The New Swamp

I�m going to do something I rarely do here on the blog. I�m going to talk about President Trump because he has been more incompetent and extreme in the past week than he has been throughout his presidency (that�s saying something). Just today, the President has created firestorms on Twitter by mocking Matt Lauer, the recently fired host of the �Today� show, and questioning when other journalists from the network will be fired for being �fake news.� A few hours later he retweeted multiple violent videos from a far right, anti-Muslim group in Britain. One video showed a person being thrown off of a roof by a crowd of Muslims. Another showed a Muslim destroying a statue of the Virgin Mary. These videos were all fake. But according to Press Secretary Sanders, �Whether it�s a real video, the threat is real,� in her defense of the President.

            In other news, North Korea tested a missile yesterday capable of hitting the entire US mainland. The ICBM was launched straight up in the air and took flight for fifty-three minutes. If this had happened two years ago people would be freaking out and everybody would be talking about it. You would turn on CNN and it would just be high-pitched screaming with the headline reading, �Bomb! Bomb! Bomb!�

            However, we live in a world where Donald Trump is President and his expertise in distracting the American people by tweeting ridiculous insults and saying horrible things has shifted attention from this new development to a series of anti-Muslim videos. It�s easy to say that he is an idiot, but it�s not true. He is crazy, but there�s a method to his madness. He is going to create enough smoke and mirrors to distract his base from his failures and the promises that he has not kept.

            Tonight�s main story is about the fiasco at the CFPB and why it�s important to pay attention to an agency that you might not have heard of until this week (like me). Last week, the director of the CFPB (US Consumer Financial Protection Bureau), Richard Cordray announced his resignation so he could run for governor of Ohio. He named Leandra English as his successor, the deputy director. A few hours later, President Trump named Mick Mulvaney, the budget director at the White House, as the new acting director. Both English and Mulvaney sent emails to the CFPB staff on Sunday claiming that they were in charge and that the other person claiming to be the director should be ignored. Mulvaney even brought doughnuts to the CFPB office on Monday morning.

            You may be wondering to yourself, �Why does this matter?�

            Here�s why: Republicans hate the bureau and have fought against it�s creation under the Obama administration in 2011. As part of his duties, Director Cordray was required to deliver semiannual reports to the House Financial Services Committee. In all of these meetings Republicans called for him to step down, accused him of committing crimes, and said that he was ruining America. On the flipside, Democrats on the committee praised his �brave� work.

            The CFPB�s job is to go after financial companies who exploit their customers. They sue companies for wrongdoing and act as a watchdog. Republicans feel that the bureau is a burden on the economy and creates unnecessary regulations. It�s independence from the government is also a cause for concern.

            Mick Mulvaney, President Trump�s pick for director of the institution is not just against the CFPB, but has promoted legislation to dismantle it. On his first day on the job, he demanded a thirty-day freeze on any new actions. It�s part of the President�s crusade against regulations and constraints for corporations.

            One of the signature promises made by candidate Trump was that he would, �drain the swamp!� He has been doing that by removing many of President Obama�s appointed officials and trying to reverse his policies. But he has also created a new swamp. This swamp is far worse than the swamp that he has tried to drain. It�s a swamp that helps corporations rather than the consumer and helps them exploit the average American. He has put a climate change denier in charge of the EPA. He has put a former Goldman Sachs partner in charge of writing legislation on tax reform. His attorney general, who is supposed to defend civil rights, has been accused of violating civil rights and has been called a racist. Now he is putting a person in charge of the CFPB who wants to bring about its demise. He is not a champion of the �little guy.� He�s a businessman with a cabinet of businessmen and businesswomen who want to help businesses, not the average American. So, there will be tax cuts for the wealthy and a decrease in regulations for big corporations. He is not an idiot. A Fortune 500 CEO has to be persuasive and cunning in order to reach that level of success. He is incompetent and childish, but he also knows what he is doing.

            If you are like me, you are angry about it, and you should be. That�s all for this week.