Executive Departments Part 2

[Audrey2]

3 hours ago, Howl said:

 My sense of Kobach is a not very intelligent wing-nut prone to conspiracy theories who would be only too happy to whisper sweet nothings in Trump's ear. 

And yes, he would be crucified in hearings. 

It wouldn't matter, the Senate would confirm him anyway. See Kavenaugh.

[Howl]

5 hours ago, Audrey2 said:

It wouldn't matter, the Senate would confirm him anyway. See Kavanaugh.

Le Big Sigh! 

[GreyhoundFan]

The Department of Agriculture bailouts are really helping family farmers. End sarcasm. "He’s an architect in Manhattan. He got $3,300 from Trump’s farm bailout."

Spoiler

Scott Yocom is a 48-year-old architect who lives in Manhattan, works at an office building near Times Square, and has been recently consumed with designing a new central terminal at LaGuardia Airport in Queens.

But late last month, Yocom received a government check worth about $3,300, a payment that came courtesy of a Trump administration program aimed at helping farmers hurt by the U.S.-China trade war.

Yocom said he spends two weeks a year on his family farm in Ohio, but as a part-owner he was eligible for the bailout funds.

Yocom was one of at least 1,100 residents of the 50 largest U.S. cities who has received bailout funds from the Agriculture Department, according to USDA data a watchdog group released Monday. Some of the recipients contacted by The Washington Post said they are closely involved with their farm’s daily operations, while others said they could not recall the last time they had visited.

When the Trump administration announced in August that it planned $12 billion in aid to farmers, it said the money was necessary to help them survive a trade war with China. But the program has been controversial from its inception, and the money going to urban residents — some whose living is only loosely connected to farms — underscores the challenge the administration faces in limiting the bailout to its intended targets.

The Environmental Working Group, a critic of the bailout, released information on Monday about 87,704 bailout payments worth a total of $356 million. The transfers were made between September and the end of October.

Collectively, those living in cities have received slightly more than $1 million in these payments. That number could rise; the money disbursed so far represents only a portion of what the administration has said it eventually intends to spend.

USDA officials said there was nothing in the program’s guidelines prohibiting funding from going to those who live in cities. Applicants must show that they are “actively engaged” to receive bailout money — the same standard used by the government in awarding other farm subsidies.

“In order to receive a payment, the producer has to meet the minimum ‘Actively Engaged in Farming’ criteria. Those regulations are used to determine eligibility for all of our other Farm Bill commodity programs,” USDA spokesman Tim Murtaugh said in an email. “The producers also have to maintain ownership over the commodity for which they are receiving a payment. . . . A producer has to prove actual production of a crop to qualify for market facilitation assistance.”

Yocom said he was not pocketing the money but rather reinvesting it in the farm.

“I’m not making my living off of it, so that money is going back into equipment costs and back into the farming operation,” he said in a telephone interview.

Scott Faber, senior vice president of the Environmental Working Group, said the White House has the ability to unilaterally rewrite the bailout program’s requirements.

Some farm groups have also called for the definition to be changed.

“The bailout itself is benefiting a class of individuals who are not the American family farmer who is paying the price of the trade war,” said Joe Maxwell, owner of a small pig farm in southern Missouri and executive director of the Organization for Competitive Markets, a farm advocacy organization. “The Trump administration has it in their power to restrict who receives the farmer bailout funds, and they should take immediate action to ensure America’s farmers are the ones who receive these limited funds.”

The White House announced the bailout program in July amid criticism from farmers and farm-state lawmakers over the impact of its trade war with China, which has led to a downturn in exports and agricultural prices.

Trade tensions rose in March, when President Trump slapped tariffs on steel and aluminum imports. China, like many other countries, retaliated with tariffs on U.S. goods, including farm products. And Washington and Beijing have since engaged in several further rounds of tariffs.

The bailout comprises three programs — direct cash payments to farmers to offset losses, about $1.2 billion in federal purchases of farm products to be distributed to food banks and other recipients, and $200 million to promote new export markets for U.S. producers.

The USDA initially declined to release the names of bailout recipients, citing privacy concerns, but it released information to the Environmental Working Group in response to a Freedom of Information Act request.

