Pruitt spent $1560 for 12 freakin' pens ?!?!?!

has got to stop. This is what you get when you put a bunch of rich entitled brats in a place where money can be accessed. They assume it's there for them. And then bitch about taxes.

If you make it look fancy and put their name all over it, these cretins will buy ANYTHING (with our money)..

Just to get us treehuggers mad.

but apparently all or most of the cabinet members have their individualized pens to gift. The presidentials are a long-standing tradition (that always annoyed me b/c our taxes pay for them), but one has to wonder when this tradition filtered downward to the cabinet. Hey, a hundred here, a hundred there...it all adds up.

The presidential pens, at least, are U.S. manufacture by A. T. Cross. Wonder about all the others.

[link:https://www.cnn.com/2017/01/27/politics/donald-trump-cross-pen-white-house/index.html|

They're from the Little Jewel Box - FYI for all you Fathers Day shoppers out there.

For a decent fountain pen. The last two I bought were about $800 each. (An S.T. DuPont Orpheo Vertigo and a handmade Nakaya Shobu Urushi, for any pen freaks out there.)

My everyday pocket pen happens to be the same Cross Century II flat black lacquer rollerball that many of the past presidents have used for their official signings. That pen is over $100.

https://wtop.com/life-style/2018/04/the-surprising-50-year-history-of-the-government-pen/slide/1/

"The next time you’re at the post office, take a look at the pen you’re handed to sign for your package. Or if you work in a government office or at the Pentagon, crack open practically any desk drawer.

That slightly smaller-than-average pen, encased in a black tube, with the words “SKILCRAFT – U.S. GOVERNMENT” engraved across the side, may look like your basic ballpoint. But appearances can be deceiving.

Meet the “government pen.”

First manufactured in the 1960s, according to highly detailed government and military specifications, the pen was designed to write without fail in office cubicles and war zones, alike. (An example of those specs: A single pen was required to be able to write a linear mile before needing an ink refill and had to be able to withstand extreme temperatures).

Skilcraft pens are notable for another reason. For the past 50 years, they have been produced by sight-impaired workers under an 80-year-old program dating to the New Deal to employ blind Americans.
.......

The trusty Skilcraft “government pen,” was originally designed to meet stringent government and military standards. Under those initial specs, it was designed to write without fail from the North Pole to Death Valley. (Courtesy National Industries for the Blind)
.......


The pen barrels had to withstand temperatures as extreme as a North Pole winter and a Death Valley summer — from negative 40 degrees Fahrenheit to 160 degrees.The pens had to write for nearly a linear mile — about 5,000 feet of paper — before the ink cartridge needed to be refilled. The ink had to dry within five seconds and be guaranteed not to smear or blot. Printed on paper, the ink had to withstand being submerged underwater for 48 hours and two doses of chemical bleach.Many of the specifications stem from their planned use in the military. For example, the pen’s unusually slight size — 5 and 1/8 inches long — meant they were small enough to fit completely into the pockets of most military uniforms, Oliver said, without the metal clip sticking out and potentially reflecting the sun, which could expose a soldier’s position to the enemy.
.....


The pen’s length equates to 150 nautical miles on most maps, so Navy sailor can easily use it to measure distances.The bottom part of the barrel is also reportedly the exact length of a 2-minute fuse.Female sailors have used the tip of the pen to make sure their fingernails stay within the 1-quarter-inch regulations, according to a 2010 letter to the editor in the military newspaper, Stars and Stripes.And, yes, according to the lore, Navy medics have used the pen barrels to perform emergency tracheotomies.
........

Each year, several dozen workers crank out about 8 million pens, Lynch said. The pens are sold to the government under the AbilityOne program, which helps ensure some federal contracting dollars go toward companies that employ the disabled.

You can score your own box, too. The pens retail for $6.87 a dozen — about 57 cents per pen —  on the AbilityOne website. While the site is primarily geared toward government buyers, private citizens who create a login can make purchases, too, Lynch assured."....(more)

So the sky's the limit. When he has to pay for something out of his own pocket, he taps someone with business before the EPA. But this isn't corruption, because if it was, Congress would be investigating it, and they aren't, so it isn't. So stop saying that!

And the GOP won't investigate, they will sit on their hands, scared crapless for their.political lives.....due to all that Russian money they laundered. There's a reason they're being weak and/or quitting, after all. THEY ARE ALL CORRUPT, so quit saying they aren't - so there.

Welcome to DU.

For a while some years ago, DU hosted a post "Equal Time by Bob Boudelang, Angry American Patriot" written by the greatly missed MrBenchley. Bob had several verbal tics, one of which was to recount some Republican perfidy in great detail, then say it wasn't true, "so stop saying that"!

I encourage you to Google "Democratic Underground Bob Boudelang" and sample one or two of those long ago gems.

I am tired of his prima donna ways that are being payed for by our tax dollars.

Will we ever see that money again if he is brought to court? Can he be forced to pay back the money he stole?

I bet not...

When Trump calls, Pruitt hop out of his phone booth, replete with two of his magic environment killing pens, one in each hand.