Yesterday, the Trump administration announced that it would like to guarantee an Ebola outbreak in the US this year.  As we all know, Ebola is a highly contagious and deadly disease.  During the last African outbreak, the US lead the way with other OECD countries to fund prevention, treatment, and screening at the source to protect our own shores.  We only had one actual case of Ebola and a couple of American doctors treated here who had contracted the disease in Africa.

Welp, ol’ Trumpie thinks all that disease prevention stuff is a waste of money, and to make it easier for Ebola to reach our shores next time, he’s just slashed 80 PERCENT of disease outbreak prevention spending from the CDC’s budget.  Isn’t that just a fine idea?  Yeah, I think the same thing.

MAKE AMERICA SICK AGAIN!

For those (like me) who couldn’t stomach watching Cheeto Jesus stumble through an hour and a half of Trumpisms, here’s the Best Review in the History of the Western World of Presidential Speeches.  It starts with the above line and just gets better.  Highly recommended.  Enjoy, if you can.

Brenda Fitzgerald, Trump appointee to head the Center for Disease Control has abruptly resigned.  In the announcement, the administration cited her reason as “complex financial interests”.  OK, let’s translate that into English…Fitzgerald owns tobacco company stocks and other investments that conflict her with the mission of the CDC.  As we all know, fighting tobacco use and its associated diseases is one of the CDC’s flagship missions.  And, it gets better…Because of her investments, she has conflicted herself out of testifying before Congress.  Interesting strategy – “I’m so conflicted in my job that I can’t testify as to what I’m doing in my job.”  Anyhoo, she finally caved and has resigned rather than divest as required.  What better person to fight tobacco use than someone invested in tobacco, right?

Here’s the good part.  She bought the tobacco company stock…wait for it…AFTER she was appointed head of CDC and had toured the agency’s tobacco research lab.  That’s rich.

Last week, the Trump administration allowed Russian spy chief Sergey Naryshkin, who has been banned from entering the US since 2014 sanctions for the invasion of Ukraine, to enter our country.  To make matters worse, Naryshkin reportedly met with Director of National Intelligence, Dan Coats.  So, let’s be clear…Trump refuses publicly to implement the sanctions ordered by Congress in 2017 for meddling in our 2016 elections; THEN, he allowed the head of Russian intelligence to illegally enter the US to meet with government intelligence officials.

You just can’t make this up.

If there was any shred of doubt about Donald Trump’s utter and total corruption, this story will disabuse any belief to the contrary. Today, Andrew McCabe, Deputy Director of the FBI and acting director after Comey was fired last year, abruptly announced his retirement 2 months early.  Sarah Sanders, in a statement of the If My Lips Are Moving That Means I’m Lying category, denied (on national television) any involvement of the White House in McCabe’s leaving today.  As we already knew, that was yet another whopper of a lie, and it’s now been confirmed that he was forced out by Trump appointee Christopher Wray and put on leave until his official retirement in March.

The takeover of the leadership and politicization of the FBI is now complete, and the only thing that stands between us and fascism are the remaining honest agents within the agency, and the courts, which are also being rapidly politicized.

I fear our republic won’t last until January 20, 2021.

The silly brinksmanship played in Washington these days has become as idiotic as it has harmful.  NO country on the planet runs itself like the US.  We don’t do budget reconciliation and planning. We do “continuing resolutions” so the government can limp along for another few days.  We regularly hold (the sick, poor children, immigrants, minorities, education) fill in the blank here _________ hostage for cynical political purposes.  It stupid.  It’s destructive. It costs billions in economic slowing.  It hurts everyday Americans.

But here’s the problem – Republicans use government shutdowns now as a political weapon, but it’s not really a shut down anymore.  In 2013, after Ted Cruz led the idiotic shutdown, President Obama shutdown the national park system and other services.  The shock to the system drove both sides to the table, even though it took 16 days to do so.  During this shutdown, though, Trump is trying to make it invisible to everyday Americans.  The parks, or at least most of them, are staying open.  Other essential services are being maintained.  The only people hurt in the short term are the poor, the sick, the old, and the voiceless.  After all, who cares about them, right?

Shutdown is now just another tool the Republicans cynically use to put pressure on the opposition. The public, though, because so many services are maintained (even though government employees don’t get paid), there’s no price that most Americans pay.  Because of that, many people, who have no idea how government actually works say “Shut the government down.  It doesn’t affect me anyway.”  I say, let’s make the government shutdown an actual shutdown.  Shut down the military.  Shut down the air traffic control system.  Shut down customs, border security, national parks, social security, medicare, education, everything.  The way  to stop this kind of nonsense is to make it real to every person.  The costs to the economy and everyday Americans would be so severe that politicians wouldn’t dare to use it as a political tool.

I’m pretty sick of the politics of self destruction we’ve seen develop the last 20 years.  It’s time to stop it.