Not beating about the bush-type, don

Listen up, folks, who are going all 'OMG' upon hearing one VIP accusing two other VIPs of sending tempo-full of cash so that a third VIP can stop going on and on about the two VIPs being in league with the first. Frankly, all this supposition and rhetoric pertaining to a crony capitalism-politics nexus is tiddlywinks compared to what the Don reportedly articulated in a hall full of people last month. The former American president, who may also be the next American president, according to The Washington Post, had openly proposed at a dinner at his home and club in Mar-a-Lago in Florida that if the top US oil executives gathered among the some 20 people in the room together gave him $1 bn for his re-election campaign, as president he would tear up Joe Biden's tranche of environmental regulations and prevent any new ones. In other words, if the bosses of Chevron, Exxon and other slick oilwalas gather a kitty of a billion, they can drill and frack as much, and in any old way, they want.

Instead of insinuations and nudge-nudge, wink-winks, Trump made a straightforward pitch that wasn't articulated at the back of tempo, but in the moderate openness of a private function. With the height of moral bars in politics seemingly everywhere lowered to somewhere down near the ankles, there is a perverse virtue in the Don's hyper-frank deals and appeals.