A wife of a pro-wrestling magnate will be in charge of the Small Business Administration after giving $6 million to the campaign of one Donald J. Trump.
The retired brain surgeon, a former Trump rival who said he didn't have the experience for a cabinet position, will head up the Department of Housing and Urban Development.
A close friend of the oil and gas industry is set to lead the Environmental Protection Agency, an agency he despises.
The former CEO of the company that owns Hardees and Carl's Jr., an unabashed opponent of paying workers a living wage and a guy who's cool with objectifying young women to sell the seeds of heart disease ("there's nothing more American," he says), is set to take charge of the Department of Labor.
If Mike Judge wanted to make a full-length prequel to his 2006 cult classic Idiocracy, the thing would write itself.
The question is, how long before the feds replace the bottom two thirds of the food pyramid with Doritos and White Castle sliders and the top third with Mountain Dew?
Luckily, Florida is several years ahead of much of the country, which has for the past eight years been steeped in the Obama administration's pragma-optimism in terms of ethics, science and the dignity of the not-rich.
Florida, after all, is a state governed by the idea that protecting corporate profits and honoring the wishes of political allies trumps preemptively acting to protect our air and water. Oh, and bears and humans and stuff.
Just take a look at who the governor — who, like Trump, was a mega-rich and ethically questionable newcomer who largely funded his own campaign — appoints to seats on commissions that impact the lives of everyday Floridians: the Public Service Commission and the Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. Often, they're closer to the industries they're supposed to regulate than they are to consumers or the environment.
Six years later: green sludge for all!
Oh, and by the way, that incoming EPA head who hates the EPA, Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt, has one or two notable similarities to Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi.
Bondi defended the cozy relationships between the oil and gas industry and attorneys general of certain states in a 2014 New York Times story that detailed how Pruitt sent a letter to the EPA complaining about federal regulation of the oil and gas industry. As it turns out, the industry itself penned that letter before Pruitt's office copied and pasted it onto his official letterhead.
It's cool, said Bondi.
“When the federal government oversteps its legal authority and takes actions that hurt our businesses and residents, it’s entirely appropriate for us to partner with the adversely affected private entities in fighting back,” she told the Times.
(By the way, Bondi may also still be on Trump's cabinet shortlist.)
Trip Van Noppen, head of the nonprofit Earthjustice, slammed the decision to appoint Pruitt as the EPA head and called on Trump to retract the appointment.
“We all rely on the Environmental Protection Agency to enforce our clean air and clean water laws to keep us safe from toxic pollution. The leader of this agency should respect the importance of our bedrock environmental laws, be guided by science to make informed decisions and, above all, place the health of our families and communities above corporate profits," he said in a written statement. “Scott Pruitt possesses none of these values. He has long opposed responsible rules for cutting toxic pollution, including the EPA’s Clean Power Plan, and he’s been in lockstep with the oil industry for years."
Hey, man, have you seen Florida? Because...
