April 3, 2018
The stench of corruption coming from this administration rivals a garbage barge on the Hudson. It is worse than the smell of a broken, urine-soaked project elevator. The profligacy and venality of these people knows no bounds. In the past several days, we have learned that EPA Secretary Scott Pruitt approved the pipeline expansion request of Enbridge, a Canadian energy company, while simultaneously enjoying a sweetheart deal provided by Enbridge’s lobbying firm, Williams & Jensen. While this decision was under review, Pruitt was renting a room in the condo owned by the wife of Williams & Jensen’s chief at the absurdly below market rate of $50 per night (Source: “A Lobbyist, A Condo Deal, A Green Light,” by Eric Lipton, The New York Times, 4/3/18). This goes beyond the appearance of impropriety into an evident quid pro quo.
This administration is rife with contemptuous grifters who share Trump’s disdain for rules, norms or equitable practices. Ben Carson, of course, had his $31,000 table and Ryan Zinke, in addition to his $139,000 “cone of silence ,” has been brazenly racist in his management of the Department of the Interior. Of the 33 senior officials reassigned by Zinke, over ⅓ are Native American (Source: “Zinke’s Interior Department reassignments disproportionately targeted Native Americans and women,” by Kyla Mandel, Thinkprogress.org, 4/2/18). This move is discriminatory on its face and flouts the express legal requirement that Native Americans be given an absolute preference in hiring within the Department of the Interior.
Of course, the tone is set from the top.This week’s issue of New York Magazine details the myriad ways that Trump has crassly monetized the Presidency – from his much publicized weekly trips to Trump branded golf properties to hawking shot glasses with the presidential seal, there is no opportunity too base for him to seize (Source: “501 Days in Swampland,” by Joy Crane and Nick Tabor, New York Magazine, 4/1/18). As Jonathan Chait details in his article in the same issue, “Trump is legitimately excellent at cultivating an inner circle unburdened by legal or moral scruples,” (“Corruption, Not Russia is Trump’s Greatest Political Liability,” by Jonathan Chait, New York Magazine, 4/1/18).
What Trump and his band of venal miscreants are counting on, is that the sheer volume of misdeeds will overwhelm us so that we sit idly by while they sack and pillage our country like 21st Century Visigoths. We must never grow accustomed to this. That ubiquitous odor is the rotting carcass of a once robust democracy. Never forget that it stinks.
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#Ruleoflaw
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