Tweeting Clearly

Richard Painter and Norm Eisen, former ethics lawyers respectively for Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama, explain why the ethics review process for cabinet nominees is so vital. “The more extensive and complicated a nominee’s financial holdings and assets, the more time and attention is necessarily required to address any potential ethical issues. Completion of the ethics review process prior to Senate confirmation hearings ensures that all parties have a detailed understanding of the nominee’s commitments prior to taking office, offers full transparency to the Senate, and mitigates the opportunity for undue influence on the independent ethics review process.”

On this issue, Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer effectively trolls majority leader Mitch McConnell on Twitter.

The Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions has delayed its confirmation hearing for Education department nominee Betsy DeVos until next week; she is one of several Trump nominees for whom the Office of Government Ethics has not completed its review.

As expected, President-elect Donald Trump has named his son-in-law Jared Kushner to be a senior adviser to him in the White House. Other countries where the head of state has placed his son-in-law in a top government position include Iraq under Saddam Hussein, Italy under Benito Mussolini, and Cuba under Raul Castro, as Jon Schwarz points out in The Intercept.

Kushner is planning to sell many of his assets to eliminate his conflicts of interest, but as Suzanne Craig and Maggie Haberman report for the New York Times, since those assets will be controlled by relatives of his, it’s hard to see how that eliminates any conflict.

Last week, the House GOP quietly changed a rule that will allow members to keep the records hidden from ethics or criminal investigators, Ashley Balcerzak reports for The Center for Responsive Politics.” She notes, “if a lawmaker is being investigated for misuse of taxpayer funds and law enforcement authorities subpoena her spending records, under this rule, she can assert the privilege to withhold them; they belong to her, not to Congress.”

The Republican plan to “repeal and delay”—that is to repeal Obamacare and delay any replacement of it—is facing internal hurdles, reports Jonathan Chait for New York magazine, with at least three GOP senators opposing the idea. Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) says that Trump told him he wants a replacement plan passed at the same time, but the president-elect hasn’t said so publicly. Trump’s vague position on the issue is adding to the uncertainty, leading Senator Bob Corker (R-TN) to ask for confirmation thusly: “If it is his view, it would be really good if he would considering tweeting it out clearly.” Hahahahahaha!

Farah Stockman reports for the New York Times on some of the complex tensions around race that are breaking out as women, white and black, debate the politics of joining the Women’s March on Washington (and sister rallies in other cities) scheduled for January 21.

In other transitions: President Obama’s farewell address to the nation will air tonight at 9pm. You can watch it live here.

Related: The Obama Alumni Association has launched a Medium page called “Onward,” aiming to share stories, reflections, and lessons on Obama’s campaigns and administration and updates on new projects.

John Holdren, the director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, and Megan Smith, the U.S. CTO, share an in-depth exit memo summarizing the accomplishments of their office and colleagues over the last eight years. It’s an impressive document. It also demonstrates the ways that Obama’s emphasis on technology shifted over the course of his two terms, from an early and highly visible push around making government more transparent, participatory, and collaborative, to a later push around recruiting top tech talent and modernizing how government uses tech and addresses policy challenges created by new developments in fields like big data and AI.

Food for thought: Emily Parker uses her experience as Parlio’s chief strategy officer to argue that any attempt to create a platform for more civil discussion online (than Twitter, which has become toxic) is bound to fail because of human nature. Her piece is must-reading for anyone trying to tackle this hard problem—but personally I was not completely convinced. The internet may reward sensationalism over civility, but there’s also plenty of evidence that there’s a big audience for in-depth content, whether that’s long-form journalism or intimate podcasts.

This is civic tech: Registration for mySociety’s third annual conference on The Impact of Civic Tech (TICTec) is open. It’s taking place in Florence, Italy, April 25-26.