US labour watchdog halts Apple cases after group’s lawyer picked for top job

It feels like every pick of this administration is just someone who has a motivation for corruption.

It's really shocking to me how quickly and transparently we've hit banana republic levels of corruption, and anyone with any smidgen of power to do anything about it has just rolled over - Profiles in Cowardice describes all of the remaining Republicans in Congress to me (all the courageous ones were either primaried or retired).

The examples are all just so disgustingly blatant now, like Eric Adams in NYC, or the founder of Nikola paying millions in bribes (err, sorry, "campaign donations") to get a pardon.

Our republic may survive the current administration (not sure, probably give it less than a 50% chance these days), but the facade of our righteousness is gone forever. Trump won the election fair and square, and both the electoral college and the popular vote. People knew exactly what they were getting, and they wanted this.

What's interesting with Eric Adams is that his charges were dismissed with prejudice by the judge handling the case specifically because the Trump admin made clear statements that they would use the prosecution as a stick to try and get him to do what they want.

Thanks for pointing this out. I dimly registered that there was a strangeness about the dismissal of charges, but I had no idea this was the reasoning:

> "Everything here smacks of a bargain: dismissal of the Indictment in exchange for immigration policy concessions," he said.

> His decision to drop the case permanently, Judge Ho said, ensured that the administration could not use the indictment as "leverage" over Adams or the city of New York.

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c74nl3120k4o