Check out the Babylon Bee for the best of satirical graphics and writing on the web!
WASHINGTON, D.C.—In a move to make purchasing congresspeople easier and faster for lobbyists, Congress voted to approve a new measure that calls for congresspeople to wear barcodes on their foreheads so lobbyists, activists, and corporations can simply scan them and self-checkout.
Self-checkout machines will be installed at all exits of the Capitol Building, so once they’ve added congresspeople to their cart, lobbyists can pay right on the way out.
“Purchasing congresspeople used to be a time-consuming, expensive process,” said a Planned Parenthood representative. “Now, we can simply walk through Congress, scan all the congresspeople that are for sale, and checkout without having to interact with any humans.”
“We hate humans—like, a lot,” the PP rep added.
One major military-industrial complex lobby group, Americans For Bigger Bombs, said they are also in support of the new move.
“When you need to make a quick pit stop at our nation’s legislative body to purchase a few congresspeople to start a new war, you need to do it fast,” said one AFBB lawyer. “An attack on Iran can’t wait while you wheel and deal, wine and dine, and negotiate endlessly. Now, I can just scan and go.”
The PPJ Gazette 
Aug 08, 2019 @ 14:20:09
Swamp Creature’ Crashes Interior Secretary Confirmation Hearing
9,991 views
LikeLike
Aug 08, 2019 @ 14:13:43
Committee Votes to Move David Bernhardt’s Nomination as Interior Secretary to Full Senate Vote
APRIL 8, 2019
by DAN BACHER
“It’s no surprise that a group of Senators who owe so much to special interest lobbyists would support this choice for Interior Secretary,” said Western Values Project’s Executive Director Chris Saeger in a statement in response to the committee’s vote. “For the last two years, conflict-ridden David Bernhardt has tipped the scales in favor of former clients, likely violating his ethics pledge and responsibilities to the American people.”
“Western Senators
Heinrich, Gardner,
McSally,
and
Daines greased the wheels to push Bernhardt’s controversial nomination forward before getting clear answers to critical questions regarding his serious conflicts of interests. There is still time for them to reverse this mistake by voting to reject Bernhardt on the floor of the Senate. Until that happens, they will have to live with being known as full-throated supporters of Trump’s conflicted ex-lobbyist pick to run our nation’s public lands,” Saeger said.
Two Democrats, Senators Joe Manchin (WV)
and
Mark Heinrich (NM),
and
Independent Angus King (ME) joined with every Republican on the committee in voting to confirm Bernhardt.
Western Senators Martha McSally (AZ),
Cory Gardner (CO),
and
Steve Daines (MT) also supported the former lobbyist, according to Saeger.
The Washington Post reported this week that, at the request of two watchdog groups and several Senators, Interior’s Office of Inspector General is reviewing evidence that Bernhardt violated his ethics pledge when he acted on behalf of a former client, Westlands Water District.
Then today (April 4) new details released by the New York Times revealed that Bernhardt had continued to associate with the water district at least until his deputy secretary nomination on April 28, 2017, according to Saeger. Within four months of his confirmation as Interior Deputy Secretary, Bernhardt pushed for a decision that would be beneficial for his former client.
https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/04/08/committee-votes-to-move-david-bernhardts-nomination-as-interior-secretary-to-full-senate-vote/
LikeLike
Aug 08, 2019 @ 14:11:35
Rogue’s Gallery of new DOI Secretary candidates:
Deputy Interior Secretary David Bernhardt
Rep. Rob Bishop (R-Utah)
Sen. Dean Heller (R-Nev.)
Rep. Raúl Labrador (R-Idaho)
Former Rep. Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.)
Idaho Gov. Butch Otter (R)
https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/421755-five-potential-contenders-to-replace-zinke-as-interior-secretary
LikeLike
Aug 08, 2019 @ 14:10:44
From Mother Jones
“The Guy Doing the Dirty Work” at Trump’s Interior Department is an Ex-Oil Lobbyist Straight Out of the Swamp
“Bernhardt knows where all the skeletons are and the strings to pull.”
REBECCA LEBEROCTOBER 9, 2018
With the tepid enthusiasm of an overworked elementary school principal, David Bernhardt, the second-in-command at the Department of the Interior, stood in the newly refurbished auditorium at the agency’s Washington headquarters, trying to get the staff settled down before a routine town hall with the secretary.
