from the pettiness-of-evil dept

Trump’s Reflecting Pool Failures To Be Taken Out On US Olympic Canoeist David Hearn

Yet another way Trump was going to make America great again was by giving one of his pool boys a no-bid contract to make the Lincoln Reflecting Pool even greater than it always had been. Rather than allow it to remain — at the very least — serviceable, Trump insisted the bottom needed to be “painted” a completely made up shade of “American flag blue” and then refilled to better reflect Trump’s glory upon himself.

What followed this combination of no-bid contracts and Trumpian hubris was completely expected. The redo underperformed while going over budget. And the water piped back into the pool was exactly the color one would expect given the circumstances. It sure as shit wasn’t “American flag blue.” Instead, it was stagnant-hot-water green, thanks to a surplus of algae that drowned out the blue paint/sealant/liner applied to the bottom of the pool.

Having been sufficiently embarrassed by his own actions, Trump decided to blame everyone else. If he had left it at blame, we probably wouldn’t even be writing about it. But he took it further, claiming everything from the peeling liner to the presence of algae itself were the actions of vandals and anti-Trump agitators.

Nobody honestly believes these claims, not even the guy making them. But plenty of people who have hitched their wagon to this childish bully are not only expected to give these wild theories credence, but expand and expound upon them from their federal offices. That’s why Interior Secretary Doug Burgum is debasing himself during interviews:

Speaking to Dana Bash on CNN’s “State of the Union,” Burgum said, “We’ve got all the photographs we can see” to prove that vandals cut portions of the pool bottom.

Not stupid enough? Try this:

“If people are defaming our monuments, they should face the consequences of that,” Burgum said.

Your monument looks like shit and was fucked up by a dipshit who shouldn’t be trusted to fill his own bathtub. That’s “defaming” a monument. It’s not like “defaming” was so close to the correct term that Burgum just accidentally hot-swapped some English while being casually questioned by a member of the press. That’s just the sort of sloppiness that’s to be expected from people who don’t really believe what they’re saying, nor care what anyone thinks about their bogus assertions.

As I said earlier, Trump being mad about not being able to make a pool better despite knowing the best pool guys isn’t news. That’s just Trump being Trump. What makes it news is when the administration threatens journalists for reporting on the pool revamp failure. What makes it fascism is when the administration starts arresting people because Trump refuses to admit some errors might have been made during his command performance of Make America But Especially This Pool American Flag Blue Again (For The First Time) With No Bid Contracts.

In the space of a single, distended paragraph, Trump inflated the size of the “slit” in the pool liner from 150 feet to 350 feet. In the length of a single press conference, the DOJ claimed 14 reports of vandalism had resulted in five arrests.

Arresting five randos for imaginary crimes won’t satisfy Trump’s desire to see his feverish federal crimes dreams made a reality. The administration now has a scapegoat just famous enough to redirect a bit of the spotlight away from its outlandish claims and childish behavior.

U.S. Olympic canoeist David “Davey” Hearn was indicted Thursday on a single count of destruction of property after he was accused of causing more than $1,000 worth of damage to the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool.

Hearn was indicted on the felony charge in D.C. Superior Court.

Jeanine Pirro, the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, said National Park Service employees saw Hearn “forcefully and violently pulling up and removing the bottom liner” of the pool with both hands on June 19.

Whoa smol if true! Here’s what gets you a felony charge if you’re being prosecuted by a Trump puppet who absolutely has to buy into Trump’s pool vandals conspiracy theory:

Pirro alleged that Hearn damaged about 2 square feet of the sealant from the bottom of the pool.

TWO. SQUARE. FEET.

The total square footage of the reflecting pool is ~339,000 square feet. If you choose to believe this allegation, this means Davey Hearn “damaged” 0.00059% of the reflecting pool’s underbelly. You also have to believe Hearn was “forcefully and violently” yanking at this 0.00059%, rather than simply doing what she said he was doing, which was pulling up a floating chunk of separated liner to get a better look at it.

Stupider still:

“A parks employee actually told Hearn to stop, to stop his behavior and stop what he was doing,” Pirro said at a news conference Thursday. “Hearn reacted by shouting at the parks employee, saying that she cared too much about the Reflecting Pool, and why did she even care, since it wasn’t her pool.”

OH MY GOD. The Lincoln Reflecting Pool is our pool. While the Interior Department may oversee it, it belongs to the public. And it seems a lot of Americans care more about this botched makeover than Mr. America himself — someone so narcissistic he demanded it be redone to his specifications. And when those specifications went man-tits up, he decided to pretend vandalism, rather than no-bid contracts handed out to his pool buddies, was to blame for the algae bloom and the refusal of the lining to remain attached to the bottom of the pool.

The Department of the Interior continues to insist the lining was vandalized shortly after the project was completed and refilled. So do Trump and Jeanine Pirro, who will say anything Trump tells her to say. But it’s impossible to believe large-scale vandalism occurred without anyone gathering any supporting evidence, like video recordings or multiple sworn statements by witnesses. This was yet another one of Trump’s self-glorification projects, so of course it was going to be a target. But without more than Trump and his sycophants simply saying something happened, there’s no reason to believe what has been alleged has actually happened.

And in the case of Hearns, someone yanking on a small bit of dislodged lining isn’t anything anyone would seriously consider to be felonious vandalism. I mean, at least not normally. But nothing is normal anymore. This is a government that will destroy citizens’ lives, rather than take any responsibility for its failures.