The Agriculture Department has also begun releasing the names of bailout recipients under the $1.2 billion food purchasing program. One of those names was a Chinese-owned company, Smithfield Foods, that has since canceled its contract amid a political backlash from lawmakers.

Some of the city-dwelling bailout recipients said they have suffered from the trade war and needed federal help, even if they do not live on the farms. Sara A. Kilker, 63, a substitute teacher in Tampa, received about $2,000 from the government for a farm she helps manage in Ohio that produces soybeans and corn. While she does not work the land herself, Kilker said she has been hurt by the downturn in commodities prices while still having to pay for expenses such as fertilizer, seed spray and farm equipment.

“I don’t like taking a government handout and haven’t been all my life. I work and still work,” Kilker said. “But the farm has been in my family since the 1830s or 1840s, and I’d like to pass it down to the next generation.”

Dorothy P. McSweeny, who lives in the D.C. neighborhood of Kent, co-owns an 80-acre farm in Minonk, Ill. She said that she wasn’t sure of the last time she visited farmland but that it had probably been at least two years.

“I’m not an absentee owner, because I do manage and make decisions about what the crops are,” McSweeny said. “I am consulted.”

Yocom, the architect in Manhattan, said he hopes one day to leave New York City and follow his father and grandfather’s lead in managing the farm. He lamented that large corporations have taken over family farms and driven small producers out of business.

“It’s a bit of a novelty, but it’s part of an American tradition,” Yocom said. “I like Park Avenue, but I still carry on the family legacy.”

 

[Howl]

I wonder if there is a very, very slow but very steady drip, drip, drip of regretful Trumpers who just can't anymore. 

[fraurosena]

Oh my, who'd've thought those shelved regulations for testing irrigation water would actually protect public health?

The Science is Clear: Dirty Farm Water is Making us Sick

Quote

William Whitt suffered violent diarrhea for days. But once he began vomiting blood, he knew it was time to rush to the hospital. His body swelled up so much that his wife thought he looked like the Michelin Man, and on the inside, his intestines were inflamed and bleeding.

For four days last spring, doctors struggled to control the infection that was ravaging Whitt, a father of three in western Idaho. The pain was excruciating, even though he was given opioid painkillers intravenously every 10 minutes for days.

His family feared they would lose him.

“I was terrified. I wouldn’t leave the hospital because I wasn’t sure he was still going to be there when I got back,” said Whitt’s wife, Melinda.

Whitt and his family were baffled: How could a healthy 37-year-old suddenly get so sick? While he was fighting for his life, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention quizzed Whitt, seeking information about what had sickened him.

Finally, the agency’s second call offered a clue: “They kept drilling me about salad,” Whitt recalled. Before he fell ill, he had eaten two salads from a pizza shop.

The culprit turned out to be E. coli, a powerful pathogen that had contaminated romaine lettuce grown in Yuma, Arizona, and distributed nationwide. At least 210 people in 36 states were sickened. Five died and 27 suffered kidney failure. The same strain of E. coli that sickened them was detected in a Yuma canal used to irrigate some crops.

For more than a decade, it’s been clear that there’s a gaping hole in American food safety: Growers aren’t required to test their irrigation water for pathogens such as E. coli. As a result, contaminated water can end up on fruits and vegetables.

After several high-profile disease outbreaks linked to food, Congress in 2011 ordered a fix, and produce growers this year would have begun testing their water under rules crafted by the Obama administration’s Food and Drug Administration.

But six months before people were sickened by the contaminated romaine, President Donald Trump’s FDA – responding to pressure from the farm industry and Trump’s order to eliminate regulations – shelved the water-testing rules for at least four years.

Despite this deadly outbreak, the FDA has shown no sign of reconsidering its plan to postpone the rules. The agency also is considering major changes, such as allowing some produce growers to test less frequently or find alternatives to water testing to ensure the safety of their crops.

The FDA’s lack of urgency dumbfounds food safety scientists.

“Mystifying, isn’t it?” said Trevor Suslow, a food safety expert at the University of California, Davis. “If the risk factor associated with agricultural water use is that closely tied to contamination and outbreaks, there needs to be something now. … I can’t think of a reason to justify waiting four to six to eight years to get started.”

The deadly Yuma outbreak underscores that irrigation water is a prime source of food-borne illnesses. In some cases, the feces of livestock or wild animals flow into a creek. Then the tainted water seeps into wells or is sprayed onto produce, which is then harvested, processed and sold at stores and restaurants. Salad greens are particularly vulnerable because they often are eaten raw and can harbor bacteria when torn.

