Scott Pruitt Running For Senate, Hopes You Forgot About His One Million Ethics Scandals
We did not forget.
Scott Pruitt is back, baby, and he's running to be the next senator from Oklahoma!
There were many corrupt Trump cabinet officials, but the prize for pissant venality goes to the former Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator, whose scandals provided us countless hours of LULZ. Who can forget Pruitt's use of government resources to track down a used mattress from the Trump Hotel, presumably for its unrivaled back support and unique Trumpenspunkenfunken, as the Germans might say. (Or maybe not, who knows?)
It's illegal for federal employees to perform personal tasks for their bosses, but that never stopped Pruitt, who dispatched his staff to procure that special Ritz-Carlton lotion he liked to lube himself up with. Also he had EPA employees pressure Chick-Fil-A's CEO Dan Cathy to grant Pruitt's wife Marlyn a chicken franchise so she could get a job and start kicking up for all the expenses they couldn't figure out a way to fob off onto taxpayers. And even if you say, "Oh, but my employees love me because I brought them from Oklahoma to DC and got them these sweet gigs, plus I raided funds earmarked for clean water experts to give them raises, and I let them take weeks and weeks of personal days at a time," it's still illegal for government workers to "volunteer" for their boss during off hours. See, 5 CFR 2635.203(b).
Nonetheless, Pruitt got his staff to find him a new home after his lobbyist apartment scam fell through. See, Pruitt was "renting" a spare bedroom in a townhouse belonging to an energy lobbyist with business before the EPA. His daughter was using another room gratis, but that wouldn't be right for daddy, so the lobbyist charged him $50 for every night he stayed there. Pruitt was apparently not much for taking out the trash, and often fell behind on this laughable "rent," which he got his ethics chief to bless, despite the fact that it was far below market rate for Capitol Hill.
But Pruitt had a way of convincing his staff to give him what he wanted, mostly by threatening to fire them and replace them if they wouldn't greenlight his grift. Which is how he wound up with hundreds of thousands of dollars in first-class airfare, which he needed for "security" reasons; a 19-person, 24/7 security detail with 19 tricked out vehicles; a $43,000 cone of silence in his office, which necessitated pouring a new, two-foot thick concrete slab, so he could have discreet phone sex with Big Oil without having to schlep down to the dedicated EPA SCIF in the basement; the use of flashing lights and sirens so Pruitt's motorcade could cut through DC traffic and get to dinner on time; and the mother of all boondoggle trips for Pruitt and the Oklahoma Posse to Paris and Morocco for a little EPA-sponsored sightseeing and natural gas lobbying.
Here's how Rachel Maddow described it at the time.
Is this an EPA trip or did they make a new sequel to The Hangover?pic.twitter.com/DfGrF7xmw4— Maddow Blog (@Maddow Blog) 1522978097
And not for nothing, among the many "threats" cited by this grasping little weenus to justify his travel expenses and security detail was a picture of his face on the cover of Newsweek, which someone had drawn a mustache on and taped up in a hallway at the EPA. Scary stuff!
Who better to be the next senator from Oklahoma, filling out the four years remaining on retiring Sen. James Inhofe's term?
Pruitt, who once served as Oklahoma's attorney general, joins a crowded field. To win the Republican nomination, he'll have to beat out Inhofe's chief of staff Luke Holland, who has his boss's endorsement, as well as former state House speaker T.W. Shannon, and retired MMA fighter turned US congressman Markwayne Mullin. Mullin was last seen on these pages LARPing as Rambo by attempting to fly into Tajikistan with pallets of cash to rescue Americans trying to flee Afghanistan. Pruitt will have to get up pretty early in the morning to out-crazy that dude.
But let's not underestimate this guy. We are, after all, talking about someone who managed to be too corrupt even for the Trump administration. Shoot your shot, Scotty! We know you will.
[WaPo]
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Wheel Of Ohio GOP Senate Hopefuls Now Includes Guy Who Just Called Entire Middle Class A Freeloader
Plus, is J.D. Vance getting a big hairy rose from the failed TV president he loves the most?
