Several readers have sent me an infographic from The American Prospect, titled “Mapping Corruption.” It’s stunning–not because we didn’t know, or at least assume, what has been going on, but because being faced with a comprehensive overview is just overwhelming.
The introductory text invites exploration of the details–agency by agency.
The Trump administration has brought its brand of corruption and self-dealing to every agency in the federal government, and it’s hard for anyone to keep on top of it all. We’ve mapped it out for you. Click on any agency building below, and unlock an extensive dossier of the activities happening inside.
For each agency, there is a list, detailing the corrupt activities undertaken by that agency by Trump’s administration, and even more telling, a description of the particular “best” person Trump has placed in charge of that part of our government.
We have heard a fair amount about several of them–Betsy DeVos and her campaign to destroy public education, Bill Barr who has shamed the Department of Justice–but there are several lesser-known figures who are equally slimy. Take Sonny Perdue, at the Department of Agriculture–the first agency in the alphabetical list.
As governor of Georgia, after issuing an order prohibiting gifts worth more than $25 to state employees, Perdue accepted sports tickets, airplane flights, and other gratuities valued at over $25,000.
He signed a tax bill with a last-minute tweak that saved him $100,000 on an already-completed land sale. One of the legislators backing that bill had worked part time for Perdue on his personal legal business.
As a founder or part-owner of more than a dozen agribusiness companies, Perdue collected $278,000 in federal farm subsidies between 1996 and 2004.
In his campaigns for political office, Perdue received large contributions from the likes of Monsanto and Coca-Cola.
In a 2014 article, Perdue dismissed efforts by “some on the left or in the mainstream media” to connect extreme weather events to climate change. “Liberals,” he wrote, “have lost all credibility when it comes to climate science because their arguments have become so ridiculous and so obviously disconnected from reality.”
Under “Quick and Dirty”–the abbreviated portion of the agriculture section–we see that Perdue appointed former agribusiness executives and lobbyists, and what the report says is an “unusual number” of Trump campaign workers without obvious qualifications, to the Department’s management. Those officials have authorized sharply higher line speeds for slaughterhouses; they’ve cut back on USDA meat-safety inspections; and they’ve allowed some large operations do handle their own inspections–with low-wage workers.
The department has also proposed denying food stamps to three million people who currently rely on them, and has rolled back a number of environmental, health and safety regulations.
The Trump administration may oppose welfare for those lazy bums on food stamps, but in the longer, more detailed portion of the report, we learn about the handout recipients of whom they approve:
Perdue’s Agriculture Department has distributed more than $28 billion in emergency relief to farmers injured by the administration’s trade war with China. This program has been massively tilted toward multinational agribusiness companies. More than $62 million, for example, has gone to the world’s largest meat processor, JBS, owned by a pair of billionaire brothers who have served prison time for bribing hundreds of government officials in their native country of Brazil.
A couple of other items from the list:
Perdue undid a set of newly adopted rules meant to keep agribusiness giants from engaging in price-fixing and other forms of collusion at the expense of farmers or consumers. He effectively eliminated the unit (known as GIPSA) responsible for enforcing the anti-fraud regulations that remained, making it part of an office dedicated to marketing and public relations.
The Agriculture Department went to bat for Dow Chemical in pressing China to accept its genetically modified, herbicide-resistant corn seeds. With that victory secured, Dow spun off its agriculture business into a new subsidiary, Corteva, which is now the top corn seed producer in the Asia-Pacific region.
The department reinterpreted the Clean Water Act to let farmers use previously forbidden chemical pesticides and fertilizers at the risk of contaminating local waterways.
The infographic has similar lists for every agency of the federal government. Click through and see for yourselves. And weep….
You have to wonder, is it just grift? It seems like the entire government is attempting to poison the population of this country! The FDA allowing pesticides and fertilizers which are known carcinogens, the CDC not enforcing recommendations for employer responsibility and employee safety concerning covid-19, the president pushing drugs that can cause death and suppressing studies that show it.
Is it an attempt to cull the herd? I have my opinions on it, as popular or as unpopular as they might be, LOL!
Why burn down your own house? Why put your neighbors in danger? Why deny healthcare? Why print money with no end in sight? Why deny observable fact?
Complete Insanity is running rampant, and every single day this group of miscreants have their axes working full-time 24/7. Every single day!
