If Senator M. Michael Rounds had any moral authority left after cowering before Donald Trump’s Klanny fascism, he surrendered it this morning making excuses for unethical destroyer of worlds Scott Pruitt:
Asked whether Pruitt should still be EPA administrator, Rounds told NBC’s Chuck Todd Sunday that he should and that Pruitt was “following through with the policies that the President said he wanted to implement.”
“When does ethics matter, though?” Todd asked. “Because Tom Price did less and was fired.”
Rounds was dismissive.
“The reason why all of the emphasis right now is on Mr. Pruitt is because he is executing these policies, and they’re not real popular policies with a lot of people,” he said. “But he is executing the policies that this President said he would put in place.”
“Does that justify this behavior?” Todd asked.
Rounds said some of the Pruitt coverage could be “overblown,” and added: “Mr. Pruitt has been doing a good job as the secretary of the EPA. He’s moving forward exactly as this President said he would” [Matt Shuham, “GOP Sen.: Those Calling for Pruitt’s Resignation ‘Nitpick Little Things’,” TPM: Livewire, 2018.04.08].
Pruitt flies first-class on our dime, lies on Fox News, dodges White House rules to get raises for his aides, and commits a host of other selfish, paranoid ethics violations. But as long as he does good policy, Mike Rounds says Pruitt’s corruption doesn’t matter.
Spoken like a true master of government corruption… but not a master of fact. Rounds misses the fact that Pruitt has made lots of announcements but hasn’t actually executed much of the Trump/fossil fuel agenda:
So far, though, Pruitt has yet to create new regulations that would outlast his tenure or Trump’s, or to rescind any of the regulations Obama created. He’s only been able to delay a few that were already on hold before he took office because they were mired in litigation—most notably Obama’s rules protecting wetlands from development and limiting carbon emissions from power plants. He’s vowed to repeal and replace them both, but he’s barely begun those processes. He’s also managed to block a few Obama proposals that had not yet taken effect—like a ban on the pesticide chlorpyrifos, which the EPA had found posed a risk to fetal brain development, and a rule requiring sewage plants to reduce toxic emissions.
But the EPA rules that were in effect in 2016 are still the rules in 2018, despite Pruitt’s efforts to overturn them. He tried to impose a unilateral stay on an Obama rule regulating climate-warming methane emissions from oil and gas operations; a federal appeals court deemed the stay “unauthorized” and “unreasonable,” so the methane rule is now in force again. He tried a similar maneuver to suspend Obama’s restrictions on smog; after a group of state attorney generals sued, Pruitt reversed course, so those restrictions also remain in effect. Obama’s EPA had worked on both rules for years, engaging with stakeholders and the scientific community, creating a lengthy administrative record. Pruitt still hopes to rewrite them, but success would require the same kind of meticulous process.
“You can’t just govern by press release. You have to do the hard work of developing a rule that can withstand judicial scrutiny, even though it isn’t sexy,” says State Energy & Environmental Impact Center director David Hayes, an Interior Department official in the Clinton and Obama administrations. “Pruitt hasn’t been willing to do that, and that’s why he isn’t really having much of an impact” [Michael Grunwald, “The Myth of Scott Pruitt’s EPA Rollback,”].
Dang—Mike Rounds is taking ethics off the table as a voting issue to defend one Trump administrator for things that administrator hasn’t actually done.
I identified as a conservative Republican in the 1990s because I thought liberal Democrats preaching multiculturalism and excusing Bill Clinton’s infidelities would lead us down the path of paralyzing moral relativism. I sympathized with family values conservatives because they at least seemed to hew to a worldview that offered some foundation for universal moral values. But when South Dakota’s junior Senator, supposedly a good Catholic family values conservative, can unblinkingly excuse blatant corruption for policy achievements that haven’t happened yet, he shows me once again that his Republican Party has fallen headlong into Trumpist nihilism, in which nothing, neither ethics nor truth, matters.
When Mr. Hawley, a whiner of the biggest sort regarding the IM #22, wields corruption in his notarizing, it makes me feel zero sympathy for the libbie regard.
Mr. Hawley owes the citizens of South Dakota an apology for the IM #22 and for his corruption. He, probably more than Mr. Rounds, is a master of corruption.
