Pruitt

by Skip KaltenheuserAllow me to introduce a friend, Elliott Negin, who writes for the Union of Concerned Scientists.

The White House has been sending signals to Senate allies to not go out on any limbs defending EPA Director Scott Pruitt. On Monday, Bloomberg was already reporting that the Pruitt defenses were starting to crumble.

by NoahI'm thinkin' that it's highly likely that Señor Trumpanzee grew up in a house that was covered, inside and out, with old, flaking lead paint. The evidence mounts every time he opens his mouth. It certainly could explain his erratic thought processes and apparent dementia. Of course, it could be syphilis, but, when I look at the things listed in tonight's meme, I zero right in on the lead paint thing.

Friday evening the Washington Post ran an editorial, Scott Pruitt Is Unfit To Serve. That should surprise anyone. He was unfit to serve as Oklahoma Attorney General and many people think he was Trump’s worst cabinet pick, or tied for worst with Betsy DeVos. But he’s getting hammered not for his earth-destroying agenda but for his swampy ethical problems. He thinks he’s president or king and behaves that way.

Is the Trump Regime off the rails? Sure looks that way. Where do we even begin?

Normal Americans aren't excited that Scott Pruitt is moving rapidly top destroy decades of progress at the EPA. But last week, the Christian Broadcasting Network, a right-wing outlet, looked at it from from the perspective of the lunatic fringe. We're talking about a lunatic fringe that spits in Jesus' face and worship mammon in the form of a fat self-glorifying orange orangutan.

A lot of Republicans, when they work up the nerve to criticize Señor Trumpanzee, try to couch the criticism in a paean to the greatness of his judiciary and cabinet picks. First of all, he doesn't care how criticism is couched; he'll be looking for an opportunity at revenge sooner or later-- and it won't be pretty-- and, second, his personnel selections are among his worst and most existentially risky decisions, not his saving grace.

Let's say Trump doesn't blunder into a Depression and that the generals around Trump prevent him from starting a nuclear war. So if he is either impeached in 2019 or defeated in 2020, when people look back at the most incompetent and wasted presidency since the country was founded, what will they single out as the single-- specific-- worst thing Trump did?

Who wouldn't be attracted to Jeff Goodell's excellent piece in the new Rolling Stone, Scott Pruitt's Crimes Against Nature. It would be impossible to make a short list of Trump's worst appointments and leave off Pruitt.

Just over a month ago, Michael Grunwald, writing for Politico noted that Trump's executive orders are mostly theater. With much flourish-- and not much impact-- he's signed more executive orders in his first 100 days than any president since FDR.