I’m old enough to remember when Mel Gibson was one of the biggest movie stars in the world. That was before his dizzying fall from grace after his drunken anti-Semitic tirade in 2006 and his conviction on domestic violence charges in 2011. That was when he lost his right to bear and buy arms.

The courts take a dim view of arming domestic abuse offenders: Donald Trump and Todd Blanche do not. They want Gibson rearmed, which led to a firing at the Department of Justice:

“The Justice Department’s pardon attorney was dismissed a day after she refused to recommend that the actor Mel Gibson, a prominent supporter of President Trump’s, should have his gun rights restored, according to the attorney and others familiar with the situation.

Elizabeth G. Oyer, the former pardon attorney, described the sequence of events as an alarming departure from longstanding practice, one that put public safety and the department’s integrity at risk. Mr. Gibson had lost his gun rights as a result of a 2011 domestic violence misdemeanor conviction.

“This is dangerous. This isn’t political — this is a safety issue,” Ms. Oyer said in an interview with The New York Times as she described the internal discussions about whether to give gun rights back to people with domestic violence convictions.”

This is not just about restoring gun rights to Mel Gibson. It’s a radical reassessment of policy because Team MAGA loves guns and hates women. Misogyny once again triumphs over common sense. Domestic violence abusers have high rates of recidivism, if armed they have an alarming tendency to shoot to kill. Trump and Blanche do not care because Mel Gibson is a Trumper.

The Gibson story is a perfect encapsulation of Team MAGA’s corruption. If you’re a well-connected and famous Trump crony, the world is your oyster right now. The rest of us are stuck with the detritus of an uncleaned and poorly shucked oyster.

Gibson’s most commercially successful films were the four Lethal Weapon movies. They’re cop buddy flicks in which Gibson was partnered with Danny Glover:

Gibson is currently co-starring in a reality show called The Anti-Semite Meets The Wizard of Odd:

I made that title up. There is no reality show but Gibson *is* palling around with FBI Director Kash Patel. Typing that for the first time made me queasy as does the thought of a rearmed Mel Gibson.

This may seem like small potatoes compared to Reich Chancellor Musk’s assault on Social Security but it’s emblematic of an administration guided by cronyism and corruption. If you’re rich, famous, and powerful enough, you can get away with anything as long as you support the Kaiser of Chaos.

Repeat after me: It’s the corruption, stupid.

The last word goes to Robert Cray: