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5.Held onto major business conflict of interest holdings after winning the presidency. Jimmy Carter had to sell his peanut farm. Ethics experts urged Trump to liquidate his business holdings, but all Trump would do was place them in a trust controlled by his children where he still holds a long-term interest.

6. Conducted eight congressional inquirieson Benghazi to smear political opponents in order to win elections, with nothing ever found. Estimates for the last investigation alone are between $7to $20 million.

7. Held the debt ceiling hostage causing Standard & Poors to downgrade the countrys creditratingfor the first time ever.

8. Won an election after an assault charge.Republican Greg Gianforte won the Montana seat to the House of Representativesafter assaulting a reporter the night before the election. Perhaps whats even more disgusting is the $50,000resolution of the issue, suggesting that we already have two justice systems in our country:one for the wealthy where you can pay your way outand one for everyone else.

9.Redistricted eightstates to win a 235 to 201 advantage in the House of Representatives in 2012 despite Barack Obama being elected president by nearly 3.5 million more votes. This was a result of a corporate special interest project called the Redistricting Majority Project. By pumping $30 million into state races to win the legislatures, Republicans redrew state maps in states such as Arizona, Michigan, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Texas, Florida, and Ohio to place all of the Democrats into just a few districts. While gerrymandering has been done before by Democrats, it has never been done this badly and on this scale. I have a standing $100 bet that I can pick all 27 of the Ohio and North Carolina races in advance (permanently rigged 21 to 6 in favor of Republicans). No one has taken the money bet yet but I have won a few beers in both 2014 and 2016 from people who didnt think it could possibly be this rigged. It is.

10.Stripped power from a newly elected Democratic governor (because he was a Democrat). Only this year, much of this legislative power grab has been ruled unconstitutional by the North Carolina Supreme Court.

11. Lied us into the Iraq War at a cost of $2 trillion. The oil industry behind the lies? Theyre now in charge of the state department.

12. Created a system so corporate special interestscould bypass state legislatures. The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) is a corporate organization that drafts laws and then passes them on to Republican legislatorsto implement. Need legislation drafted? No need to go through a lobbyist to reach state legislatures any more. Just contact ALEC.

13.Shut down the government because the Democratic Party wouldnt defund the Affordable Care Act.

14. Received an endorsement from Alex Jones, Americas leading conspiracy theorist.

15. Used the Un-American Activities Committee in the House to make accusations of treason and disloyalty with insufficient evidence(Joseph McCarthy).

16.Pushed the birther conspiracy. Before the election, more than two-thirdsof registered Republicans had doubts about whether or not the President was born in the United States.

17. Chose party over politics and declared they would refuse to do anything for eightyears of Barack Obamas presidency for partisan reasons. Basically, Republicans became the party of nogovernance.

18.Prevented a Supreme Court Justice appointee from coming up for a vote for an entire year.

19. Removed a rate decrease that would have helpedfirst-time and low-income homeowners.

20.Increased taxes for 99 percentof Americansby letting Barack Obamas payroll tax cut expire. This increased taxes by $1,000/year for aperson earning $50,000/year. Whenever you hear the phrase tax cuts, remember that they are only for the 1 percent. To offset the lost revenue, they will raise your taxes. Whats really going on is tax shiftingRepublicans shift the burden off those at the top and onto everyone else.

21.Refused to release tax returns. Donald Trump is the first person to run for president in 50 years who didnt release his tax returns. Every candidate since the days of Richard Nixon including Nixon released his tax returns.

22. Bugged Democratic headquarters and tried to cover it up.

At least he never profited from his political machinations in the Watergate scandal.

23. Fired the FBI chiefwho was investigating Russian involvement in their presidential campaign. Remember when conservatives lost their shit because Bill Clinton metLoretta Lynch on an airport tarmac? Imagine if Hillary Clinton had taken Lynch out to dinner, asked for a loyalty vow, and suggested she end the email investigationthen, when she refused, fired her. Because, just to be clear, this is what happened with Trump and James Comey.

24. Banned use of the terms climate change or global warming in Florida. This unwritten policy went into effect at the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) after Republican Governor Rick Scott was elected in 2011. Freedom?

25. Put climate change on a list of terms that the Energy Department shouldnt use. Seeing as how successful threatening peoples jobs provedin Florida, the new Trump Energy Department under Rick Perry, a guy who once argued that the Energy Department should be shut down, also told their staff not to use climate change. This is really nothing though compared to the EPA funding cuts, other various edicts such as telling scientists not to use the social costs of carbon in economic analyses, and proposals to block the EPA from using science to set pollution limits.

26. Banned federal funding for research on gun violence at the urging of the corporate special interest National Rifle Association (NRA). After the Center for Disease Control (CDC) released research demonstrating that having firearms in the home sharply increased the risk of homicide, Congress passed legislation forbidding the CDC from spending any money to advocate or promote gun control.Lets get thisstraight:advocating or promoting gun ownership is fine, but any research that might indicate it causes social problems such as homicides or increased gun violence is forbidden? And this is called freedom?

27. Outed a CIA agent as political retribution. While still a covert agent, officials in the Bush administration leaked Valerie Plames name to journalist Robert Novak after her husband criticized the Bush Administration. President George Bush later commutedScooter Libbys prison sentence.

28.Sold arms to the Iranians in exchange for the release of hostages, despite campaign promises to never negotiate with terrorists. This would become know as the Iran-Contra affair when it was discovered that government officials had diverted $18 million secretly to insurgents in Nicaragua known as the Contras.

29. Were describedas a real opportunity for people like white nationalists by the leader of the American Nazi Party.

30. Cited a bible verse calling for President Obama to be killed, his wife widowed, and his children orphaned. Kansas House Speaker Mike ONeal forwardedthe following bible verse in an email referring to Barack Obama:

Let his days be few; and let another take his office

May his children be fatherless and his wife a widow.

May his children be wandering beggars; may they be driven from their ruined homes.

May a creditor seize all he has; may strangers plunder the fruits of his labor.

May no one extend kindness to him or take pity on his fatherless children.

ONeal added his own message:At last I can honestly voice a Biblical prayer for our president! Look it up it is word for word! Let us all bow our heads and pray. Brothers and Sisters, can I get an AMEN? AMEN!!!!!!

31. Attempted to gut the House Ethics Committee. One of the first actions of the Republican Congress under President Trump was trying to gut the House Ethics Committee. There was no advance notice or debate. The move received so much public backlash that they backed down twodays later.

32. Blew a hole so big in the budget deficit that a subsequent Republican president approved tax increases. Ronald Reagans tax cuts failed to increase revenue and added to the deficit. In 1990, twoyears into his term, President George H.W. Bush faced a $200 billion budget deficit. In response, he worked with a Democratic Congress on a budget that raised taxes to reduce the deficit.

33. Racially gerrymandered a state (North Carolina) for political gain. When your racist voter suppression law is even too racist for a Republican Supreme Court, you know its racist.

Coda

I could go on, but you get the idea: Republicans are the tip of the spear when it comes to corruption.

The next time you hear someone sayB-b-b-b-but Democrats ... dont let them get away with this idea that somehow both parties are the same. Share with them how Republicans lead on corruption.

David Akadjian is the author of The Little Book of Revolution: A Distributive Strategy for Democracy(now available as an ebook).

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33 things Republicans (and only Republicans) have done to blaze new trails of corruption - Daily Kos