In-Box Receives Quick Fall Cleaning

Sometimes news breaks so fast that a columnist can’t keep up with the surge. As editor of the Borger News-Herald in the late ‘90s, I could slip in three bits of wisdom per week – and throw in an editorial if the occasion demanded. I now write with more welcome restrictions, but every now and then, items collect that need some mention, if not a full exposition. Thus, a brief look at things we might want to consider:

• Unreality fans were outraged recently when Dancing with the Stars announced that Anna Delvey is to be a contestant this fall. Star? Delvey – real name Anna Sorokin – is infamous for being a convicted fraudster, a “fake heiress,” who bilked people out of $275,000. Guilty of grand larceny, larceny in the second degree and theft of services, the recently released Delvey/Sorokin will be dancing with an ankle monitor.

Maybe she set her sights too low. Donald Trump, convicted of 34 felonies and adjudicated a rapist, is running for president. But with his sentencing on the convictions for falsifying business records delayed until after the election, he will be campaigning without an ankle monitor – and no monitor on his constant stream of gibberish. Where’s the outrage?

• In the middle of an incoherent answer to a simple question about any GOP plans for helping working families with childcare, Trump again floated his ever-refutable claim that tariffs on foreign products will benefit American consumers: “They’ll have a very substantial tax when they send product into our country.”

Tariffs on imported goods are placed on the products, not the country or producers. Tariffs might reduce a company’s sales or a country’s GNP, but the import taxes are always paid by the purchaser, the consumer, the folks already struggling with greed-flation.

• Speaking of higher than necessary prices, the chief executives of Kroger and Albertsons have been saying that, if the companies are allowed to merge, this would lead to price cuts for consumers. Yep, without the alleged competition between the food giants, which should be already encouraging competitive pricing, costs will come down.

Of course, monopolies are famous for not price gouging. 

Beside the possibility of present price-fixing, this claim also includes the admission that prices could lower right now if not for corporate greed. 

• Linda Sun, an aide to two New York governors has been charged in federal court with using her influence on behalf of China “in exchange for benefits worth millions of dollars,” according to the Associated Press.

Her arrest came amid new questions about a possible $10 million bribe Trump took from Egypt – that somehow escaped scrutiny from his Justice Department. 

This echoes a staff report from the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability earlier this year that “President Trump’s businesses received, at a minimum, $7.8 million in foreign payments from at least 20 countries during his presidency.”

• A recent TV report warns that Florida’s anti-immigrant laws could have a disastrous effect on the state’s farmers and, ultimately, on all Americans as food production drops. Undocumented workers pick the produce. Earlier this year, The Guardian reported:

“There are about 130,000 undocumented immigrants married to Florida U.S. citizens and up to 200,000 seasonal and migrant undocumented workers. The problem is that the first-year cost of all this ‘enforcement,’ primarily aimed at these 330,000 individuals in Florida will exceed $12 billion, according to the Florida Policy Institute.”

• This big tough posturing is reminiscent of Texas Gov. Gregg Abbott’s publicity stunt of busing migrants out of state. In early September, The Washington Examiner reported that this grandstanding has resulted in “more than 750 payments totaling $221,705,637 to transportation companies since the start of operations in April 2022 and August 2024.”

Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, of the American Immigration Council says that’s “roughly $1,841 per person,” according to Jessica Corbett at Common Dreams. “By comparison,” he added, “a bus ticket to New York costs about $215, while a flight costs about $350." 

Ah, corporate welfare. That’s the Republican Way. Let kids starve during the summer; divert taxpayers’ money to business pals.

• Public money for private enhancement? Oklahoma’s state superintendent, Ryan Walters, is “paying a Virginia-based communications company as much as $200 an hour to write his opinion pieces and book his media appearances. Records show his agreement with Vought Strategies could be costing taxpayers up to $5,000 a month,” according to Janelle Stecklein of Oklahoma Voice.

She points out the obvious – and it often needs to be stated unequivocally:

“He is using our tax dollars – and the platform we’ve given him – to generate a slew of at best cringe-worthy and at worst cruel headlines. None of those inspire confidence in our schools and teachers or contain much substance at all when it comes to addressing the complex reasons we rank at the bottom in academic outcomes.”

Yes, a concerned columnist’s cup overfloweth with corruption upon which to comment.