Comment on SEC Inspector General David Kotz’s departure adds to watchdog vacancies

In an interview this week, Eric Trump promised that his father will build a “very large wall” between the incoming first family’s private business interests and any government business. Then, apparently without a hint of irony or shame, he took the stage at a crypto conference—which he attended as a representative of the crypto company his father has deep financial ties to—and spoke passionately about how President Trump would bolster the crypto industry as a whole. The younger Trump sat for the interview with Reuters while in Abu Dhabi for the pro-crypto conference and said a number of potentially reassuring things about how his family intends to avoid conflicts of interest between the Trump Organization and the Trump presidential administration.

Trump said this week that he would discuss ending child vaccination programs with Bob Kennedy, the whackadoodle health nut and anti-vaccine activist he wants to lead the Department of Health and Human Services. Via Salon: Asked if he would approve of any decision by Kennedy to end vaccination programs — insofar as he has that power, which is largely delegated to the states — Trump cited autism as a reason why he might.

For the red hats who voted for Donald, thinking he would miraculously lower the price of eggs and other grocery items once he takes office, they've been played for suckers. We saw this coming. Donald walked that promise back in an interview with Time magazine for its "Person of the Year," a title already feeding his massive ego on Truth Social.

On this day in 1975 David Bowie's "Golden Years" was released. The song was the main single from Bowie's Station To Station album. The Professional Left: Little Red State Fundy. Just An Earth-Bound Misfit, I: Mooching These Down, Here. The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities: House Republican Bills Deeply Cut Programs That Help Low-Income People and Underserved Communities. Attention space nerds!

Pennsylvania Sen. John Fetterman opened an account on Truth Social, and according to Politico, he's the first Democrat to do so. And it's weird. Earlier this month, Susie Madrak reported that Fetterman said the federal cases against Hunter Biden and the New York hush-money case against Trump were both “politically motivated” and deserving of pardons. The President rightfully pardoned Hunter, but Fetterman is still at it, calling for Donald to be pardoned. "My first truth," he wrote on the platform Donald launched to lash out at his successor daily.

Let’s have DOGE start here.