Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

The words do not have to be perfect.

Motown is Joe-Town!

I’d hate to be the candidate who lost to this guy.

Republicans firmly believe having an abortion is a very personal, very private decision between a woman and J.D. Vance.

“The defense has a certain level of trust in defendant that the government does not.”

Republicans don’t want a speaker to lead them; they want a hostage.

The republican speaker is a slippery little devil.

Second rate reporter says what?

Nothing worth doing is easy.

Today’s gop: why go just far enough when too far is right there?

Insiders who complain to politico: please report to the white house office of shut the fuck up.

No Justins, No Peace

Happy indictment week to all who celebrate!

Give the craziest people you know everything they want and hope they don’t ask for more? Great plan.

Cole is on a roll !

The arc of history bends toward the same old fuckery.

We won’t go back.

White supremacy is terrorism.

Jack be nimble, jack be quick, hurry up and indict this prick.

Black Jesus loves a paper trail.

Let me file that under fuck it.

Cole, when it comes to calico cats, restraint is overrated.

with the Kraken taking a plea, the Cheese stands alone.

It looks like winning debates is a black job!

You are here: Home / Politics / Trumpery / Trump Crime Cartel / Crackpot Dome

Crackpot Dome

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Jet-set grifter Tom Price resigns.

Next up, this clown:

Nearly three days into a trip to Europe this past July, Veterans Affairs Secretary David Shulkin had attended a Wimbledon championship tennis match, toured Westminster Abbey and taken a cruise on the Thames.

The 10-day trip was not entirely a vacation. Shulkin was in Europe for meetings with Danish and British officials about veterans’ health issues.

Yet he and his wife spent about half their time sightseeing, including shopping and touring historic sites, according to an itinerary obtained by The Washington Post and confirmed by a U.S. official familiar with their activities.

Reader Interactions

117Comments

  2. 2.

    Corner Stone

    I hate, hate, hate all of Trump’s admin and Cabinet but I can not tell you how happy I am if that motherfucker is really gone.

  3. 3.

    dmsilev

    So how come he “resigned” and wasn’t “fired”? I thought Trump was all about the firing of people.

  4. 4.

    SiubhanDuinne (at some point in the indeterminate future to be known by my real name, Judith Mann Costello, but maybe not quite yet)

    NYT, WaPo, CNN, NPR are all confirming it. Effective midnight tonight.

  6. 6.

    Corner Stone

    Ok, so I can’t edit.
    Yeah, sure Price will go on to grift somewhere as a lobbyist but it won’t be on our dime and he won’t get to have a hand in implementing any future healthcare programs, and can’t tell women that birth control is everywhere and no woman ever struggled to procure it.
    Asshole.

  7. 7.

    Elizabelle

    May Pruitt be the next fucker out the door.

    I want Price to have to reimburse the Treasury for the excessive charter fees. He owes us.

    And sweep the toadies who approved this out, too.

  9. 9.

    Corner Stone

    Isn’t this a lot like Trump giving in on something? Like him quitting? I think this may open the doors now that the press may smell a little blood. if Price is guilty enough to resign, what about Zinke, or Pruitt? And ALL those golf trips?

  10. 10.

    TenguPhule

    @Corner Stone:

    but it won’t be on our dime and he won’t get to have a hand in implementing any future healthcare programs,

    Don’t be too sure about that.

    Those wingnut thinktanks are pretty much writing the garbage the Republicans want to pass into law.

  11. 11.

    Corner Stone

    I wish they would stop saying Trump was mad about Price *wasting* taxpayer money. That is not why he is mad or why he was fired.

  12. 12.

    bystander

    Love seeing Price with the black eye. Another touch from Shit Midas.

    Hugh Hewett is on. Yesterday he was talking about how this was pish-tosh. Today he’s saying this has nothing to do with his other friend Pruitt.

  14. 14.

    Hal

    Just yesterday I said conservatives are terrible at analogy. Example for today:

    Ryan Saavedra ??
    Ryan Saavedra ?? @RealSaavedra
    Tom Price forced to resign b/c he used the wrong jet.

    AG Lynch met w/B. Clinton during an FBI investigation on Hillary & nothing happened.?

  15. 15.

    Corner Stone

    @Elizabelle: I want that fucker Pruitt and then Zinke hot on his tail. After that, somebody needs to put a bloodhound on Mulvaney.
    I also think Cohn is out sometime shortly.

