Nice to be Scott Pruitt. (h/t)
One aide helped book his travel to the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, Calif., where Mr. Pruitt had secured seats near the 50-yard line for the face value of $175 each, documents show. The tickets, for Mr. Pruitt and his wife and two children, were purchased five days before the sold-out New Year’s Day game this year.
Mr. Pruitt bought the tickets, the records show, from a special allotment for the University of Oklahoma, which appeared in the game against the University of Georgia. Tickets for equivalent seats were on sale on the secondary market for as much as seven times the price paid by Mr. Pruitt, data from two ticket companies show.
The aide who helped book his travel, Millan Hupp, told congressional investigators recently that Renzi Stone, a university regent who runs a large marketing firm with energy industry clients that include the American Petroleum Institute and GE Oil and Gas, had assisted Mr. Pruitt in getting access to the tickets.
Well, he may have had better (and cheaper!) seats than I did, but he sure as hell didn’t enjoy the game as much.
Get The Picture 
sniff
Smells swampy up in here
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Influence peddling? In this administration? Surely you jest!
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It’s OK, rampant corruption is fine as long as it makes the “libs” mad, that’s really the only thing that matters.
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Yeah, they are trying to make up for all the dick sucking Obama forced on them. Who in hell would be worried about liberals when Pruitt, as of yesterday, has everyone in the country breathing dirtier air (changed because the cleaner air we breathed for a while was compliments of an Obama “regulation”) and we now can begin swilling Flint-quality water due all to lowbrow Pruitt’s feckless ass kissing? Guess the po’ folks are just now waking up to the fact that they don’t have the gas masks that the rich have and, what the hell, they can just buy water processed from springs bought up in Fl by the same rich folks in order to drink better water than Pruitt’s environment furnishes.
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Absolutely!
Anything, ANYTHING Pruitt’s EPA does IS THE END OF LIFE AS WE KNOW IT!!!
You may have a point or two in there but it’s lost in the hyperbole.
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ChiliDawg what really pisses off liberals is if Trump supports ignore them. Stop commenting and you’ll drive them absolutely crazy.
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You’re barking up the wrong tree, Walt.
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That’s not influence peddling. It’s bribery.
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There ought to be a law.
MORE POWER FOR GOVERNMENT SO THE GOVERNMENT WILL BEHAVE BETTER AND STOP ABUSING THE GREATER AND GREATER POWER IT AMASSES!!!
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I don’t jest, and stop calling me Shirley!
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Thanks, Kirby.
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Sounds like Pruitt needs to humble himself.
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Pruitt lives in a millionaire’s DC condo, demands to fly first class, sends his aides on errands to fetch Trump hotel mattresses and Ritz-Carlton hand lotion, yet somehow liberals like me are the out-of-touch elitists. Okey-dokey.
Still warms my black heart that he flew all that way just to see his team get waxed.
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Don’t let it warm your heart too much – he flew on our dime.
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Doug, I don’t consider myself a liberal but what’s up with the mattress story? That’s just plain weird. And not just a little creepy to boot. Who actually wants to buy a used mattress from a hotel?
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So what? He paid full price for the tickets. I did the same thing for the SEC championship game.
I heard he paid full price for a cup of coffee today too.
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He got four prime tickets at face value less than a week before the game.
Nice spin, though.
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He did pay face value so its hard to get too worked up. Would you be mad if U of Ok sold the tickets above face value? Would you be mad if they were given to him for free? Can’t be outraged over everything….
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Do I sound outraged to you? I thought I set up a pretty good punchline in my post.
BTW, do you really believe the school had four prime tickets just sitting around five days before the game? If so, let me tell you about a fabulous opportunity to acquire some prime oceanfront property in Hahira…
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The post was light and funny. The comments start taking it seriously. I thought I read a big Ok booster (who owns an energy company) arranged the tickets for a ‘friend’ (who happens to head the EPA). It is typical Washington behavior but at least he paid something for the tickets….
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If the comments start taking it seriously, that’s only because some of you can’t help spinning the story… and I can’t help wondering if you’d shrug it off as easily if, say, Eric Holder did it.
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Like I said, typical Washington (I should include local politics too) behavior. He at least paid face value, that is more than I would expect from any politician.
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Surf’s up in Hahira!!! Does one believe that the Sports Information Dept had 4 tickets for just such an situation? You bet! Come on Senator… you lawyers must not see a lot of how the sausage is made in the back room. All those OK contributions by corporations buy a lot of influence and when necessary, set aside tickets… or it least it better.
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I daresay I know more about the sausage making than you do. Given the late date, the way those tickets came free was by taking them from somebody else and re-routing them to Pruitt.
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Maybe… maybe not. Sponsors sometimes have unused tickets right up to game time. Not everyone is a UGA or OK fan that the sponsor is in contact with. They get set aside for people to use and sometimes they say “no” at the last minute. A few phone calls to the right people can usually find tickets. And sometimes… GASP… they go unused!
