Alex Acosta, You Are GET THE F*CK OUT
Let's say one nice thing about Labor Secretary Alex Acosta as he packs up his office to GTFO of DC. At least the guy spared his wife and kids the humiliation of watching him walk around with an arrow through his head for another two weeks -- although he could have done it before painting a target on his back at that press conference yesterday, inviting every reporter in America to dig in and factcheck a mountain of, ummm, mischaracterizations about his prosecution of Jeffrey Epstein when Acosta was US Attorney for the Southern District of Florida in 2008. But eventually, he read the writing on the wall. Knowing that his hinky plea deal with pedophile Jeffrey Epstein was going to sink him, Acosta jumped before he could be pushed. SLOW FUCKING CLAP.
In an emotional appearance on the White House lawn, Acosta stood next to Trump and ... berated reporters for not covering the record low number of coal miners killed this past year. Why even would the lamestream media waste its time on "this case, that is over 12 years old, that had input and vetting at multiple levels of Department of Justice"? It's not like the Labor secretary compiled a list of dozens of underage victims and then allowed a serial child sexual predator to plead down to a couple of prostitution charges with a slap on the wrist, while actively conspiring with that predator to keep the details of his plea from the victims.
OH, WAIT.
For his part, the president professed to be sad to see Acosta go, saying, "He's done a fantastic job. He's a friend of everybody in the administration." Trump continued, "I just want to let you know, this was him, not me. Because I'm with him." He also pointed out, a propos of absolutely nothing, that "he's a Hispanic man, he went to Harvard, he's a great student." As one does.
TRUMP on ALEX ACOSTA: "He made a deal [w/Epstein] that people are happy with, and then 12 years later, they are not… https://t.co/lIm4MZTNiz— Aaron Rupar (@Aaron Rupar) 1562941148.0
Trump blathered on incoherently about not being "a fan" of Jeffrey Epstein, although whether that was before or after the private party the two men threw themselves with 28 beauty contestants, he failed to mention. Trump then bizarrely characterized Acosta as a victim of Epstein, saying, "now if you look, the remnant hurt this man." Which is undoubtedly news to all the girls Epstein molested, especially if they, unlike us, can figure out what "the remnant" means. But Trump doesn't like to dwell on other people's grievances, so pretty soon it was back to bitching that Twitter is stealing all his followers.
Trump spouts baseless conspiracy theories about social media companies: "The platforms are absolutely in my opinion… https://t.co/Fn6jtotjZJ— Aaron Rupar (@Aaron Rupar) 1562942409.0
In point of fact, Acosta wasnot beloved by everyone in the Trump administration. As secretary of Labor, his zeal for undoing Obama-era worker protections was found lacking by the "friends of the forgotten man" who surround Trump. Politico reports that "Acting" Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney has long had his knives out for Acosta, and conservatives are pissed that Acosta let an employment discrimination suit against Oracle continue. Check out the vapors at the Wall Street Journal editorial page:
One mystery is why Secretary Acosta would continue his predecessor's depredations that seek to dictate how businesses manage their workforces and rewrite civil-rights and labor law according to the left's identity politics. Is he running the bureaucracy or getting run over by it?
Those very serious thinkers will probably like the new guy better. Deputy Labor Secretary Patrick Pizzella will take over when Acosta officially nopes out next Friday. From his work in the 1990s with Jack Abramoff lobbying to get the "Made in America" label on clothes stitched together by indentured servants in sweatshops on the Northern Mariana Islands, to his work in the George W. Bush Department of Labor, to his consistently anti-union stance as a member of the Federal Labor Relations Authority, Pizzella promises to be much more to the vulture capitalists' liking. But that's a problem for another day.
Today, let's just enjoy watching the doorknob hit Alex Acosta squarely in the crack of his pedophile-enabling ass. BOY, BYE!
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Liz Dye lives in Baltimore with her wonderful husband and a houseful of teenagers. When she isn't being mad about a thing on the internet, she's hiding in plain sight in the carpool line. She's the one wearing yoga pants glaring at her phone.
