After news broke that Commerce Department inspector general Peggy Gustafson would look into the unsigned statement from NOAA that backed up President Donald Trump’s baseless claim that Alabama was in the Hurricane Dorian’s path, Senate Democrats quickly followed up with specific demands.
Is a threat of firing blackmail?
Ross and his minions have claimed that he didn’t threaten to fire people. Instead, he probably said something along the lines of “If this continues, there will have to be a change of personnel to ensure that it doesn’t happen again.” See? No “F” word there. If the guy at the other end of the phone line took that as a threat to his job, then that is not Ross’ fault. Nope. Not his fault.
As if the Commerce Department’s Inspector General will actually investigate anything regarding Sharpiegate. If Mr. Ross, whose ethics have been in doubt since he first took this job, has been able to survive this long the IG will not likely find anything actionable.
Wilbur Ross should be sent back from whence he came, i.e. sleeping.
Isn’t it extortion rather than blackmail? I thought blackmail required a threat to reveal something that the vicitm wanted to keep hidden. (I was going to say “something wrong”, but then I came to my senses.)
Extortion and blackmail are synonymous.
Extortion and blackmail and Trump MalAdministration are synonymous.
My tired brain read that as PIGGY Gustafson and I thought for a moment that TPM gave Wilbur Ross an allegorical nickname…
Oh, come on. This is not nearly so important as the IRS whistleblower re how they’ve been handling Trump’s tax audit. The sharpiegate shenanigans have already been exposed and, really, no lives were put in jeopardy and people learned their lesson (except Trump, because he doesn’t learn, he just boasts).
This push must have been fomented by some consultant, who gets paid to come up with stuff to justify their outrageous salary and perks.
Get on the IRS stuff, dammit.
Yeah really what’s a commerce guy saying anything to weather folks especially threatening firing for trying to straighten out wrong info for president or any high level official.
“What is daily life in America?” Alex.
Probably useless. Is the Commerce IG better or worse than Horowitz, the giant sycophantic twatfart?
I have a new prime suspect who ordered the tarping of the USS John McCain.
Senate Dems look like ineffectual twits with every letter shy of demanding impeachment. And the letter i was my second choice of vowel.
I think I may have identified one single upside to all this Trumpian disaster - the quality of the swearing in this country is improving dramatically, and dare I say is approaching British levels of profanity. Well done, people! 
I think that you meant “alike” instead of “synonymous.”
Hey, if the snout fits.