After an E. coli outbreak killed three people who ate spinach grown in California’s Salinas Valley in 2006, most California and Arizona growers of leafy greens signed agreements to voluntarily test their irrigation water.

Whitt’s lettuce would have been covered by those agreements. But his story illustrates the limits of a voluntary safety program and how lethal E. coli can be even when precautions are taken by farms and processors.

Farm groups contend that water testing is too expensive and should not apply to produce such as apples or onions, which are less likely to carry pathogens.

“I think the whole thing is an overblown attempt to exert government power over us,” said Bob Allen, a Washington state apple farmer.

While postponing the water-testing rules would save growers $12 million per year, it also would cost consumers $108 million per year in medical expenses, according to an FDA analysis.

For Whitt and his family, his illness has been traumatic as well as costly. After returning home from his nine-day hospital stay, he relied on narcotic painkillers for about six weeks. The infection caused a hernia and tore holes in the lining of his stomach that surgeons had to patch with mesh. Five months later, he still has numbness from the surgery and diarrhea every week.

Whitt and his wife said it is irresponsible for the FDA to postpone the water-testing requirements when officials knew that people like Whitt could pay a hefty price.

“People should be able to know that the food they’re buying is not going to harm them and their loved ones,” Melinda Whitt said. “At this point, we question everything that goes into our mouths.”

FDA shows no urgency

The federal government often requires water testing to protect the public: Tap water is tested to make sure it meets health standards, and so are beaches, lakes and swimming pools.

But under the Trump administration plan, large growers wouldn’t have to start inspecting their water systems and annually test surface waters for pathogens until 2022.

Then they will have an additional two years to ensure irrigation water that comes in contact with vegetables and fruit does not contain E. coli above a certain concentration.

For the smallest farms, inspections and annual testing will begin in 2024, and they will have until 2026 to meet E. coli standards.

That means full compliance with the safeguards wouldn’t come until 20 years after three people died from eating California spinach, 15 years after Congress signed the Food Safety Modernization Act and eight years after Whitt and more than 200 others were sickened by romaine lettuce.

While the delay is just a proposal for now, the FDA has assured growers that it will not enforce the requirements in the meantime.

FDA officials declined interview requests. But a spokeswoman said the agency proposed the delay to ensure the testing requirements are effective.

“The Yuma outbreak does indeed emphasize the urgency of putting agricultural water standards in place, but it is important that they be the right standards, ones that both meet our public health mission and are feasible for growers to meet,” FDA spokeswoman Juli Putnam said in response to written questions.

In addition, the FDA did not sample water in a Yuma irrigation canal until seven weeks after the area’s lettuce was identified as the cause of last spring’s outbreak. And university scientists trying to learn from the outbreak say farmers have not shared water data with them as they try to figure out how it occurred and avoid future ones.

Why farmers should test water

The FDA has yet to unravel the mystery of how the Yuma romaine sickened so many people. But irrigation water is a “viable explanation,” the FDA said in an August update. Analysis of water samples from canals detected E. coli with the same genetic fingerprint as the bacteria that sickened Whitt and others. A large cattle feedlot is under investigation as a possible source.

The romaine outbreak is reminiscent of the 2006 spinach outbreak, which sickened at least 200 people in 26 states, killing a 2-year-old boy and two elderly women. Inspectors traced the E. coli strain to a stream contaminated with feces from cattle and wild pigs that then seeped into well water.

Many growers irrigate with water straight from streams or wells without testing it for pathogens. Pathogens from water can be absorbed by a plant’s roots. A CDC review reported that almost half of all foodborne illnesses from 1998 to 2008 were caused by produce.

Scientists from Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, found in 2014 that investigations of tainted produce “often implicate agricultural water as a source of contamination.” Another study by FDA researchers in May noted that salmonella in irrigation water “has been regarded as one of the major sources for fresh produce contamination, and this has become a public health concern.”

In the wake of the public outcry over the spinach outbreak, California and Arizona suppliers of salad greens created their own voluntary safety program in 2007. Since then, water testing has become commonplace in the Salinas Valley, known as the nation’s “salad bowl” because about 60 percent of all leafy greens are grown there.

