Kudos to BP for doggedly re-focussing us on Vermont’s timely issues. These days, it is beyond me to do the job.
I’m like the clueless cat who is so easily distracted by fast moving objects that he walks into walls. Every morning I learn about some new outrage that Donald Trump has unleashed on basic American values and I’m off in hot pursuit.
So, please bear with me while I work through my indignity, time and time again.
If you haven’t been surfing the underbelly of legitimate news sources, you may not have caught yesterday’s head-slapper du jour. From The Washington Post and The Guardian, we learn that Russians are praising Scott Pruitt for removing restrictions on ASBESTOS(!) and showing their gratitude by marking bales of the carcinogen for export with Donald Trump’s face and name!!
Better than the Onion; you simply can’t make this stuff up. In the story lie two reminders of the way in which the 45th president has so far managed to keep Republicans on his leash.
What, in any other administration, could singularly bring about ruin becomes nothing more than a forgotten anecdote when enmeshed amongst layer upon layer of daily scandal, violation and incompetence. Asbestos, the scourge of a healthy living environment throughout the late 20th century, has apparently been given one of Donald Trump’s famous pardons and is now poised for a comeback!!
It’s all but forgotten today because Donald Trump has spent the past two days ripping the pins out from under NATO and all of your traditional alliances, and shows every indication that he will kiss Putin’s pinkie when they meet privately later this week.
IMHO, it is time to break out the “T” word. Surely it is treason for any president to take advantage of his presidential privileges in order to serve the counter-strategic interests of our most powerful adversary.
Still, the GOP has made its deal with the devil and is clinging to him like stink to garbage. Most are so complicit at this point that they must inevitably be touched by the “T” word as well.
I was interested to read yesterday in the Messenger that one-term Republican Senator Carolyn Branagan, who filled Dustin Degree’s vacated seat when he was appointed to a position in the Scott administration, and who had earlier announced that she would not run again in 2018, announced that she was now considering running as an Independent.
No mention was made of her reason for dropping GOP endorsement, but Branagan is known to be a moderate and I’d like to believe that she has simply chosen the moral high ground.
Being a woman must be additional motivation to run far, far away, even from the Vermont GOP.
One has to wonder how many Republicans in regional races have made a similar decision to leave the party’s branding (and funding) behind. Just how toxic will the GOP label prove to be in the coming years?