Thursday, June 01, 2017

More Presents From Trump To His Base


These are fun ones.  For example, you are now more likely to die or be financially devastated in a hurricane or other weather disaster, because of our Dear Leader:  Both NOAA, the agency overseeing weather forecasting and FEMA, the agency responding to disasters, are without leaders, though the latter has a nomination pending.  Then there is this:

For states and communities hit by floods, tornadoes, wildfires and other disasters, the Trump budget slashes another important source of recovery funds. The Department of Housing and Urban Development provides money that helps communities rebuild after a disaster, after FEMA has moved on. The Trump budget cuts that $3 billion fund to zero.
Trump's great managerial skills are reflected in all that, I'm sure.

And remember how he promised to drain the swamp in Washington, DC?  To get rid of all those lobbyists?  Well, that promise isn't much honored:

The White House disclosed Wednesday evening that it has granted ethics waivers to 17 appointees who work for President Trump and Vice President Pence, including four former lobbyists.
 Among the high-profile figures who received waivers: White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus and counselor to the president Kellyanne Conway, who were both permitted to engage with their former employers or clients. In addition, a blanket waiver was given to all executive office appointees to interact with news organizations — a move that gives chief strategist Stephen K. Bannon permission to communicate with Breitbart News, the conservative website he used to run. 
The rate at which the Trump White House has handed out waivers is far faster than that of the Obama administration, which issued 17 exemptions for White House appointees over eight years.
Bolds are mine.

Isn't that delicious and juicy?  Trump is clearly much more productive than Obama ever was.  And Stephen Bannon, the white male supremacist, can continue communicating with Breitbart News, to equally productively steer the conservative media.

But of course the assumption that the swamp in Washington DC referred to lobbyists is for our consumption.  Trump-voters fully know that the swamp referred to the Democrats, and that Trump promised to get rid of every single one of them.

Finally, the Trump administration is considering handing back the Russian-occupied properties which Obama shut down:

The Trump administration is moving toward handing back to Russia two diplomatic compounds, near New York City and on Maryland’s Eastern Shore, that its officials were ejected from in late December as punishment for Moscow’s interference in the 2016 presidential election.
President Barack Obama said Dec. 29 that the compounds were being “used by Russian personnel for intelligence-related purposes” and gave Russia 24 hours to vacate them. Separately, Obama expelled from the United States what he said were 35 Russian “intelligence operatives.”
 Those guys are part of Trump's base, though that the Trump administration would consider this move seems shocking, given that

...[the] administration and former Trump campaign officials are under congressional and special counsel investigation for alleged ties to Russia.

Our Dear Leader is the Gift That Keeps On Giving.

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I'm not sure why I bother to writer about all this.  I very much doubt any Trump-voter reads here, what with the news bubbles and the two separate theories about how the world works.