The GOP confirmed billionaire donor Betsy DeVos yesterday for Secretary of Education. I’m not convinced this woman would recognize her own face in the mirror, let alone comprehend nuanced policy alternatives on education, but that doesn’t matter in today’s GOP. Her single, definable qualification for this position is the emptiness of her ambition to protect public education.
(I kid…it was her ability to purchase a seat via campaign contributions – but let’s make sure we all remember how corrupt Hillary was)
Next up is Jeff Sessions, a guy who felt it necessary to fabricate his role in several civil rights cases just to deflect the mushrooming charges of racism. Does that give you comfort – not only that it was an accusation he had to defend against in the first place, but that he had to insert himself fictitiously into the history books to do so? The fact that Sean Spicer today mused about Coretta Scott King and Sessions catching a burger and a flick together is a joke that doesn’t need writing.
The full list is, of course, ridiculous. Pruitt – anxious to burn the world to the ground (and to turn a buck doing it), Carson – as qualified to run HUD as I am to run an NBA offense, and Tom Price – who curiously purchased healthcare stock while sponsoring legislation impacting its value.
This is what happens when we grant power to people whose primary motivations are revenue generation and opponent-shaming. As a nation, we’ve become desensitized to bullshit. Make no mistake – nominating a potato with a haircut to run the Department of Energy is complete…bullshit. I’d like to think some GOP supporters even recognize the piffle that’s been peddled, but unfortunately I’ve seen no evidence suggesting they care. When the president and his handlers promote the unqualified rogues highlighted above, and continue to sell the bollocks about crowd sizes, popular vote victory, “successful raids,” and historical delays of cabinet approval, it becomes clear they’ve recognized us a nation of marks. Meanwhile, after campaigning as a populist vowing to take on Wall Street in defense of everyday Americans, he’s nominated the wealthiest cabinet in history, including a sizable amount of sludge from Goldman Sachs.
Sad!
Update: an earlier version of this post incorrectly listed Rex Tillerson as the nominee who purchased healthcare stock while writing healthcare legislation. Post has been updated to indicate Tom Price. Tillerson is the Secretary of State nominee who made his bones as an executive at ExxonMobil, a company who learned in 1977 that humans were causing climate change, yet intentionally misled the public while lobbying the government to block emissions regulations. DOD apologizes for the error.
Please pass the pastries:
The last week has shown us either the light at the end of the tunnel, or perhaps more appropriately the blackness that is the epicenter of the dark swirl of the leftover morning coffee and last night’s sink crumbs being sucked down into the emptiness of the drain. The POTUS with the mostest (as he appears to think of himself) seems to be replacing one “badly” story with the next. Sadly, apparently nearly half the general public has been trained to only retain and focus on what their internet feed of choice has produced in the most recent 12 hours. His mastery of playing the public for the fool through his perpetration of his anti-establishment persona won him enough support to win him the presidency, and for the first 100 days it also carried him through multiple missteps.
But now the proverbial tables may be turning… The firing of Comey, the way in which it was done, the photos with the Russian spymaster, the disclosure of top secret information to the Russians, the Comey memos and the potential obstruction of justice… All of this in just a week, plus the universally (read bi-partisan) loved Mueller being selected to investigate the potential Russian collusion? It’s almost enough to make a doughnut lover optimistically order another. Add on a few more sprinkles and we might be getting somewhere!
His Orangeness is about to embark on an extended overseas trip. The folks at Mar-a-Lago can finally breathe easy for a while. The rest of the sound-minded world will be holding their collective breath, hoping the next “off the cuff” utterance doesn’t send our country into some new universe of embarrassment/trouble. I guess we should be glad Putin isn’t his traveling buddy.
Will he tweet while traveling? Will he offend his foreign hosts? Will he demand that extra scoop of ice cream? His brief history as the leader of the free world pretty much guarantees that his absence from American soil will not prevent him from maintaining his presence at the top of the “WTF Did He Do Now?” list.
Us doughnut lovers can however order another cup of coffee and consider that celebratory CCD (a chocolate covered doughnut is of course the only respectable choice for this discerning doughnut lover) because there is the growing chance that this embarrassment may have crossed a line that may truly end his tenure. Time will tell – it is a tall order for which to hope. But in the meantime as you sit inside your favorite coffee shop, remember to look around the room and recognize that nearly half the people in there may not be doughnut lovers.