#trumpswindle | #AmericanPrestige
In the moment that a news host explains Donald Trump is acquitted but not vindicated, it seems that he is speaking not so much to his American audience, but, rather, appealing to the world. The idea that we’re not finished, that the Republic isn’t dead and buried, is only extraordinary for the fact of its proximity. Our American tale continues, but this most recent chapter is a particular tragedy of our disgrace.
#trumpswindle | #WhatTheyVotedFor
This is unsurprising, though perhaps saying so risks overstating the point. Via Washington Post:
The EPA inspector general’s office announced in August that it had opened an inquiry into Pruitt’s frequent travel to his home state of Oklahoma. The internal watchdog at the time said its investigation was triggered by “congressional requests and a hotline complaint, all of which expressed concerns about Administrator Pruitt’s travel—primarily his frequent travel to and from his home state of Oklahoma at taxpayer expense.”
The probe was triggered in part by findings from the Environmental Integrity Project, a nonprofit group that detailed through public records that Pruitt had spent nearly half of the days in March, April and May in Oklahoma. Initially, EPA investigators said they planned to audit Pruitt’s travel records, as well as those of his security and top aides, through the end of July.
But on Friday, the inspector general’s office said it would expand that inquiry to include all of Pruitt’s travel through the end of September, and not just trips to Oklahoma.
#DrainTheSwamp | #WhatTheyVotedFor
This should be surprising. No, really, at some point it seems significant that this basic, commonsense, “Republicans just spent twenty-five years complaining about all this!” stupidity of two-bit, everyday corruption in the Trump administration is anything but surprising.
A summer visit that Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke made to the Vegas Golden Knights hockey team is now under two investigations by federal watchdogs.
The Interior Department’s inspector general has added concerns about Zinke’s meeting with the new NHL team and use of a private jet from Las Vegas to an investigation it opened Friday looking into the secretary’s travel, an IG spokesperson confirmed to CNN Wednesday.
The Office of Special Counsel has also opened a Hatch Act investigation into Zinke’s meeting with the hockey team.
‡
The OSC probe is the sixth known investigation into travel by the administration’s cabinet members.
(Green)
This is not really so obscure. In the long history of abusing the -gate suffix, there was “Travelgate”. This had to do with Republicans complaining about Clinton White House hirings in the Travel Office. Something goes here about Bill Clinton’s successor, political hiring, and that bit even ties into a Republican email scandal, if you can believe it. No, really. Private email server. Twenty-two million missing emails discovered right at the time we needed to know what was going on about the replacement of career bureaucrats with political favors. An actual travel scandal? To the one, we ought not be surprised. To the other, Republicans just aren’t trying. For all the trauma they drag the nation through in fevered scandalmongering, Republicans owe us an appearance of trying to at least pretend an appearance of giving a flying fuck. (more…)
Hold the Line, against new and different games produced by girls … who are not sufficiently buxom and supportive of your awesome manliness!
Be Brave, good gamer soldiers … and continue your anonymous attacks against these upstart good-for-nothing girls!
―Mark Fiore
In a way, it really does seem to come to that. The #GamerGate phenomenon would be entertaining for all of a few seconds, much like we stare at someone we think is attempting spontaneous and nearly-insane comedy right before we realize, to our horror, that we are about to laugh at a spastic disability. In truth, the phenomenon would not even be a one-hit wonder except for a spectacular nexus of bigotry and juvenilia.
Mark Fiore’s moving (ha!) editorial might sound like open satire, but such an assessment would be somewhat insulting, as it would suggest the artist required some sort of herculean labor to simply run down the checklist of hashtag-GamerGate.
Online, we are supposed to call it Poe’s Law, which is an alpha geek’s attempt to claim originality for pointing out that truth is necessarily stranger than fiction. However, we ought not knock Poe’s Law, because the internet age does raise, by orders of magnitude, the frequency with which the question arises whether we are viewing the real thing or a vicious satire. Evangelical Christianity, the Republican Party, Fall Out Boy, and now #GamerGate.
“I’d remind the Republican establishment that forever is a long time.”
—Steve Benen
One can certainly call it a bit pedantic to pick on casual rhetorical use of the word “never”; indeed, it might also seem a bit childish. But as Steve Benen explains of the former RNC Chair and Bush administration White House Counsel’s response to Chris Wallace’s question about marriage equality:
Gillespie replied, “I don’t see the Republican Party or most Republicans, obviously, changing in terms of believing that marriage is between one man and one woman.”
The host pressed further, asking, “But looking at the polls, and, particularly, looking at where younger people are going, would you have any problems in 2016, with a Republican Party platform saying that marriage is between a man and a woman?” Gillespie noted that the platform currently calls for a federal constitutional amendment to ban marriage equality, and going forward, “there may be a debate about that.”
I suppose this is what qualifies as social progress for today’s GOP.
But before the discussion moved on Gillespie added this:
“I don’t think you would ever see the Republican Party platform saying we are in favor of same sex marriage.”
Never? Gillespie may well be right, but I’d remind the Republican establishment that forever is a long time.
And as one commmenter noted, “We had the debate. You lost.”
The headline, from Reuters:
Top Republican sees bumpy Kagan court confirmation
And the lede:
Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan will face tough questions at a Senate confirmation hearing because she has never been a judge and has no record of judicial opinions, a top Republican senator said on Sunday.
As if this is news.
With judicial appointments in general, the question is no longer whether or not the opposition will obstruct, but, rather, how they go about doing it. To the administration’s favor in the coming confirmation fight for Elena Kagan is her one great merit throughout—she is very good at appeasing conservatives. (more…)
This Is 