Mike Rounds is right about one thing, Pruitt is following Trump’s order to not only destroy the environment, but destroy EPA itself.
Apparently Pruitt has decided to defund the agency by selfishly misspending agency money.
Only three republican senators; Collins, Graham, and Kennedy have asked Trump reconsider Pruitt’s appointment to EPA.
Mike Rounds support for a corrupt republican politician should be no surprise to anyone. The name Mike Rounds is synonymous with corruption.
An interesting side note, perhaps more gossip than fact, is that Trump wants to keep Pruitt around so that when he fires AG Sessions he can appoint Pruitt to the AG position. Pruitt said that if he was AG, he would fire Robert Mueller.
Maybe it comes down the this: no good man or woman can do the abhorrent things President Trump asks of them.
I was thinking HRC didn’t have the ethical chops to satisfy rank and file wingnuts to be Potus. I did notice that ethics problems weren’t a disqualifier for Drumpf’s cabinet appointments. Ethics must only be inforced against liberals.
I had some things to say that I thought were worthwhile, but Roger, you beat me to it and added more. I especially like this:
“Mike Rounds support for a corrupt republican politician should be no surprise to anyone. The name Mike Rounds is synonymous with corruption.”
Really. That’s simple Republicanism/Trumpism 101. Rounds just got a big head start on his own personal corruption in SD.
Is flying the State plane around for personal travel anything like traveling first class on the public dime? Asking for a friend.
Ethics were never on the table with Rounds and it does not seem to be a huge issue with those voting for Rounds in the first place. The EB 5 Scandal did not seem to matter to South Dakotans voting for him, and the investigation was mysteriously dropped by the FBI when he was elected.
Rounds and Trump would have been BFFs if they traveled in the same economic circles
Relativism and nihilism are often the tools used by the Republicans to protect the 1%. This is nothing new. But what is new is to have a Republican Senator from South Dakota so eager to be on MTP and especially MSNBC on a frequent basis. One could say this is a good thing, or merely a way to be all things to all people, but when you actively accept relativism and nihilism, then it is most likely the art of a chameleon more than the act of a true leader….
[Grudz, don’t come here trying to change my much bigger topic to Pat Powers’s latest unsubstantiated topic. We’ll do a separate post on that topic when we get it from a reliable source.]
Senator Rounds is chair of the Subcommittee that has oversight over the Superfund program, but he has yet to delve into how corrupted that program has become under Pruitt. And, the corruption has a clearn South Dakota example. Pruitt’s EPA is neck deep in a conspiracy with DENR and Agnico Eagle mines to corrupt the the Gilt Edge Mine Superfund cleanup through a Settlement Agreement. That agreement was negotiated over the course of nearly a year. You would think Rounds would be interested in getting to the bottom of that issue, letting citizens in on what has been going on in the background. Did Rounds know about this conspiracy? If so, why didn’t he insist on getting citizen input on this before it was nearly slammed through? If he was in the dark like South Dakota citizens, he is not up to doing his important role in legislative oversight.
It seems to me Rounds is just excusing his own corruption, or perhaps his own incompetence in doing his job for South Dakota. When you are corrupt yourself, you tend to excuse it in others. Isn’t that why Trump excuses anyone who is accused of sexual misconduct? Isn’t that why Rounds excuses corruption at EPA?
Yes, the corrupt are in power, and you expect the swamp of corruption to not be recognized by those who are corrupt. Pruitt is doing his job: corruptly, just as Trump and Rounds would have it done.
Cory,
Are you game for discussing the oil lawsuit in San Francisco?
Cory,
You can discuss the oil lawsuit in San Francisco when you debate Jason on the Lalley show.
As for the other comments in this thread. Let’t start with the EPA making the river orange in Colorado and go from there. Are you guys and gals willing to discuss that?
Roger,
I hope they come on here and invite me.
Jason
Why should Lalley come on here and invite you when can make a simple phone call and request a time to debate Cory? But, we know why you won’t call Lalley.
The Rounds story is on a couple of Facebook posts and Rounds is getting his butt kicked.
Everyone knows that Pruitt’s corruption can’t be justified, even by Mr. Corruption himself.
Cory,
Let’s talk about the environment and climate change.
Can you do that with me one on one?
One on one on an open thread? That’s just dumb.
Lalley would probably like to hear a debate on the environment and climate change.