It's hard to break through the news cycle in the three-ring dumpster fire of the Republican Senate primary in Ohio.
Between Josh Mandel burning his mask for freedom and calling everyone a pussy, and Peter Thiel sticking his hand up J.D. Vance's puppet ass and making increasingly unhinged performance art come out his mouth, hardly anyone is paying attention to Mike Gibbons. And we should pay attention, because that replacement level white dude holds a slim lead in recent polling and might well end up being the nominee if the other two dipshits split the loony vote.
Gibbons is your bog standard 70-year-old businessman who earned some cash and thinks that makes him qualified to run the country. He knows who contributes to this country, and it is job creators like himself, not the dirty poors or even the petty bourgeoisie who clog up Ohio's endless suburbs. In fact, you moochers need to quit demanding perks like "healthcare" and affordable tuition until you start kicking in more.
“The top 20 percent of earners in the United States pay 82 percent of federal income tax — and, if you do the math, and 45% to 50% don’t pay any income tax, you can see the middle class is not really paying any kind of a fair share, depending on how you want to define it,” Gibbons said on a podcast in September in comments recently surfaced by the AP.
Which is cool and all, if you disregard the fact that those same 20 percent of earners have seen their income skyrocket in the past two generations to the point that they're eating more than half of the earnings pie, with the top one percent holding more wealth than all the middle class put together. Moreover, Gibbons put the rabbit in the hat by restricting his data set to federal income tax paid, conveniently omitting all the capital gains and real estate appreciation that those 20 percent are availing themselves of outside the federal income tax pool.
Not for nothing, but the top marginal income tax rate under GOP patron saint Ronald Reagan was 50 percent, as opposed to the 37 percent we have now. So, yeah, we actually agree with Gibbons when he says “How much of the total tax bill can a very small percentage of the nation pay and still be a democracy?” But not in the way he thinks.
Gibbons rushed to disavow his own statements, which are an unfortunate echo of National Republican Senatorial Committee Chair Rick Scott's policy plan, which calls to raise taxes on half of Americans so they'll have "skin in the game."
“Mike Gibbons does not support tax increases on any American — and never has,” a spokeswoman told the AP. “Mike is a businessman, not a career politician, and he understands economics and how to implement smart ideas and strategies that will benefit all Americans.”
But apparently this failed to do the trick, because OH, HEY, LOOKIE HERE! While we were typing NBC reported that Donald Trump is going to endorse that weirdo J.D. Vance, despite the fact that he's trailed in all the recent polling and Ohioans don't actually like him much.
GOP Rep. Jim Jordan, who backs Mandel, tried to talk Trump out of it, but to no avail:
A source close to Mandel’s campaign acknowledged Thursday that Trump's press shop had already written up an endorsement of Vance, but it threw up a last-minute obstacle for the former president to consider: an internal Republican poll conducted by his campaign showing Mandel in front with 33 percent of the vote, followed by Matt Dolan and Mike Gibbons tied at 15 percent. Vance and Jane Timken were tied at 9 percent in the Mandel poll.
And has there ever been a more Trump-y passage written than this?
[Ohio state senator Matt] Dolan is the only candidate who is running on a platform that does not seem to be courting the support of the former president. That has bothered Trump immensely and has pushed him to want to pick a winner to ensure that a non-Trump acolyte doesn't win a state that he won handily in 2020 and 2016.
Trump doesn't give a shit who wins, as long as it's someone who kisses his ass. Plus he thinks Mandel is a weirdo, so the Yalebilly gets the nod. Sorry, Mike Gibbons, you don't factor! But don't worry, if that fake populist actually does get to the Senate, he'll make damn sure to cut taxes to the bone.
Mazal tov, Ohio! You sure know how to pick 'em!
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Mitch McConnell Drooling Over Possible Return To Power
It's your very 'Mitch' Sunday show rundown.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (pictured above while watching the ending of "Marley And Me"?) appeared on "Fox News Sunday" this weekend with temporary host and former George W. Bush press secretary Dana Perino.
Here are some highlights!
