Dysfunction Junction

By any rational standard, yesterday's Tr*mp news conference was bizarre — but what about by an irrational standard?  Was the Huckster-in-Chief effective?  From the perspective of his base, most likely he was.

In the meanwhile, the chaos has been chaotic indeed.  The Michael Flynn debacle was predictable, given the former general's in-your-face lunacy; and the "extreme vetting" proposed for immigrants apparently was not in place for a Labor Secretary nominee outed as a wife beater by Oprah.  Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell have been wrestling with Tr*mpian pronouncements that keep sandbagging their legislative plans.

Tr*mp's admission that he didn't exactly read the Executive Order naming Steve Bannon to the NSC would have been breathtaking had it not been lost in the incompetent planning and execution of his seven-country refugee ban; and his aggrieved attacks on the court system are alienating every judge in the country, probably including Neil Goresuch.

Nevertheless, the Tr*mp "brand" remains strong among his supporters (even though they can't afford to buy Ivanka's merchandise), and I'm sure they enjoyed yesterday's attacks on the press immensely.  Okay, I know I'm supposed to show empathy for the red-hat crew.  I'm trying to empathize, really I am.  Does pity count?

#BoycottHardeesCarlsJr

What's the equivalent of putting Josef Mengele in charge of the Human Rights Commission?  Making Andrew F. Puzder Secretary of Labor comes to mind.

In nominating Puzder, CEO of the Hardee's and Carl's Jr. restaurant chains, Tr*mp is not merely poking a stick into the eye of working people — he has opted for a hot poker.  A virulent opponent of any increase in the minimum wage, Puzder welcomes increased automation because machines are "always polite, they always upsell, they never take a vacation, they never show up late, there's never a slip-and-fall or an age, sex, or race discrimination case."  AFL-CIO President Richard Trumpka characterizes Puzder as "a man whose business record is defined by fighting against working people."

I strongly encourage anybody not already avoiding Hardee's and Carl's Jr. for the sake of avoiding the vast quantities of salt, fat, and calories that characterize the stores' menus to find alternative routes to obesity.  A boycott of Puzder's grease mills can be one more signal to Tr*mp and his plutocratic entourage that Americans refuse to roll over and play dead.