And, I really believe that the reason behind opening everything back up, they want to have a pandemic resurgence in the fall. This will guarantee those miscreants to stay in their place, with their axes, destroying everything! The question is why? Once it’s burning down, there’s no place they can hide either! Unreasonableness and insanity to put it mildly!
The Commander-in-Chief is Commander of the Swamp. And it’s getting deeper, and deeper, and deeper.
john,
“And, I really believe that the reason behind opening everything back up, they want to have a pandemic resurgence in the fall.”
As I overheard an acquaintance of mine speaking the other day, it could be EUTHANASIA on a grander scale than just the undisclosed crimes that have been perpetrated against the elder class.
I’m afraid you’re going to be right again. At least they haven’t opened- up concentration camps as of this date, as far as I know. Maybe some us with inside knowledge will have a chance to make a “buck or two.”
Copied and pasted from “Mapping Corruption”:
“Democrats must summon the courage, most importantly, to make the leap from denouncing Trump’s over-the-top personal corruption to acknowledging and challenging the more generic and abiding money corruption that, with or without Trump, gives billionaires and rapacious corporations and financial interests way too much clout, at incalculable cost to the rest of us and the idea of democracy.
As messy as things look right now, a referendum on corruption and clean government is the kind of election that gives the country, as well as the Democratic ticket, the best shot at a decisive victory. “Corruption is not a peripheral concern,” says Jamie Raskin, the Maryland congressman and constitutional law scholar. “It’s the very heart of what ails us … We have to elevate the anti-corruption agenda to the top of our political program.”
Isn’t it the Republicans who are running this country under Trump, McConnell and Barr the ones who need, in addition to publicly confronting and working to stop Trump, to be “acknowledging and challenging the more generic and abiding money corruption”? But; they are all part of the corruption as long as the Republican Senators maintain McConnell’s position of power which began with his stopping President Obama’s progress. He is actually running this country by continuing to ignore his Oath of Office to uphold the Constitution and instead is upholding Trump’s blatant corruption and now Trump’s killing off of Americans at a greater rate than wars we have known. It is McConnell who is denying Democratic states needed testing and medical supplies to to save AMERICAN lives which includes Republican voters. How many deaths in Republican states will it take from the resurgence of Covid-19 Pandemic due to early reopening at Trump’s urging to wake them up? Or must their own families become victims, or themselves. It will be interesting to watch PM Boris Johnson’s return to Parliament after suffering the virus himself, to see if he now understands that his late action has caused the UK’s coronavirus numbers to rise at an alarming rate. He “followed Trump’s suit”; hell, they even look alike, both major global leaders are heading countries with record making numbers in this Pandemic.
Those who continue bad-mouthing Democrats are causing doubt in the minds of those who do not understand what is going on within this Trump administration; they do not understand civics in general. My nephew made an eye-opening statement to me which fits too many voters; he said Trump deserves our respect because HE IS PRESIDENT. That is the essence of “Visualizing Trump Country” in a nutshell and; as Sheila has so often stated, it is due to the lack of basic knowledge of civics. The vast majority of voters are totally unaware of magazines such as “The American Prospect” and will never know of the vast Trump corruption within the government or throughout this country.
I forgot to mention an important fact about my nephew; he is totally against Trump and everything he stands for. Did not vote for him in 2016 and will not vote for him this year, will not vote for any Republican; but his view of the presidency is part and parcel of many American voters and Trump’s believe that he is all-powerful as president.
I just received my $1200. Maybe, I should now vote for Trump and stay on his good side as there won’t be any medicare or social security in the near future, after this multi-trillion bailout.
‘To the victor belongs the spoils’ still applies.
After 8 years of the most honest and upright administration since the beginning of the 20th century ended on Jan. 20, 2017, the third partyists and those honest Republicans that are still left seemed to have forgotten that any 2 branches of the 4 that make up the Federal government can cash in as they wish.
I have a large contingency of conservative and self-proclaimed anti-corruption in government hawks. For the past several years, they’ve been salivating over the FBI’s investigation and indictments of local democrats over kickbacks and various other insider transactions.
They support Trump because he’s a “successful businessman” who doesn’t need to steal from the government. “He’s going to Washington to clean house and MAGA.”
I’ve posted the American Prospect article numerous times, asking for their comment. I even told friends that I voted for local republicans and will continue to do so until the democratic party cleans house. I asked them if they will use the same moral compass to vote against the corruption within the Trump administration.
