While we watch the stonewall rise higher in the middle of Pennsylvania Avenue, let's not forget that this administration* remains chock-a-block with incompetents and profiteers, and that the entire function of the Executive Branch at the moment is to serve the donor class in all of its efforts to turn a buck. For example, science is inconvenient, so the Department of Agriculture is chasing out experts like they all have contagious diseases. From Politico:

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The Economic Research Service — a source of closely read reports on farm income and other topics that can shape federal policy, planting decisions and commodity markets — has run afoul of Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue with its findings on how farmers have been financially harmed by President Donald Trump's trade feuds, the Republican tax code rewrite and other sensitive issues, according to current and former agency employees. The reports highlight the continued decline under Trump’s watch in farm income, which has dropped about 50 percent since 2013.

Rural voters were a crucial source of support for Trump in 2016, and analysts say even a small retreat in 2020 could jeopardize the president’s standing in several battleground states. “The administration didn’t appreciate some of our findings, so this is retaliation to harm the agency and send a message,” said one current ERS employee, who asked not to be named to avoid retribution.

For example, two ERS researchers presented a paper at an economic conference in early 2018 that indicated the GOP tax overhaul would largely benefit the wealthiest farmers — generating negative press coverage that staff members said irked senior officials at USDA. Then, in August, Perdue stunned members of the roughly 300-member research service by announcing plans to bring ERS under the control of USDA’s chief economist, who reports more directly to the secretary. Equally significant, he said the USDA would move the agency out of Washington to a location closer to the U.S. heartland.

The result?

So far in fiscal 2019, non-retirement departures from the agency have more than doubled on an annualized basis compared to the previous three-year average, according to data collected by employees. Six of the economists — made up of specialists in the agricultural economy, farm taxation and food programs with more than 50 years of combined experience at ERS — left the agency at the end of April, out of frustration with the relocation process or in some cases suspicion about Perdue’s efforts to reshape USDA’s research wing, according to coworkers. More are planning to leave in the coming months.

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Farmers are getting run through the reaper by this administration*, over and over again. Now, they're going to be fed bad science by the federal government. This, likely, will make them distrust The Government, and not the people actually running it. And they'll vote the way they usually do. This kind of sabotage has been in the conservative playbook since Reagan; this administration* just finds unusually dim and clumsy people to carry it out.

Perdue speaks at a Senate hearing on April 11. Alex Wroblewski Getty Images

Meanwhile, Secretary of Education Betsy (11 Yachts) DeVos is roaming the landscape being ignorant again. In fact, she denied the existence of public money by invoking the words of Margaret Thatcher, Britain’s late prime minister and a former education minister. From the Washington Post:

In too many stories about our proposal, I see the term “public money.” And I’m reminded of something another education secretary often said. Margaret Thatcher said that government “has no source of money other than the money people earn themselves.” There is no such thing as “public money.” The Iron Lady was right! Our proposal allows people to direct money they themselves have earned. They will voluntarily contribute to nonprofit organizations that provide scholarships directly to students. It’s a much more effective and efficient way of getting resources to students who need them the most.

If there were one bit of tiresome Anglophilia of which I would like to rid American conservatism, it's the worship of Margaret Thatcher. That aside, having a Secretary of Education who either doesn't know, or doesn't care, what "public money" means in the context of her job is a brand-new kind of carnival act. Of course, she doesn't have any more business being Secretary of Education than she does flying a spacecraft, as was demonstrated later in her remarks.

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Asked by New York Times reporter Erica L. Green, who led a discussion with DeVos, what she thought of the teacher strikes that have rocked states for more than a year, DeVos said the teachers were not trying to solve their problems in an adult manner. She said:

"I think great teachers need to be well paid. . . . I will just say that I think it’s important that adults have adult disagreements on adult time and they not ultimately hurt kids in the process, and I think too often they are doing so by walking out of classrooms and having their arguments in the way that they are."

"Adult time"? Is she 12?

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