The Body Count -- The Raft Is Getting Crowded

 

A Reoccurring Feature on Who's Jumping Off Luxury Liner Trump

Hard to keep up in the aftermath of Trump's attempt on Wednesday to overthrow the democratic government of the United States.

Mick Mulvaney

Dr. Elinore F. McCance-Katz, assistant secretary for the Department of Health and Human Services, resigned yesterday, writing in her resignation letter that she had planned to stay on until the next administration but her "plans abruptly changed" Wednesday evening when she saw "the violent takeover of the Capitol building." "I believe that this behavior was totally unacceptable and, in my own heart, I simply am not able to continue," she wrote.

Anthony Ruggiero, senior director for counterproliferation and biodefense at the National Security Council, resigned in protest of the President's incitement of insurrection.

Matt Pottinger, Trump's deputy national security advisor.

Mick Mulvaney, former White House chief of staff and currently special envoy to Northern Ireland, told CNBC in an interview Thursday morning that he called Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Wednesday night to resign. "I can't do it. I can't stay," Mulvaney said in the interview.

John Costello, the Commerce Department's deputy assistant secretary for intelligence and security.

Ryan Tully, senior director for European and Russian Affairs at the National Security Council.

Tyler Goodspeed, the acting chairman of the Counsel of Economic Advisers.

Trump -- Terrible Negotiator and a Bad Bluffer

Trump slouched to victory last November partly on his ability to rouse an ugly xenophobia. Typical call-and-response at his rallies:

"I'm going to build the wall. And who's going to pay for it?"

"Mexico!" shouted back his reality-deprived followers.

So, naturally, Trump sent out his budget director, Mick Mulvaney, last week to declare that any temporary government-funding bill must include funding for Trump's wall. Shutdown looms this weekend without a funding bill; presumably, rapists and murderers loom without a wall. Do the math, bitches!

The bluff didn't work, so throughout last weekend, Trump admin officials (including Mulvaney) upped the threat level: Trump might veto any funding bill without wall money in it.

Trump chief-of-staff Reince Preibus said Trump meant business. No funding for the wall, no signing of a funding bill.

Some 24 hours later -- yesterday, Monday, to be exact -- Trump caved: "In the face of fierce Democratic opposition to funding the wall’s construction, White House officials signaled Monday that the president may be open to an agreement that includes money for border security if not specifically for a wall, with an emphasis on technology and border agents rather than a structure."

By Monday afternoon -- yesterday -- Trump was telling a gathering of conservative media mavens "that he was open to delaying funding for wall construction until September, a White House official confirmed."

They called his bluff. He folded. Again. Just like he did about repealing Obamacare. Those bragged-about negotiating skills are just more snake oil.

Though in this case we can be glad if the xenophobic symbol of Trump's inner demons is delayed into infinity and then completely forgotten.

Death of a Salesman

Budget Director
Mick Mulvaney

Trump's budget director Mick Mulvaney defended his proposed budget yesterday, and we were all edified. Short version: The president has determined that the poor have too much and the rich, too little. Shorter version: Take all the money and give it to the military. Shortest version: Screw everybody.

People have been focused since yesterday's news on the projected loss of programs like Meals on Wheels. Those hot meals go most frequently to people who watch Fox News all day and who probably voted for Trump. They live predominantly in rural areas that boosted Trump over the top in swing states.

But Meals on Wheels is the least of the damage, really, to Trump World, as all sorts of programs that benefit farmers, small-town educators and their students, rural redevelopment, infrastructure replacement -- the list gets long very fast -- are also fingered for destruction. The Appalachian Regional Commission, which built 4-lane highways in West Virginia for the coal industry, and supports the delivery of health care all over Appalachia -- you're dead!

But never you mind. Mulvaney's budget is just an indication of the smallness of his soul and has zero prospect of actually passing Congress. Rep. Hal Rogers (R-Ky.), the powerful former chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, spoke for many Republicans who haven't yet fallen off the right side of the known universe: “While we have a responsibility to reduce our federal deficit, I am disappointed that many of the reductions and eliminations proposed in the president’s skinny budget are draconian, careless and counterproductive.”

Draconian. Careless. And counterproductive. That's an apt selection of adjectives, Congressman!

Speaking to reporters, Mulvaney was sunny in his disposition about his budget rollout, saying in effect, "What did you effing expect from this particular president?" We're very accustomed now to a Trump who makes no apologies, but Mulvaney wanted to underline that trait:

[Mulvaney] said that after-school programs had failed to help children in schools, that housing programs were “not well run,” that government health research had suffered “mission creep” and that grants to local communities “don’t do any good.”

...And he said that the president made no apologies for eliminating the government’s efforts to curb climate change.

“We’re not spending money on that anymore,” Mr. Mulvaney told reporters at the White House. “We consider that a waste of your money to go out and do that.”

A smiling death's head

The people Trump said he would never forget -- those coal miners in West Virginia, those rural poor in Wisconsin, those scrambling farmers in Texas -- they're officially and resoundingly forgotten in this budget. Never mind the environment. Never mind public radio and PBS. Never mind the encouragement of art and the humanities. They will go because they're supported by liberals. All the other stuff that poor people depend on -- it will go because Steve Bannon wants to destroy government, and Trump is Bannon's puppet.

This budget will not pass, not as proposed. But it will stand as an object lesson for the kind of minds that have taken control in the White House.

Hard to Drain the Swamp When YOU Are the Swamp

Photo Ryan McGuire

Trump's HHS nominee Rep. Tom Price personally benefitted from stock in companies that benefitted from legislation that Rep. Tom Price pushed in Congress. Purely a coincidence!

Rep. Mick Mulvaney (R-S.C.), Trump’s choice to head the Office of Management and Budget, has acknowledged during his confirmation process that he failed to pay more than $15,000 in state and federal employment taxes for a household employee.

Commerce Department nominee Wilbur Ross revealed that one of the “dozen or so” housekeepers he has hired since 2009 was undocumented, which he said he discovered only recently. Yeah, we believe that.

The Swamp-Drainer-in-Chief refuses to separate himself from the businesses that he can vastly advantage in the presidency, and he refuses to release his tax returns because there's stuff in there that might give his most loyal supporters a new form of indigestion.

This Trump administration already has a distinct odor of corruption that will only grow as the garbage piles up.