Top: We realize Paul Ryan retired, but this is such a telling illustration of the state of the GOP we just had to use it.
Bottom: Former Clinton Labor Secretary Robert Reich. (photo: Steve Russell/Toronto Star)
16 June 19
The administration and the Republican party are nests of lobbyists and con artists who make Greedo look like a saint
rump
has been ramping up his “Deep State” rhetoric again. He’s back to
blaming a cabal of bureaucrats, FBI and CIA agents, Democrats and
“enemies of the people” in the mainstream media for conspiring to remove
him from office, in order to allow the denizens of foreign “shitholes” to overrun America.
But with each passing day it’s becoming clearer that
the real threat to America isn’t Trump’s Deep State. It’s Trump’s own
Corrupt State.
Not since the sordid administration of Warren G Harding have as many grifters, crooks and cronies occupied high positions in Washington.
Trump has installed a Star Wars cantina
of former lobbyists and con artists, including several whose exploits
have already forced them to resign, such as Scott Pruitt, Ryan Zinke,
Tom Price and Michael Flynn. Many others remain.
When he was in Congress, the current White House
acting chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney, pocketed tens of thousands of
dollars in campaign contributions from payday lenders, then proposed
loosening regulations on them. Mulvaney was also acting head of the
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, of all things.
When he was Trump’s special adviser on regulatory
reform, the Wall Street billionaire Carl Icahn sought to gut the
Environmental Protection Agency rule on ethanol credits, which was harming his oil refinery investments.
This week the Guardian reported
that a real estate company partly owned by Trump son-in-law and foreign
policy adviser Jared Kushner has raked in $90m from foreign investors
since Kushner entered the White House, through a secret vehicle run by
Goldman Sachs in the Cayman Islands. Kushner’s stake is some $50m.
All this takes conflict of interest to a new level of shamelessness.
What are Republicans doing about it? Participating in it.
The secretary of transportation, Elaine Chao, who also
happens to be the wife of the Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell,
has approved $78m in grants
for her husband’s home state, Kentucky, including a highway improvement
project twice rejected in the past. Chao has even appointed a special
liaison to coordinate grants with McConnell’s office. Did I say McConnell is up for re-election next year?
Under normal circumstances, news that a cabinet
secretary is streamlining federal funding for her husband’s pet projects
would be a giant scandal. But in the age of Trump, ethics have gone out
the window.
Since he was elected in November, congressman Greg Pence, who just happens to be the brother of Vice-President Mike Pence, has spent more than $7,600 of campaign funds
on lodging at the Trump International Hotel in Washington. Federal
election law forbids politicians from using campaigns dollars to cover
housing costs.
The Corrupt State starts with Trump himself, giving new meaning to the old adage about a fish rotting from the head down.
When foreign governments aren’t currying favor with
Trump by staying at his hotel, they’re using state-owned companies to
finance projects that will line his pockets, like China’s $500m for an entertainment complex in Indonesia that includes a Trump-branded hotel.
Trump claims the Deep State allows foreigners to take
advantage of America. The reality is Trump’s Corrupt State allows
Vladimir Putin and his goon squad to continue undermining American
democracy.
“I’d take it” if Russia again offered campaign help, Trump crowed this week,
adding that he would not necessarily tell the FBI. Just days before,
Trump acknowledged “Russia helping” him “get elected” the first time.
Despite evidence that Russia is hacking and trolling
its way toward the 2020 election, Republican defenders of Trump’s
Corrupt State won’t lift a finger.
McConnell refuses to consider any legislation on
election security. He and Senate Republicans even killed a bill
requiring campaigns to report offers of foreign assistance to federal
authorities.
The charitable interpretation is McConnell and his ilk
don’t want to offend Trump by doing anything that might appear to
question the legitimacy of his 2016 win. The less charitable view is
Republicans oppose more secure elections because they’d be less likely
to win them.
Trump and his Republican enablers are magicians who
distract us by shouting “look here!” at the paranoid fantasy of a Deep
State, while creating a Corrupt State under our noses.
But it’s not a party trick. It’s the dirtiest trick of our time, enabled by the most corrupt party in living memory.
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