On one recent foggy summer morning, Gary and Kara Waugaman stood in the fields of a ranch near the Salinas Valley town of Watsonville. The Waugamans are food safety coordinators for Lakeside Organic Gardens, a vegetable grower and shipper. Clad in neon vests and jeans, they drove from field to field, examining soil, surveying plants and testing water.

“We got red chard, green chard, rainbow chard, green kale, red kale, lacinato and then collards,” Gary Waugaman said, pointing at row after row of colorful leafy plants.

Kara Waugaman stepped onto an open, concrete-lined reservoir. A single duck floated on the surface. It appeared clean, “but you can’t tell anything by looking,” she warned.

In her years of testing water from this underground well, she never has found a sample with fecal contamination high enough to violate industry standards. Using a special stick, she dipped a small glass bottle into the reservoir; it disappeared with a tiny glug, then emerged full of clear water.

Next, the Waugamans drove to another farm. Baby Brussels sprouts poked out of leafy plants. A powerful rotating sprinkler showered Kara Waugaman as she ran toward it and quickly filled a small bottle.

For about 10 years, the Waugamans have sent samples to a laboratory that tests for generic E. coli. If a certain concentration of what is known as “indicator” bacteria is detected, it could be a sign of more dangerous pathogens like the one that sickened Whitt.

The two farms the Waugamans visited that day participate in the voluntary California Leafy Greens Marketing Agreement. Members test agricultural water once a month and submit to audits by state inspectors.

Mike Villaneva, the agreement’s technical director, said he hopes growers elsewhere soon will get on board with water testing.

“Our feeling is that everyone ought to know their water quality, and the only way you know that is by testing,” he said.

But if the Yuma farms were voluntarily testing their water for pathogens, how did E. coli contaminate the lettuce? There may never be an answer.

“Everyone is in shock because the (growers) really felt their (voluntary) program would prevent not every and all sporadic illnesses, but a large outbreak like this,” Suslow said. “They’re reeling with that failure and working to figure out what to do to prevent it from taking place again.”

He hopes this failure will persuade them to give researchers access to water data collected before the romaine outbreak and in the future.

Villaneva and Gary Waugaman said the monthly testing is not foolproof; it minimizes, but doesn’t eliminate, the risks. Also, pathogens from livestock and other animals can get into crops from wind, dust and other means.

The contaminated lettuce likely came from multiple farms. But the only grower named so far, Harrison Farms, is a member of the Arizona alliance that agreed to follow the voluntary safety measures, including water testing.

Harrison Farms said in a statement that it has tested its irrigation water on a monthly basis for the past 10 years and that it met federal standards for E. coli during the last growing season. The farm said its fields and water supply “underwent a thorough investigation” by the FDA in May that “did not yield any significant findings.”

Although the federal rules may not have prevented the Yuma outbreak, experts say they could help prevent the next one. The requirements would have been mandatory nationwide and applied to all produce.

But Patty Lovera of Food & Water Watch, a Washington, D.C.-based group that advocates for safe food and water, called the Obama-era rules “unmanageable.” She said produce contaminated by tainted water is unacceptable, but so is shutting down small farms that can’t afford the testing.

“It’s a terrible situation,” she said. “The (federal rule) solution could have a lot of casualties. That’s not acceptable either.”

Stuart Reitz thinks onion growers shouldn’t have to test water at all.

“We haven’t seen any evidence that there’s contamination of onions from any pathogenic bacteria in irrigation water,” said Reitz, a scientific adviser to the Malheur County Onion Growers Association in Oregon.

Allen, the Washington apple farmer, estimates that it would cost him about $5,000 for the first two years of testing his irrigation water. He thinks it’s a waste of time and money because no outbreaks have been tied to the state’s apples.

“I’m not gonna test,” he said. “If they want to throw me in jail, well then, OK, guess I have to go to jail.”

FDA to growers: ‘Keep doing what you’re doing’

The FDA’s deference to growers was on full display at a February meeting, two months before the romaine outbreak made national headlines.

During a two-day recorded workshop with growers and other industry officials, Stephen Ostroff, the FDA’s deputy commissioner for foods and veterinary medicine, told growers that federal scientists had investigated “far too many produce-related outbreaks over the years where water turned out to be the culprit. There is no question that to reduce the risk of contamination of produce by the water that’s used on the crops, we need water standards.”

