Make it stop, it hurts… the stupid it burns. The science committee head who has in fact worked for the fossil industry wants an anti fossil fuel scientist investigated for doing unpaid lobbying on behalf of anti industry organizations,,,this is cringe worthy Saturday Night Live comedy material here, except this crap isn’t funny anymore.
When a political party is crossing the line of what’s acceptable and getting away with it, when the entity being affected or harmed isn’t making it stop, the violations keep getting worse. Further incursions into more damaging behavior becomes even harder to stop. In fact we see legal issues where when the early behavior wasn’t stopped the question becomes a narrative based on, “why did you allow this to go on if it wasn’t okay? A rape victim ends up held accountable for not saying no to the kiss, not saying no to the invitation to come up to the room, not saying no to having a drink. If you didn’t want this person why did you kiss him?
Science denial was brought into this agency that is about the science of what is and can damage the environment and hurt people, a head was appointed that works for the entities that this agency is seen to be harming with regulations meant to protect people and the environment.
This attack on a scientist, and a good one that has done good work, work by the way that this agency paid good money to have done, would not be happening if there weren’t a virtually criminal degree of conflict of interest that has been allowed to take place. So where is the invitation to the room, the kiss? Where was the place that this should have been stopped?
This started with senate nominations, the trip to the room and the kiss happened when the GOP negated two thirds rules, eliminating filibusters on nominees that were truly despicably bad and incompetent nominees. Dems were still allowing kisses when McConnell refused to use the same rules he had so clearly spelled out for Obama’s majority controlled senate, rules that Obama strictly adhered to by the way. So yeah, when there were no brakes applied then rape is what happens, agencies with the most anti policy positions possible for the position at hand get gutted and defunded. We have seen hopelessly incompetent and conflicted nomination after nomination, most so bad they never would have gotten by ethics or the FBI. Dems needed to refuse to accept senate nominations until the rules McConnell set down for the other party were adhered to in the reverse,
Remember Mitch McConnell’s nomination rules for Obama’s nominations when he took office? Had those rules been followed, starting with the full FBI and ethics vetting that should have been done, Trump and the GOP would have been forced to use lists of nominees that would be acceptable to both parties. The supreme court has an absolute need for being derived by lists that are acceptable to both parties, by the unbiased scoring that is done on judges that defines how well centered the job they do as how well they adhere to following the laws. Merrell would have been exactly that kind of pick had the GOP not played ridiculously partisan politics and held out for a ludicrously right leaning Trump pick, a Scalia replacement. I have no doubt but had Hillary won she would have already been impeached, and dems would still not have been able to put a judge on the bench.
My point here is that Dems can’t let the key foundational issues slide, those resistance battles have far reaching implications like we are seeing with the damage that ludicrously bad agency heads are wreaking.. Dems should still be doing a hardcore fight against the rules of senate nominations being defied by the GOP, they cave when Dems keep the pressure on things that are unacceptable.
I’m sorry, when an overreach as bad as the senate confirmation rules being violated takes place, it simply cannot be allowed to go on without objecting and fighting until it stops. Dems never even wrote formal objections to each violation of confirmation that didn’t meet the correct rules, so what can be done to fix it later? Formally objecting over and over would not have been or be a waste of time, addressing the invalidity of these nominations would pave the way for a future rejection of all of them that didn’t have proper vetting. Look at how many have allegations of impropriety, all of these never would have happened in the first place had rules been followed.
Little breaches and violations of the unwritten rules that have always been adhered to are leading into bigger violations that are themselves going unchallenged.
McConnell’s fake outrage will forever be burned into my head…
I am outraged at a minority party blocking the nominations of good people, it’s an outrage