{"id":835,"date":"2018-05-07T10:10:56","date_gmt":"2018-05-07T14:10:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dahlman.online\/?p=835"},"modified":"2018-05-09T09:56:04","modified_gmt":"2018-05-09T13:56:04","slug":"the-impeachment-machine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dahlman.online\/index.php\/2018\/05\/07\/the-impeachment-machine\/","title":{"rendered":"The Impeachment Machine"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Impeachment Machine<\/p>\n<p>Let\u2019s warmup the impeachment machinery.\u00a0 There\u2019s going to be plenty of use for it, and even the Radical Republicans of the Freedom Caucus are getting ready.\u00a0 So let\u2019s warmup on an easy case, one that everyone agrees makes sense.\u00a0 In fact, this case makes so much sense that it\u2019s hard to understand why the President hasn\u2019t exercised his \u201cexecutive authority\u201d to fire the guy.\u00a0 But the President has his own reasons for keeping him, so Congress should fire things up!<\/p>\n<p>It starts with the House Judiciary Committee.\u00a0 Chairman Bob Goodlatte of Virginia is the leader, and several of the Freedom Caucus members are on the majority side, including Louie Gohmert of Texas, Steve King of Iowa, and Ohio\u2019s own Jim Jordan.\u00a0 They have continually argued against corruption in government, and they were some of the first in line to \u201cdrain the swamp.\u201d\u00a0 Here\u2019s their chance!<\/p>\n<p>No, it\u2019s not President Trump.\u00a0 Maybe later, if Democrats gain control of the House and the Mueller investigation shows direct conspiracy between Trump and the Russians. But it\u2019s not time, not yet.\u00a0And it\u2019s not Rod Rosenstein, Deputy Attorney General either, though he seems to be the current target of the Freedom Caucus, and their compromised friend, Devin Nunes,\u00a0 disreputable Chairman of the Intelligence Committee.<\/p>\n<p>There is a consensus candidate for impeachment, that almost everyone can get behind.\u00a0 Since Trump won\u2019t fire him \u2013 let\u2019s impeach and remove Scott Pruitt, Director of the Environmental Protection Agency.<\/p>\n<p>Talk about draining a polluted swamp.\u00a0 Pruitt has been the subject of weekly stories about his own personal corruption and aggrandizement.\u00a0 Here are just some of the charges floating around.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Even before he was confirmed as EPA Director, Pruitt was accused of taking direct funds from the Petroleum industry as Attorney General of Oklahoma. Not only did he accept political funding, but he directly used their language for proposed laws, and got a sweetheart deal for an expensive home.<\/li>\n<li>Once he arrived in Washington, Pruitt \u201crented\u201d a trendy Capitol Hill townhouse from a lobbyist for the natural gas industry. His cost, $50\/night, and only for the nights he stayed there.\u00a0 Since Pruitt was often travelling (see below) he had the perfect hotel room.\u00a0 <em>By the way, getting a hotel room in DC for $50\/night would mean staying in a place that the EPA would deem a Superfund Cleanup site.<\/em><\/li>\n<li>On assuming the Directorship, Pruitt demanded 24\/7 security. This was a big change from the past \u2013 past Directors got protection from their residence to the EPA and back.\u00a0 Pruitt wanted full time, full location security protection, causing a huge increase in personnel and obviously raising the cost.\u00a0 He also wanted a bulletproof desk, and car, and lights and sirens (he tried to use them to get to a dinner reservation on time.)<\/li>\n<li>Pruitt had installed in his office a $43000 soundproof phone booth (not a secure communications site \u2013 or SCIF \u2013 which was upstairs) in order to have \u201cprivate\u201d conversations.<\/li>\n<li>Pruitt flew first class (against government regulations) and used charter and military aircraft. In the first four months his travel cost over $100,000.\u00a0 His security detail cost even more, as he had full security protection for visits to Disneyland and a football bowl game.<\/li>\n<li>Pruitt gave subordinates huge raises, after the White House denied permission to give them. He redirected money from the Clean Water Act.<\/li>\n<li>Pruitt exiled or fired EPA administrators who criticized his actions.<\/li>\n<li>Pruitt travelled to Algeria to lobby for Natural Gas, an odd position for the EPA Director. The natural gas lobbyist was the owner of his townhouse.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>With all of this, why doesn\u2019t the President just fire him?\u00a0 After all, he\u2019s seems to be able to fire others at a \u201ctweet,\u201d just ask the huge list of former administration officials.\u00a0 But, there are a couple of compelling reasons for Trump to keep him.<\/p>\n<p>Pruitt is the \u201cman off the bench\u201d to replace Attorney General Jeff Sessions if Trump decides to fire Sessions.\u00a0 Pruitt, a former state Attorney General, could step in and as a loyal Trumpster; fire Rosenstein, Mueller or whoever else is in the way. In addition, Pruitt&#8217;s EPA is deregulating the energy industry, making things good for the petroleum industry (which means the Koch brothers and their huge political fund) as well as encouraging \u201cclean\u201d coal, whatever that means.<\/p>\n<p>So Trump will keep Pruitt. But, if Republicans in Congress, and particularly the \u201cholier than thou\u201d Freedom Caucus, wanted to show that they could \u201cdrain the swamp\u201d as promised; Pruitt is the obvious choice.\u00a0 So crank up the machine:\u00a0 Impeach Pruitt.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Impeachment Machine Let\u2019s warmup the impeachment machinery.\u00a0 There\u2019s going to be plenty of use for it, and even the Radical Republicans of the Freedom Caucus are getting ready.\u00a0 So let\u2019s warmup on an easy case, one that everyone agrees makes sense.\u00a0 In fact, this case makes so much sense that it\u2019s hard to understand &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/dahlman.online\/index.php\/2018\/05\/07\/the-impeachment-machine\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;The Impeachment Machine&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-835","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.3 - 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