But Ostroff reassured the audience members that the FDA wants their feedback to develop new “requirements that are less burdensome while protecting public health.”

“We see revisiting the water standards as a collaboration with stakeholders, including all of the stakeholders in this room,” he said.

“All options are on the table, including reopening the rule,” he told them.

The safety requirements would not be implemented anytime soon, FDA officials told the group.

“Rather than kind of rushing to make a set decision, (we’re) just focusing on, you know, working with you guys for now,” said FDA staff fellow Chelsea Davidson.

James Gorny, a former industry lobbyist whom the FDA hired in February to implement produce safety rules, told the group that the agency would not ask anything of growers in the interim.

“The FDA has clearly stated, ‘Keep doing what you’re doing.’ We’re not asking you to do any more at this point in time,” he said.

Gorny’s career is a classic example of the revolving door between federal agencies and the industries they regulate.

In 2006 and 2007, Gorny was a registered lobbyist for the United Fresh Produce Association. Then he worked for the FDA as a food safety scientist for several years. In 2013, he became a vice president of another growers group, the Produce Marketing Association, which has spent $120,000 on lobbying so far this year, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a campaign finance watchdog group.

Gorny’s hiring by the FDA mirrors a pattern across public health and environmental agencies. The Trump administration has appointed dozens of former industry officials and lobbyists to relax regulations designed to protect public health.

Whitt is suing the restaurant in Nampa, Idaho, that sold him the contaminated salads, and his anger flares when he talks about the FDA delay, as well as all the growers, shippers and processors that played a role in the outbreak and haven’t been identified yet.

“I think everybody is at fault,” Whitt said.

Now his family doesn’t trust the nation’s food supply.

“I’m terrified to eat vegetables,” Whitt said. “I won’t eat them unless they’re cooked. We won’t eat salads. I personally think it’s a broken system right now.”

 

[GreyhoundFan]

"Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke remains defiant amid ethics probes"

Spoiler

WHITEFISH, Mont. — As speculation swirled around Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke’s future in the Trump administration this month, he flew home and hopped onto the Harley-Davidson he keeps in his driveway at the edge of town.

The roar from his motorcycle — which he rode around town on Veterans Day weekend before leaving to tour wildfire damage in California — signaled Zinke’s defiance in the face of national scrutiny.

As federal investigators examine his real estate dealings here in his hometown, Zinke is dismissing rumors of his departure from the Cabinet and plunging into the public debate over forest management.

President Trump has said several times that he intends to “review” multiple ethics investigations against the secretary, including a land deal Zinke struck here with the chairman of the oil services giant Halliburton, before he decides whether to keep Zinke on as he shakes up his Cabinet.

But in recent days, Zinke has derided ethics probes into his activities as “fake news” and vowed to stay in his job to advance the president’s pro-industry agenda, saying the president backs him “100 percent.”

“The allegations against me are outrageous; they’re false,” he told “Breitbart News Sunday” on SiriusXM Patriot, a conservative talk radio channel. “Everyone knows they’re false.” He said the “resistance movement” of people angry about his policies is spreading rumors about him and threatening his wife and children.

Zinke’s personal conduct and management decisions have led Interior’s inspector general and the U.S. Office of Special Counsel to launch at least 15 investigations, nine of which have been closed. Acting inspector general Mary Kendall found last month that Zinke violated official policy by having his wife accompany him in government vehicles and raised concerns by trying to appoint her as an official agency volunteer. Investigators also closed two probes because of a lack of cooperation, including one regarding Zinke’s move to cancel a $1 million study into the health impacts of the strip-mining of coal.

The Office of Special Counsel, which investigates prohibited political activity by public officials, cleared Zinke in three different probes into allegations of combining political and official business.

Zinke’s comments to Breitbart came during an extended period away from his agency’s headquarters in Washington, during which he returned to this small mountain community in northwestern Montana and gave multiple interviews before flying to California to tour areas hit by wildfires.

Mayre Flowers, who for a quarter-century headed a land-use-planning nonprofit organization in Whitefish until she retired last year, said in an interview that residents have not found Zinke forthcoming when they have questioned him on his conduct and policy positions.