Roger,
You are an idiot. This is an open thread.
You dodo, yeah you Jason, I’m the one that said this is an open thread. I know Trumpers lack reading comprehension skills, but this ridiculous.
Cory doesn’t have any ethics. That is the reason he posted this.I will gladly debate Cory on the EPA.
I doubt he will though because the facts are on my side.\\
Maybe Cory missed it but the global warming science lies are being tried by a democrat judge in San Francisco. The false science is gong down by a democrat judge.
I have many links for this Cory, but I will let you respond first.
Honestly, the discussion should end at “Determined to defend Pruitt, Rounds declares … ” Sometimes there is no defense for brazen and overt hostility toward principles one is sworn to protect.
Curt,
Let’s discuss the EPA and the orange Colorado river.
You game for that?
Curt,
True, that is where it should end, but it won’t.
We know how the SDGOP covers up and defends corruption and Rounds has taken those skills to Washington, D.C.
Amazing isn’t it? Imagine Rounds teaching Pruitt and Trump how to cover up.
Curt,
Do yourself a favor and don’t respond to the troll.
It’s apparent Roger doesn’t care about the environment since he doesn’t want to discuss it.
BTW Roger,
Trolls don’t want to discuss facts. I do. That’s why you hate me. I prove your thoughts wrong.
I will await the invite for Cory and Lalley to invite me to debate the EPA.
Two things are painfully obvious:
1. Jason is doing his best to deflect the conversation on this thread.
2. Jason is unwilling or in denial and doesn’t want to discuss Rounds support of Pruitt and the mounting corruption charges against him.
The Pruitt discussion this week will be not if Pruitt is canned by equally corrupt Trump, but when will he be canned.
It’s as if Pruitt is like Putin and has some damaging information on Trump.
Jason,
I await knowing your true identity when you debate Cory.
“Cory doesn’t have any ethics”—utterly false, of course, but more importantly in the context of this discussion, utterly irrelevant in the eyes of Mike Rounds and all Trumpists, who are willing to put loyalty to their Dear Leader over any ethical considerations. See also the Führer Principle.
Go ahead and invite Jason to debate. He’s right about the manipulation of the climate data. This is why you all refuse to acknowledge it. The lies are exposed and open for anyone willing to read.
As far as Rounds go; he didn’t agree to hang Pruitt without the facts being known. That is called being “prudent”. It’s a needed view in today’s world of reactionary fools who screamed about rising seas, no more snow, and the earth being flat. Rounds came across as a rational thinker while the small dogs have been biting at his heels.
Roger, why don’t you go ahead and list the specific crimes Pruitt committed for us?
Cory,
My evidence you are unethical is your lies of omission to your readers of your blog.
You still haven’t acknowledged the 20% tax deduction you are getting.
Are you going to donate your 20% tax deduction back to the US Treasury?
Let’s discuss the science Cory in the San Francisco lawsuit.
https://co2islife.wordpress.com/2018/03/24/sophistry-in-san-francisco-half-truths-are-twice-the-lie/
Jason wants to discuss the Colorado River turning orange due to acid mine drainage. Apparently, he wants to talk about that because EPA breached some structures that were holding this poisonous water in an abandoned mine.
But why limit the discussion to one incident in Colorado. Why not discuss South Dakota’s acid mine drainage issues. The creeks around the Gilt Edge mine used to turn yellow and orange every year due to acid rock drainage. In fact, a few times in the 1990s Bear Butte Creek turned yellow-orange nearly down to Sturgis. You can go to many mine sites all over the West to see really odd colored liquids coming out of abandoned and active mine sites.
Jason wants to pick one incident in Colorado and flog it to death while ignoring that we have a century and a half of these sorts of incidents all over the West, including right here in South Dakota. The debate should be about how that happened and how to clean it up.
A suggestion is that we need to use the Superfund program, as it was intended, for cleanups of these sites. The problem with water running orange in the Colorado River was one of not using the Superfund to clean it up. Under Superfund there is a systematic study of hazards and risks. That did not happen at that Colorado mining site because someone had the bright idea that they should re-mine at that site.
