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Pruitt - in or out?

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Bu- Bye.

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YES!!! :smile: finally!!!

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And up to bat next is…

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:face_with_raised_eyebrow:

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Telfonated, ‘high self-regard’ ‘only resigned b/c he was making the Prez look bad,’ ‘and Laura Ingraham/fox turned on him’ - what news reporters (msnbc) are saying about him.

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For The Atlantic writer, Elaina Plott, she’s been really expecting that Pruitt to leave certainly by April. She talks about the staff dealing with Pruitt’s continuous unethical tactics and about the morale facing this group.

For me the most galling if that Pruitt felt that he’d be the perfect candidate for Jeff Sessions job, but as we can tell from his resignation letter, Pruitt felt a certain God given place to work within the T administration. It looks as though he certainly felt that he was doing good work, despite all the accusations swirling around him.

You’d just wake up every day holding your breath, wondering what would drop next,” one of the former officials recalled. “I felt like I could never get through to him. Even as one of his top advisers, I would tell him, ‘Don’t do this, don’t do that.’ It didn’t matter—he would not heed counsel. At a certain point, you reach your limits as a staffer with what you feel you can accomplish.”

Some officials relied on humor to ease tension and speed along the workdays. On May 1, Axios’s Jonathan Swan reported that a “suspicious package” had been found on the second floor of EPA’s headquarters. “The floor has been locked down and a Hazmat team is on its way,” he wrote.

I texted an official with a link to the tweet and got an immediate response. “The inter-office joke was that we finally found Pruitt’s ethics training manual,” the source said. (The suspicious package was later revealed to be a box of fruit.)

A sense of malaise seemed to grip the EPA in the weeks leading up to Pruitt’s resignation. One former official told me they’d struggled emotionally with how to navigate an unrelenting “sense of purposelessness.”

File under read all viewpoints - from the WSJ’s Editorial Board about how the Progressives got their man, Pruitt out. It helps to understand what logic is involved with these statements.

> "The shame is that Mr. Trump is losing his bravest deregulator."

> "EPA is the Holy Sepulchre of progressive politics, and Mr. Pruitt posed an existential threat to command and control regulation that is the hallmark of the left’s environmental agenda."

Boils down to giving credence to economic savings & gains (see fracking, see pipelines greenlit, see lands/oceans open for oil drilling etc) rather than environmental, and why do we need these pesky regulations they are wondering.

Because there are serious and undeniable environmental issues at stake.

Opinion Review & Outlook

Pruitt Drowns in the Swamp
The permanent green government takes out Trump’s deregulator.

By The Editorial Board
July 5, 2018 7:44 p.m. ET
Chalk one up for the swamp. The permanent progressive state finally ran Scott Pruitt out of the Environmental Protection Agency on Thursday, and the tragedy is that Mr. Pruitt gave his enemies so much ammunition.

President Trump announced on Twitter Thursday afternoon that he had accepted Mr. Pruitt’s resignation. Mr. Pruitt cited the “unrelenting attacks on me personally” and his family that have “taken a sizable toll on us all.” He’s right about unrelenting. Dozens of reporters have examined every furl of Mr. Pruitt’s forehead since he started the job.

Press dispatches have suggested that he misused private air travel, sent staff on personal errands and bought $1,560 pens, among dozens of other allegations. Mr. Pruitt says most of this was false or exaggerated, and no doubt much of it was. He’s also right that billionaires Tom Steyer and Mike Bloomberg were out to get him. You can add the EPA bureaucracy that leans left, the green lobby entwined with it, and their collaborators in the press corps.

But this is not news, or it shouldn’t have been to Mr. Pruitt, who claimed to understand he was the biggest political target in the Administration after President Trump. EPA is the Holy Sepulchre of progressive politics, and Mr. Pruitt posed an existential threat to command and control regulation that is the hallmark of the left’s environmental agenda.

Mr. Pruitt had to avoid even the hint of an ethical question, and he should have been walking around Federal Triangle handcuffed to a general counsel. Of particular odor were the claims that Mr. Pruitt used his official position to help his wife find work or even open a Chick-fil-A franchise. The daily assault undermined his effectiveness and ultimately his support at the White House.

