2017 Mar 4^th

Our new administration’s EPA has cut the Great Lakes Restorative Initiative (GLRI) funding by 97 percent. When you cut a program’s budget by 97 percent, you eliminate that program; the three percent that’s left in the budget gives you the money to buy “For Sale” signs for the equipment. Now we will see how Michigan’s Trump voters handle the unimpeded migration of Asian Carp into the Great Lakes and tributary rivers.  It was the EPA that once funded efforts to stop their migration. These fish are big and easy to catch; it should be a cinch to get the sports fishing people to start advertising the size of their Asian Carp catches after a fun day of Lake Michigan fishing.

It was also the EPA, now effectively strangled by Trump, that made sure ocean-going freighters didn’t dump their ballast into the lakes. Who knows what critters were in that ballast…and now who cares? It is certain that the EPA no longer does. Hey the name of the game is “get rid of regulations” and that is what President Trump promised and that is just what President Trump is doing. Enjoy!

Now to spice things up, and to draw attention away from Trump and friends’ Russian connection, we have “The Donald” claiming that President Obama had his Trump Tower digs wire tapped. As anyone familiar with how Trump’s mind works, it is no surprise that President Trump has not a shred of evidence to support this claim. We all know President Trump’s deep devotion to the truth, there are some who feel his word alone is evidence enough and no other evidence is needed.  The number of people feeling this way is diminishing rapidly.

The truth or falsity of Trump’s claim matters not a whit; what matters is now that Trump has tweeted his accusation, his accusation is all the news services want to talk about. This is exactly why Trump made the accusation in the first place. Why would he worry about one more lie? Look at the ones he’s already stacked up: His most recent is the whopper about the 6 trillion dollar cost of the recent wars when the cost was less than 2 trillion (That’s bad enough!); how about his huuuge electoral college win…which was in fact less than either of Obama’s and either of Bill Clinton’s wins.

Trump’s followers will believe whatever he tells them; his detractors will doubt the truth of anything he says; the media are delighted to report his apparent absurdities, increasing their eyeball count and the prices they can charge for their advertisements.