There is a lesson for South Dakota right now. The same stupidity is being proposed right now at the Gilt Edge Mine Superfund site by Pruitt’s EPA. A corrupt Settlement Agreement between South Dakota DENR, EPA and Agnico Eagle Mines would allow for re-mining the Gilt Edge site, and Bear Butte Creek could once again run yellow.
Debate all you want, Jason. Just get your facts straight.
Specific ethics violations of Scott Pruitt. 1. At the center of Pruitt’s ballooning ethics crisis is his $50-a-night sweetheart deal to rent a room in a luxury Capitol Hill townhouse linked to a fossil fuel industry lobbying firm, Williams & Jensen. The EPA’s ethics lawyers scrambled to approve the arrangement, but struggled to defend the administrator after news broke that his adult daughter also stayed at the residence. But those EPA lawyers walked back the approval in a Wednesday memo, arguing that they did not have all the necessary information to consider the arrangement. During the time Pruitt stayed at the condominium, Williams & Jensen’s clients won approval from the EPA for a pipeline-extension project.
Here is another one for Jason and Jason “In 2011, Pruitt and his wife, Margaret, bought a property in Tulsa, Oklahoma, days before a court ruled that it had been fraudulently transferred by a Las Vegas developer who was on the hook for a $3.6 million loan default, according to a report the watchdog group Center for Media and Democracy published Thursday in Salon. Pruitt, then Oklahoma attorney general, flipped the property four months later, selling it to a shell company set up by a major campaign donor, Tulsa business magnate and Oklahoma Republican Party finance chair Kevin Hern.”
Cory,
My evidence you are unethical is your lies of omission to your readers of your blog.
Nice choice, Jason. Something that can’t be proven. Typical trolling trollop trash.
Cory must be the 9th Wonder of the World- tis a wonder he hath not dropped the ban hammer on a couple obvious, ingratiating TROLLS and their disrespect for Cory and others on here. Cory must have the patience of a Job.
Jason – we are eagerly awaiting your comments on the subject of this blog.
Are you ok with Pruitt’s unethical behavior?
Are you ok with Mike Rounds, tacit approval of Pruitt’s waste of taxpayer money? You know, the “ends justify the means” theory?
Waiting………
Jerry:
#1 is not a crime nor is it unethical. Let’s actually quote the article “EPA’s senior ethics official, Kevin Minoli, recently reviewed the lease — months after Pruitt had vacated the apartment — and initially deemed the arrangement did not violate agency rules on accepting gifts.” http://www.9news.com/article/news/nation-now/epa-administrator-scott-pruitts-ethical-challenges-piling-up/465-5e2281ae-21c5-4455-bd22-0c4d5140be24
So, the EPA’s senior ethics official 1st says it is ethical and then months later after this comes out, Minoli says he doesn’t have enough information therefore somehow Pruitt shouldn’t or should listen to the advice of the senior ethic official? How is this Pruitt’s fault? He clearly consulted the subject matter expert, Minoli who is an attorney and leads Office of General Counsel (OGC) but to even better qualify Mr Minoli, he is gay. So, you hate Pruitt because he kept a gay guy on as his senior ethics official?
Ya got anything else Jerry, you gay attorney hater?
Of course, Mike Rounds knows his corruption! Grifters gotta grift. Remember, back in the day, when states got stimulus money supposed to go for shovel ready projects? That to qualify for the money, all they had to do was assure the DOE that they would adopt energy building code requirements for both residential and commercial buildings, which would promote energy conservation.
In Spearfish, then Gov Rounds used a portion of the millions of dollars to build a “taj mahal style” bus barn for Prairie Hills Transit. (a wink and a handshake given as a gift to his good friend, the executive director of PHT)
Smilin’ Mike. No wonder the Scott Pruitt issue is “nit picking”. Mr Rounds never met a corruption issue he didn’t like.
