Evidence of corruption

I’ve decided I don’t want to talk about every annoying thing the nasty guy is doing. For one thing I couldn’t keep up. For another, I would rather write about other things, such as the big ideas (and opera and books and protests and...).

But before I drop my scrutiny of the transition, here are enough things to show where all this is heading. Which is not a surprise.

Box Turtle Bulletin has been listing many of the hate crimes that have occurred in the last week, a big spike in frequency since last week’s election. Some of them are listed here. The reason appears to be attackers saying our bigoted candidate won, which means half the country agrees with our bigotry, which means we’re allowed to act on it.



Steve Bannon has been nominated as Chief Strategist. We were horrified when this former editor of Breitbart News was hired onto the campaign. We’re horrified again that he’ll have a job in the White House. While at Breitbart he showed that he is extremely bigoted. Every incident his site covered was sensationalized with layers of conspiracy slathered on. He is a white nationalist and very much shows the nasty guy’s intentions.



As for the rest of the Cabinet, most career bureaucrats don’t want the job. The nasty guy was repudiated by economists, intelligence officers, and military strategists. But he’ll surround himself with smart people! Melissa McEwen of Shakesville replies: “No, he won't. And he was never going to.”



The nasty guy is not placing his investments or properties into a blind trust or doing a complete divestment. Instead, he is turning it all over to his children. That makes for a massive conflict of interest. To top that off, he wants his children to have security clearance.

Since he has refused to disclose his tax returns we may never know whether he makes a decision (such as tax policy) for the good of the country or the good of his wallet.

So the nasty guy as accumulated more evidence of corruption in six days of transition than Obama’s eight years of presidency – or in Hillary Clinton’s entire career. Amazing there was a media frenzy over Clinton’s appearances of conflict and very little over the nasty guy’s actual and glaring conflicts of interest.



Already on the agenda: dismantle net neutrality, embrace climate change, lower taxes (on the rich), phase out Medicare. That means the nasty guy and the GOP controlled Congress aren’t rolling things back to 2008, they’re rolling things back to 1968. At least.

But checks and balances! McEwen asks: from who? The GOP Congress that didn’t stand up to him during the campaign? The corporate media that provided such unbalanced coverage he won the election? The Supremes, after his nominations sail through?