Two oil tankers have been attacked in the Gulf of Oman, presumably with the aid of Iran. The United States and China are going through a disagreement that is about far more than change. The southern border stays anarchic and uncontrolled.
And Congress is calling: “Can I get the icon in cornflower blue?”
Here is the situation: The president of those United States receives from region to place is considered one of two Boeing jets specified “Air Force One” when the president is aboard. Jets wear out, and the U.S. Government is commissioning a couple of recent ones to now not come into use until President Ocasio-Cortez takes over in 2025. The Washington Post is on the case and reviews that the brand new look will turn out to be “offering hues remarkably just like his” — Trump’s — “private jet.” This is genuine. Trump’s jet, seen often throughout the 2016 campaign, is, going from pinnacle to bottom, blue, red, and white. The paint scheme will change from its Sixties two-tone blue to an extra conservative and current appearance, that is — see if these colors sound familiar — pink, white, and blue. The new Air Force One can be white, pink, and blue. In each case, the purple makes up a slim stripe keeping apart the two large shade fields.
Congressional Democrats are, of direction, outraged: How dare this aspiring caudillo order an automobile belonging to the authorities to be painted crimson, white, and blue! That’s . . . Un-American!
Aesthetically, we dodged a countrywide bullet here. The new designs (there are a few mild variations underneath attention) are perfectly normal. They are absolutely respectable and unremarkable. Given President Trump’s very own Nero-by-way-of-Liberace private tastes — the gilding, the faux Louis XIV furnishings, the golden bathroom — things might have been loads worse.
Nonetheless, Congress has been roused to movement. Yes, the same Congress that hasn’t been able to muster a declaration of the struggle for any of the various American military conflicts because World War II, that has allowed debt and unfunded liabilities to upward push to ruinous stages, that has sat on its palms as its constitutional prerogatives were usurped yr after yr via the government branch — that Congress has sprung into action, with the House Armed Services Committee voting 31–26 to insist that any modifications to the paint or indoors ornament (seriously!) of latest presidential aircraft require congressional approval.
“Additional paint can upload weight to the plane,” says Representative Joe Courtney, a Democrat from Connecticut. The authorities spend $2 million a minute on Social Security, 24 hours an afternoon, 365 days a year, and the gentleman from Connecticut is involved about the marginal fuel consumption necessitated — in all likelihood! — employing a touch of extra paint on a jumbo jet. Representative Joe Courtney ought to resign in disgrace.
So ought to Representative John Garamendi of California, who says the aircraft is “an illustration of the strength of the United States, the electricity of the president. If a person desires to trade its appearance, its scheme, then we ought to have a say in that.” Representative Garamendi represents, among other places, Sacramento, wherein the violent-crime price is ready two times the countrywide average. There are criminal-justice-reform proposals amassing dust in Congress, but Representative Garamendi has the energy to get his pants over his head about paint.
This is the wrong paint discussion to be having. If we’re to be governed employing clowns, let them at the least appearance the part.
