If you’re upset that:
a) Donald Trump is using the presidency to promote his daughter’s fashion business,
b) Melania Trump admits that she intends use her role as First Lady to seek “major business opportunities.”
c) Incoming Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price profited from insider medical stock deals.
d) Education Secretary Betsy DeVos and her extended family gave hundreds of thousands of dollars to Republican Senators who then voted to confirm her,
Then here’s the latest oligarchic outrage to really stick in your craw:
The biggest movie opening this weekend is “The LEGO Batman Movie.” And it’s executive-produced by Steve Mnuchin.
Yes, the guy who is expected to be confirmed as Secretary of the Treasury on Saturday is about to have the greatest weekend since that raucous one at Bernie’s — and he can thank Donald Trump’s “billionaires only” cabinet and the movie-going public, which is expected to buy $60 million in tickets during the “LEGO Batman” opening weekend.
The lines between public service and wallet padding have been blurring since even before the Clintons rented out the Lincoln Bedroom and the Bushies made Halliburton an arm of government. But Trump and his itchy Twitter finger have brought it to a new level.
So if you’re upset that he’s turning the White House into a cash machine for his cronies, you have only one choice this weekend:
Boycott “The LEGO Batman Movie.”
It pains me to write that. After all, my review of the Will Arnett movie last week was a four-star rave. “The LEGO Batman Movie” will give parents and kids enormous pleasure this weekend and forever.
But it will also make a rich man even richer — and put him further away from the Americans he will start serving once he’s sworn in.
And while you’re at it, you’ll have to stop downloading other Mnuchin-produced films as “Sully,” “American Sniper,” “Black Mass,” “Mad Max: Fury Road,” “Edge of Tomorrow,” the original “LEGO Movie” or “Batman v. Superman” (OK, no worries there; NO ONE is paying to see that!).
And you’ll have to skip dozens of future movies that Mnuchin’s company, RatPac-Dune, has in the pipeline with Warner Bros., with whom it inked a $450-million financing deal in 2013.
Mnuchin’s role as movie moneyman didn’t come up at his Jan. 19 confirmation hearing, which stuck mostly to his purchase — and profitable re-sale — of a failed bank during the 2008 housing crisis, and his failure to disclose $100 million in overseas investments to allegedly avoid taxes.
Mnuchin is certainly rich. But that’s no crime; pretty much all Secretaries of the Treasury have been really really rich, which suggests that the “treasury” in question isn’t the nation’s but their own. But I digress (not!).
And I’m not objecting to the fact that a Hollywood executive producer will become the steward of our nation’s finances. Indeed, Mnuchin’s latest movie is about a raging, friendless, emotionally stunted, delusional vigilante who literally and figuratively has walled himself off from all the “losers” in the real world.
Clearly, he’s ready to be Trump’s right hand man.
Mnuchin says he’ll divest himself from RatPac-Dune once he’s confirmed as Secretary of the Treasury — but he’s still profiting from his movie business.
So let’s not enrich him at this particular moment. Boycott “The LEGO Batman Movie.” You can buy the DVD when this joker is out of office.