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It wasn’t a terribly difficult ticket market. I got my ticket for face just a couple weeks before the game. It was two teams that we’re either a very long drive or a scarce flight away from Pasadena.
I’m a lot more put out that Nick Ayers gave Trump a suite ticket and let him make security a nightmare at a game with tickets going for $1500-2000 just to get in the door than I am that Pruitt got a ticket for the same price most people did and though the University allotment.
This has long been a thing that universities do. You should see how many extra (great) tickets are available after the legislative day tailgate at Tate.
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I got two tickets at face value 3 days before the SEC championship game. Should I feel guilty? At least he paid (and full price by the way) for the tickets.
I see the humor in your punchline. I just know in the society of the aggrieved we live in today someone is going to feign outrage over this as if it is some scandal. Chances are it will be one of the other commentators here. There are plenty of other things people can get upset with Scott Pruitt about besides him going to a football game on his own dime.
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This is certainly one way of looking at this.
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IOKIYAR
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Obvious(ly dumb) troll is obvious
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I believe Pruitt is the worst of an entire batch of horrible people that make up the Trump cabinet, however, this doesn’t rub me that badly. I guess I’ve resigned myself to accept that politicians and people in power will get perks like this. It goes with the territory of knowing and rubbing shoulders with other rich and powerful people. His lifting of regulations on greenhouse emissions, rollbacks on clean air and water regulations, and general stupidity regarding global warming are far more damning.
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You (apparently) and I have the privilege to not be overly troubled by this. Many others, though, are going to be personally affected by the corruption and mean-spirited, highly selective application of laws and executive orders. (North Korean citizens, for example, who might have looked to the US as a bellwether against their brutal dictatorship, and who might–in a previous era– have been welcomed as political refugees should they escape it.) This is really what privilege means…we can opt out where others can’t.
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The privilege of living in the US. What privilege are you talking about?
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I don’t like the favors handed out to allow Pruitt to get those seats for face value. However, most if not all of the commentators here would have done the same thing. Of course I could be wrong, I’m sure everyone here would have said “what, you have me prime seats at face value? I have to decline because it would send the wrong signal to those who had to pay secondary market places. I tell you what, I’ll pay you $1000 each because I have a heart of gold.” – Pa-leeze, give me a break
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There’s a step between your first sentence and your second that you left out.
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My outrage meter is just broken at this point. Politicians getting special favors has been going on for centuries. I am going to need a lot more than this to get upset. Both sides do it. Both sides are equally guilty and both sides disgust me. Lucky him, he got to watch Sony wild Dawg the sooners on the way to play for the Natty.
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See, this shit right here people, is why we have the government we have. You want someone to blame? Blame the person in the mirror who says “well, the other side does it too, so…”
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Break the cycle
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Amen to this. The “both sides do it” back and forth is how we got here. Take a minute, decide what you value, and then demand it from the current administration.
Your feelings about a past administration are irrelevant, sunk cost fallacy nonsense.
Decide what you believe in and demand it. I believe that Pruitt is beyond the pale, and I think Trump could find some other person who could do the same thing, with less ridiculous corruption. But he won’t because he thinks corruption like this is a good thing – it plays well with his base to have the discussion about football tickets because Trump benefits when the talk sounds shrieky, even if Pruitt’s corruption is definitely fire not smoke.
(Although, FWIW, the new revelations in this article are among the weakest accusations against Pruitt.)
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OK. I’ve written an email to the White House. How long should it take for the swamp to be drained now that I’ve made my demands known?
You’re being naive. The Obama administration was corrupt, like the many administrations that came before it. And the two major candidates running to replace him were a known corrupt Democrat and an obnoxious and trivial Republican. Heads they win, tails we lose.
So Argondawg has exactly the right attitude. I don’t expect to see a major party presidential candidate in the near future that is capable of disrupting the deep state.
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Demands take a lot of forms – votes, conversations with friends, comments on a board with fellow UGA fans.
I don’t agree with your premise; Obama’s and Bush’s appointees were generally more competent and less corrupt than Trump’s.
But even if that wasn’t true, it wouldn’t matter. Raise expectations and demand more from both sides. Polarization < apathy < sticking up for your beliefs.
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“Deep state” is a term conjured up by fascists to describe our system of government functioning as it was intended. The enemy is not the institution – the enemy is the poorly educated voters electing demagogues who use phrases like “deep state.”
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Like most lefties, you seem completely unaware of things that happened more than 20 minutes ago. FWIW, Trump didn’t invent the term. It’s been used by anti-statists like Edward Snowden before Trump was a politician. Eisenhower warned of the military-industrial complex before you were born.
But by all means, worship the powers behind warrantless surveillance, no-fly lists, political spying, etc., and just keep believing that, if only your guy/gal were in power with even less oversight, all that power would stop being abused.
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That is some impressive virtue signaling right there. congratulations
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I don’t think you understand that term.
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the action or practice of publicly expressing opinions or sentiments intended to demonstrate one’s good character or the moral correctness of one’s position on a particular issue.