https://www.argusleader.com/story/news/2016/08/13/how-south-dakota-took-money-and-ran/88563764/
Rounds hates the EPA, always has. Rounds is not defending Pruitt the man, he is defending Pruitt the man approved to dismantle the EPA, trump’s plan and therefore, Rounds plan. A good read:
“Leave it to Chris Christie, the disgraced former New Jersey governor and ex-Donald Trump lapdog, to lower the boom on EPA administrator Scott Pruitt. Last weekend, after news broke that Pruitt had scored a sweetheart deal for a condo from a lobbyist pal in D.C., Christie predicted that it was finally time for Pruitt to go. “I don’t know how you survive this one,” Christie told ABC’s “This Week.” Well, I don’t claim to know more about how Trump’s swampland works than Christie, but here’s one way Pruitt survives: Do not administer the Environmental Protection Agency (as the job title suggests), but dismantle it. And do it with sly efficiency, shameless devotion and frequent presidential ass kissing.” https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/scott-pruitt-scandal-the-epa-chief-knows-what-hes-doing-w518685
Indeed, Pruitt knows how to be corrupt, just like Rounds and just like their master, trump. Forget ethics, this is all about corruption. If anyone thought that the EB5 was just a slight error in judgement for Rounds, you really don’t know how shady this crew is.
As a matter of fact, I do have more. “Pruitt used a loophole in the Safe Drinking Water Act to give two of his longtime aides raises of $56,765 and $28,130 after the White House rejected his request for the salary increases. The law includes a provision that allows the administrator to hire up to 30 people without White House or congressional approval for work related to the law. In a contentious Fox News interview on Wednesday, Pruitt insisted the action was taken without his knowledge, and said he didn’t know who made the decision. But the law dictates that the administrator must approve the hires, calling his exasperated statements on Trump’s favorite cable channel into question.”
Good news pool boy, I have more.
All of you are so quick to hang anyone the media says you should hate. You are literally no better than the mobs in Mississippi who hung the Black men falsely accused of rape. There is literally no difference between you and what they did. None!
Look at yourselves, pathetic. PATHETIC! Race, cultural, dishonest HATERS!!!
Each of you should go to your bathroom, look in the mirror and ask yourself why you are so filled with hate you would hang a man without knowing the truth first. How sad, no, I was right before: PATHETIC!
Jerry is leading the mob with pitchfork in hand: “HANG’EM, HANG’EM THOSE B BAD MEN WHOES DESERVES HANGIN!!!” ~jerk jerry.
Listen to OldSmokey denigrate HRC as a crook even though she has NEVER been charged with or convicted of any crimes.
Ted Nugent is screaming for his followers to shoot Liberals on sight. Nice. How do we take that out of context?
Look at how OS and his buddies have concocted one lie after another about the Parkland School kids pressing for smart gun control.
Let’s debate the Colorado River. Whassa matter? Is it not a river? Is it not in Colorado?
Old guys rule!! and we do not give a damn about you or your boy trump or the ethically challenged Pruitt or his equal, Rounds for that matter. Time to call your mommie, tell her you hear a blue tsunami.
“April 9 (Reuters) – Older, white, educated voters helped Donald Trump win the White House in 2016. Now, they are trending toward Democrats in such numbers that their ballots could tip the scales in tight congressional races from New Jersey to California, a new Reuters/Ipsos poll and a data analysis of competitive districts shows.
Nationwide, whites over the age of 60 with college degrees now favor Democrats over Republicans for Congress by a 2-point margin, according to Reuters/Ipsos opinion polling during the first three months of the year. During the same period in 2016, that same group favored Republicans for Congress by 10 percentage points. (Graphic: https://tmsnrt.rs/2H39Tur)
The 12-point swing is one of the largest shifts in support toward Democrats that the Reuters/Ipsos poll has measured over the past two years. If that trend continues, Republicans will struggle to keep control of the House of Representatives, and possibly the Senate, in the November elections, potentially dooming President Donald Trump’s legislative agenda.”
Poor poor pitiful sargey. Time for the soundproof room with you and the prudent Pruitt. Off you go now.
Rounds defends this corruption as irrelevant, nice. “Federal regulations dictate that government employees be “prudent” when “making official travel arrangements,” and book “the least expensive class of travel that meets their needs.” Yet Pruitt routinely spent between $1,400 and $4,000 on flights to Boston, New York and Corpus Christi, Texas, according to The Washington Post. He regularly stayed in luxury hotels. His international travel expenses soared into the six figures. In June, a trip to an environmental summit in Italy cost more than $120,000, while a December trip to Morocco to promote liquefied natural gas ― a bizarre responsibility for the nation’s environmental regulator to take on ― reportedly cost nearly $40,000 with staff. In February, Pruitt defended his first-class airfare, insisting angry members of the public heckled him in economy class.”