McConnell argued that the Biden administration is doing better with Ukraine now, thanks to how Republicans were around to push Biden to do more:
MCCONNELL: I think the administration has gotten better, but they've had to be pushed every step of the way to get more aggressive sooner. They are stepping up their game, but principally because of bipartisan pressure from Congress on the administration to do more, quicker.
Sooner? That's rich coming from the party that acquitted Trump in his first impeachment for literally extorting Ukraine for its desperately needed military aid.
Then the topic moved to energy:
MCCONNELL: It's really ridiculous. I mean the administration wants everybody else to produce more except us. They want us to be green, and so they're going after our allies in the -- in the Middle East, asking them to up production. Look, we were energy independent as late as 2019. We can be energy independent again.
So let's stop development on clean and green energy, which other countries are developing, to make fossil fuels companies richer? Nothing will say "energy independence" like being a distant second to China once the time comes.
McConnell also mentioned NATO:
MCCONNELL: Putin's invasion has done a lot to unify NATO and get the attention of NATO. And it's also noteworthy that the secretary general of NATO has pointed out, we're going to beef up the troops along the eastern border of NATO, the frontline countries. This has been a good lesson of the importance of NATO once again. I think some people have kind of lost sight of that over the years.
Who "lost sight of it," Mitch? Who were/are these misguided people? Reminder: we were all there. We all remember.
Then came the pièce de résistance of this softball interview: McConnell's vision board for a GOP-controlled Congress come November 2022. Let's just say it's the same bullshit, but wrapped in vagueness to hide that they have no new ideas.
MCCONNELL: Well, our agenda next year, if we're fortunate enough to be in the majority, will be focused on exactly what you and I have been talking about, crime, education, beefing up the defense of our country. The president's request for the Defense Department, in this year's request, doesn't even keep up with inflation. We've got a war going on in Ukraine. [...] So all of those will be on our agenda. We will not have the presidency for two more years. Obviously, we will have to work with the administration to see what we can agree on. But we want to turn the president -- let me put it this way, Biden ran as a moderate. If I'm the majority leader in the Senate, and Kevin McCarthy's the speaker of the House, we'll make sure Joe Biden is a moderate.
Let's break that bullshit down:
- By focusing on "crime," he may mean no accountability for police misconduct, immunity for terrorizing marginalized communities, and maybe more funding for the further militarization of police.
- "Education" might mean more bills/laws to ban any talk of race or acknowledgement that LGBTQ people exist, while dismantling teachers' unions. You didn't think they were going to raise school budgets or pay teachers better, right? That and probably more push for homeschooling/privatizing of schools.
- "Beefing up defense" is self-explanatory. They are going to keep increasing defense spending while ignoring the middle class and poor. It's been the same rhetoric as always.
"We only have empty pockets when it comes to the morally right things to do, but when it comes to tax cuts for billionaires and when it comes to unlimited war we seem to be able to invent that money very easily," Democrat Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez says. https://cnn.it/2vpyVNl\u00a0pic.twitter.com/dgVgv8EMRb— CNN Politics (@CNN Politics) 1533778196
McConnell thinks "moderate" is code for Republican or conservative, which some spineless or craven or a mix of both Democratic senators seem to agree with. That has been essentially the problem of the last two years of a Democratic Senate. They've inflicted damage on themselves and done little to counter the narrative that losing the midterms is inevitable.
The interview ended with McConnell commenting on President Biden's likeability, and side-stepping a question about Trump endorsing Dr. Oz in the Pennsylvania GOP primary, which was well summarized by the best headline Rolling Stone ever published.
As we've pointed out before, most Democratic politicians and news media can't or won't face the existential threat that the modern GOP has become. This is exemplified by McConnell basically admitting he's a villain to Axios, and the shocked disbelief on Jonathan Swan's face as he looks for moral red lines from a man who has none.
.@jonathanvswan asks Mitch McConnell where he draws his moral redlinespic.twitter.com/is7WZqSuhx— Axios (@Axios) 1649349900
How many times do we have to quote Maya Angelou's "when people show you who they are" quote before some people will get it?