  16. 16.

    different-church-lady

    Didn’t Obama spend $15 billion US going to India or something? I mean, I’m almost sure I heard that on Fox News…

  17. 17.

    dmsilev

    Also, too, let it be noted that inappropriate use of charter aircraft is now officially a firing offense for a Trumpian Cabinet officer. Next, investigators need to dig into the travel records of Every Single One of his Secretaries. Let’s see how many of them can be tarred by the same brush.

  22. 22.

    TenguPhule

    @Corner Stone:

    That is not why he is mad or why he was fired.

    Yeah, he was just stupid enough to get caught.

    What’s the current grifting from Trump Hotel and Mar Ga Largo again?

  23. 23.

    Steeplejack (phone)

    @Corner Stone:

    The MSNBC evening crew is going to have a field day with this. I just hope somebody like Matthews or O’Donnell is taking a long weekend and Joy Reid is on deck.

  24. 24.

    SiubhanDuinne (at some point in the indeterminate future to be known by my real name, Judith Mann Costello, but maybe not quite yet)

    O/T: Good to see you, mistermix. It’s been a while (at least it feels as though it’s been weeks since you last FP’d). Hope all is well.

  25. 25.

    jl

    Shulkin was a big pooh-bah in non-profit private sector big health care organizations, which act a lot like private for-profit. Then he had to live under Obama style discipline for a year or two. So, he probably has some high-life habits that got triggerd by life among the Trumpers.

  26. 26.

    NotMax

    Paul Ryan when Price was nominated for the post: “He is the absolute perfect choice for HHS Secretary.” (citation)

    Want some ketchup with that crow, Mr. Speaker?

  27. 27.

    CaseyL

    Yeah, Pruitt next. With his wolf-and bear-killing policies, special personal security detail, special surveillance-proof meeting room and general delusions of megalomaniacal grandeur.

    Getting rid of Price is pretty damn good, but I’d do a REAL big happy dance if Pruitt was to go down.

  29. 29.

    Corner Stone

    @dmsilev:

    Next, investigators need to dig into the travel records of Every Single One of his Secretaries. Let’s see how many of them can be tarred by the same brush

    Not going to bet the house on it, but I think there is a real chance the media has a thread they can understand, it’s easy to explain to viewers and can get major clicks. They may actually have a little scent of blood in the nose.

  30. 30.

    Elizabelle

    Crackpot Dome daily news: WaPost website, “above the fold”. These are the headlines up, this very minute. Life in Trump’s America:

    HHS Secretary Price quits after criticism over charter flights

    Veterans Affairs chief and his wife went to Europe. The government paid for her flight and meals.

    Report: GOP tax plan would provide major gains for top 1%, uneven benefits for middle class

    ‘It’s not a good-news story’: San Juan mayor slams administration comments on hurricane response

    And the big pictorial feature up top and center:

    ‘I’m going to work until I die’: The new reality of old age in America

  31. 31.

    SiubhanDuinne (at some point in the indeterminate future to be known by my real name, Judith Mann Costello, but maybe not quite yet)

    @Elizabelle:

    May Pruitt be the next fucker out the door.

    I wouldn’t mind seeing Pruitt and Zinke do a duet and resign at the same time. The “Drain the Swamp” two-step, as it were.

  34. 34.

    efgoldman

    @Elizabelle:

    I want Price to have to reimburse the Treasury for the excessive charter fees. He owes us.

    I wonder if it’s got more to do with the insider trading that the senate committee decided not to see in his confirmation hearings. It’s possible that Mueller’s crew has been in touch.

  35. 35.

    Corner Stone

    @Steeplejack (phone): One can only hope. I have already set the DVR for AMJoy tomorrow but you never know what clusterfuck catastrophe may pre-empt her show. I could seriously use some Joy-denfruede tonight.

  36. 36.

    Steeplejack (phone)

    @TenguPhule:

    Still yet to be determined (I think) is whether DeVos charges her government security detail to fly on her private plane. That would be equally grifterish.

  37. 37.

    Jack the Second

    You just know all these fuckers were the sort who said “as long as we talk for 2 minutes about something vaguely work-related, we can call it a business lunch and expense it”.

  41. 41.

    Corner Stone

    @Elizabelle:

    I want Price to have to reimburse the Treasury for the excessive charter fees. He owes us.

    I wonder if he resigned instead of having to actually ever pitch a check back over the transom?

