We’ve survived incompetent fools in the Oval Office before. We’ve weathered having US Cabinets stacked with self-dealing sycophants. We have probably been witness to some Congresses that achieved less and did more damage thus far in their two-year life spans. We’ve navigated episodes of isolationism and moral indifference to the suffering of others. We’ve stood on shaky national defense ground, lost a few wars we should never have been engaged in, and spent more on military toys than on the people we depend on to use them in battle.
We’ve also endured multiple bouts of having the entire country run by the whims of a few ultra-wealthy white men who got their vast riches by gaming the economic system, not by producing anything of worth themselves. You know, like that time the felon in the White House thinks America was “great” — The Gilded Age (just look at how he’s turned the Oval Office into a replica of a bawdy-house parlor).
But this is the first time in our young nation’s history that we have face all of these threats at the same time. We have an elected leader who has installed the very least-qualified, most conflicted, and most destructive department heads he could find. Their mission: to deconstruct and deactivate the institutions Americans have built to run the nation By the People, and hand it over to a few oligarchs.
The smartest billionaires know that they have no idea how to run a functional government, but they don’t care. That’s because, to them, governments are just nuisances best either kept under their thumbs or disarmed entirely. The purpose of our government is to serve We the People and to preserve and enhance the General Welfare. That will never do if you want to make money.
After all, to the felon, altruistic deeds are “for suckers,” as is serving your country (or any ideal, or any person other than him). The concept of right and wrong is as foreign to him as all languages (including English), and as unintelligible.
Now we have the Secretary of Homeland Security testifying to Congress that habeas corpus means the President can deport anyone he wants without due process. In other words, the opposite of what the Constitution clearly says in Article I, which lays out the powers that Congress has, not the executive.
Of course, she does not work for the country. She works for a boss who claims that “Article II gives me the power to do whatever I want,” so why should she bother reading the document she swore allegiance to upholding when she took office? She’s too busy updating her “Killer Barbie” outfit collection with fresh bling.
Then there’s the Secretary of the Interior. On the one hand, he’s out there just today, telling us that there’s “plenty of time” to deal with the climate change crisis. So, good to know, the next man-fueled natural disaster will be up to the unfortunate State or States where it occurs to clean up. No more FEMA “waste” for you!
This while also racing to undo protections on public land aimed at keeping developers, mining companies, and oil companies from having their way with the environment. What is infuriatingly un-funny is that, in the rush to remove “obstacles” to drilling for oil, the administration is also creating the conditions for oil prices to plummet (like, say, through crazy tariff policy).
So, with demand for oil dropping in the face of drastically reduced overseas shipping, drastically reduced port activity, and drastically reduced trucking of goods domestically, no oil companies are going to be drilling new wells or building new refineries any time soon. But the safety nets will be gone when demand goes back up, and it will take years to weave them back into place.
Oh, and is Secretary Burgum at all concerned about the mysterious, undisclosed chemicals that fracking companies have injected into the planet’s interior? Apparently not, because in his statement supporting Interior’s budget request for the next fiscal year, submitted today, he doesn’t mention hydraulic fracturing at all. He does blithely (and unctuously) blame Joe Biden for a non-existent emergency in a nation that is already “energy-independent.”
This Budget prioritizes America’s energy independence with a strategy that focuses on the development of ample baseload power that is needed to solve the inherited electricity crisis which underpins the National Energy Emergency that was wisely declared by President Trump on his first day in office.
What does the EPA, under that luminary with no relevant experience whatsoever, Lee Zeldin, have to say on the subject?
Nothing: “In 2016, EPA released the final report, “Hydraulic Fracturing for Oil and Gas: Impacts from the Hydraulic Fracturing Water Cycle on Drinking Water Resources”. Read the executive summary. Please note that this web site is no longer being updated.” This is from the EPA’s official Web site at https://www.epa.gov/hfstudy
Yet in today’s news, we also learn that:
Most major oil and gas producing states require operators to post information about their fracking chemicals to FracFocus, a nationwide disclosure database maintained by state-level environmental officials. But for years, fossil fuel companies have used trade secret claims to shield the full picture of their chemical use from scrutiny. In 2021, for instance, 88% of FracFocus disclosures used confidentiality to shield at least one proprietary ingredient from scrutiny – the so-called “Halliburton loophole”. Between 2014 and 2021, over 7bn lbs of these secret chemicals were pumped nationwide, according to a study in Environmental Pollution.
Pumping unknown poisons into the land for fun and profit. That’s how MAGA rolls.
For absurd news on the economy, look no further than the felon telling companies they have to “eat” the tariffs, which he has always claimed were already being paid by foreign countries. Can’t have the truth that they are a tax on US consumers getting out, so the Lie Machine is cranking away on that issue, volume set on 11 and speed set on “drug ad disclaimer.”
And in foreign policy disaster news, the felon has outsourced AI development to the Middle East, where our dear friends the Saudis would never lie to us and steal the technology once we’ve developed it, while distracting the narcissist-in-chief with worthless golden airplanes and lots of camels.
He has, on his return to US soil, managed to hand V. Putin the keys to Ukraine by letting Vlad use the felon’s own delay tactics against even discussing any kind of peace agreement. A two-hour phone call that resulted in the framework of an idea of a peace plan? That has to beat “concepts of a plan,” right? You can bet that 118 minutes of that call were spent on monetary rewards for letting Russia have its way.
I have a bigger-picture post in mind to share, and have been working on an outline. But the sheer volume of the events happening just TODAY remind us we are headed straight for a hairpin turn and a thousand-foot cliff at top speed, with no brakes, and an insane clown posse taking turns at the wheel. And it ain’t a cartoon.
Advice?
Sorry, I got nothin’. 🦉
Magoo most certainly driving... and the car is stuffed with clowns!