Friday, July 06, 2018

He Can Walk On The Water


Yesterday, Donald Trump fired his EPA administrator, Scott Pruitt. Given Pruitt's record, his dismissal should come as no surprise. What is surprising is that, just last month, Trump praised Pruitt's job performance. Richard Wolfe writes:

Just last month, he used his protective cloak to single Scott out for special treatment. “EPA is doing really, really well,” he said. “Somebody has to say that about you a little bit. You know that, Scott.”

But performance reviews change like the weather in Trumpland. Consider the other "stars" who have left the Trump Show:

First a Bannon, then a Scaramucci. You fire an Omarosa, then you lose all Hope. You reject a Rex but you can’t get your Gorka back in the bottle.
It’s almost like there’s some invisible hand steering this bizarre sequence of hirings and firings, but we can’t figure out what the hand is trying to do. Or if it’s a left or right hand. Or if either hand knows they are connected through the same torso.

That said, its Pruitt's record that really needs to be examined:

In year one, he rolled back regulations protecting clean water. He scrubbed away references to climate change and stopped collecting data on methane emissions. He blocked regulations designed to cut emissions from cars and power plants.

And the man who replaces Pruitt is no gift to the environment:

Andrew Wheeler, a former coal lobbyist . . . used to be chief of staff to James Inhofe, the Republican senator for Oklahoma, perhaps the loudest and dumbest climate denier on Capitol Hill.
Wheeler is the kind of fossil fuel guy who enjoys the Onion’s parody of him as a pulsating black sludge. Making America Great Again does not extend to the land, water and air we know as America.
Wheeler will now serve as the acting administrator, and likely successor to Saint Scott, in much the same way as a fox looks after a henhouse. As if by magic, the fossil fuel industry has taken over the agency that was supposed to protect our environment from the worst effects of that industry. But their new man is enough of a Washington insider to avoid the personal scandals that brought down his old boss.

Yep. The man who pledged to drain the swamp has now filled it with so much crud he can walk on the water.

Image: twitter


6 comments:

John B. said...

You've made the correct assessment which has been missing from commentary in the broadcast media:

"... its Pruitt's record that really needs to be examined."

They've been so busy chattering about his infractions and now making long lists of them, that they've ignored discussion of the efficacy of the policy changes he's enacted. Some quite possibly unsound assumptions are going unchallenged. Maybe they like it that way.

The Mound of Sound said...


What weighs so heavily on my mind, and I expect on yours also Owen, is how this ends, where and when. This guy is empowered by an economic bubble that arose out of Obama's efforts to prevent the Great Recession from becoming Great Depression II. The financial types, meanwhile, tell us that we're on the cusp of another great economic reversal. The Gullibillies, it seems, don't care. To them it's irrelevant that this year's trillion plus tax cuts went overwhelmingly to the "elites" or that the associated debt will fall onto their kids' shoulders in the not too distant future. Trump knows the inchoate power of ignorance, how to nurture it with generous amounts of fear, paranoia and xenophobia and then, all fueled up and energetic, how to harness it to his purposes.

Owen Gray said...

Pruitt's assault on the envvronment will continue under Wheeler, John. Given the fact that he worked for Inhofe, I suspect that the assault will be put on steroids. These folks are like Captain Ahab. The voyage they're on will sink us all.

Owen Gray said...

It's the realization that ignorance is so powerful that makes it harder for me to sleep at night, Mound. It's Trump down there and Ford up here. Both were elected to their positions. As a teacher, I foolishly thought that I might -- just a bit -- roll back the curtains of ignroance. I underestimated my enemy.

the salamander said...

.. among certain friends, family, bloggers & tweeters
we discuss Trumph and Pruitt..
We have seen the Canadian parallel travesty
of Stephen Harper, Ray Novak, Nigel
.. The late Saint Flaherty fullfilled his mechanical role
and stooges like Peter Kent, Joe Oliver, did the same
What Stevie wanted.. he got, or you were gone.

Thus our question is, did Trump think Pruitt
was a very useful hatchetman..
to trash the American environment for Big Energy
and insult Obama, by stripping his legislation
Or is Trump so demented and dotard, he thinks Pruitt
was a bright capable administrator ?

All that winning.. Its truly hard to tell
The GOP & Trump talent pool is like blue green algae
dangerous to your health..
The list of losers grows daily

Owen Gray said...

Trump said he hired "the best people," sal. That claim -- like everything else that comes out of his mouth -- was a lie.