Bernhardt is the perfect No. 2 to a highly visible No. 1. Zinke is the folksy charmer; Bernhardt is the strictly-business lawyer. Zinke is the relative outsider, an opportunist, and a politician; Interior watchdogs say Bernhardt is the ultimate DC swamp creature.
https://www.motherjones.com/environment/2018/10/david-bernhardt-interior-department/
LikeLike
Aug 08, 2019 @ 14:08:35
From Center for American Progress
The Favor Factory
On August 3, 2017, Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke spent his afternoon and evening with David Lesar, the chairman of oil services giant Halliburton.
The details of Zinke and Lesar’s conversations are not yet known, but according to a participant in the day’s meetings, the main topic was not energy policy or oil production but instead a real estate deal in Whitefish, Montana, that would reportedly deliver private financial benefits to both men.2 The real estate deal; Zinke’s alleged use of public office for personal financial gain; and the question of whether Halliburton has improperly benefited from Lesar’s financial ties to Zinke have rightly attracted the scrutiny of watchdog groups, congressional investigators, and Interior’s inspector general.3
Zinke’s own behaviors and actions—from his real estate deal with Lesar to his mixing of political, personal, and government business on taxpayer-funded trips—create an ethically questionable culture within the Department of the Interior’s leadership. Yet it is Zinke’s deputy secretary, David Bernhardt—previously a lobbyist on issues he now oversees—who appears to be a central figure in a carefully constructed clientelistic system for dispensing political favors. The authors of this report characterize this system as the Interior Department’s “favor factory.”
David Bernhardt—who, until 2017, worked as a lobbyist and chairman for Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck’s natural resources department—was among the individuals who benefited from Trump’s elimination of the two-year lobbying ban. Bernhardt now serves as deputy secretary of the Interior. The removal of the Obama-era provision allows people like Bernhardt, who have years of experience in the private and public sectors, to be able to oversee policies at the Department of the Interior that could benefit former clients.
https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/green/reports/2018/08/27/455150/the-favor-factory/
LikeLike
Aug 08, 2019 @ 14:07:36
The Favor Factory
Spotlight: Deputy Secretary Bernhardt’s revolving door
Cadiz Inc.
From 2010 through late 2016, private water company Cadiz Inc. paid Bernhardt and his former firm $2.75 million for legal and lobbying services.30 During the period in which Bernhardt was working for Cadiz, the company was seeking federal and state approvals of a controversial project to pump groundwater from an aquifer underneath the Mojave Desert and pipe it to cities in Southern California. Scientists warn that the proposed project would cause severe damage to the Mojave National Preserve and Mojave Trails National Monument.31
Garrison Diversion Conservancy District
Prior records show that, in April 2017, Bernhardt spoke to Garrison’s board of directors at a meeting, alongside two Brownstein lobbyists who were registered on behalf of the water district.40 On July 24, 2017, two days after the Senate approved Bernhardt’s nomination, Garrison affirmed that it was formally requesting permission from the Interior Department to use the McClusky Canal to draw Missouri River water.41 When Bernhardt was sworn in on August 1, 2017, he vowed to recuse himself from matters dealing with Garrison until just August 2018, despite having worked on its behalf up until his confirmation.42
Eni Petroleum
In his paperwork, Bernhardt recuses himself from working on issues related to the oil and gas company Eni Petroleum.47
In April 2017, President Trump issued an executive order overturning the protections that former President Obama had put on Arctic waters.48 In August 2017, David Bernhardt was sworn in and recused himself from participating in matters related to Eni Petroleum; three months later, the oil and gas giant became the first company approved to drill in federal Arctic waters since 2015.49 On December 24, 2017, in an email to a reporter, Interior Press Secretary Heather Swift stated that employees from the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE) were “working through Christmas to get Eni permitted [for Arctic drilling],” noting that it would be a “nice Christmas present.”
https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/green/reports/2018/08/27/455150/the-favor-factory/
LikeLike
Aug 08, 2019 @ 14:06:40
WESTLANDS WATER DISTRICT
How a rich water district beat the federal government in a secret deal
Clout can be defined in many ways. In California’s parched Central Valley farmlands, it’s the ability to secure water.