One of us does not understand it that is for sure. Read your post again.
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How about YOU read it again and find anything in there where I was talking about myself? You might be able to read, but your comprehension sucks.
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Oh so you agree with me and weren’t using your outrage at my lack of outrage to signal to everyone how incredibly enlightened you are?
My comprehension is just fine. You completely lack self awareness. Dude, your frothing at the mouth that I am not losing my shit over trivial stuff like this. One of us has a serious anger issue and it is not me.
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“You completely lack self awareness” says the guy who is flaunting his cynicism as a virtue.
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Perhaps his feeble libertarian mind can’t comprehend this simple solution.
Our government is corrupt to the core and is in bed with corporations and is bad at spending our money. And that is precisely why we need an even bigger socialist government that has even more control over our money and how it spends it.
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If that was meant for me, then I admit your comment got my hackles up a little =) My apologies if I misread into it.
One of Trump’s go-to moves is false equivalence, and it really gets my goat. The dude has single handedly dumbed down our country’s ability to talk about politics in a straightforward way.
There’s definitely plenty of annoying virtue signalling in the world. Also, Pruitt sucks.
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Not at all. It’s all good. You were calm and rational. This wasn’t directed at you. I am the same way. The shrieking drives me crazy.
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Whew. Glad to hear it. It’s crazy; there are actually important policy decisions being made on trade, immigration, the environment, etc. And any debate over their pro’s and con’s gets totally lost in the noise as people triangulate their positions based whether they liked HRC or DJT.
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That’s a lot more honest than pretending only one side does it.
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As MLK preached the answer to injustice is to say “so what? What’s the use of caring? I give up.”
A very moving and inspirational message.
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I said that I am disgusted with it. Outraged? If you’ve got that much time get a hobby. I vote my conscience. What else do you need from me?
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Nice job of draining that swamp!
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gambling in Casablanca…..I’m shocked,shocked sir. Here’s your winnings ,Sir (4% GDP growth) , O’ thank you very much. Let the outrage begin.
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Just because Trump says it’s true doesn’t mean it is.
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https://www.cnbc.com/video/2018/06/14/second-quarter-gdp-gross-domestic-product-forecast-at-3-point-9-percent.html
Not a Trump fan but are we splitting hairs here
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Mixed with all the other Trump lies, how do we not become paranoid as to where he has had the Labor Dept report pruned such that those out of work are listed as “retired” and do not reflect accurately on per capita GDP? Every cabinet head is infested with the “King Trump” mantra, but to most conservative ostriches he is doing their bidding while lowering the quality of life down to the level their grandchildren won’t be able to avoid no matter how you wave that flag nor how much moola you have. Idiocracy reigns.
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FOX news viewer alert
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Other news viewer alert: Manafort has been ordered to jail and to be kept that way until trial for trying to compromise witnesses.
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But muh Russia!
Gotta get that pesky OIG report out of the news. Sad!
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Man out on bail pending trial for federal crimes (that three others charged with him have already plead guilty to ) is sent to jail for tampering with witnesses in the investigation into Russian interference in the election and you actually believe that it’s just a big hoax to distract from your glorious leader’s great success.
What’s the inside of your sphincter look like?
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Nothing Manafort is being charged with has anything to do with “Russian Collusion,” but its funny how this comes up after the OIG report, and then the NYAG lawsuit early yesterday before the announced drop of the report. Coincidence my ass. Surprised Stormy’s lawyer didn’t popup, or is Muh Pornstar still a thing with y’all?
The only actual evidence collusion that happened last election is the the DNC with the MSM and DOJ/FBI.
My sphincter is fine thank you very much, I’m on board the Trump Train and still not tired of all the winning.
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Jesus fuck you’re a moron.
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3/10 melt, but I’ll still allow it.
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Was it the CNBC link that gave it away? I didn’t vote for the dude but 3.9% is okay by me. Continue with your outrage.
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Which would explain why Obama took credit for Trumps economy.
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One might argue the inverse. If he says it’s true, it very likely isn’t.
I do appreciate that the labor statistics suddenly are credible. It was 4.8% on Inauguration Day and trending down since 2009. It is under 4 now, which is great but it was never the 40% that the Tangerine Mussolini claimed.
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This guy and Ryan Zinke will have cushy jobs in the energy and extractive industries when this current shit show is over.
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Pruitt was corrupt as hell before he got to DC. This one, about the ticket, is not something i would get upset about, just more of the same from him. For those who will say how was he corrupt, read his history in Oklahoma, before DC, in regards to housing and political funding. Just more power and more corrupt. Oh yeah, and the favorite of politicians now, blame someone else.
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Oh yeah, Pruitt’s policies are totally beholden to his buddies. No swamp is being drained.
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Not defending the practice in the least, but do an open records request and see how many Georgia political folk received Rose Bowl tickets from a special UGA allotment. Influence buying through football perks is hardly a partisan endeavor.
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I thought that the good senator would be more upset about Pruitt getting his daughter into UVA law school.
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