  43. 43.

    jl

    Another rich man’s son coming down the pike to the Fed is Kevin Warsh to replace Yellen. No way Yellen gets another term. I hope I am wrong about that, but little chance of that.

    Hard to imagine anyone with a worse understanding, or history of decent predictions, on macroeconomy than Warsh. We are in Kudlow territory with that guy. Very probably the next Chair of the Fed.

    Yellen was a great choice by Obama, will have excellent record at the Fed.

  45. 45.

    Elizabelle

    @efgoldman: Oh yeah. I’d like to see Mr. Price do some fed time, or state time. Whatever it takes.

    In his words, “failure is not an option.”

  46. 46.

    clay

    @Corner Stone: I find it hard to hate Carson because a) I usually forget he exists, and b) he seems to pathetic to hate. It’d be like hating a mentally ill dog.

    Don’t get me wrong–I CAN hate him. It’s just hard.

  51. 51.

    Betty Cracker

    Shulkin, yes, and Pruitt and Zinke and Mnuchin — all of those thieving crooks need to be bounced right out the door. And I share Corner’s contempt for media outlets that claim Trump is “mad” about Price’s high-flying ways. That fucker started illegally profiting from his office the moment his damp, dainty little hand left the Bible on January 20. Swampy McSwampypants is the grifter-in-chief, so fuck giving him credit for anger at Price.

  53. 53.

    Elizabelle

    @clay: Do we know that Carson shows up to work?

    Never hear much about that guy. Crowded out by all the other crap, I guess. Next we’re gonna find out HUD is plastered with murals of Carson with Jesus, painted at government expense.

  54. 54.

    Cheryl Rofer

    Let us not forget Price’s stock manipulations.

    And I’d like to hear that he is fully reimbursing the government for his flights.

  55. 55.

    Betty Cracker

    @Corner Stone: Her for-profit “education” connections and student loan dunning services are undoubtedly giving her kickbacks one way or another. I hope some enterprising reporter is working to ferret it out.

  58. 58.

    Adam L Silverman

    I can’t hang out, but I’ll just leave this here. Zinke was run out of the Navy Special Warfare community for pulling the same type of financial shenanigans. That two flag officers from his community came out on the record about what kind of problem he was speaks volumes.

    https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/16/us/politics/ryan-zinke-navy-seal.html

    But two retired admirals under whom Mr. Zinke served say his account understates the damage that it did. Mr. Zinke was in fact punished for abusing his travel expenses, they say, through an evaluation that prevented him from rising to senior levels in the Navy.

    His former commanding officer in SEAL Team 6, retired Vice Adm. Albert M. Calland III, who had never before discussed the matter publicly, said in an interview that it was “an easy decision” to hit Mr. Zinke hard over the travel claims, which came at a time when he was supposed to help prevent such abuses.

    McConnell Eyed Ryan Zinke for a Senate Seat. Donald Trump Had Other Ideas. DEC. 16, 2016
    “I gave him a fitness report that I thought would not allow him to get to captain, and that seemed, in that regard, to work O.K.,” Admiral Calland said. Even though Mr. Zinke served in a succession of No. 2 jobs in special operations after that, “he never got command,” the admiral said.

    Another retired vice admiral, Sean A. Pybus, who was Mr. Zinke’s boss after he left SEAL Team 6, said that Admiral Calland’s decision to cite Mr. Zinke for “lapses in judgment” in failing to set a proper example was a red flag for boards screening officers for coveted command jobs.

    Even if a fitness report — essentially a performance evaluation — gives top marks in other areas, as Mr. Zinke’s did, “language there like ‘hey, this officer has questionable judgment,’ that would keep him from being selected for a command position,” Admiral Pybus said. “And I think that’s exactly what happened.”

    Mr. Zinke has said he took the trips to scout training locations in Montana and nearby parts of Washington and took leave while he was there to do construction work on a family home in Whitefish, Mont. But officials who were at the command said he had less reason to scout sites at the time because he was finishing a two-year tour as an assault team leader. They said one of the trips also seemed suspicious because he had sought reimbursement for excess airline baggage even though he was traveling alone.

    Admiral Calland recalled that there was “a lot of discussion” among senior officers about how to punish him. It also hurt Mr. Zinke, the officials said, that the trips came when SEAL Team 6 — which, though now best known for killing Osama bin Laden, had initially been filled with hard-drinking mavericks who flouted the rules — wanted to project a more professional image to compete with the Army’s Delta Force for top missions.

  60. 60.

