December 29, 2016

Trump Looking for Hispanic to Take Agriculture Post

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Politico reports on Donald Trump’s search for a Secretary of Agriculture:

Trump met Wednesday with two Hispanic politicians at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach to discuss the possibility of taking on the agriculture post: Dr. Elsa Murano, a former U.S. agriculture undersecretary for food safety, who is Cuban-American, and Abel Maldonado, a Mexican-American who is a former California lieutenant governor and co-owner of Runway Vineyards.

I imagine Trump’s interior monologue for his cabinet choices has gone something like this:

Lessee. Solid, silver-haired white guy for State. Check. Retired general for Defense. Check. Personal financial crony for Treasury. Check. What else? Teachers are all women, so Betsy is good for Education. Urban is code for black, so Ben will fit in at HUD. Lotta oil wells in Texas, so maybe a Texan for Energy. Perry can do it. Somebody exotic-looking for UN ambassador. Nikki really looks the part. Asians are bad drivers, maybe Elaine can get through to them at Transportation. Fill out the rest with a bunch of dull white guys. I’ll let Pence take care of it. And Agriculture. Hmmm. Gotta be Hispanic, right? They’re the ones who pick all the crops. But who?

If only I were just joking with this.

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In "It's Not a Crisis. This Is the New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, how brutal it is to sustain quality journalism right now, what makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there, and why support from readers is the only thing that keeps us going. Despite the challenges, we're optimistic we can increase the share of online readers who decide to donate—starting with hitting an ambitious $300,000 goal in just three weeks to make sure we can finish our fiscal year break-even in the coming months.

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