Old Sarge: No, there is a HUGE difference between figuratively “hanging” and literally hanging a man. You demean yourself with such nonsense.
I’ll agree with OldSarg over one thing. The media pile on to stories of personal corruption because it is an easy story to do. Find a few disgruntled employees and they will feed you lots of info. The really hard stories to report are the institutional corruption issues. Grudz commented about Steve Pirner at SDDENR driving around in a fancy car, as if that sort of personal corruption is what we need to guard against in the EPA-DENR-Agnico bribery corruption of the Gilt Edge Superfund cleanup. Grudz implies if you don’t find fancy automobiles, then, Grudz thinks there is no corruption. But it’s the corruption of the work of an agency and the rule of law that is much more important here.
One of the points Cory made is that, so far, Pruitt hasn’t been able to get around a lot of the checks and balances we have built into law. The need to go through rule-making means there is a lot of science and law that has to be done before Pruitt can change many things. One of the checks is the need to obtain public comment and to respond to those comments. And then, EPA rules have to get through inevitable court challenges.
Settlement Agreements like the one proposed between EPA-DENR-Agnico at Gilt Edge get to skip a lot of those steps that serve as checks and balances. These are the places the media need to be focused on. These agreements can be done quickly and mostly out of reach of the normal processes, as we’ve seen with the Gilt Edge agreement. These sorts of agreements will allow for much faster implementation of corrupt policies. The media ought to cover these, as this is where there can be a lot of corruption in a short amount of time.
The crimes and unethical financial corruption documented against Pruitt isn’t a “lynching” offense, pure hyperbole from a Trump supporter.
How quickly the tides have turned for republicans that still call HRC ‘crooked Hillary” and want more investigations and have already convicted her and “lynched” her. When there is a perception of criminal wrong doing by a Democrat you will never hear a republican say, “well, she hasn’t been convicted of a crime so quit being quick to judge and “lynch” her.
Since Trump took office and swore on the Bible to defend the Constitution this administration has been tainted by criminal activity and corruption.
Mike Rounds and Pruitt are the faces of government corruption, they literally screw their base with their financial irresponsibility and the base cries for more corruption.
Roger, think about it; if Pruitt went to extent of having the ethics director of the EPA look at Pruitt renting the room prior to all this hub bub doesn’t it seem silly to think he isn’t as careful with his other actions?
You run around accusing everyone else of corruption, criminal activity of financial irresponsibility? Wow, for someone who has the heritage of those who were so unfairly treated you sure seem to be on the wrong bandwagon now. . .
Drumpf double swore on two bibles and a pinkie swear to boot. He is the lyingest lying liar ever.
It isn’t just Pruitt. It is Carson, it is Drumpf and his entire family. It was Price and his insider trading in Congress before he became HHS secretary and screwed the pooch on airfares, etc. It is Zinke and his arrogant attitude about wasting taxpayer dollars at interior, it is DeVos at education who is dumber than Drumpf when it comes to government functions. It is Chao as Sec of Transportation-being MacTurtle’s wife is her main job skill I guess. And don’t forget Guv Goodhair as Energy Sec who is head of one of the three departments he vowed to get rid of as Potus and couldn’t remember what it was called.
None of these people are qualified to lead the departments they oversee.
AG Sessions perjured himself at least twice at his confirmation hearings and wingnuts voted him in anyway. Ethics schmethics.
OldSarge,
My heritage has nothing to do with Trump/Pruitt corruption. My heritage doesn’t influence my opinions about this specific administration, your race baiting is a failure and a waste of time.
If you choose to support and defend a corrupt cabinet member of the Trump administration, that is your choice.
What happened to the republican fiscal conservative party that used to care how tax dollars were spent? They are now a bunch of dinosaurs that by their inaction support and defend Trump/Pruitt corruption. In the words of Trump himself, “Sad”.
mike from iowa
You are absolutely correct about the lack of ethics by Trump’s cabinet members.
My very first comment on this thread was not just about Pruitt’s taxpayer corruption, it was about how Trump sent Pruitt to EPA to destroy the agency. He is doing the same damn thing at HHS, Education, Energy, Transportation and Interior. These cabinet appointees are not qualified and are on a path of destruction that Trump not only approves of, he has ordered it.
Yes you did, Roger. Kudos to you for laying it on the line for all to see.