#Crickets
Not a single one commented on the article. Therefore, I assume they are cowards and hypocrites and will support Trump no matter what he does.
And, I also realize that Trump knows this very fact and has been conning these folks from Day 1. He is a bumbling idiot, but he’s smart enough to run a con over 40% of Americans.
Not to offend the Christians on board, but once the Theocrats jumped on board the GOP Trump train, it’s not overly surprising that hypocrisy and cowardice followed close behind.
When our religious leaders are quiet about the overt corruption in our country, or at least when they only hold sling their morality against one political party and not the other, we’ve lost our way. And, I don’t think one election will rid ourselves of the problems which cause this sickness.
One other note since Sheila mentioned the slaughterhouses and meatpacking plants. I’ve been posting many articles about them closing all across the country because the virus infects their workers (lowly paid immigrants).
They just declared a county emergency in Logansport due to the infections within the Tyson plant, and I wouldn’t be surprised if similar crises aren’t proclaimed across the country.
One of the meatpacking companies strictly uses Filipino labor bringing Filipinos into the country to work in their plants because they cannot complain about working conditions to local, state, or federal labor officials. If they do, they get sent packing to the Philippines.
Todd,
“When our religious leaders are quiet about the overt corruption in our country, or at least when they only hold sling their morality against one political party and not the other, we’ve lost our way.”
Let’s not forget that 60% of the churches in Nazi Germany VOTED to be Nazified.
You all know I love the late H.L. Mencken, so today, I’ll just leave you with this quote from him:
“No one in this world, so far as I know—and I have searched the records for years, and employed agents to help me—has ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the great masses of the plain people. Nor has anyone ever lost public office thereby. The mistake that is made always runs the other way. Because the plain people are able to speak and understand, and even, in many cases, to read and write, it is assumed that they have ideas in their heads, and an appetite for more. This assumption is a folly.”
Todd,
Yesterday the Orange Menace ordered Meat packers to remain open under the War Production Act.
You gotta laugh! You can’t cry all the time.
Just saw that Peggy…what could possibly go wrong?
Meanwhile, the GOP chants, “Send the immigrants home” and build expensive symbolic walls to keep them out. I wonder how many local American workers will do the patriotic thing and take a job in those infected meatpacking plants?
Profit over people.
“And, I also realize that Trump knows this very fact and has been conning these folks from Day 1. He is a bumbling idiot, but he’s smart enough to run a con over 40% of Americans.”
This snippet from Todd explains much. It suggests that the 40% of the Trump cultists are less than a bumbling idiot. That doesn’t take intelligence, it’s just dumb luck…emphasis on dumb. No, Trump isn’t smart in any way that relates to governance. He is just a thug in a silk suit. He is a crook who got lucky. Only the corrupt, the wicked, the self-absorbed will cling to him. He is them and they are him.
Marv, and Todd,
Did you see the Louisiana pastor that asked all of his congregants to send him their stimulus checks? He’s the same guy that’s ignored the law concerning gatherings of over 10 people.
He claims there’s a huge shortfall for the missionary work, LOL, because nobody has been contributing their tithes!
No shame, not one iota! The grifters climbing out from under every Rock on this planet.
And, you are absolutely right Marv, it is a genocide! If they can get rid of a large portion of the elderly and or disabled in this country, they would be doing with the insurance companies a huge favor! then, they could say they can cut social security and Medicare because so many people have died off.
This is exactly what they did in Nazi Germany, not using the virus, but poison and lead injections so to speak. They took the mentally feel, and disabled, can dogs eat they considered mixed breeds, and filled every ditch they could dig with their bodies. Many of them never even made it to concentration camps, because of their frailty, they were just driven out, shot and dumped. All because of their supposed drag on the German economy!
When you see all of those wooden boxes being buried by bulldozers in New York, or the refrigerated trucks being filled up in Chicago, one has to wonder why the federal government fiddled around like Nero when President Nero was getting his daily national security briefs warning about what was coming in January!
I just received my monthly report from the Arlington Academy of Hope. I contribute to that academy as they are involved with educating the children of Uganda. Their third-world government have clamped down on the pandemic the way Obama’s teams recommended…and that the Trump fiasco ignored and disbanded. Guess what? NO deaths and only a couple hundred COVID-19 cases.
