Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2018/04/27/evasive-protection-agency.html
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Post is missing guillotine watch tag
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This shit storm deserves to be removed from holding any sort of public office. He’s been sucking on the public teat for far too long and now believes he is entitled to it, the very idea repubs rail against.
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It’s true Pruitt is a thieving weasel. But badgering somebody into a yes-or-no response is a classic rhetorical trick, and it’s no more honest when questioning Pruitt than it was when they did it to Ms. Clinton. Shouting “yes or no” is often simply a form of bullying.
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The day when trumpers go fishing and find the streams and rivers are on fire.
The day when trumpers go hunting and find the forests are gone.
The day when trumpers go for a walk and find the air is brown and burns the throat.
The day when trumpers go to plow the fields and there are no bees to pollinate.
The day when trumpers go to take a drink and the water is putrid.
The day when trumpers go to raise a family and find that their children are born deformed and sick.
That’s the day when maybe, just maybe, they will regret Scott Pruitt.
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Nope. They’ll blame the libruls.
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It’s hard to say which is worse here, the fact that he wastes taxpayer dollars on selfish bullshit, the fact that he is (almost literally) in bed with lobbyists, or the fact that he is trying to do the exact opposite of what his agency is supposed to do.
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Can’t they find someone who doesn’t think they are the Queen of England to ruin the environment for them? Do they really need to defend this guy?
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I reckon he’s probably at least making some of the other administrators look not as bad.
One might assume that the whole thing is one carefully-constructed circus, calculated to direct everyone’s attention one way while someone else gets busy doing something else slightly less horrible. But such careful construction would likely require a level of competency that has yet to be evidenced.
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Yes or no: Do you post on BB as “Boundegar”? It appears to be true, so how am I bullying you?
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Do your parents know you like to bully school children, SangeetMoblius? Yes or no!
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Naw - bullying or not completely depends on the question and context…
“Yes or No: Have you stopped beating your wife yet?” = bullying
“Yes or No: Is today tuesday?” = emphatically NOT bullying
He was asked (several times) to confirm a simple statement of public fact and refused. He was the one exhibiting the problematic behavior, not the questioner.
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And Clinton handled it like a pro.
I think heads of major federal departments see getting rhetorically “beaten up” by the legislature as part of the job. I don’t feel like you can call “bullying” when you are in a position of such power.
What’s odd is that moments after saying “I take responsibility” he’s asked “are you responsible” and he can’t say “yes”.
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Not with any degree of accuracy, nope.
This is not a ‘90 lb weakling getting sand kicked in his face.’
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To be fair not many politicians are able to answer a simple yes or no question.
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He eventually answered the question seven years later. (No, he didn’t threaten to overrule Derek Lewis, but he had asked civil servants if he could)
Then, on Jeremy Paxmans final Newsnight…
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In this case it’s a classic rhetorical trick in response to his classic rhetorical trick of not answering questions at all, of equivocating and making long, rambling speeches that are completely irrelevant to the question. Clinton did very little of that.
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Ask him what happened to the investigation and case against Scientology’s Narconon Arrowhead after three people died there in a short span while he was the Oklahoma AG.
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I can only hope that this terrible performance has destroyed his future political ambitions. A more deft operator wouldn’t have fumbled such a basic grilling, nor have acted so blatantly corrupt as to call for the inquiry in the first place. One of Trump’s silver linings is that his ‘guys’ are fucking idiots- they’re incapable of hiding the graft and corruption like other more capable politicians do every day.
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