    OGLiberal

    Trump doesn’t give a shit about the planes. Price got fired because Trump partially blames him for not giving him a “win” on killing Obamacare and he can’t fire McConnell so Price gets the axe instead. I’m sure Trump had his muscle guy deliver the message, like he did with all of the other people he didn’t have the balls to fire himself.

  63. 63.

    Elizabelle

    @Wag: Yup. From Wag’s Politico link, re the invaluable Mr. Zinke:

    On June 26, a Beechcraft King Air 200 carried Zinke and several staffers from Las Vegas to Glacier Park International Airport in Kalispell, Montana, about a 20-minute drive from Zinke’s home in Whitefish, according to his official schedule. The flight cost $12,375, Swift said.

    Zinke left after speaking at an event for the city’s new professional hockey team, the Vegas Golden Knights Development Camp Dinner, according to his schedule. Earlier in the day, he had been in Pahrump, Nevada, for an announcement related to public lands.

    Zinke’s flight left Las Vegas at 8:30 p.m. PST and landed in Kalispell around 1:30 a.m. MST. The secretary stayed overnight at his residence, Interior documents show.

    Las Vegas is one of the main connecting airports for commercial flights to Glacier International. Commercial flights between the two cities are available for several hundred dollars a ticket, according to travel planning websites.

    In Whitefish, Zinke attended the Western Governors’ Association’s annual meeting, where he spoke for about 20 minutes without taking questions. He then had a private lunch with association members. In the afternoon Zinke was the subject of a photo shoot with GQ magazine at Lake McDonald and fished while being interviewed by Outside Magazine, the records show.

    Zinke and staffers flew commercial back to Washington, D.C., the next day, according to the records.

  64. 64.

    Mnemosyne

    @Hal:

    Hope he doesn’t throw his back out stretching that far.

    Both things involved airplanes, so they’re exactly alike, except for Hillary being worse! Suck it, libtards!

  65. 65.

    Baud

    @raven:

    She’s warning others of the dangers.

    Did anyone have the heart to tell her that everyone else already knew of the dangers?

  66. 66.

    jl

    @Betty Cracker: DeVos’ hidden connections and channels to various slush cash might be very much bigger than we know. She is connected with Erik Prince and his off-shore meetings to plan mercenary mercenary military schemes.

  67. 67.

    CaseyL

    @OGLiberal: Granted, but if “using public $$ for private planes” is the official reason, then that opens up quite a can of worms, since everyone in the WH is a grifter.

  70. 70.

    Elizabelle

    @Adam L Silverman: Great catch.

    “language there like ‘hey, this officer has questionable judgment,’ that would keep him from being selected for a command position,” Admiral Pybus said. “And I think that’s exactly what happened.”

    But it doesn’t work at presidential level. In fact, it’s an asset. Reward that nasty ass base that lives in fantasy land, primed by FoxNews and Rush.

  75. 75.

    quakerinabasement

    Not just crooks. They’re cheap crooks. If you’re gonna grift, go big! Otherwise you’re embarrassing the prexy.

  76. 76.

    jl

    @Adam L Silverman: From what I can tell at his entry in Wikipedia, Zinke rhymes with slinky and hinky.
    I hate the word, if it is one, ‘hinky’ but I guess OK for Zinke.

    At least Dub would be giving these jokers appropriate nicknames, like ‘hinky Zinke’

  77. 77.

    LurkerNoLonger

    Good! Fuck this idiot and his stupid hair and amoral character. I read the other day he was going to pay back $50,000 of his over $400,000 travel expenses. I’ll believe it when I see it.

  78. 78.

    Corner Stone

    I hope when the disaster in Puerto Rico is stabilized to some better level someone will take the PR Gov around the island for a little show N tell.

  85. 85.

    randy khan

    I’m disappointed – I had Mattis in the pool.

    I did a little poking around, and it may be that this is the fastest scandal-related resignation ever. The shortest tenure was 9 days, Secretary of the Navy under Tyler, but he died.

  88. 88.

    Steeplejack (phone)

    I want to see a light shined on the tone-deaf Elaine Duke at Homeland Security. Her Wikipedia article and her C.V. mentioned in news articles about her appointment are incredibly sketchy, in the sense of very little detail. I suspect yet another unqualified Trumpista, but would be glad to be proved wrong.

