donate now to make sure Common Dreams not only survives but thrives? —Craig Brown, Co-founder |
Dear President Trump:
The disabling and dismantling of the federal health and safety agencies under your cruel command has been leaving a trail of American fatalities, injuries, and property destruction without precedent even among past Republican Administrations. Your criminal negligence toward federal agencies like the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) is an impeachable offense. You are obsessed with corporate profits, obeisant to the corporate CEOs funding your campaigns. You deliberately selected corrupt henchmen to run these lifesaving agencies into the ground, under the guise of "deregulation."
Constitutional law scholars declare that refusing to "faithfully execute laws" was seen by our Founders to be a major impeachable violation, sufficient for removal from office by the Senate. Your failure to appoint capable leaders, for required Senate confirmation, to head life-saving federal agencies is abhorrent and violates the appointments clause of the Constitution, Article II: Section 2, Clause 2.
Nonetheless, the media has not caught up with the full scope of your lawless commercial drive to "Make America Dread Again."
Consider a recent address at Used Car Week 2019 in Las Vegas last November by Jerry Cox, a consultant to many businesses in trouble. Here is an excerpt from his remarks, elaborated in greater details in his forthcoming book, Killer Airbags:
Your government will do almost anything to protect the industry and nothing to protect you. At the start of 2020--the final year of the first Trump Administration--NHTSA still had no Administrator. Instead, President Trump installed Takata's lawyer [Steven Bradbury] as general counsel of the Transportation Department in 2017 and as Acting Deputy Secretary in 2019. Unbelievably, the guy who negotiated the sweetheart deals that allowed Takata executives to keep selling defective airbags and avoid criminal prosecution was put in charge of every government employee responsible for enforcing auto safety laws.
Shame and guilt on you, Donald Trump! You were willing to start an undeclared war with Iran last week, had their missile attack taken one American soldier's life, but when American lives are threatened by crony capitalism, you do nothing. It is the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration's duty to save American lives on the highways from vehicle design and construction defects, yet under you the agency becomes even more toothless. You are leaving tens of millions of American motorists defenseless. Some will lose their lives if more Takata airbags disintegrate and hurl lethal shrapnel into their bodies. American drivers and passengers must receive protection by your Administration.
Will you stop your time-wasting 24/7 tweeting, and your prevaricatory assaults on the truth and reputations of innocent Americans? Will you pay attention to the Takata horrors and name a safety advocate to reinvigorate the enfeebled NHTSA? Will you start doing your job?
Sincerely,
Ralph Nader
Dear President Trump:
The disabling and dismantling of the federal health and safety agencies under your cruel command has been leaving a trail of American fatalities, injuries, and property destruction without precedent even among past Republican Administrations. Your criminal negligence toward federal agencies like the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) is an impeachable offense. You are obsessed with corporate profits, obeisant to the corporate CEOs funding your campaigns. You deliberately selected corrupt henchmen to run these lifesaving agencies into the ground, under the guise of "deregulation."
Constitutional law scholars declare that refusing to "faithfully execute laws" was seen by our Founders to be a major impeachable violation, sufficient for removal from office by the Senate. Your failure to appoint capable leaders, for required Senate confirmation, to head life-saving federal agencies is abhorrent and violates the appointments clause of the Constitution, Article II: Section 2, Clause 2.
Nonetheless, the media has not caught up with the full scope of your lawless commercial drive to "Make America Dread Again."
Consider a recent address at Used Car Week 2019 in Las Vegas last November by Jerry Cox, a consultant to many businesses in trouble. Here is an excerpt from his remarks, elaborated in greater details in his forthcoming book, Killer Airbags:
Your government will do almost anything to protect the industry and nothing to protect you. At the start of 2020--the final year of the first Trump Administration--NHTSA still had no Administrator. Instead, President Trump installed Takata's lawyer [Steven Bradbury] as general counsel of the Transportation Department in 2017 and as Acting Deputy Secretary in 2019. Unbelievably, the guy who negotiated the sweetheart deals that allowed Takata executives to keep selling defective airbags and avoid criminal prosecution was put in charge of every government employee responsible for enforcing auto safety laws.
Shame and guilt on you, Donald Trump! You were willing to start an undeclared war with Iran last week, had their missile attack taken one American soldier's life, but when American lives are threatened by crony capitalism, you do nothing. It is the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration's duty to save American lives on the highways from vehicle design and construction defects, yet under you the agency becomes even more toothless. You are leaving tens of millions of American motorists defenseless. Some will lose their lives if more Takata airbags disintegrate and hurl lethal shrapnel into their bodies. American drivers and passengers must receive protection by your Administration.
Will you stop your time-wasting 24/7 tweeting, and your prevaricatory assaults on the truth and reputations of innocent Americans? Will you pay attention to the Takata horrors and name a safety advocate to reinvigorate the enfeebled NHTSA? Will you start doing your job?
Sincerely,
Ralph Nader