Pierce: The Trump Cabinet Introduces the Universal String Theory of Grift-Plus-Incompetence
The Trump Cabinet Introduces the Universal String Theory of Grift-Plus-Incompetence
Nothing But The Best People remains hilarious.
BY CHARLES P. PIERCE
JAN 2, 2019
It's been a while since we checked in on the various primates inhabiting the administration*'s cabinet offices. I can't think of a better day to do it than Ryan Zinke's last day as Secretary of the Interior. As is the custom down at Camp Runamuck, Zinke leaves public service under both a cloud of scandal and a hail of writs....
Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross, who has been battling Dutch Elm Disease for some time now, may be the next one to go. The president* has been telling people for months now that he's had enough of Ross, who, as an added bonus, has become enmeshed in scandal regarding his stewardship of a currency laundromat in Cyprus, and regarding his strange inability to recall exactly how much money he has and where it might be located.
However, let's also take a look at some members of the Cabinet who appear to be staying on. There is, for example, Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos, who knows less about education than your cat does about quantum mechanics, but who is making sure that America's college students are imprisoned for life with crushing debt, and that the average for-profit college can bilk away to its tiny heart's content. But the most overlooked of the assembled grifting incompetents is probably Dr. Ben Carson over at Housing and Urban Development.....
And then there is the universal string theory of grift-plus-incompetence by which Carson and Zinke somehow get tangled up together. Back in October, Carson sent out a thanks-for-your-service email to one of his subordinates who was moving on to a job at Interior. The problem was that the woman was replacing the person there who'd been tasked with investigating Zinke's various scams and profiteering. Carson's email implied—and not without a certain logic—that Zinke was bringing in an unvetted political appointee who would bury the ongoing internal investigations of his conduct, as The New Republic reported at the time....
The executive branch is a mess, and it has been ever since the clown car pulled up to the west gate of the White House. There is no actual Attorney General at the moment, only a presidential* coat-holder. The new Democratic majority in the House has a deep roster of new chairmen warming up in the bullpen. And the people who are staying are terrible, while the people who are coming in may be worse.
Nothing But The Best People is never not going to be funny.
https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a25727415/trump-cabinet-ryan-zinke-betsy-devos-ben-carson/
= new reply since forum marked as read
as steeped in pervasive, perversive scandals as he is.
I really like the way Charlie Pierce writes.. Mahalo, mcar!
even on the occasions I don't agree with him - rare but it happens. 
