Exercising the government
One aspect of the bloat at the Environmental Protection Agency was exposed recently by the Americans for Tax Reform, which found that just one EPA office on the campus of the University of Nevada in Las Vegas had charged the government nearly $15,000 for 37 "1 Year Super Sport" packages at 24 Hour Fitness.
New EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt said "the previous administration" had granted the memberships, which "were rather expensive," but a lid had been put on such activities.
"It was something that needed to end," he said.
Especially since the employees already had access to the university's fitness accommodations.
Pruitt said the days of federally funded gym membership are over.
"The key, with respect to how we restructure," he said on Fox's "Fox and Friends," "is recognizing that Washington has become way too big. It has become way too consequential in the lives of Americans."
Media was harder on
Jennifer Palmieri, a former spokeswoman for Hillary Clinton, admits what Democrats often deny - that most reporters are biased toward Democrats - but then she reasons that the bias somehow makes the media harder on Democrats.
Say what?
Palmieri, who was caught in leaked emails mocking Catholics and in giving assistance to Clinton in debates against Bernie Sanders, was speaking at the Newseum in Washington, D.C., last week.
"Most journalists," she said, "are probably leaning more to the left than the right." But "think about the kind of person that's drawn to do this as a career. They believe in government, they think politics matters, they like it, they find it interesting, they don't make a lot of money. What I've found is it means they come after us harder on what I describe as the crap. They come after us harder on the palace intrigue, on the process, on things that really shouldn't matter."
She didn't say whether deleting government emails, jeopardizing classified information and collecting what appeared to be pay-for-play money from foreign countries were "things that really shouldn't matter," but on the whole there wasn't much question in the 2016 presidential race on which candidate the national media was for and which one it did everything to smear.
Trump partisans, veterans of the 2016 race, are likely to cry few tears for her.
Let Handler handle it
We don't know what the outcome of tomorrow's special congressional election in Georgia's 6th District will be, but we hope comedian Chelsea Handler takes to Twitter again and suggests all of her followers in the Peach State go to the polls next week.
Liberals across the country and in Hollywood have been pouring money into the campaign of Democrat Jon Ossoff in hopes that he will win the election, a win that somehow would embarrass President Donald Trump and portend bad things for the GOP in the 2018 mid-terms.
Handler, who has donated to the campaign, tried to help further by suggesting 6th District residents go to the polls last week, a week before the election. There was no word as to how many went and how many will now stay home, thinking they missed it.
"Special elections today in Georgia," she tweeted on April 11. "Vote for @JonOssoff in Georgia. He's our man."
This, of course, is the same Handler who in 2016 told NBC's Matt Lauer she associates racism with "really, like, dumb people from the South."
As of late last week, 95 percent of Ossoff's donation have come from outside the state, including $500,000 from California, $400,000 from New York and $160,000 from Massachusetts.
As if trying to buy the election isn't bad enough, the Democrat doesn't even live in the district but says he'll move there if he wins.