Of course, Uganda dealt with Ebola, so…. Maybe it is our current administration that has us hurtling toward third-world status. My book of years past, “Killing the Dream: America’s Flirtation With Third World Status” is becoming increasingly prescient.
john, Todd, Vernon,
All we can do now is try to establish some type of defense, something akin, perhaps a little larger at the start, than the barricade constructed in the musical: “Les Misrables.” I’m not kidding. You have to start somewhere.
OK Boomer Kvetchers….double dare time. You have good brains and vivid imaginations…a challenge. It is January , 2021 and Biden has been elected and the DEMs have barely taken back the Senate (and a bonus, Amy took out Mitch!)…
So…there is a once in a life chance after a pandemic, economic collapse and 4 years of Trump to propose something(s) “big and structural” that would likely be passed by Congress and heartily accepted by the American people. And no – it can’t be Medicare for All or Big Green Deal.
I’ll start…put “work to be done” on one side and “people needing work” on the other and match them up with a bonus of improving civility and healing our divides. For example – national parks desperately need maintenance and young people without degrees and laid off workers are at the ready…or a national service initiative getting young folks of all stripes out working together….
Or an initiative for lobbying reform…
Or….
Vernon,
I purchased the last copy of your book from Amazon: “Killing the Dream: America’s Flirtation with Third World Status” a few minutes ago, although it’s still available on Kindle. From a glance at the Table of Contents, I agree with you that it is “prescient.”
The article focuses on corruption and ethics issues, of course. However, that leaves out a large swath of other horrible things the various departments are doing. As an example, consider Betsy Devos’s trampling of transgender students’ rights.
See https://www.aclu.org/blog/lgbt-rights/lgbt-youth/betsy-devos-denies-trans-students-basic-rights
Has Trump succeeded in subverting the 25th Amendment by appointing “acting” Secretaries in charge of Cabinet posts?
It’s a legal question.
I ask, because in recent days I have read articles alleging that
… since the Constitution recognizes only CONFIRMED CABINET HEADS as “principle officers of the executive department”
… and having so many unconfirmed (acting) Cabinet heads
… said absence of confirmed cabinet heads makes it impossible for a majority (9) of Cabinet level offices (16) to submit to the Senate a legal recommendation that the President is unable to perform his duties.
I read the 25th Amendment differently. My interpretation is that the “majority” is to be derived from the number of confirmed officers rather than the number of “offices”. Therefore, if there are only four confirmed officers plus the Vice President, it would require only three of them to constitute a majority insofar as activating the 25th Amendment, rather than nine, which normally constitutes the majority of the sixteen official “principle offices of the executive department.
i sent the above article to all three of NoDaks U.S. reps,if only their staff should read them, i hope they look upon these reps, as how their future will exist for now on..it was a also sent to my entire mailing list..
best wishes,washdapaws..
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, during yesterday’s press conference, reminded me of FDR’s fireside chats. No toxic swagger, just quiet confidence and competence.
The Trumpet must have had some familiarity with this cast of Corporate Hoods he hired. Certainly Pastor Pence would have known of a few good hoods to hire. Pastor Pence in his years in government would have known more than a few good hoods to hire along with bible thumper’s. Sometimes you might get a bonus pick one that was a corporate hood plus a bible thumper like Betsy DeVos.
As I have written here along with others the hardcore trumpet’s are not going to be swayed at all. No matter how much bumbling, fumbling, corruption and lies are told the Trumpter’s stand alongside The Trumpet. The number often thrown out is 35-40% of the American people are Trumpet’s.
The Trumpet could always point to in the past to low employment, and a rising stock market as proof of his genius and the success of “Trickle Down”. Now the economy has been torn shreds. We see the effects of our 30 years de-industrialization, we have to import PPE.
I suspect for most American voters the corruption of the The Trumpet and his Hoods and Stooges will not be well known. What is clear beyond a reasonable doubt (Trumpeter’s excluded) is how incompetent The Trumpet and Pastor Pence have been during Corona.
Maybe we shouldn’t be so critical of Trump and Pence. From a Nazi standpoint, they’re not doing all that bad, though they don’t stack up anywhere close to the likes of Adolph Hitler and Hermann Goring. Let’s try to be more rational.
Having lived in Dallas for about 25 years, I’ve always been concerned for a long, long, time about the RAPTURE, and if it ever came true that it wouldn’t take place in the Middle East, but in the U.S.
I believe it is now happening, and I was right as the APOCALYPSE is happening right here, in the presence of our wannabe savior, President Death.