“You have an expectation that you can talk to one another, because we live in a small town,” Flowers said. “All of a sudden, when you have this defensiveness, you can’t really talk anymore.”

The secretary spent the Veterans Day weekend at his family home here and had drinks at a local bar. A month and a half ago, his critics mocked him in fliers distributed at local breweries during the city’s Oktoberfest celebration. “Ryan Zinke’s Double Tap Brewing Company, sponsored by Halliburton, opening soon in Whitefish, Montana,” the fliers said.

It is here that he faces the glare of a federal inquiry that shows no sign of wrapping up.

Investigators are examining Zinke’s involvement in a $90 million residential and commercial project, steps from his childhood home, that the city approved late last year on the site of a long-closed timber mill abutting the BNSF freight railroad tracks.

The scenic property — which lies beneath Whitefish Mountain Resort and near a forested lake ringed by wealthy homes — is prime for redevelopment. The venture, called 95 Karrow, is the largest project so far in a community of 7,600 residents in the midst of a real estate boom.

The project is backed by Halliburton Chairman David J. Lesar, who owns a home in a gated community by the lake and whose firm is one of the country’s largest providing oil field services on public lands. Zinke’s position as the Cabinet official managing 500 million acres of public land — and overseeing a rollback of environmental regulations to increase drilling — has raised the specter of a conflict of interest.

Lesar’s son, John, and his daughter-in-law, Katie, are also listed as investors in the project, according to Montana state records.

In October, investigators referred their inquiry to the Justice Department, a sign that they have found something they view as potential criminal action.

Zinke faces at least two other ethics investigations by the inspector general, including whether he redrew a national monument’s boundaries to benefit a Republican state representative in Utah. Another examines his decision blocking two Indian tribes in Connecticut from expanding their casino operations after he met with lobbyists for a competitor, the casino giant MGM Resorts.

The publicity over Zinke’s land deal has rattled Whitefish, an old railroad town quickly bouncing back from economic decline. It now boast satellite offices for the auction houses Sotheby’s and Christie’s, along with high-end restaurants, gift shops selling Montana ceramics and a jeweler where necklaces sell for $3,000 apiece.

City officials are reluctant to discuss Zinke. The Lesar family and Casey Malmquist, 95 Karrow’s lead local developer, have hired powerhouse D.C. trial lawyer Brian Heberlig to represent them.

Heberlig’s client list includes the “highest ranking BP executive charged in connection with the Deepwater Horizon oil spill,” his LinkedIn profile says. “I defend clients facing allegations of public corruption, securities and accounting fraud, FCPA [Foreign Corrupt Practices Act] violations, antitrust conspiracies . . . obstruction of justice, false statements, environmental offenses, and other business crimes.”

Heberlig, of Steptoe & Johnson, declined to comment.

Locals worry that their little town’s reputation is being sullied by a Washington scandal. And one partner on the development team is distancing himself from Zinke in frustration.

The secretary and his wife, Lola, own more than a dozen acres of land next to the project, property that BNSF donated to them a decade ago. They established the Great Northern Veterans Peace Park Foundation to oversee what they predicted would be a community gathering spot. The park has been graded but remains relatively undeveloped.

Zinke served as the nonprofit foundation’s president until after he joined Trump’s Cabinet. His wife now heads it, and in that capacity gave the 95 Karrow project an easement for 34 parking spaces last fall as the developers applied for city approval.

The arrangement was driven by a requirement of the local fire marshal for an additional route of egress from the park and the development in an emergency, city planning records show.

To many in Whitefish, the controversy surrounding Zinke has been overblown.

“From the city’s perspective, the park and 95 Karrow went through a public process that was well vetted,” said Whitefish Mayor John Muhlfeld, a Democrat. “Ryan Zinke followed a due process we have in place.”

But what is arguably a simple, by-the-book parking easement remains the linchpin for the matters investigators are examining, according to people familiar with the probe who spoke on the condition of anonymity because it was still ongoing.

Interior spokeswoman Heather Swiftdeclined requests for information on Zinke’s whereabouts this week.

The project in Whitefish was approved for shops, apartments, a hotel and space for artists, as well as a microbrewery, which Zinke himself has long hoped to build on one of his own properties. Neighborhood opposition thwarted that plan, and early in the process, Zinke expressed interest in reviving his dream for 95 Karrow.

