Friday's daily tracking poll from Gallup on how Americans view Señor Trumpanzee's performance as president: 39% approve, 55% disapprove, approval headed downward and disapproval continuing to grow. You probably sensed that already even without seeing it in a graph like the one just below. I keep hearing a lot of people saying-- or see them tweeting-- to stop paying attention to distractions (like his Climate Change speech Thursday) and just focus on Russia. And at least as many people say the exact opposite-- let Putin-Gate take care of itself and just focus on what his Regime is doing to the country now. Worst of all, most people seem to have concluded, is wasting energy and outrage on nonsense about his horrid family of grifters and their hideous and banal little reality show.Trouble with the "don't pay attention to that distraction, look at this," is that more often than not all the ugliness comes together as another example of the entire reason d etre of Trumpism: corruption. Kushner-in-law, Putin's Russian Mafia "banker," sanctions and the big oil deal, for example. Chris Hayes' take:Lawrence O'Donnell's take:This is no distraction. Democrats in the Joint Economic Committee think we all need to know how much economic damage Señor Trumpanzee's corruption is doing to the country. They say that Trump is "likely doing economic harm" by "flaunting the laws and conventions of good governance that made the United States a cornerstone of the global economy" in a staff report.
The report, called “The Costs of Corruption to the American Economy,” includes as specific examples the president implementing policies that specifically help his business interests (such as rolling back Clean Water Act protections), regularly visiting his commercial real estate properties and clubs in ways that give them publicity and thus increase their revenue and being awarded Chinese trademarks at the same time that he began to honor the “One China” policy....“Congress must be vigilant against the potential for President Trump to enrich himself and his family at the expense of the average American,” said Sen. Martin Heinrich, D- N.M. “The president and his family’s conflicts of interests are inexcusable and unacceptable, and could depress economic output by over $1,000 per person just in one year. Not only are these practices dangerous, but harmful to the economic security of American families across the country.”...Just how much damage would a corrupt economy do? The report compared the U.S. to Italy in the 1990s, and postulated that the GDP would have grown at 2.1 percentage points less every year if corruption levels were the same. As of 2016, this would have resulted in each person losing an average of $1,170.
An L.A. Times editorial Thursday asserted that Trump's decision to pull the country out of the Paris Climate Accord is the clearest evidence yet that Trump is turning the U.S. into a force for bad in the world. "Our petulant president has put the world on a path-- potentially, but increasingly inevitably-- to irreversible catastrophe. The decision fulfills Donald J. Trump’s misguided campaign promise to withdraw from the pact under which nearly 200 nations (led, at the time, by the U.S.) pledged to try to reduce global warming by curtailing greenhouse gas emissions. Trump’s decision, while expected, is nonetheless stunning in its short-sightedness, its rejection of clear science, and its utter disregard for the nation’s long-standing role as a world leader."Everyone I know says, "follow the money," because that's really all that Trump has ever been about. Last week, Charles Pierce agreed 100%: It's all-- everything-- about the money.
It simply comes down to money: the Russians, the meetings that mysteriously slipped everyone's minds when they were testifying before Congress or filling out disclosure forms, the vanishing tax returns, the emoluments mess, the bizarre attraction to wealthy overseas authoritarians, the unshakable presence of Michael Flynn. All of it, simple American greed magnified by a culture of celebrity and, through a fluke presidential election, dropped like a dead squirrel in a chimney into the world's greatest democracy-- and, as a result, stinking up the entire joint.The latest story involves Jared Kushner, his father-in-law's Secretary of Everything and, as one clever Twitterperson put it, Slumlord Millionaire. On Thursday night, right on schedule during Happy Hour, both NBC and the Washington Post dropped the news that Kushner was the person inside the White House in whom the FBI had taken an interest, as was reported in last Friday's Happy Hour news dump...So they're going to be rummaging around in the way this family has done its business in the ethical wasteland of New York real estate and its satellite enterprises. That makes sense. If there is money from Russia, that's probably where the spin cycle is located. If Flynn needed money, that's very likely where he got a great deal of it. If the entire White House apparatus is caught up in covering things up in every direction, it probably is covering up how much money it is and where it goes. That was the deal that the country made last fall.In their infinite wisdom, enough of the American people got together and decided to put a manifestly unqualified and manifestly unfit New York real estate sub-tycoon in charge of the executive branch of the national government. He has proceeded to do business there in the same shadowy fashion in which he's done business everywhere else. He's kept everything within the family, even if the family members are no more qualified to do the work than he is. Either he never knew that you can't run a democratic republic that way, or he didn't care. Either everything is a surprise to this crowd, or they think that the institutions of government are just another great, fertile field of grift to be plundered.In any case, at the end of the day, it's all going to be about money. Jared Kushner is just the most recent clue in a completely bogus treasure map.