Read the Meet the Press transcript. Rounds did not refute any of the allegations against Pruitt. He explicitly declined to call them “fake news.” He said Pruitt’s security detail is too big. His tactic is not the defense OldSarg ragefully offers; Rounds instead seeks to say that ethical lapses matter far less than pushing Donald Trump’s agenda.
That’s an excellent topic for debate: “Achieving policy goals matters more than behaving ethically.” That’s the topic Rounds invites with his defense of Pruitt’s keeping his job. That’s the topic I invite with this post.
[As for Patrick Lalley’s show… well, it’s Patrick Lalley’s show. He decides guests and topics. My finger is not on any buttons at KSOO.]
[Grammar note: “gay attorney hater” means Jerry is gay and hates attorneys. “gay-attorney hater” means Jerry hates gay attorneys. Hyphens matter. Use them correctly.]
Pruitt may be running for governor or senator, so Rounds thinks this is “irrelevant” as he would be in the good old boys club to really get the payday.
“The EPA shelled out between $2,000 and $2,600 for Pruitt’s first-class flights to his home state of Oklahoma, where he spent 43 out of 92 days last spring. The trips cost a total of more than $12,000 in airfare, according to records released last year. His frequent travel triggered a probe from the EPA inspector general, and prompted speculation that the former Oklahoma attorney general was using the EPA’s budget to lay the groundwork for an eventual campaign for governor or Senate in the Sooner State.”
Wow, I didn’t even know that old sarge was a gay attorney! Imagine that.
Sacrifice ethics in pursuit of the bigger gain, that is a corporate motto and should never be applied in government. That is the problem with the Trump administration, he brings corporate applications to government. Government isn’t a “win by any means possible” game, it is to provide service and protection to citizens through ethical and responsible actions.
Trump just told American farmers that the trade war with China would hurt them short term, but will pay big dividends in the future. Again, Trump tosses ethics and responsibility aside for “win at any cost”.
http://www.wgrz.com/article/news/nation-world/scott-pruitt-condo-scandal-epa-ethics-lawyer-says-he-was-misled/507-535506009
Ethics lawyer wasn’t provided all relevant info he needed before he okayed Pruitt’s lease arrangements.
Pruitt’s lobbyist/landlords had to change the room locks to get rid of Pruitt and his daughter.
jerry
You really shouldn’t “hate” Beatle Bailey for being a gay attorney.
Who knew that Morocco was a part of the United States? Pruitt figured as much and as the Rounds family has been all about oil and gas lobbying since who knows when, it only figures that Pruitt’s trip to Morocco would be classified by Rounds as being “irrelevant”. Just American taxpayer money wasted, nothing to see here. I guess old Wilbur Ross was busy trying to stay awake.
“The EPA inspector general recently expanded its inquiry into Pruitt’s travel costs to include expenses related to the December trip to Morocco to promote liquefied natural gas. The trip also attracted new scrutiny in light of Pruitt’s Washington housing arrangement. The EPA denied that Pruitt met with officials from Cheniere Energy Inc., a gas firm that paid Williams & Jensen $80,000 for lobbying, or the lobbying firm itself. But Democrats called the trip outrageous, and one insisted, “This is not an area within his portfolio. He’s not supposed to be globetrotting to promote the sale of LNG.””
Dealing with individual corruption is important, but i agree with Donald that institutional corruption must be investigated and ended. It is an albatross around America’s neck. Or is iy a millstone flying overhead? I think I’m confusing my metaphors.
Well, you get my point.
It is not the purview of the EPA to promote gas or any other fuels overseas or anywhere else.
But..But.. ya gotta fly in this private plane that is “irrelevant” to Mike Rounds.
“The EPA considered spending roughly $100,000 a month to lease Pruitt a private jet, according to The Washington Post. Aides ultimately scuttled the idea before Tom Price resigned as secretary of health and human services in September after revelations that he routinely took costly chartered flights.”
See, all these boys have been deprived from ripping of the taxpayers during that Obama’s time in office so they got to have themselves some rip off “irrelevant” time on the taxpayer dime. Mike Rounds sees that and understands that corruption and outright theft are all just part of what makes small state hooligans like himself and Pruitt really come together. Bet Rounds gets to play in that soundproof container too. Maybe they both make fart noises in there and giggle.