I don’t know if we can wake-up before it’s too late. I doubt it.
Recently we had demonstrations in the USA against the quarantine or stay at home precautions.
One state was Michigan. From the Guardian:
Thousands of Americans backed by right wing donors gear up for protests.
Conservative activists to demand governors lift stay-home orders – and the movement has been driven by wealthy conservative groups. The Michigan Freedom Fund, which said it was a co-host of the rally, has received more than $500,000 from the DeVos family, regular donors to right wing groups.
As usual you can always find people willingly able to be duped by some simplistic rhetoric and they showed up in force in their camouflage outfits, firearms, MAGA hats some with faces twisted in anger. Of course these yahoos do not know who is pulling their strings like puppets.
An excellent article from The Intercept places these demonstrations in perspective.
The Corporate Right Is Giving Us Two Choices: Go Back to Work, or Starve.
The GOP and its core constituents — conservative corporations — now face two dangers, one in the short term and one in the longer term. They’re currently using their standard playbook to smother both. Whether they succeed will determine our lives for decades.
The short-term danger is that Americans will resist the push from business to get us back on the job and making money for them. Their plan is simple: Starve us out. They know we can’t survive indefinitely without a continuing government bailout focused on regular people’s needs. So they’re going to stop that bailout from happening.
The longer-term danger they face is that we’ll make the government work for us in the short term — and then we will realize we could make it work for us all the time by removing the threat of starvation from their arsenal. This would totally change the balance of power in society.
To understand the depths of this depravity, watch this local news helicopter footage of hundreds of people in Rockville, Maryland — just outside of Washington, D.C. — close together in line for free food being given out by a Megamart Supermarket. The station’s correspondent said that “in this whole plan, of what we do for people during this pandemic … these are perhaps people who are not seen.”
But this is wrong. America’s corporate right absolutely sees these people. Like any competent group of thieves robbing a bank, they see the vulnerable as hostages.
https://theintercept.com/2020/04/29/coronavirus-government-right-bailout/
The description of the American Workers being held hostage by corporate America and their stooges in government is very apt. If it is one thing we are learning about is this 50 state patchwork of the so called “Safety Net” it is not working for the American Worker. There are hoops and bars to jump through and over to access unemployment, or any other kind of government assistance.
Simply stated the “Safety Net” has big holes that we Proles fall through. The holes are just the right size to catch the big corporations from falling through.
Biden should focus on IMHO on this lack of a Safety Net for the Proles. Will he though????
Perdue and DeVos are birds of afeather, but with different motives. Perdue is in it for the
money and DeVos (daughter of a multi-millionaire and wife of a billionaire), is in it for some misguided notion that she can privatize public education. In varying degrees both are mirrors of their appointer, the Godfather, one Trump, who apparently is “in it” to destroy Western civilization along with our democracy en route. Our task upon Biden’s election is to hold not only Trump but every one of his appointees who aided him responsible in such destruction not as a matter of revenge but rather as a warning to future wannabe dictators that we will not tolerate such fascist tactics under the pretense of policy choice.
We are racing chaos, the virus and destruction by corruption and incompetence to the finish line of November than finally Jan 20, 2121.
What will be left by then?
Monotonous Languor – I appreciate your posts and feel you are always right on target…though I’m totally disillusioned and depressed after reading them.
We’re being attacked on MULTIPLE FRONTS with no overall leadership. A perfect recipe for a political/military disaster.
ML,
When people get hungry enough, they will rebel…openly. See, Russia, circa 1914.
Lester,
The long-term solutions are in my books. I mentioned our domestic Marshall Plan on this blog. In addition to putting the money into the infrastructure as mentioned in your CCC-type suggestion, we really need to reestablish our state department, our security and intelligence apparatus and those parts of our oversight that have been destroyed by Wm. Barr. The CDC and Depts. of Interior have been gutted too, so that needs fixing.
Once Betsy DeVos has been locked into her yacht’s stateroom in permanent exile, we can finally revamp the Dept. of Education and get the money and technical resources to the points where they matter most: teachers’ classrooms. Our inner cities are in DESPERATE need for reconstruction, small business investment and making the schools safe for both teachers and students.
So, I’m available for hire to address any of these things. I’ll keep my phone’s battery charged
Okay, so I’m going to try this again, because I just read for the first time my second comment, LOL and this dragon auto correct or whatever is really killing me.