The shame is that Mr. Trump is losing his bravest deregulator. Mr. Pruitt started to roll back the Obama Administration’s Clean Power Plan that attempted to re-engineer the economy with little effect on climate change. He clamped down on the “sue and settle” racket that allows environmental groups to impose policy through consent degrees. He moved to redefine the Waters of the United States rule that let EPA regulate ponds and potholes. Mr. Pruitt also sought to require more honest cost-benefit analysis, and he updated advisory science boards that have been stacked with members who receive EPA grants.

Deputy Administrator Andrew Wheeler will take over, though acting directors are inherently transitional and thus less powerful. Then again, Mr. Wheeler may be there a while: Senate Democrats would block the Dalai Lama to run EPA if Mr. Trump nominated him.

Fresh off its Pruitt defenestration, the left will be looking for new targets, so some advice to the rest of the Trump cabinet: Fly coach.

Funny because this is exactly how I feel about Trump.

And for a smile see this.

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It took three months but he is out. My questions:

  1. What awful thing is about to come out that caused DearLeader to invite him to resign
  2. No more bullet proof seats and 24/7 taxpayer paid security - is he huddled in his bunker shaking with fear?

Bloomberg just suggested that it was the used mattress from a Trump hotel that was the final scandal that was too much for this President.

I’m just going to believe that this is a true fact.
:joy::joy::joy:

An early June disclosure that a top EPA aide helped Pruitt try to buy a used mattress from the Trump International Hotel was particularly embarrassing to the president, one of the people said.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-07-06/pruitt-said-to-have-been-told-to-resign-in-call-from-white-house

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Seems someone in the WH is searching for these nut cases instead of vetting their backgrounds. They scored big with Pruitt and Manafort. I think T brings out the extreme personalities.

@joshdorsey (WaPo)
What’s Scott Pruitt up to? He’s having breakfast at the Four Seasons Maui in Hawaii, per Playbook.

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Too little…too late

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Scott Pruitt’s current job title and some of his past behavior is highlighted here. Making the coal industry rich seems to be his happy place.

For the next stage of his career, Pruitt has tapped the industry connections he cultivated during his year and-a-half as a Cabinet member, according to four individuals briefed on his plans, as he works to make his way in the private sector and establish his own consulting business.

Pruitt is promoting coal exports and doing other work for his longtime friend, coal baron Joseph W. Craft III, while offering himself as an energy consultant and paid speaker, said several friends and associates, who asked for anonymity to speak frankly.

In an interview, Pruitt’s lawyer Cleta Mitchell confirmed that he was pursuing those activities, noting that his predecessor, Gina McCarthy, also works as a paid speaker. But she said Pruitt will not violate a five-year ban on lobbying the EPA.

“He has discussed multiple opportunities with me and has been quite careful not to do anything that is even close to the line - and to ensure he is in full compliance with both the letter and the spirit of the law,” she said.

Mitchell said it makes sense for Pruitt — who had not held a job in the private sector since he was elected as Oklahoma’s attorney general eight years ago — to seek work in an area he knows plenty about. “He was named EPA administrator because of his vast expertise and knowledge in the field — the field of energy and the environment and the regulatory process,” she said.

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An update on Cardinal Pell.

Cardinal George Pell has been found guilty and is set to be jailed for child sexual abuse in the most sensational verdict since the Catholic Church became engulfed in worldwide abuse scandals.

Pell, who was Vatican treasurer, close to the Pope and the most senior Catholic figure in the world to be charged by police with child sex offences, has been found guilty of orally raping one choirboy and molesting another in Melbourne’s St Patrick’s Cathedral 22 years ago.


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I’m kinda “meh” about it. Pruitt would have to be confirmed by the Senate and the Dems are only two seats away from a simple majority. Mid-terms are right around the corner… it’s a crazy thing to do but it’s not a certainty, not by a long shot. :woman_shrugging:t2:

The Pruitt scandals keep coming… he couldn’t even keep up with $50 a night rent on that condo. :joy:

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@dragonfly9 At this point, I would be more shocked if he survived. :joy:

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Not sure I’d put money on his leaving but going to another position…possible. He’s taking on the “communist” EPA ya know.

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