Freak Out Friday – June 2, 2017

Once again I was going to take the week off because of, y’know, emotional stuff. But I can’t, because as much as we have been saying that Trump’s election means the end of the world, this week he genuinely took a major step toward, well, ending the world.

1). We’ll always not have Paris. So far, Trump has been batting zero in his array of loopy campaign promises. The Muslim ban has failed at every judicial level, the Mexican wall construction is blocked, Hillary Clinton will not be going to jail in our lifetimes. But he has now managed to carry through on the single most dangerous promise he made: to pull out of the Paris climate agreement, the keystone to Obama’s progress toward endeavoring to save the planet. Now technically the pullout can’t occur for several years yet. In point of fact, we won’t actually withdraw until the day after Election Day in 2020, which means that if the right person (i.e., a sane person) manages to take back the office, this insane decision can be minimized. Trump, meanwhile, in his classic stupidity, declared that he was elected to represent Pittsburgh, not Paris. Naturally he chose Pittsburgh because he liked the alliteration. But the facts of the world once again didn’t support him, because Pittsburgh actually voted 60-40 for Hillary. So since Hillary voters, being presumably sane, don’t believe for a second that global warming is a Chinese fabrication, then by his own words, Trump should immediately reverse his position to honor the voters’ wishes. Which naturally he won’t do, because for Trump, it’s not about doing what the voters want, or what the law requires, or what’s good for the planet. It’s all about satisfying his demented supporters and his ego, and not in that order.

So where the hell is Senate oversight and their endeavors to keep an eye on his twisted priorities? Funny you should ask.

2). You can’t touch this. The White House is completely stonewalling any Democratic attempts at oversight. Democratic requests for material required for oversight are being turned down flat as the Trumpies institute a brand spanking new rule: all oversight requests must come from committee chairmen, all of whom are naturally GOP and aren’t asking. This is making the Dems completely nuts. Granted, the Obama White House could be slow when it was the GOP endlessly asking for oversight materials, but there was never an issuance of a flat stonewalling policy aimed at the opposition party. So apparently Trump cannot build his Mexican wall, but that is not deterring him from throwing up walls internally in yet another attempt to bring the government to a crashing halt, all to his benefit.

Did he do anything right?. Well, his poll numbers went up five percent because naturally his base approved of his foreign trip, despite the array of goofs, blunders and obnoxious behavior that has served to crumble America’s dominance as a world leader. So that’s good…I guess.

PAD

Updated at 11:48–The mayors of 61 cities and governors of three states–New York, California and Washington–have stated they will ignore Trump and continue to enforce the agreements in the Paris Climate accords. And one of the Mayors? The Mayor of Pittsburgh.