Why Would Any Honest, Competent Person Work For This Guy?

In Trump’s White House, the Best People Don’t Last While the Worst Circle the Wagons

By David Cay Johnston, DCReport Editor-in-Chief
Donald Trump has a terrible time getting good people to work for him.

Just look at who is, and is not, giving testimony in his impeachment hearings, which increasingly suggests a contest between Super Bowl champions and backyard flag football players, most of whom ran away when they saw who was across the scrimmage line.

The impeachment inquiry, and Trump’s entire presidency, is a complete contradiction to his frequent campaign promise that as president he would “surround myself with only the best and most serious people.”

As time passes, Trump’s ability to attract the best and the brightest diminishes. For many jobs, he can’t get anyone to join his team.

Blockchain has a far-right past.

Does it have a future in Rhode Island?

By Will Weatherly in Rhode Island’s Future

Here is a list of some of the figures who have shown interest in bitcoin cryptocurrency and its associated “blockchain” technology: white nationalist Richard Spencer, who called bitcoin “the currency of the alt right.” 

Former Trump chief strategist Steve Bannon, who has had private meetings with cryptocurrency investors. Peter Thiel, the PayPal founder and libertarian venture capitalist who quietly advised the Trump administration for months. 

And in Germany, the rising far-right party Alternative für Deutschland (AfD), who had its co-leader speak at a cyptocurrency conference as a ““economist and bitcoin entrepreneur.”

And now? Governor Gina Raimondo and Speaker of the House Nicholas Mattiello, who both spoke at the first Rhode Island Blockchain Summit at the Omni Hotel in Providence on Thursday, an event the former Trump press secretary (of 10 days) Anthony Scaramucci was rumored to attend.

It would be a grave mistake to overgeneralize, or to argue that sharing a curiosity for cryptocurrency at all entails a substantial agreement between Rhode Island leaders and these crypto-stakeholders’ far-right stances. There are now 1,952 cryptocurrencies in existence, making the technology a particularly wide tent. 

Republican candidate for governor and former state senator Giovanni Feroce has made blockchain a pillar of his campaign, calling for voters to make him the “blockchain governor” and proposing the technology be incorporated “directly into the government’s own administrative infrastructure.” 

Look who won "The Apprentice"

Week 28 in review

Yep

Just the best

It's all very normal

For more cartoons by Tom Tomorrow, CLICK HERE.

Trump White House turns into a sewer

Scaramucci’s New Yorker Interview Is More Than Just Gross, It May Be A Felony

By Wendy Gittleson

Donald Trump’s pick for Communications Director took an already vulgar administration down another notch or 3,000 in an interview with the New Yorker. 

It sounded more like the ramblings of a low-level mob hit-man than of a Harvard Law grad who’s been tapped to manage the message of the supposed leader of the free world. Here are a few snippets (not suitable for most children, or for most adults):

On Chief of Staff Reince Priebus:

“Reince Priebus — if you want to leak something — he’ll be asked to resign very shortly.”

And…

“Reince is a fucking paranoid schizophrenic, a paranoiac…’Let me leak the fucking thing and see if I can cock-block these people the way I cock-blocked Scaramucci for six months.'”

On leakers: 

“What I want to do is I want to fucking kill all the leakers and I want to get the President’s agenda on track so we can succeed for the American people.”

On Steve (whatever his job is) Bannon:

“I’m not Steve Bannon, I’m not trying to suck my own cock.”

The interview, which would have made Richard Nixon blush, was potentially more than just obscene. It may have been a felony. In talking about leaks (he wants to “kill” all the leakers), one quote got the attention of the FBI: