American Currency Green

by Pa Rock

Citizen Journalist

By anyone's perspective, except perhaps his own, this past week has been a roaring disaster for our nation's man-child President.  One of Trump's primary birthday gifts to himself was to  make an unsubstantiated claim that his and Netanyahu's war on Iran is over and that a Memo of Understanding has been agreed to.  But even though Trump made that boast on Sunday, his birthday, the details of the MOU have yet to be disclosed.  The more reliable international news sources indicate that the hidden details include nothing relative to Trump's stated goals when he took us into war, and that the only thing of substance likely to emerge in the foreseeable future is a reopening of the Strait of Hormuz to allow petrol products to reach world markets.

The Strait was open when the US and Israel attacked Iran, and Iran quickly closed it.  Current speculation in the news is that the Strait will be reopened - something that cannot be accomplished quickly - primarily due to a large bribe being paid to Iran by the US government.  (That's one way to "win" a war.)

Sorry, Donald John, but that just does not have the feel of a smashing victory - at least for our country.

Trump has also been styimied of late on construction of his big, grand ballroom at the White house.  There are still lawsuits blocking his plans, and the whole matter appears to be eventually headed to the US Supreme Court.

This week a Federal court finally succeeded in getting Trump's name pulled off of the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC, an act that stung Trump so badly that he had the removal crews hide behind a tarp while they excised his name from the structure.  As of this morning those tarps are still up, hiding the evidence that Trump lost his vanity battle.

Trump did manage to pull off his UFC fight on the White House grounds Sunday evening, a tawdry display of middle-aged kick-boxers rubbing elbows with over-aged US politicians amid the glowing backdrop of neon signage and Bud Light ads.  It was undoubtedly Trump's personal high water mark for the week, but the event resonated poorly with the American public.  A Reuters-Ipsos poll out this morning shows that only 16% of Americans felt activity was an appropriate use of the presidential grounds.  At least seven government agencies were involved in putting on the event and making it secure, leaving American taxpayers footing a big portion of the event that was supposedly all going to be covered by the company promoting the fight card, a company in which Donald Trump owns shares,  To further muddy the ethical waters, prize money for the fighters was paid in crypto currency by the Trump family's crypto company.

But my favorite Trump rebuke of the week came from Mother Nature.   Trump, who wants to remake our nation's capital in his own image while keeping the country's focus off the Epstein files, decided in April that the Reflecting Pool at the Lincoln Memorial needed to be cleaned, repaired, and repainted.  He criticized the pool because it was green with algae, and he wanted it to be bright blue for his July 4th festivities.  The Trump administration gave out $14.2 million in no-bid contracts to have the work done and it was completed around two weeks ago.  He made a loud point of declaring that he had the pool painted "American Flag" blue.

(Trump's original announced estimate for the total project was $1.5 million.  No bid contracts were used because the work was done on an "emergency" basis.)

Critics of Trump's plan, people who had gone to school and studied science back when that was a thing, said that painting the bottom of the Reflecting Pool dark blue would cause the water to heat (from the sun) and the algae to quickly regrow. One week after the paint job and other work was completed, the algae was back in full force and the pool is once again green - what some ag are calling "Amrerican Currency" green.

The money paid to the paint contractor, over $13 million (no-bid) was said to be enough to ensure a 20% profit margin for his company - when most government contracts allow for a 6% to 12% profit margin.  One of the "improvements" was a "nanobubbler" filtration system that was supposed to keep the algae from coming back.

Yesterday our government poured large quantities of hydrogen peroxide into the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool in an effort to kill the new growth of algae.  It is unclear at this point what that is going to cost us.

But hey, when you're spending other people's money, who gives a crap?  Right, Donbo?