Scott Pruitt Finds Out the Hard Way the National Media Isn't Quite the Same as Oklahoma's

Given who Scott Pruitt worked for and the cast of vile characters around him, it takes a lot to earn the reputation as the most corrupt, self serving, venal, beast in the current administration. Our man, Scotty pulled it off though with an imperial aplomb not seen since Dick Nixon, Spiro Agnew, and John Mitchell were roaming the halls of power in Washington D.C.

Fortunately for the environment and common good he's gone now. He announced his resignation yesterday in a letter to his boss which was heavily laced with religiosity and appallingly devoid of responsibility. Well, what should we expect from a guy who twice authored state legislation to establish a father's, property rights, over their wives, lovers, and victims unborn fetuses?

Anyway, that's all in the past. The only truth now is, at the moment he quit yesterday, both the former Administrator of the EPA and the President of the United States carefully avoided the fact, Scott Pruitt is just another Donald Trump appointee proven too arrogant and criminal to survive in the national spotlight.  

Mr. Pruitt hit the mean streets of Washington 17 months ago without any real national footprint. Coming from a small, bright red state, his political history was just sparse enough to make him seem like one of those Washington Outsiders the new Trump administration claimed to value so highly. He had spent eight years in the Oklahoma state senate and another six as its attorney general. His main claim to fame during those formative years was his obsessive need to sue the Environmental Protection Agency nearly as often as he changed ties.

We now know it was during this stint in state government he acquired an insatiable taste for old fashioned graft. Yes, behind the scenes, he discovered how incredibly easy and profitable it is to work closely with big money and lobbyists.

He partnered up with GOP donor and local nabob, Bob Funk to buy Oklahoma City's AAA baseball club. His share of the purchase was financed by a loan he took out through SpiritBank which is based in what, at the time, was his senate district. Pruitt's official salary back then was a little over $38,000 a year. The team reportedly cost $11.5 million. His exact stake in the franchise remains unclear, as does the amount of the loan and interest rate he had to cover.

Later he and four of his pals bought a furnished home in OKC from a telecommunications industry lobbyist for $100,000 less than market value. One of those friends was another lobbyist, a second was a health care executive, a third was the head of his local PAC. The fourth was a fellow attorney who worked as yet another registered lobbyists for business interests seeking to gut Oklahoma's worker's compensation laws. Pruitt and the attorney, Ken Wagner, shared living in the house while on, state business and Pruitt was promoting legislation to, you guessed it, radically change the state's worker's comp laws in ways Wagner was cheerleading for.

Both the ball club and home were eventually sold for hefty profits. Then, after Pruitt took over the EPA he hired Wagner as a regional affairs advisor.

None of this wildly reprehensible shit was made public at the time, because every major news organization in the state, both print and television, are nothing more than republican propaganda outlets--think minor league versions of FOX News. It wouldn't be until the big boys at places like CNN and other national media sources finally began digging into the sordid business that the average Oklahoman would find out about any of it.

Now we can understand why, when he made it to Washington, ol' Scott went around doing things like renting a $50 per night condo from the wife of a lobbyist who represented industries with matters pending at the EPA. Why not? He had done it before and no one in the media had blinked so much as an eye.

Unfortunately for Brother Pruitt, MSNBC isn't Oklahoma City's KWTV and The Washington Post and New York Times will never be confused with The Oklahoman, or The Tulsa World.

One can suppose the rest of it, the horrid record of hubris and complete disregard for federal regulations--not to mention a predilection for spending money on bizarre luxuries which you normally see only in run amok lottery winners and third world dictators--can be blamed on an ego unhinged by office and surroundings. However, it is easy to see where the beginnings of his behavior came from. It was rooted in Scott Pruitt's earliest political life and his conviction he could get away with whatever the fuck he wanted.

We can also see why Donald Trump appointed the guy to be the head of the EPA. Not only were his politics correct, but so was his utterly amoral attitude when it came to making deals with questionable people in order to rake in untold amounts of cash.

Indeed, in the end, Scott Pruitt was and is nothing more than a reflection of The Big Orange Guy himself. It's just too bad that son of a bitch won't follow his former EPA director's lead and also slink off into the night.

Well, we can't have everything can we? No, at least not yet.          




sic vita est


7-6-18