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Scott Pruitt Is Out at the EPA
Guys, hang on, you’ve got it all wrong. The EPA is not some “swamp” that needs to be drained, rather, it is a fragile “wetlands” that needs to be carefully restored so it can provide a safe and nurturing habitat for various species of endangered bureaucrats…
How do you get that impression? What does that have to do with one’s opinion on Scott Pruitt’s suitability for office?
Heh ;-)
This reminds me, I don’t think it’s clear what’s meant by “the swamp”.
I think the “corruption” “swamp-drainers” want gone isn’t the petty corruption of venal politicians, but a larger “cultural corruption”. In which case, getting rid of the Dems, AEI, folks like Megan McArdle, and “the chattering classes” does more to “drain the swamp” than deposing politicians engaged in literal corruption, supposing those politicians aren’t also “culturally corrupt”.
I think it’s more related to the “deep state” concept and the idea of “the Establishment.” It’s a permanent governing class that has entrenched itself in the bureaucracy and pushes its (progressive) agenda on the rest of us regardless of what Congress or the President direct. They are corrupt in the sense that they’ve forgotten they work for us, the voters.
In contrast, mere venal corruption has less impact on the rest of us. If the EPA merely wasted its entire taxpayer budget on first class flights, cones of silence, or even just embezzled it straight into their personal bank accounts, at least they wouldn’t be issuing millions of pages of burdensome regulations, declaring carbon dioxide a pollutant, and telling people they can’t build on their own private land.
I wasn’t aware that Chick-Fil-A franchises had been nationalized?
On May 9, 2012, Dear Leader Obama came out of the closet in support of homosexual marriage. He expected everyone in a country over 300 million people to match his views exactly at all times? On June 16, 2012, the president of Chick-Fil-A decided that he would not match his views exactly with Dear Leader Obama who had had the same opposing views 39 days earlier or had been too timid to voice his political opinions.
Perhaps Chick-Fil-A franchises were nationalized, and I did not notice.
…
Mitch McConnell’s wife is allowed to have a job but Scott Pruitt’s wife is not?
Do you only hate non-government jobs or something?
Trying to own a Chick-Fil-A franchise is the pinnacle of corruption?
Scott Pruitt’s wife was supposed do what? Make speeches like Hillary Clinton?
From what I can imagine, there’s probably a lot of land sale corruption involving wetlands and things like that at the EPA. I don’t think that Scott Pruitt was involved in any Tony Rezko-like land deals like Obama or the Whitewater-type stuff that the Clintons or Harry Reid got into.
…
But most importantly, once again — you forgot about the hand lotion!!!
?
I think we’re singing from copies of the same hymn sheet here, Joseph.
What’s striking to me, though, is that people whom I believe sincerely oppose entrenched government interests are treated as part of “the swamp” of the “culturally corrupt” if they’re deemed “chattering class” members or if their impatience with venal corruption among “swamp-drainers” is deemed too unseemly.
I don’t seriously see the likes of McArdle as part of “the swamp”. But I believe others see the likes of her this way, as being too “comfortable” in her opposition to “the establishment” to not serve as de-facto lackey to “the establishment”.
It seems that part of proving one’s “swamp-draining” bona fides is happily overlooking venal corruption as long as it opposes the larger “cultural corruption”.
No. As I understand it, the allegation is that Pruitt took an EPA employee off his day job saving spotted owls or whatever and told him instead to spend his time helping secure this franchise.
This is a bad faith question. There is a difference between “Scott Pruitt’s wife is not allowed to have a job” and “Scott Pruitt is not allowed to use government resources to secure his wife a job”.
Regardless of if you think the EPA employee was doing a job worth government time, it is not okay for him to spend his time working to personally enrich the Pruitt family.
Agreed.
That’s what I was thinking. It ain’t paranoia when there’s a ‘contract out’ on you.
I don’t think “governing class” corruption is any less venal than the other kind. It’s just that the venality comes in the form of deferred compensation, when favors done while in the government are rewarded by post-government employment.
The venal aren’t above being bought by pretty much anyone, though. When there’s strong tribal or ideological opposition to being bought by the likes of, say, Trump, that’s a little less venal.
I should clarify that “less venal” in this context doesn’t entail “morally superior”. The truly venal can be more innocuous than those with an ax to grind, after all –
According to WaPo the employee in question was Pruitt’s scheduler, and the work he did was to schedule a phone call between Pruitt and the CEO of Chick-fil-A. Also, apparently Pruitt later thought better of the idea and the call was canceled.
At least in isolation that strikes me as more of a minor lapse in judgement than a firing (or resigning) offense.
It seems to be the weight that the sheer number of lapses that brought him down.
Ya think?
Either way is bad. As a former
lazy dirtbagFederal empoyee, one of the things drilled into us by the neverending required training is even the look of using one’s office for personal gain (or many other things wrong) is enough to warrant offense.Someone in Pruitt’s position is under much higher scrutiny than I would have been. Had I called Chik-fil-A from my office about a franchise for my wife, it would have been no big deal. But for the head of the EPA? No. It is assumed everyone knows he’s the head of the EPA, so if he calls for a franchise? He’s using his office, whether intentional or not.
Darn it, now I’m beating the dead horse . . .
But, had he used his personal cell phone, he would have been OK?
Moderator Note:
That slur is an obscenity or vulgarity, and "Obscenities and vulgarities, even using various symbols for letters, or shorthand" are a CoC infraction.Scott Pruitt EPA chief as a real stick-in-the-eye unaccountable figure like Robert Mueller, Hillary Clinton, Susan Rice, or an Obama administration official. (Or is that being redundant?)
That would have been awesome!
Man, you people are no fun at all.
Screw this lawful-good [redacted] nonsense. Give me some good old fashion chaotic-good — with a little bit of chaotic-neutral thrown in for fun.
Pruitt could have sucked up a lot of Leftist hate, but we live in a world where the Pope is crying about Climate Change so I guess too far out of the mainstream is going to bring too much heat.
And people wonder why conservatives remain wary of Trumpian Nationalist Populists.
I don’t even know what that is. Is that some kind of slogan or something?
I try to have a sense of humor about the Trump administration.
Trump spends too much money, but hasn’t every president and most Congresses for the past half century — as that’s what the voters and their lobbyists want.
From what I’ve read, several of Pruitt’s foibles seem like lapses in judgment — which allies told him to knock off, and he didn’t. Which seems more like the mark of someone insufficiently focused on the job he was hired to do rather than a mark of gross moral depravity. I’ve lost a job for insufficient focus before, so I’m no better, but I also… lost the job. It happens.
No. When I say “his office”, I mean his position.
The problem will be finding a competent person to take any position in the administration. The left is sending the message that it will be a miserable, career-ending choice, that they will put you through hell. EPA needs to go away.