Really Big Boom Today.
Way off topic and I apologize.
The FBI raided Michael Cohen’s, Trump’s personal attorney, office and hotel room today.
It is getting pretty stormy in D.C.
Off topic for me as well. Fleetwood Mac fired Lindsey Buckingham and replaced him with Mike Campbell and Neil Finn.
wow. mike is great but can’t sing as well. have to check out neil. not much thoses Iowans don’t know!
Roger, whether we’re talking Pruitt or Trump, sirens in traffic jams or sirens in hotel rooms, Mike Rounds is telling us that ethical lapses don’t matter.
Perhaps we Democrats should find this moral relativism liberating. Mike Rounds is annihilating all the character attacks Republicans try to manufacture against Democrats. All they can campaign on now is policies… and on policies, South Dakotans and Americans in general lean Democratic.
Another parallel between the Rounds-relativist approach to following the Leader: ethics don’t matter as long as we get policy results… but so far, like Pruitt, Trump has been stunningly inert and ineffective as a policymaker.
So if Pruitt is enacting policies that are unpopular with the public, yet what Trump says he wants.
Can either of them legitimately claim that they are representing the people, in their government positions?
After all, that is the most important part of a “Representational Republic”.
Cory,
Are we as Americans expected to sacrifice our own morals and ethics so a deranged leader can accomplish his own selfish goals? That seems to be what Rounds wants us to do.
There have been times in our history when a good idea was hated by the citizens but survived because it was the right thing to do (i.e. Social Security, Medicare).
That is not the case with Pruitt at EPA, he is sacrificing our environment for oil companies and mining.
Mr. Hill, Pruitt is enacting policies that are very popular with politicians like Mike Rounds who have gone on record to condemn the EPA in the past, in fact, since he became a US Senator.
Since being sworn into the Senate Jan. 6, Rounds has been on a mission to eliminate what he views as excessive, costly regulations, and that’s put him in frequent conflict with the Environmental Protection Agency, particularly over water and ozone rules.”
Then along comes Pruitt and Mike Rounds prayers have been answered. It is what I call a Hallelujah moment. https://www.argusleader.com/story/news/politics/2015/06/14/sen-rounds-epa-scrutiny-witch-hunt/71216682/?from=global
Senator Mike Rounds gave Pruitt his wet kiss by calling his ethics “irrelevant” as they fit perfectly into Rounds own and I might add, trump’s as well. Like this as an example
” Pruitt isn’t just afraid of airplane hecklers. He’s particularly paranoid about threats from protesters. The EPA chief’s expansive security detail comes at a cost of close to $3 million, including pay and travel expenses, an unnamed EPA official told The Associated Press. Pruitt has roughly 20 full-time, round-the-clock security guards ― three times as many as his predecessor. Some of the guards even fly with Pruitt in first class, the EPA confirmed last month. No Cabinet member in U.S. history has ever been assassinated.”
Corruption is the name of the game here that goes completely against a Representational Republic.
Popular or unpopular with the public, Rounds “irrelevant” declaration needs some explaining. Here is Pruitt again with more stuff that has nothing to do with the EPA or “irrelevant” as Mike Rounds would say.
“Pruitt cultivated a contentious relationship with reporters early on, granting interviews primarily to friendly outlets such as Fox News, Breitbart News and The Daily Caller, while declining to provide even basic information about his schedule or actions to mainstream news organizations. Last year, he signed off on a $120,000 no-bid contract with a firm whose president boasts being “a master of opposition research” and whose senior vice president, as Earther noted, took part in a campaign to shape negative opinions about Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) through “scathing op-eds and online hot takes.” The EPA canceled the contract after Mother Jones exposed the deal.” Sounds pretty much right up Mike Rounds alley defending Pruitt’s ethics as “irrelevant”. In what context would Mike Rounds be defending Pruitt? Who knows, but they do seem like birds of a feather.
Roger captures Rounds’s problem well. Rounds is trying to dismiss the complaints about Pruitt as opposition to Pruitt’s policies. But that’s a dodge: no matter what policies Pruitt may be enacting or threatening to enact, his behavior in and of itself is unethical.
Pruitt’s behavior is unethical. Pruitt’s policies are destructive and corporate-fascist. Rounds can’t win on either count.