EPA’s Cone of Silence
When the Great Orange promised us he’d drain the swamp, I guess some folks thought he’d be cutting waste, encouraging efficiency, removing the dead asses, cleaning up government. A leaner and probably meaner machinery. Instead he hauls in his pals, the rich boyz, and they roll in expecting all those perks they figured every agency head and cabinet secretary has always gotten. Otherwise why would they take a pay cut. These aren’t folks whose value system ranks Public Service at the top of their list of virtues.
Scott Pruitt could be the poster boy for the Swamp Monster. He travels first class on the government dime, coach when he’s paying. He uses his staff to hunt down a sweetheart deal on a D.C. apartment and doesn’t mind that the landlord is the wife of a lobbyist, no conflict of interest there so long as the rent’s cheap. He orders himself up an SUV with bullet proof seat covers. I know, you didn’t realize that was an option at the dealership when you bought your last car. Kevlar in plaid. Pricey, but when you’re as important as the head of the EPA, an agency you are doing your damndest to gut, you worry about pissed off folks maybe drill baby drilling your Chevy with a spray of rounds from an AR-15 equipped with bump stock. He travels in the car with a full security team, runs red lights if he’s in a hurry to get to the opera, detours his planes to Disney, all those activities that the Swamp is notorious for. Mr. Pruitt has champagne tastes to go with his paranoia even as he demotes his staff for questioning the prudence of spending like a drunken sailor.
So when he orders up a custom phone booth, sure, eyebrows were raised. $40K for a bulletproof, soundproof phone booth. Why not? People are listening in. Enemies are eavesdropping. Terrorists may be bugging his Apple. These are dangerous times in government offices, for sure. A man, a very Important man, can’t be too careful. So what’s a guy like this to do??? You got it, he orders up a Cone of Silence. Maxwell Smart, the undercover agent with the clandestine phone in his shoe, but when you need maximum security, he demands, well, he demands the Cone….
Pruitt, the Maxwell Smart of this generation, is equally clueless, equally unapologetic, equally bumbling. His boss is sticking with him, at least for the next 24 hours. After that, who knows? Cones of Silence for every cabinet secretary?? Or just stick with the shoe phones? Calling all alligators….
Hits: 230
Tags: EPA, Maxwell Smart, Scott Pruitt
When I was a kid, the local TV station showed every crappy 1950’s scifi and monster B movie ever made on Friday night at 10:30. If someone or something was exposed to a radiation leak, they grew to enormous size and attacked whatever was within reach of their giant claws, stingers, feet, or tail. Sometimes invaders arrived in flying saucers from Mars.
You’ve provided an excellent summation of the latest attack on America, Skeeter, only this time the creatures are American plutocrats, incompetent businessmen, and failed politicians riding the gravy train. We can’t use the Air Force and atomic weapons against them, they have the planes and bombs! We can’t freeze them like the Blob and drop ’em at the North Pole, they have impenetrable bunkers and Secret Service protection. Besides, they’re cranking out so much CO2 they’re even heating up the North Pole. In 5 or 10 years they’d just thaw out anyway.
I can’t just turn off the TV as I did at midnight on a Friday long ago. If Mothra or Wasp Woman triggered a nightmare, it was at worst temporary. These guys are on all day, all night, and all week long. Make it stop! Somebody stop Trumpzilla! He didn’t drain the swamp, he turned it into the Black Lagoon! While the rest of us across America are trapped in The Land That Time Forgot. A land that is far, far from Great Again.