“Zinke said, ‘What if I did put my brewery over here?’ ” recalled Michael Anderson, a 95 Karrow investor and prominent Whitefish real estate agent. “We said, ‘Possibly.’ ”

But in recent months, Anderson added, “there hasn’t been a conversation with Ryan” about the brewery.

The Zinkes own two other properties across the street from 95 Karrow and one on the same side of the street. The modest neighborhood’s value is set to at least double once the project is built, according to David Oberlitner, a real estate agent with Christie’s PureWest. A recently completed city plan provides for greater residential density along with a rebuilt main street steps from the project, which should boost the value of property in the area.

Zinke has continued to be involved in discussions over 95 Karrow since he took office, according to public records released by both Interior and the town of Whitefish.

Bruce Boody, the landscape architect for 95 Karrow, said the team briefed the secretary on the project as it wound its way through city approvals last fall.

“He’s part of the development,” Boody said, adding that the Zinkes, through the park, “are preserving a nice thing for the community.”

But the investor Anderson distanced himself from Zinke.

“We have nothing to do with Ryan Zinke, and he has nothing to do with us,” he said. “We have a lot of land. We have extra parking already.”

Anderson said that the developers approached the secretary with the aim of securing for the park another point of access and that they plan to break ground in the spring.

“We were trying to be neighborly,” he said. “We don’t need the park property.”

Zinke, 57, grew up in Whitefish as the son of a plumber and returned to start his political career after retiring from the Navy. His current policy positions are largely out of sync with his hometown, one of the few liberal enclaves in an otherwise conservative state.

Hillary Clinton won here with 65 percent of the vote. Many residents who enjoy the outdoors and consider themselves conservationists have been disillusioned by Zinke’s closeness with the oil and gas industry. As his political career soared, he allied himself with companies such as Halliburton, which gave more to his campaign than to any other House or Senate candidate in the 2014 cycle.

Making a symbolic stand against the administration, Whitefish was an early backer of the Paris climate agreement that Trump announced in June 2017 the United States would leave. The city is home to the advocacy group the Western Values Project, which has assailed Zinke from the moment he took office.

“The publicity is so bad for us,” said Rhonda Fitzgerald, a local neighborhood activist and owner of the Garden Wall Inn. “It misrepresents the community as a place of shady land deals and rich power brokers. It’s really a community of people who work and enjoy the pristine natural environment.”

Zinke has told friends that he is determined to stay in office and is convinced that the inspector general will not find any wrongdoing on his part. On Tuesday, Zinke tweeted that he had spent part of the day touring Montana’s Badger-Two Medicine area by horseback: “Rugged, remote, and beautiful. This is where the Blackfeet Nation’s creation story begins.”

The president, meanwhile, headed to Mar-a-Lago, his resort in Palm Beach, Fla., for the Thanksgiving holiday. He had not made a decision on his interior secretary’s future in the Cabinet or received the briefing on multiple investigations his staff had planned to give him more than a week ago.

 

[Howl]

This gave me a little frisson of happiness.  The VA isn't a cabinet level situation, but I recall articles about Trump's friends at Mar-a-Lago who were having huge influence at the VA.  And now, somebody's looking into it: 

GAO to look into whether Mar-a-Lago trio inappropriately influenced VA

 

[GreyhoundFan]

"Surprise: Fox News colluded with Trump’s then-EPA boss"

Spoiler

Believe it or not, “Fox & Friends” is worse than it looks.

The highly rated morning program on Fox News specializes in sweet and supportive interviews with President Trump and his various colleagues and appointees. When Trumpites spray their baseless statements onto the airwaves, a common response from the trio of “Fox & Friends” co-hosts is a group nod, though co-host Brian Kilmeade from time to time adds a dissenting voice.

Pro-Trump messaging, however, may be a bit more institutionalized than previously known, thanks to a fresh story in the Daily Beast by Maxwell Tani. Based on emails fetched by a Sierra Club Freedom of Information Act request, Tani reports that aides for Scott Pruitt, then the administrator for the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), “chose the topics for interviews, and knew the questions in advance.”

In one eye-popping instance, a “Fox & Friends” producer wrote an introduction for an interview with Pruitt — and then passed it along to a Pruitt aide. From the story:

“Would this be okay as the setup to his segment?” producer Diana Aloi asked.