By that measure, the giant Westlands Water District has just set a whole new standard. In a legal settlement signed Wednesday with federal officials following lengthy negotiations, the 600,000-acre district secured a water supply for its members’ almond and pistachio trees and other crops in perpetuity, immunizing it from many of the cutbacks that may afflict other water users as climate change and other conditions reduce the reliability of California’s overall water supply. And it was all done in secret.
To many critics, what’s worst about the deal is that it transforms Westlands’ 25-year contract for federal water into a permanent, non-reviewable right to as much as 895,000 acre-feet a year. That’s 150% of the annual usage of the city of Los Angeles. The deal prevents federal or state officials from ever diverting Westlands’ water to what might emerge as more beneficial uses in the future.
https://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-hiltzik-20150920-column.html
LikeLike
Aug 08, 2019 @ 14:06:13
The Favor Factory
Spotlight: Deputy Secretary Bernhardt’s revolving door
Cobalt International Energy
Between 2010 and 2013, Bernhardt lobbied and provided legal services for oil exploration company Cobalt International Energy. His lobbying firm was paid almost $2 million by the company during those years.57 As of 2017, Cobalt still employs the lobbying company at which Bernhardt was a partner; Brownstein provides counsel for Cobalt regarding leasing and development on the outer continental shelf.
Cobalt has benefitted from the administration’s focus on offshore drilling as well as a number of pro-oil and pro-gas decisions, including the rollback of a ban on new offshore drilling off the coasts of Florida and California and an expansion of drilling in the Gulf of Mexico and in the Atlantic,
Noble Energy
Bernhardt provided legal services to Noble Energy, a petroleum and natural gas production and exploration company,
The company recently announced that it is selling off its Gulf of Mexico oil holdings but continues to hold federal oil and gas leases in the West.61
Lobbying information from the Center for Responsive Politics shows that, in recent years, Noble Energy has frequently lobbied the Interior Department on issues relating both to oil and gas permitting and to the greater sage-grouse. Both issues are now under Bernhardt’s oversight.
Westlands Water District
From 2011 through 2016, Bernhardt served as both a lobbyist and lawyer for Westlands
One of Westlands’ top priorities is to enlarge the Shasta Dam in the Sacramento Valley. The project would come at the expense of wildlife and recreationists, and it would potentially violate the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act. Advocacy groups have already filed suit over the project’s threats to endangered salamanders.70 Earlier this year, the Interior Department said in a statement to the Los Angeles Times that its ethics officers had reviewed Bernhardt’s agreement with the department and advised that it does not require his recusal from decisions on the Shasta Dam.71 Congress should scrutinize Bernhardt’s recusals and whether it is appropriate for him to participate in discussions surrounding the enlargement of the Shasta Dam.72
https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/green/reports/2018/08/27/455150/the-favor-factory/
LikeLike
Aug 08, 2019 @ 14:05:23
The Favor Factory
How the favor factory stays under the radar
The calendars of senior Interior Department officials, for example, are public documents that, by law, must be released. The release of these calendars, however, is consistently delayed—some, like that of acting Solicitor Daniel Jorjani, have not been posted since May 2017. Furthermore, the calendars often lack basic information about the purpose of meetings, the topics discussed, or whom the officials are meeting with.
In addition, some of the publicly released calendars of senior Interior Department officials contain information that conflicts with other documents released under the FOIA, which suggests that calendar documents are being manipulated or sanitized for public release.
In addition to questions about the integrity of senior officials’ calendars, Trump’s Interior Department appears to be systematically suppressing or delaying the release of other documents that should be released under the FOIA. In
December, for example, it was reported that high-level agency officials were reviewing FOIA documents before they were released, with some directed to go directly through Zinke’s office before being released.78 Likewise, a watchdog organization-Western Values Project-has questioned how it is possible that, in the 628 pages of FOIA records released about the Trump administration’s review of sage-grouse conservation plans, the name of the person in charge of the review, Deputy Secretary Bernhardt, only appears twice.
https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/green/reports/2018/08/27/455150/the-favor-factory/
LikeLike
Aug 08, 2019 @ 14:03:39
The Sierra Club
Trump’s chosen one of his worst appointees yet for Interior Secretary: former fossil fuel lobbyist David Bernhardt, a walking conflict of interest who has no business overseeing America’s public lands.
