Sean Duffy Slammed Over Road Trip Reality Show Filmed Over Seven Months; Forbes, May 10, 2026

 Zachary Folk , Forbes; Sean Duffy Slammed Over Road Trip Reality Show Filmed Over Seven Months

"Speaking to “Fox and Friends” on Friday, Duffy, a former reality television star of MTV’s “The Real World” and “Road Rules: All Stars,” said he spent the last seven months intermittently filming a road trip reality television show with his wife, Fox News host Rachel Campos-Duffy.

The trip with some of their nine children is “a civic experience” to highlight destinations across the U.S. as part of the country’s 250th anniversary celebration, according to Duffy, who encouraged Americans to “gas up the car, pack up the kids, get behind the wheel and get out and see America.”

Duffy’s announcement was quickly met with criticism from Democrats and other online commentators—with Duffy’s predecessor Pete Buttigieg calling the show“ brutally out of touch” due to rising gas prices caused by disruptions in the oil market from the Trump administration’s war in Iran.

In response, Duffy insisted the program was funded by the Great American Road Trip nonprofit organization and that “zero taxpayer dollars were spent on my family.”

Duffy and Campos-Duffy, also a former “Real World” and “Road Rules” cast member, said the program was filmed in “short” production windows like weekends and their childrens’ breaks from school, and that their family would not receive a salary or royalties from the show."

Remember when ethics in government mattered?; Virginia Mercury, March 25, 2025

 Ivy Main , Virginia Mercury; Remember when ethics in government mattered?

"Trading favors among the rich and powerful seems to be how it works in Trump’s America. Anyone who isn’t using his public position for his own gain is a chump. And while the laws prohibiting corruption are still on the books, Trump has ensured there are no federal prosecutors left with the independence to go after his allies. 

Besides which, in the unlikely event your cupidity actually gets you convicted of a crime, the president has a history going back to his first term of handing out pardons to MAGA loyalists regardless of their crimes. Sufficiently demonstrating fealty to the president may be enough to secure your place in his No Grifter Left Behind program. Frankly, the judge who sentences you has more to fear from the president than you do.  

By design, Trump’s attacks on American government, civil society and the world order have been so various and extreme as to leave opponents breathless. The resistance looks like a team of firefighters trying to deal with a large and very determined pack of juvenile arsonists. 

Yet, of all the fires now burning, Trump’s attacks on the rule of law might pose the single greatest threat to the country’s stability and prosperity. Trump’s firing of government watchdogs, blacklisting a law firm that represented his enemies, and defying judges who rule against him are unprecedented in modern U.S. history. Our economy as well as our democracy was built on a system of checks and balances that made corruption the newsworthy exception rather than the dismal norm."

NYC Conflicts of Interest Board (COIB)

 NYC Conflicts of Interest Board (COIB)

"The main purpose of ethics laws lies not in punishing wrongdoing, but in preventing it, not in catching people, but in teaching them.

The Conflicts of Interest Board is the independent New York City agency tasked with administering, enforcing and interpreting Chapter 68 of the New York City Charter, the City's Conflicts of Interest Law, and Section 12-110 of the Administrative Code, the City's Annual Disclosure Law. We hope you'll enjoy learning more about this agency, and government ethics in general, by exploring the tabs on the left and the other offerings on our site.

Through a combination of engaging training, confidential advice, and vigorous enforcement, the Board seeks to prevent ethics questions from becoming ethics problems for public servants. Ultimately, however, integrity in City government rests upon all of us, public servant and private citizen alike. Only when each of us plays his or her part will the public trust inherent in public service be ensured."

Pruitt is gone. Congress still doesn’t care about ethics.; The Washington Post, July 6, 2018

Walter M. Shaub Jr., The Washington Post; Pruitt is gone. Congress still doesn’t care about ethics.

"The damage to the executive branch ethics program is profound. A bad ethical tone from the top, which began with Trump’s refusal to divest his conflicting financial interests, continues to erode that program. Trump’s commendation of the departing Pruitt is as strong a statement as a leader can send to devalue the importance of ethics in government.

The foundational principle that public service is a public trust is now on the ropes. Those in Congress who share responsibility for Pruitt’s ethical failures will find it difficult to avoid looking hypocritical if they demand ethical conduct from appointees in this administration or the next. Gowdy is a notable exception, but he is leaving Congress. It is time for his colleagues to step up their oversight of this administration’s ethical failings. The road to redemption may require an acknowledgment of responsibility for failing to oversee the EPA’s administrator and a recommitment to enforcing government ethics. As for the executive branch, Trump can start by curtailing his praise of the current holder of the title “most unethical Cabinet member in modern history.”"