She wrote:

“There’s a new direction at the Environmental Protection Agency under President Trump—and it includes a back-to-basics approach. This after the Obama administration left behind a huge mess more than 1,300 super-fund sites which are heavily contaminated—still require clean-ups. So why was President Obama touted as an environmental savior if all these problems still exist?”

The EPA comms shop was pleased.

“Yes — perfect,” [then-EPA press secretary Amy] Graham replied.

The Fox News hosts followed that intro when the segment aired the next day.

More:

Before a separate interview in April, a Fox & Friends producer sent an email to Pruitt’s staff with three topics the show wanted to cover: a lawsuit from right-wing Judicial Watch claiming EPA employees were working against Trump; a claim that environmentalists said Trump’s proposed border wall would kill jaguars; and Pruitt’s visit to U.S. coal mines.

When the interview aired the next day, the hosts asked eight questions. Six were related to the topics agreed upon by producers and the EPA. Another question related to the agency’s decision to revoke EPA employee gym memberships—a topic the EPA chief’s team successfully pitched as an interview topic the previous day on Trump-friendly Fox Business Network.

What’s the point here? Why would “Fox & Friends” producers feel compelled to share so much material when their hosts don’t ask questions in the first place? Can’t they just promise Trump appointees that they’ll get the “Fox & Friends” treatment and leave it at that?

Apparently not. The emails reveal that Fox News isn’t just skirting ethical boundaries here — that’s been clear ever since at least 2011, when “Fox & Friends” gave Trump special time slot to advertise his political and business ambitions; ever since Sean Hannity participated in a video ad for Trump; ever since Hannity and colleague Pete Hegseth assisted Trump in staging political rallies; and so on. What’s new in this correspondence is just how much professional self-respect Fox News is happy to surrender in service of pro-Trump propaganda.

Fairness requires noting that Ed Henry, the network’s chief national correspondent, pressed Pruitt in April on the various scandals of his time at the EPA — scandals that prompted more than a dozen probes into his work and that hastened his resignation. “If Scott Pruitt thought Fox News would play softball, someone forgot to tell Ed Henry,” this blog wrote at the time. After a few rounds of pounding from Henry, Pruitt said, “I thought we were going to talk about substantive issues.”

Fox News PR chief Irena Briganti didn’t respond to a request for comment from the Erik Wemple Blog. However, a Fox News spokesperson told the Daily Beast, “This is not standard practice whatsoever and the matter is being addressed internally with those involved.”

That PR formulation — we’re addressing the matter — makes periodic appearances in Fox News crisis archives. Like when Hannity appeared onstage with Trump at rally (“This was an unfortunate distraction and has been addressed.”); or when it was revealed that Fox News anchor Bret Baier had played a round of golf with Trump (“addressed the matter”); or when Andrew Napolitano made evidence-free claims about the alleged wiretapping of Trump (“the matter was addressed internally.”); or when “Fox & Friends” ran a four-minute video slamming President Barack Obama (“We’ve addressed the video with the producers and are not going to discuss the internal workings of our programming any further.”); and when the network had to admit a “breakdown” in covering the story of Shirley Sherrod (“will be addressed internally”).

Sounds like Fox News needs a CIAO — chief internal-addressing officer.

 

[fraurosena]

It's about time that a propaganda machine like Faux is forbidden to use the word 'news' in their name. It's misleading and if it were my country they'd be in violation of rules and regulations concerning media outlets (you're not allowed to pretend to be something you are not). 

[GreyhoundFan]

Because of course he can't:

 

[Howl]

On 11/29/2018 at 8:20 PM, GreyhoundFan said:

Because of course he can't:

We're learned to lower the bar, to have few expectations,  to not really care, but this is still pretty damned painful.  

Which leads us back to this: 

On 11/26/2018 at 5:41 AM, fraurosena said:

Oh my, who'd've thought those shelved regulations for testing irrigation water would actually protect public health?

The Science is Clear: Dirty Farm Water is Making us Sick

In the worst case, people can die horrible deaths from e. coli infections. As one doctor described it on twitter, you s**t blood and your kidneys fail.  It's not like you just ate a bit of food that disagreed with you and you are fine in a day or two. 

Air and water, people! They need to be pure. 

[Coconut Flan]

Carry on here: