EPA Scott Pruitt, who has turned into a symbol of the Trump Administration, is being grilled by Congress for transgressions that would be disqualifying but for the conversion of the Republican Party into a tool of Donald Trump.
Here is the brief from today's hearing: if you are a Republican member of Congress, you support the collapse of the federal environmental mission.
If you are a Democrat, you support a federal role to regulate polluters of the nation's air and water.
This is war.
It is a war with bright lines unlike the so-called culture wars where -- it now is clear, if it never was before -- that "morality" and "values" were a smokescreen for political power grabs.
For voters, there is one question: do you believe in the greater public good or not?
If you are a Republican member of Congress today, you don't. You believe that government serves no useful purpose except when it gets out of the way of private enterprise. If you are a Democratic member of Congress, you believe that government can and must protect people because corporations won't.
There is no place in the federal government where this bright line is painted with more sharply than the US Environmental Protection Agency; an agency that commands less than 1% of the federal budget but is -- in the mind of President Trump -- his proof that killing regulations is what will "make America great again."
Any regular reader of this blog will know what bullshit that is.
Here is the brief from today's hearing: if you are a Republican member of Congress, you support the collapse of the federal environmental mission.
If you are a Democrat, you support a federal role to regulate polluters of the nation's air and water.
This is war.
It is a war with bright lines unlike the so-called culture wars where -- it now is clear, if it never was before -- that "morality" and "values" were a smokescreen for political power grabs.
For voters, there is one question: do you believe in the greater public good or not?
If you are a Republican member of Congress today, you don't. You believe that government serves no useful purpose except when it gets out of the way of private enterprise. If you are a Democratic member of Congress, you believe that government can and must protect people because corporations won't.
There is no place in the federal government where this bright line is painted with more sharply than the US Environmental Protection Agency; an agency that commands less than 1% of the federal budget but is -- in the mind of President Trump -- his proof that killing regulations is what will "make America great again."
Any regular reader of this blog will know what bullshit that is.
