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How to trick Scott Pruitt into reading about environmentalism

by ArnoldoOGF Posted on July 3, 2018

Scott Pruitt runs a “factory of bad ideas.” All five feet and eight inches of him are fully submerged in a scandal bog of his own making, he’s cut staffing levels at the EPA to below Reagan-era levels, and the dude thinks climate change could help “humans flourish.”

Evidently, good samaritans have tried to help Pruitt become a better EPA administrator by sending him a few crucial works of environmental literature. In all, the rumor-ridden science-denier has received 11 books from concerned citizens, including: Pope Francis’ 2015 climate encyclical Laudato Si, Rachel Carson’s game-changing Silent Spring, Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth, and two copies of Global Warming for Dummies.

Alas, like that old dude who wouldn’t eat his green eggs and ham, Scott Pruitt won’t read his green literature. At least one of the people who sent in a book reported that it had been returned. But what would happen if Pruitt read up on climate change? And, more importantly, how could we trick him into getting a well-rounded education? Glad you asked! We have a few ideas.

Tactically slip a copy of Silent Spring into his tactical pants. What better book to carry around in the back pocket of your $1,500 sneaky pants than a seminal work about the chemicals silently killing America’s treasured wildlife?
Print excerpts from An Inconvenient Truth on the back of that Ritz-Carlton lotion he loves so much. Yeah, sending your aides all over Washington, D.C., to track down your favorite lotion is inconvenient, but Pruitt could deal with scaly elbows AND the planet’s dry patches at the same time. Talk about convenience!
Add Pope Francis’ Laudato Si to a Chick-Fil-A menu. Is that a new chicken nugget combo? No, Scotty! It’s “On Care for Our Common Home.” You might be trying to get your wife a job at the Home of the Original Chicken Sandwich, but we’re trying to save the planet: Home of the Original Human Race.
Two copies of Climate Change for Dummies? No problem. We’ll put one copy in the front-seat pocket of his seat on a first class flight, and we’ll use the other to tastefully wallpaper the bathroom in the energy lobbyist’s condo he was staying in.

Look, Sam-I-Am got that guy to eat green eggs and ham in the end — he even ate them in a boat and with a goat. We know Scott Pruitt won’t be reading books about climate change in the rain or on a train anytime soon. But if, as he’s lying on his old Trump hotel mattress one night, Little Scotty P does happen to pull a stack of climate change encyclicals out from under his pillow, we say to him:

“YOU DO NOT LIKE THEM. SO YOU SAY. TRY THEM! TRY THEM! AND YOU MAY.”

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How to trick Scott Pruitt into reading about environmentalism

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Sam Johnson Wants to Cut Your Social Security Benefits By a Third

by TonySoper22 Posted on December 11, 2016

Mother Jones

For reasons that are a little unclear, Rep. Sam Johnson (R-Texas) has decided to introduce a shiny new plan to reform Social Security when Congress meets next year. Johnson’s idea of “reform” is to slash everyone’s benefits, so this idea seems slightly suicidal—not to mention pointless, since Donald Trump campaigned very loudly on a promise not to touch anyone’s Social Security.

But Johnson is a very conservative guy, and maybe he just wants to lay down a marker. So what would his plan do? It has 15 components, all of them crammed full of Social Security’s usual alphabet soup of acronyms—AWI, PIA, AIME, MAGI, bend points, etc.—but it turns out that only six of them are big enough to be meaningful. Here is the Social Security actuary’s estimate of how much money they’d save:

Basically, there are four big proposals that would cut benefits by 5.76 percent of payroll, and two proposals that would increase benefits by 1.37 percent of payroll. I assure you that this chart is far simpler to understand than the actual analysis, but it probably still leaves you a little baffled. Whose benefits would be cut? And by how much? I’m here to help:

Roughly speaking, people with extremely low average earnings over their working lives would see their benefits rise. That’s good! Unfortunately, everyone with an average lifetime income over $22,000 would see their benefits slashed—in some cases by a lot. An income of $60,000 is not exactly a king’s ransom, but nonetheless Johnson would cut benefits for these folks by a third.

As usual with these plans, a lot of its provisions are phased in gradually over time. But unlike most of these plans, some of them start to kick in right away. This means that even people who are already retired would suffer benefit cuts. For example, Johnson’s plan reduces the annual cost-of-living increase—and eliminates it entirely for anyone earning over $85,000—beginning in 2018.

Anyway, since I tortured myself by reading this plan, I figured I should torture all the rest of you by blogging about it. Happy Holidays!

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Sam Johnson Wants to Cut Your Social Security Benefits By a Third

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