Oh for Crony’s Sake

I have not been writing much about Mr. Trump in these pages of late. It seems pointless. He is an ignorant asshole who should not have been allowed to get within 1000km of the Oval Office. [I add that I have also said, often, that Joe Biden should have been removed from the Oval Office and any proximity to the Nuclear Codes by 2022 at the latest, and that Kamala Harris also did not belong anywhere near the Oval Office. Such is the stellar record of the D and R political parties of the US of A in the last decade or more.]

There is not much fruitful to write about DJT. Until and unless a significant portion of the Republicans in the US federal government grow a spine, he is going to fuck things up (mostly; I admit not everything he has done has been wrong) for his own citizens, Canada, and the rest of the world. It does not help that his opposition is a Democratic party that is as full of (a different flavour of) shit as is Himself.

I despair, so why write about it? I get angry, and that is not good for me.

However, I expect that few of my readers also read the Wall Street Journal, and it has an opinion piece in it today on Trump’s latest bit of bullshit – the Gordie Howe Bridge – that I really really want to write about. This won’t be long.

I don’t read Trump posts. I don’t read anyone’s posts, actually, but the WSJ says Trump posted what is below in regard to the Gordie Howe Bridge, which Canada paid for, btw.

I quote directly from the WSJ:

Mr. Trump complained that the bridge didn’t use enough U.S. steel and that Ontario reacted to his trade wars by boycotting American alcohol. He suggested China is conspiring to “terminate” Canadian ice hockey and “permanently eliminate” the Stanley Cup. “I will not allow this bridge to open until the United States is fully compensated,” Mr. Trump said, demanding that Canada show “the Fairness and Respect that we deserve.”

Ignorant bullshit, as per usual. No doubt the Chinese Communist Party has an entire committee devoted to undermining the Stanley Cup. Fuuuuck.

The Gordie Howe Bridge:

Here is what the WSJ writes next:

Then came news that shortly before Mr. Trump’s social post, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick had met Matthew Moroun, whose billionaire family runs the privately owned Ambassador bridge. Will it shock readers to learn Mr. Moroun isn’t a fan of the competing Gordie Howe project? The Journal reports, citing an anonymous official, that Mr. Lutnick came away skeptical of the new bridge, and he “made that clear” to Mr. Trump.

The intervention is another illustration of the Administration’s governance by cronyism. All sorts of people are trying to reach Mr. Trump with special pleading, maybe even to present him with some gold-plated award that they invented yesterday. The bet is that, in return for their investment, they might soon have a pardon, or a tariff exemption, or even the President mucking up U.S. national interests to advance their agenda.

I have been very critical of the WSJ Editorial Board in the past, because they have richly deserved it. This time they hit the goddam nail on the goddam head.

Can you spell ‘banana republic’, America?