Lester,
The Republicans have already mapped out how the POTUS can operate! So, with that past practice in place, that means that Joe Biden could basically do what he pleases! He could write executive orders for Medicare for all, he could write executive orders to spend trillions of dollars on infrastructure, he could write executive orders for immigration, he could write executive orders for the environment, climate change, the Paris Accord, trade agreements, and whatever else!
And, there wouldn’t be a thing anyone could do about it! Because the so-called attorney general which would be gone also, already put his past practice to work claiming that the president had these powers!
How could the conservative party, LOL? Claim to be conservative anymore?! If the if the presidential office is supposed to be the absolute authority on all things in government, I would rather have someone in there that’s compassionate and has concern for his fellow man, than someone who is a grifting conniver that is looking to demolish every sort of safety-net we have!
And getting back to my second comment, they did take the mentally ill, the physically disabled, the elderly non-aryans, and filled every ditch they could dig in Germany and surrounding countries with their bodies!
One more thing, I believe that if the above happens, they’re going to have to eliminate the religious groups from governmental politics. There is too much opportunity to be involved in the grifting along with the crooked politicians.
Every single person in this country should be able to worship as they see fit, that is allowed in the Constitution! but, it is not allowed to force your beliefs on people who have a different belief system. Even scripture states to give Caesars things to Caesar! If you read Romans the 13th chapter, it explains it in detail, and today’s churches do not abide by the blueprint set out in their holiest of books.
Why else do Catholics, Protestants, Baptists, and almost every other religion, slaughter each other and fellow congregants, during war! during the second world war, and the first world war for that matter, there were Catholics killing Catholics and Protestants killing Protestants and Baptists killing Baptists and on and on and on. They have no moral High ground, they are just as dirty and crooked as the politicians that they worship!
The Russian Orthodox Church just completed a huge mural in one of their cathedrals prominently displaying Joseph Stalin and Vladimir Putin, along with praise for the military for taking Crimea! Now if that’s not hypocritical, I have no idea what that word means then.
Marv,
I started reading my “Killing the Dream:….” book again. OMG. I wrote it in 2011. Everything I predicted is coming true. Too bad no publisher would even read the manuscript let alone publish it. Such is the institutionalized ignorance of the publishing industry. No platform = no interest.
OK, Lester, good challenge. My problem would be to keep the list under 10,000.
Vernon is off to a good start. Domestic Marshal plan and then, wash our hands and disinfect the contaminated surfaces (and deeper). I do think we will need a good house cleaning in every agency and a restoration, or initiation, of fact based policies.
Vernon – my phone is charged and I am waiting to join you in helping Biden fix things.
Beyond that, however, I think we need two major changes.
First, Biden will be tempted by the post-Nixon, let’s put the past behind us quickly argument. Obama used it in ignoring all wrong doing by Wall Street execs, and in his reversing the Nuremburg principle that “just following orders” always absolves one of wrong-doing in instances of US sanctioned torture. We need to prosecute any and all Trumpian wrong doers to the extent that the law allows. I wish there were laws allowing us to send all of them to jail. I could be just like Illinois with their history of sending former governors to Terra Haute.
The second point will sound like a Chinese Cultural Revolution idea, and maybe it is – Public Shaming. President Biden, or Vice President Harris (or whoever), should have brief news conferences, perhaps weekly, where the details of this corruption and anti-human behavior is clearly spoken. We will never get these wrong doers to confess, but we can plaster their sinful behavior all over the place with the borrowed phrase, “Never again” — OK that last one might upset some people, we may need a new tagline with a related phrase.
Beyond that, we can also begin to explore this area America seems so incapable of doing, in either the public or the private sector – long-term planning for the future.
John Song,Joe Biden could basically do what he pleases! He could write executive orders for Medicare for all, he could write executive orders to spend trillions of dollars on infrastructure, he could write executive orders for immigration, he could write executive orders for the environment, climate change, the Paris Accord, trade agreements, and whatever else!”
Cynicism dies hard. I believe Joe Biden would use the opportunity to bring in knowledgeable, thoughtful and caring cabinet members and other senior officials to simultaneously mop up the mess and begin to fix long-time inequities and unfairness that the public yearns for. The pandemic and recession gives us an “excuse” for big change. All that is needed is the will and courage of servant leaders.
Vernon,
Update it and try again with the publishers. We’re going to have to start over much like Europe after W.W. II. A New Marshall Plan sounds just like the right medicine for a starter.