As a lobbyist for the fossil fuel industry, Bernhardt represented dozens of companies with business currently being regulated by the Interior department. He has so many conflicts of interest he has to carry a card listing all of them. And as deputy to disgraced former secretary Ryan Zinke, Bernhardt was reportedly behind many of Interior’s plans to sell off America’s public lands and waters to fossil fuels companies-the same lands and waters he’s now in charge of “protecting.”
LikeLike
Aug 08, 2019 @ 14:01:59
The Wilderness Society
David Bernhardt is a long-time oil industry lobbyist and DC insider whose primary job should be protecting public lands from the very same people he used to work for.
Prior to joining the Trump administration, Bernhardt worked at a lobbying firm representing the worst in Big Oil. His clients included fossil fuel companies and trade associations like the Independent Petroleum Association of America.
Bernhardt served as Zinke’s Deputy Secretary and right-hand man who quietly executed Trump’s plans to sell out our public lands to the fossil fuel industry.
LikeLike
Aug 08, 2019 @ 14:00:39
Endangered Species Coalition
David Bernhardt is a longtime Washington insider with a long record of working to weaken protections for wildlife and wild places. He is described by some as “the ultimate DC swamp creature” due to his many years representing big polluters as a lobbyist and political appointee.
Bernhardt was embroiled in scandal in the early 2000s when he removed independent government analysis from written congressional testimony and replaced it with reports from oil companies.
Tell your senators you expect them to vote “NO” on the nomination of oil and gas lobbyist David Bernhardt to be the next Secretary of the Interior.
Bernhardt helped to author some of the most egregious attacks on conservation that were carried out in the last two years.
LikeLike
Aug 08, 2019 @ 13:58:05
Defenders of Wildlife
Driven by Big Oil and special interests, this administration continues its reckless attacks on vulnerable species. In response, Defenders has filed a number of lawsuits to help protect endangered wildlife.
What the Trump administration is doing to America’s wildlife is illegal, plain and simple. And the animals we love have never been in greater danger.
In light of the administration’s many failures to do its job conserving imperiled wildlife, we’ve been launching an extraordinary number of lawsuits to save these animals.
In my 20 years at Defenders, I’ve never seen so much aggression towards wildlife
LikeLike
Aug 08, 2019 @ 13:55:33
DEPARTMENT OF INTERIOR
OUR Public Lands…OUR Wildlife and OUR Natural Resources do NOT belong to private/corporate interests.
WE THE PEOPLE..they belong to US
The Favor Factory
Spotlight: Deputy Secretary Bernhardt’s revolving door
Cobalt International Energy
Between 2010 and 2013, Bernhardt lobbied and provided legal services for oil exploration company Cobalt International Energy. His lobbying firm was paid almost $2 million by the company during those years.57 As of 2017, Cobalt still employs the lobbying company at which Bernhardt was a partner; Brownstein provides counsel for Cobalt regarding leasing and development on the outer continental shelf.
Cobalt has benefitted from the administration’s focus on offshore drilling as well as a number of pro-oil and pro-gas decisions, including the rollback of a ban on new offshore drilling off the coasts of Florida and California and an expansion of drilling in the Gulf of Mexico and in the Atlantic,
Noble Energy
Bernhardt provided legal services to Noble Energy, a petroleum and natural gas production and exploration company,
The company recently announced that it is selling off its Gulf of Mexico oil holdings but continues to hold federal oil and gas leases in the West.61
Lobbying information from the Center for Responsive Politics shows that, in recent years, Noble Energy has frequently lobbied the Interior Department on issues relating both to oil and gas permitting and to the greater sage-grouse. Both issues are now under Bernhardt’s oversight.
Westlands Water District
From 2011 through 2016, Bernhardt served as both a lobbyist and lawyer for Westlands
One of Westlands’ top priorities is to enlarge the Shasta Dam in the Sacramento Valley. The project would come at the expense of wildlife and recreationists, and it would potentially violate the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act. Advocacy groups have already filed suit over the project’s threats to endangered salamanders.70 Earlier this year, the Interior Department said in a statement to the Los Angeles Times that its ethics officers had reviewed Bernhardt’s agreement with the department and advised that it does not require his recusal from decisions on the Shasta Dam.71 Congress should scrutinize Bernhardt’s recusals and whether it is appropriate for him to participate in discussions surrounding the enlargement of the Shasta Dam.72
https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/green/reports/2018/08/27/455150/the-favor-factory/
LikeLike