Forget for a moment Steve Bannon, "fire and fury," Charlottesville's "both sides" and even the Russia investigation. President Donald Trump's outrages du jour serve to obscure much of the behind-the-scenes damage that his administration is daily inflicting on America. Some recent examples:

Last Friday, the Interior Department's Office of Surface Mining sent a letter to the National Academy of Sciences canceling a study into the possible health risks of living near surface coal mining sites in Appalachia. Scientists suspect that strip mining and mountaintop-removal mining release pollutants into air and water that increase rates of cancer, birth defects and cardiovascular disease. The state of West Virginia had asked for a detailed study. Now Trump's Interior Department has decided it doesn't want to know the answer.

On Thursday, the Interior Department recommended shrinking an unspecified number of national monument sites as part of a plan to open up more land to mining, ranching and oil exploration. President Theodore Roosevelt created the national monuments program in 1906 for places so special they deserve protection. Presidents Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama used Roosevelt's Antiquities Act to set aside some 27 national monuments. Trump's people are heeding local interests who want to exploit these public lands.

Trump's Health and Human Services Department is moving to formalize a long-standing practice allowing nursing homes to require patients to submit complaints of shoddy care to arbitration rather than filing lawsuits. The Obama administration tried to bar the practice, which generally limits how much patients can recover, even for egregious mistakes.

Finally, Carl Icahn, who 30 years ago doomed St. Louis-based TWA by stripping it of its assets, stepped down last week as Trump's special adviser on regulatory reform. He did so two days before The New Yorker magazine revealed ways that Icahn had leveraged his position to benefit his own holdings. He could face a criminal investigation.

These stories embody the Trump administration's relentless approach to using government to help the well-connected. They defy what Trump said during his campaign about "draining the swamp" of special interests. None of these actions will restore middle-class jobs.

Mining companies don't want a bunch of scientists poking around their operations. Energy companies and ranchers want continued access to government land. Nursing homes want to protect their profits. Lobbyists are thriving. The swamp endures.

And Icahn didn't want an oil refinery he owns to have to pay to make sure that ethanol is blended into his gasoline. He'd rather pass that expense on to corn growers, many of whom voted for Trump. The New Yorker says his mere appointment as regulatory adviser increased the value of his refinery holdings by $500 million.

Under President Trump, it's not only the big stuff that America has to sweat.

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