  89. 89.

    mai naem mobile

    @OGLiberal: Dolt45 is also trying to distract from Puerto Rico. I hope somebody hands him a baseball cap with Puto Rich emblazoned on top when he lands in Puerto Rico and tells him it’s a special cap just made to honor him.

  91. 91.

    Steeplejack (phone)

    Hugh Hewitt is reminding me why I shouldn’t watch Chuck Todd’s show. And he is shooting up the tumbrel list with every sentence he speaks.

    Paraphrased: “Trump has responded well on Puerto Rico and ‘the middle of the country’ sees that.”

    Also, Hewitt has a remarkably small but still punchable nose.

  93. 93.

    TS

    @Betty Cracker: Trump is mad that Price generated negative press about the administration – takes away from the concept that THIS administration is sleek & cheap – they don’t feed from the swamp like previous admins.

    Rachel (or one of her guests) hit the nail on the head when she said the MAGA base will accept anything from trump, but not from anyone else. the president* can grift all he likes, with no repercussions, the stupidity of his cabinet is in thinking they can do the same.

  96. 96.

    Van Buren

    I’m just thankful that Trump hired “only the best ” people. Just think how much grift would be going on if mediocre functionaries had been appointed to his cabinet

  97. 97.

    TS

    @Elizabelle:

    Never hear much about that guy. Crowded out by all the other crap, I guess. Next we’re gonna find out HUD is plastered with murals of Carson with Jesus, painted at government expense.

    If this is the case – he fits right in with Price. His final comments to the staff (from wapo)

    HHS staff received a message from Price praising the staff as “dedicated, committed” and saying it had been “a great joy” to serve with them.
    He closed: “Duty is Ours — Results are the Lord’s!”

    If Price was doing the Lord’s work he was well paid for it

  99. 99.

    OGLiberal

    @mai naem mobile: Remember how fast he made it down to Texas for a photo op and a rally with cheering supporters, about whose size he bragged about? Now he’s tweeting about maybe making it to Puerto Rico next Tuesday. Somebody probably just told him yesterday that Puerto Rico is the US – before that he was probably considering the island for the travel ban.

  101. 101.

    Steeplejack (phone)

    @hueyplong:

    Dunno.

    The head of NBC News is supposed to lean (hard) right, but since Hewitt was brought on board he seems to have been buried, so maybe there is some dirty commie liberal dissension in the managerial ranks. Hewitt’s show has a miserable time slot (8:00-8:30 a.m. Saturday), but he does pop up on the other MSNBC shows as a panelist.

    I don’t watch the channel except for the prime-time lineup and A.M. Joy, so maybe I’m not the best person to comment. But, yeah, as with Megyn Kelly, I don’t see Hewitt bringing a horde of Fox viewers over to MSNBC just because he’s so damn charismatic.

    ETA: Yeah, I know, needlessly long, serious answer to your bit of snark, but I was rolling.

  102. 102.

    Shalimar

    If someone in media wants to look for a similar scandal, the most over-looked possible culprit is Rick Perry. There was an in-depth Energy Dept. article a month or two ago that mentioned that Perry spends very little time at headquarters and knows almost nothing about anything Energy does. This is because he has apparently decided it is his job to travel to facilities everywhere and give PR speeches. Do we really think Perry is travelling commercial all over the place?

  105. 105.

    SiubhanDuinne (at some point in the indeterminate future to be known by my real name, Judith Mann Costello, but maybe not quite yet)

    @Van Buren:

    I’m just thankful that Trump hired “only the best ” people. Just think how much grift would be going on if mediocre functionaries had been appointed to his cabinet

    Or if the criminal Hillary Clinton had been elected. Dodged a real bullet there.

    //

  106. 106.

    Citizen Alan

    @clay:

    We haven’t really heard of any shit shows coming out of HUD since he took over have we? It would actually be amusing to me if Ben Carson turned out to be the most competent and least crooked member of Shitgibbon’s cabinet.

  111. 111.

    debbie

    They better look into the entire administration’s T&E. I’ve heard it’s as much as a million dollars.

  116. 116.

    Amir Khalid

    @Shalimar:

    There was an in-depth Energy Dept. article a month or two ago that mentioned that Perry spends very little time at headquarters and knows almost nothing about anything Energy does. This is because he has apparently decided it is his job to travel to facilities everywhere and give PR speeches.

    Rick Perry’s approach to Energy Seretarying sounds rather like Donald Trump’s approach to Presidenting. I don’t see anything that would strike the Dotard as an embarrassment to his administration..

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