Cheap Seats 2023 By Rich Trzupek

The Gotcha Game - 01/25

By Rich Trzupek
  Liberals and conservatives may have finally stumbled upon an issue that we can ultimately agree upon: The bureaucratic state needs to take the righteousness down a couple of dozen notches.
  Allow me to begin this morning’s lecture by defending certain actions of President Dementia that troubled many of my right-leaning colleagues: “Let’s Go Brandon’s” handling of “classified” documents.
  We like to think that the entrenched bureaucrats create rules solely in order to carry out their mission. That does happen, but most of the time they create rules to mostly cover their asses. It’s not about erring on the side of caution at this level, it’s erring in order to create unalterable insurance policies that ensure the bureaucrat can never be questioned, much less accused of acting in bad faith.
  It’s all about the system. Or it presumes to be. Professional bureaucrats like Jim Comey, Peter Strzok, John Brennan and a host of others create systems and procedures that they can hide behind, rejecting any personal accountability or exercise in judgement under the cover of the idea that they had no choice – they had rules to follow! It’s the Nazi generals “I was just obeying orders!” argument revived, just with considerably less Jews’, Gypsies’ and Slavs’ corpses to count.
  When some (too many) on the right criticize Biden for his handling of “classified documents” they are willingly signing onto a theme that they should know is spurious. Obviously, I have not personally reviewed the documents, but I am morally certain that there was nothing in the trunk of Joe’s Bitchin Vette that would have put the nation in mortal danger.
  This is really about the way bureaucrats work and what they value, or think they should value. I have some experience in this realm.
  In the opening of my record-setting New York Times bestseller “Regulators Gone Wild: How the EPA is Ruining American Industry” (Encounter Books, 2012) I recounted a story from my professional career. It’s a particularly striking story of the bureaucratic mind in full blind self-righteousness mode.
  My client was subject to an EPA rule that required him to install a control device in order to reduce air pollution by a given percentage. He did so. Rules of the state of Illinois required him to obtain a permit to construct, issued by the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency, before actually building the control device. He did so.
  Having installed the control device pursuant to Illinois rules, my client was then obligated to perform a performance test to show that control device was working up to efficiency required by state rule. He did so. It passed. Having passed the performance test, my client was then obligated by state rule to put monitors in place to ensure that the control device would be operating at the same conditions (or better) that it had been operating during the successful performance test. He did that too.
  To recap: My client installed the controls the state required. He conducted the tests the state required to show that the controls worked. He then implemented the measures the state required to ensure that the control device would operate within proper operating conditions that had been shown to be effective.
  And yet, said client ended up paying a fine of over $100,000. Why? Because while he installed the required controls, proved the controls worked and installed the equipment to demonstrate the controls would continue to work, he failed to file a certification with IEPA stating that he had done so. That’s the bureaucratic mindset in action: Take any action you choose, but if you fail to file the right paperwork, we’re going to burn you down!
  That’s the mindset Uncle Joe ran into in his Vette garage. It’s the same mindset that Orange Man dealt with in Mar A Logo. It’s the equivalent bureaucratic BS that sent Martha Stewart to jail and forced good, talented people like Michael Flynn and K. T. McFarland out of public service.
  You want to have a meaningful discussion about our mutual future America? How about we start by excluding the useless, ignorant kids from the adult discussions.
  Email: richtrzupek@gmail.com