Another distraction: Melania. Novelist Monica Byrne sure is stirring up some major shit, revealing the affair Melania has been having with the head dog security at Tiffany's. Look at this tweet storm. Yowza! And there's more! Awesome Luvvie is more than happy to get into the shit!
We all know that Melania is disgusted by the fail whale she is legally bound to. We KNOW. We see it every time she winces when he touches her and when she refuses to hold his hand. We see it in her stupid squint that her soul dies a little bit every day she has to be attached to him.I had already heard through the grapevines that she was gonna divorce his ass but then he went and played the world’s unfunniest practical joke and became the President of the United States. So she was stuck with him, and doomed to play the ornament in Satan’s tree of an administration.BUTTTT I hadn’t heard about her side-bae, who happens to be a security guard at the Tiffany’s at the Trump Tower that Melania refuses to leave, even as her husband is living at the White House. I HADN’T HEARD THAT AND IT ALL MAKES SENSE. I thought she was getting through it with a rabbit or some other battery-powered toy. But no, she might have went and got her real life meat.Chile, listen. Allegedly, Melania outchea playing Rapunzel in the Trump Tower and refusing to let down her hair to play First Lady in DC because her real boo works in the lobby. Maybe she said “Shit. I ain’t gon divorce you or poison you in your sleep because I hate your guts so much but what I will do is not miss out on my regular dick down because you wanna go be president. I’m staying, like Effie White. And NYC gon love me.” That wily bish.I’m guessing that is why she kept on being like “don’t hold my hand, Donald.” Cuz her boyfriend was gon get mad and come see Marmalade Mugabe in these streets. And then Secret Service woulda had to neutralize him and the pipe she was getting on a regular was gonna be no more. I SEE IT NOW. It all makes sense.Security Bae ain’t bad on the eyes, either. He got the chin dimple going on and errthang. Meanwhile, the walking 7 deadly sins Melania is married to got the face for radio. No comparison in the looks department.But here’s the real PETTY in all this. Melania’s gift to FLOTUS (the real one) Michelle Obama on inauguration day was from Tiffany’s. LEMME FIND OUT SHE USED SECURITY BAE’S FRIENDS AND FAMILY DISCOUNT.If this is true, then the writers of Real World: Trump Administration (yes, they got writers) better get to work. Rich people are crazy and conniving AF.Honestly, we’ve been going at this resistance all wrong. The key to Tangerine Voldemort’s downfall is getting Melania mad enough at him. SHE got the key.What I do know is that I’m not okay that our good taxes might be paying for Squinty McGirk to have a side floozy. It’s costing us millions a month for her and Barron to ignore Papaya Pol Pot, AND for her to be getting her pipes cleaned by some scruffy dude downstairs. These Trumps get away with murder, treason, infidelity and then they get paid for all of it. Their white privilege is on a hunnid thousand trillion. Let her have melanin and y’all would have her wig hanging in effigy. They get away with all types of clusterfuck behavior.Is Melania getting federally-funded side peen? I wanna know. And let’s keep asking the tough questions. The ones that matter. The shady ones, especially.
