Our Well-Oiled Machine of Governance
Competence, ethics, and good vibes all around!
A few headlines:
Via Axios: House barrels toward rare double expulsion votes.
Reps. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick (D-Fla.) and Cory Mills (R-Fla.) are next in line this week for the House’s wave of expulsion votes.
[…]
Cherfilus-McCormick was found guilty by the Ethics Committee on a litany of charges, most notably for funneling $5 million in COVID relief funds to her congressional campaign. She has denied wrongdoing.
[…]
Mills faces allegations including financial misconduct, campaign finance violations and sexual misconduct, all of which he denies.
I am not familiar with Mills’ situation, but based on my passing knowledge of the Cherfilus-McCormick case, she needs to go.
On the one hand, the House acting to expel corrupt members is actually a sign of unusual functionality. On the other hand, just last week, two members (Swalwell and Gonzalez) had to resign over allegations of sexual misconduct. Losing four members in two weeks because people can’t behave may be the right outcome, but it does add to the feeling that DC is a mess.
And then we have, via Politico, Chavez-DeRemer stepping down as Labor secretary.
Chavez-DeRemer has been under scrutiny since January, when DOL Inspector General Anthony D’Esposito opened an investigation into allegations that she was involved in an extramarital affair with a member of her security detail, that she drank on the job and that top aides concocted official events to facilitate her personal travel plans.
We can just put her in the pile of “the best people,” I guess.
In terms of Trump nominees, she was one of the more standard types, insofar as she was a member of Congress appointed to the position, although her actual background in labor was vague. But I will readily allow that the Labor Secretary is one of those positions that often does not attract a nominee steeped in that policy area.
Still, when noted alongside the recent story about Kash Patel, as well as some of the rumored behavior about Kristi Noem, this adds to the general impression that the Trump cabinet is just there to enjoy power and party. Forget about fighting for the party, worry about your right to party, I guess.
Chavez-DeRemer has been under scrutiny since January, when DOL Inspector General Anthony D’Esposito opened an investigation into allegations that she was involved in an extramarital affair with a member of her security detail, that she drank on the job and that top aides concocted official events to facilitate her personal travel plans.
And just to add to the mix, the WSJ reports: Labor Secretary’s Husband Is Under Investigation for Sexual Assault of an Agency Staffer.
I will throw this in from Doomsday Scenario: Five Trump Scandals You’ve Probably Missed. Spoiler: one of them is about Chavez-DeRemer and her husband, so only four to add to this list! There is another sex scandal in there, however!
Meanwhile, all of this seems at least partially relevant to the latest from G. Elliot Morris: Trump approval falls to 35% as rating on handling prices hits a record -46.
Let’s note the following additional numbers:
- “Just 26% of Americans approve of the way he is handling prices, while 72% disapprove. More than half of all respondents (56%) strongly disapprove.”
- “The share of Americans who say “things are going poorly and major, disruptive changes are needed” reached 55% in April, a new high in our polling. Just 8% say things are going well. Another 34% say things could be going better.”
Impressive, shall we say.
I think $1 billion worth of petroleum company money qualifies as “well-oiled.”
He broke the 27% Crazification Factor!
In somewhat related news The Guardian reports, “Tucker Carlson says he regrets backing Donald Trump and is ‘tormented’”. If there’s any truth to Carlson feeling “tormented” I expect it’s when he looks at his audience numbers. Whatcha gonna do when you’ve sold your soul to MAGA and MAGA is fading away?
@gVOR10:
With regard to Carlson, we should expect nothing less than seppuku for repentance.
He did fall to around that level according to some polls at certain points during his first term. But he maintained okay to positive ratings on the economy the entire time, even during Covid. I’m convinced it’s a big part of why he was able to make a comeback in 2024–many voters who disliked Trump for other reasons came to believe that at least he handled the economy well, and that mattered more to them after living under four years of Biden with stubbornly high costs for food, gas, and housing. The extent to which this was the result of the world emerging from the pandemic (as well as other unrelated reasons such as bird flu’s impact on the price of eggs) was criminally underreported, so they simply blamed it on the person who happened to occupy the Oval Office when this problem first appeared.
What’s most notable about Trump’s current polling isn’t his overall low approval (though that is important, of course), it’s that his numbers on the economy have absolutely collapsed. That is something we never saw during his first term. It’s a situation he’s never had to deal with before, and his old tricks simply don’t work–he can’t convince Americans that the prices at the pump or the grocery are fake news, yet that hasn’t stopped him from repeatedly trying because he’s pathologically incapable of dealing with bad news any other way, it’s what he’s done his entire life.
I’m shocked, continually, by the number of Americans who approve of abject incompetence.
If the sense of entitlement is broken and replaced with a dedication to duty, then this is a very good thing. We may actually get some Congresscritters that are not sociopaths.