Send Out the Clowns

     To paraphrase an old lawyer joke: What do you call three Cabinet-level officials who were shown the door in six weeks?

     Not even a good start.

     We've long gotten past the point where Trump and his Cabinet richly deserve Julius Fučík's "Entrance of the Gladiators" to be played on a constant loop at their every public appearance. Today's clusterfuck at the Oval Office was the perfect delineation of this reprise of the Barnum and Bailey circus.

     It started when HHS Secretary Robert Kennedy Jr. struggled to justify and legitimize Trump's more than fuzzy math by claiming that, yes, it is possible to save 600% on drug prices.

     "And I said, well, if the drug was $100 and it raised the price to $600, that would be a 600% rise, Well, if it drops from 600 to 100, that's a 600% savings."

      That's 83.3% in savings. But, according to Kennedy and Trump, there's more than one way of calculating savings. There's the old math, the new math and the Trump-branded math. If a consumer saves over 100% on a product, then they're entitled to a partial refund. Keep in mind: Kennedy went to Harvard and Trump went to Wharton. It's not just that they think we're idiots. They're idiots who think they're smarter than us. It's Dunning Kruger presented to us in real time.

     A government that's in control of a six trillion dollar economy can't even perform basic math that a fairly attentive elementary school student could.

     Then there's Pete Hegseth, who thought he had the power to fire a service secretary when he fired Secretary of the Navy John Phelan. Phelan was no great shakes. The only reason he got that position was because he and wife were major Republican donors to Trump's 2024 campaign. But he was what we had and Hegseth dismissed him in the middle of a naval blockade in the Strait of Hormuz.

     Phelan was told by Hegseth either resign or be fired. When he got the axe, Phelan went straight to the White House and confronted Trump about it. My guess is Trump shrugged and said it was so and refused to hire him back.

     "Thanks for your money, now get out."

     And then there's Kash Patel, the best friend that whiskey ever had. Sarah Fitzpatrick of the Atlantic published a major story about Patel's drinking on the job and bizarre behavior that turned the FBI Director into a shithouse rat on fire. Two days after the story came out, Patel launched a ridiculous quarter of a billion dollar lawsuit against the Atlantic that's doomed to crash and burn.

     This is Idiocracy if it was written by Paddy Chayefsky. Yes, Pam Bondi was an obstructionist asshole. DeRemer was a self-centered drunk. And Kristi Noem was a self-publicizing buffoon.

     But the real danger is still in the government. And it's an ongoing indictment of that government that people are not standing up to this lunacy. And the relatively sane aren't speaking out because they're afraid of getting fired because they know there are even more rabid assclowns who'd gladly take their jobs. The inmates have taken over the asylum and they outnumber the staff.