Meanwhile
With apologies to Colbert
I have of late in this space been quite focused on the issues surrounding mass deportations, the use of military against the American public and so on. Things of this import, and others (like the assassination of elected officials), can and should occasionally call for our undivided attention. I also believe, however, that pretty much at all times with the current administration we need to be alert to distraction, often intentionally initiated to pull our attention from the ever-growing piles of steaming shit they are producing. So scanning beyond the headlines of the past few days, here are some so-called minor stories that I think are nothing but. Okay, if you use minor in the strictest sense, as in less than the bigger stories, yes. But that idea is just proof of how awful they are: things that would normally cause widespread outrage and anger are barely noticed due to the truly egregious stuff. Everything is relative. In no particular order:
Thanks to an executive order back in February, we are now seeing the actual growth of the bribery of foreign officials by US companies, or individuals, that used to be prohibited by the Foreign Corrupt Practice Act. Say you wanted to, oh, I don’t know, build a golf resort in Abu Dhabi. It would be a lot easier if you could grease some palms and now you can. Legalizing corruption.
The EPA is loosening its limits on both mercury spills and greenhouse gasses from power plants. So much for the Protection part of their name. But what should we expect from a climate change denier who supports fracking heading up the EPA.
The White House wants Texas to redistrict to before the midterms. The Lone Star state has become alarmingly purple in their view so they not only want to stop the blue spread but undo the gains of the past few cycles. It is a tried and true tactic and when you don’t give a damn for voters’ rights and voter suppression is SOP so what else would they do.
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is being so thoroughly defanged its top enforcement official just resigned. The CPFB has been one of the most effective and popular agencies around since they do useful stuff like cap bank fees, chase down financial scams and, you know, help consumers. ConDon choosing banks over people? Shocking.
They are bringing back the Confederate names for military bases we had finally gotten rid of under Biden. But get this. They aren’t actually doing that. They are finding people with the same names that they then contort to justify bringing back the Confederate name without challenging anybody. Fort Rucker in Alabama, for example, was originally named for a confederate colonel, switched to Novosel in 2021, a Medal of Honor winner, and now back to Rucker for a WWI aviator. Wink, wink. So they are not only morons, they are chickenshit morons. I guess they forgot that the South were secessionists that also lost. Sigh.
Rubio wants Treasury to investigate Harvard, but not for what you might expect. He dug up that they co-sponsored a health policy conference that might have included blacklisted Chinese officials. Thin, yes, but the real kicker is that the conference was in China. Talk about a reach. But gotta keep the boss lubed up by attacking anyone smarter than him, or worse, defiant. Go Crimson!
The China trade deal DesPOTUS is crowing about is no such thing. Just more TACO. The tariff standoff has gone nowhere and things are still very testy. But because China had us right where they wanted us on rare earths, the big brave master of the deal caved. Again.
The House has codified the DOGE cuts that we stopped looking at or worrying about after Musk pulled the ripcord. Not only have they ended said funding, they are trying to get back some of the money out there, from agencies like PEPFAR - why would we want to help fight the global spread of AIDS - and the ever-beleaguered PBS and NPR.
Grifter-in-Chief’s steel tariffs are kicking as he doubled them from 25 to 50%. This is ostensibly to save the steel industry - that asked him no to - even though while US steel production marginally increased the last time he did this it also sent costs soaring for other industries to the tune of a $3B net loss. Well played. And I don’t remember him running on raising the price of home appliances.
The Big Beautiful Bill (gag) is the most regressive bill in decades, maybe ever. That’s all you need to know.
We just withdrew from a deal that protected salmon fishing in the Pacific northwest that had been decimated by a federal dam project (gotta love eminent domain). In one fell swoop they screwed the environment, the Native tribes and the fish. Their capacity for mindless destruction is prodigious.
The National Park service has been instructed to scrub all info from the parks that Lord Dampnut and his fossil-fuel loving Interior Secretary think is out of line. Not only is this a blatant rewriting and whitewashing - as in make it more white - of history, but they are forcing the Service and its members complicit in this revisionist bullshit. And they want parkgoers to join in as well, giving them a place to complain about things like Birmingham, Stonewall and the civil war. I can only imagine who might want to get in on that. It is line with the “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History” executive order. You cannot make this shit up.
Maybe in the save-the-best-for-last category, turns out Trumpster Fire is the best at something: monetizing the presidency. He is in the hall-of-fame for grift and greed and even some of his most ardent defenders are beginning to quail at his brazen corruption, up to and including Sucker Carlson. Spiro Agnew literally had bags of cash delivered to the White House, but he was a piker compared to this huckster. All while being touted as the cleanest, most honest, unconflicted . . . sorry, if I go on I might puke on my keyboard. I truly don’t know how Leavitt does it.
This is all horrible and sad and would have been enough to have him ridden out of town on a rail by his own party even only a few decades ago. The bar has been lowered so far, buried even, it can’t be recovered with existing technology. And they are still digging as fast as they can. The only questions remaining are how low they will go and how long they’ll get away with it. Thanks for reading.