Have a week.
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Trump Says It's Not His Fault If David Perdue, That Stuffed Shirt He Endorsed For GA Gov, Loses
High praise, fella.
Just last week, Donald Trump tried to wash the stench of loser off himself by kicking Alabama Rep. Mo Brooks to the curb.
"Mo Brooks of Alabama made a horrible mistake recently when he went 'woke,'" Trump railed against his erstwhile ally as he withdrew his endorsement in Alabama's US Senate race, purportedly over disloyal comments Brooks made a full seven months before.
And now Trump's backing away from another endorsee, as David Perdue's numbers look increasingly anemic in his challenge to sitting Georgia Governor Brian Kemp, who enraged Trump by failing to call a special session so the legislature could steal the state's electoral votes from Joe Biden.
In that same interview yesterday with Biden-Ukraine fanfic writer John Solomon where Trump begged Putin for kompromat on the sitting American president, he also made clear that if Perdue loses, it ain't on him.
Trump: \u201cI endorse a lot of people that are are long shots \u2026 Hopefully David Perdue is going to win. These are not sure things. If I lose one along the way, which you have to, right, they\u2019re going to say, \u2018This was a humiliating experience.\u2019\u201d #gapolpic.twitter.com/cPbN9Js3WO— Greg Bluestein (@Greg Bluestein) 1648607883
“I endorse a lot of people that are long shots,” Trump babbled. "Look, we're fighting a governor who's done a very poor job in Georgia. Horrible job on the election! And hopefully David Perdue is going to win."
But, if he doesn't win, he wants everyone to know that he's not embarrassed. It happens to lots of guys. And, look at these hands, there's absolutely no problem there.
"These are not sure things. If I lose one along the way, which you have to, right, they’re going to say, ‘This is a humiliating experience.’ I could be 100 wins and one loss, and they’d make it sound like this is humiliating thing. These are really dishonest people.”
UH HUH.
As CNN points out, Trump's 2022 endorsements have been a pretty mixed bag, particularly the races he got into early because he was pissed off and trying to oust an incumbent. Sure, the party seems to have coalesced around Wyoming's Harriet Hageman in her challenge to Rep. Liz Cheney. But Kelly Tshibaka hasn't managed to pick up much steam since she got dispatched to go take out Sen. Lisa Murkowski in Alaska. And Trump promised to campaign for whoever suited up to take on South Dakota Senator John Thune, but couldn't find a single person to register to challenge him — even Trump's best gov pal Kristi Noem wouldn't take the bait.
For reasons no one quite understands, Trump got pissed off at Alabama Governor Kay Ivey and talked Lynda Blanchard, his former ambassador to Slovenia, into challenging her.
Trump tapped Rep. Ted Budd to run for Senate in his name in North Carolina. Budd has thus far failed to clear the field, and is still duking it out with former Governor Pat McCrory and former Rep. Mark Walker.
In Pennsylvania, Trump's early endorsement of accused domestic abuser Sean Parnell didn't pan out. And now, the vacuum in his wake has sucked in Dr. Oz, so the Keystone cops GOP are kicking the crap out of each other when they should be concentrating on the general election.
And Herschel Walker might well win in Georgia, but he sure as hell isn't who the GOP wanted to take on Sen. Raphael Warnock.
So if they "lose one along the way," just know that it's everybody else's fault, not Trump's. Anyway, apropos of nothing, here's a video of Perdue explaining that he wasn't saying "Lock him up" about Brian Kemp, he was saying, uh, "socks for cup?" Or something.
At a gaggle, @DavidPerdueGA says he \u201cmisunderstood\u201d the chant of \u201cLock him up!\u201d about @GovKemp at Trump rally. \u201cI really thought they were saying lock them up.\u201d Adds that \u201cthe people responsible\u201d for 2020 and 2021 \u201cshould be investigated and are brought to justice.\u201d #gapolpic.twitter.com/X5ZhhhwN1e— Patricia Murphy (@Patricia Murphy) 1648572718
LOL.
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