“I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness,” poet Allen Ginsburg began in 1954. Shortly thereafter, the Kennedy administration employed “the best and the brightest,” as David Halberstam put it, who while they launched the U.S. to the moon, nevertheless concocted “brilliant policies that defied common sense.” Well over half a century later, amid a movement that views expertise with derision and science with scorn, common sense itself — sanity, even — has been thrown onto the ash heap of history.
You don’t have to be crazy to work for the Trump administration, but….
The acting president himself, as those retaining their wits realize, is a thick bundle of pathologies. “A very sick man,” niece Mary Trump describes him. “[H]e will do and say whatever he feels he needs to in order to benefit somehow, even if tens of thousands Americans die.”
Journalist Bob Woodward collected hours of interviews with Trump for his new book, “Rage.” They seem to confirm the assessment of Trump’s clinical psychologist niece.
“This is more deadly,” Trump said privately of the coronavirus on Feb. 7. “This is five per — you know, this is 5 percent versus 1 percent and less than 1 percent, you know. So, this is deadly stuff.” Publicly, Trump downplayed the risk. On Apr. 13, he said, “It’s so easily transmissible, you wouldn’t even believe it.” Yet even now he invites throngs to indoor rallies. He might as well serve poisoned Kool-Aid.
On a perfunctory visit to California on Monday to meet officials coping with wildfires, Trump assured them, “It’ll start getting cooler. You just watch.”
“I wish science agreed with you,” replied Wade Crowfoot, California’s secretary for natural resources.
“OK, well, I don’t think science knows, actually,” Trump smirked.
Meanwhile, Michael R. Caputo, Trump’s assistant secretary of public affairs at the Department of Health and Human Services, has drawn attention for alleging “career government scientists were engaging in ‘sedition’ in their handling of the pandemic and that left-wing hit squads were preparing for armed insurrection after the election,” the New York Times reports.
Caputo has drawn attention for editing Centers for Disease Control and Prevention weekly bulletins to align them with administration statements. (Caputo has no training in science or medicine.)
Caputo told viewers he believes his life is in danger and advised, “If you carry guns, buy ammunition, ladies and gentlemen, because it’s going to be hard to get.”
And later, “I don’t like being alone in Washington,” he said, saying “shadows on the ceiling in my apartment, there alone, shadows are so long.”
Or incompetent
The Make America Great Again Committee operated by the Republican National Committee and the Trump reelection campaign issued an online ad last week urging supporters to “support our troops.” Politico reports the image is a stock photo of Russian-made fighter jets and weapons:
“That’s definitely a MiG-29,” said Pierre Sprey, who helped design both the F-16 and A-10 planes for the U.S. Air Force. “I’m glad to see it’s supporting our troops.”
Ruslan Pukhov, director of the Centre for Analysis of Strategies and Technologies in Moscow, confirmed that the planes are Russian MiG-29s, and also said the soldier on the far right in the ad carries an AK-74 assault rifle.
The ad ran from Sept. 8 to Sept. 12. The creator of the image is based in Andorra, Politico reports. How many from the committee (or Trump himself) could say where that is?
Or corrupt
Postmaster General Louis DeJoy continues to draw fire not just for his management of the U.S. Postal Service, but for how he got the job. Experts testifying before a House Oversight subcommittee Monday presented alleged a litany of conflicts of interest and past misfeasance if not malfeasance.
DeJoy donated over $600,000 in the eight weeks after the position came open, Lisa Graves, executive director of True North Research, said in written testimony. DeJoy donated “more than $1.5 million to GOP candidates and campaigns, the bulk of which has gone to aid Trump’s 2020 election strategy,” Graves reports. “This level of partisanship,” Graves said, in addition to his disruptive management decisions, “undermines public trust in the Postal Service as an institution.”
DeJoy already faces scrutiny over allegations of using “straw donors” to evade personal contribution limits. Five people who worked for DeJoy at New Breed Logistics in High Point, North Carolina allege he pressured them to make political contributions which he “later reimbursed through bonuses.” The practice is illegal in North Carolina and has no statute of limitations.
North Carolina Attorney General Josh Stein commented:
“Any credible allegations of such actions merit investigation by the appropriate state and federal authorities,” he said. “Beyond this, it would be inappropriate for me as Attorney General to comment on any specific matter at this time.”
But Graves was not done with DeJoy:
Given the gaps in what Congress and the American people know about Mr. DeJoy’s current or recent financial holdings, it is troubling that he was sued by his brother, Dominick DeJoy, Jr., who alleged that Mr. DeJoy told him certain companies were subsidiaries of the family business they owned jointly, only to later discover Mr. DeJoy had secretly created companies with a similar name that were held only in his name and the name of another brother, Michael DeJoy, who also denied wrongdoing.
Dominick DeJoy, Jr., swore in his complaint that Mr. DeJoy cheated him out of millions of dollars of business that he helped generate through this secret arrangement, and that Mr. DeJoy was able to do so because he had trained as an accountant and knew how to structure different legal entities. Dominick DeJoy, Jr., also alleged that Mr. DeJoy forged his signature on documents submitted to U.S. banks to open various accounts.
“This suit was easily discoverable through a basic Lexis/Nexis search,” Graves observed, suggesting shoddy vetting, recommending DeJoy resign or be fired.
Or criminal
Really, there is not enough time in the day.
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