President Donald Trump will formally nominated William Perry Pendley, a self-proclaimed “sagebrush rebel” with extreme anti-environmental views and a long history of advocating for the sale of federal lands in the West, to serve as director of the Bureau of Land Management. 

Pendley was tapped last July for a senior policy position at BLM, an agency of the Department of the Interior, and quickly elevated to acting chief. The backdoor appointment put him in charge of overseeing 245 million acres of public land — more than 10% of the entire U.S. landmass — and 700 million subsurface mineral acres. It also enraged environmentalists and sparked fears of a public lands sell-off. 

Pendley, a native of Wyoming, is the former longtime president of Mountain States Legal Foundation, a conservative nonprofit that has pushed for the government to sell off millions of federal acres. He’s written several books about Western land issues, including one titled “Sagebrush Rebel,” a […]

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After 10 months, the Federal Elections Commission in May regained a quorum with the confirmation of Republican appointee Trey Trainor—and promptly lost it just over five weeks later on Friday when commissioner Caroline Hunter resigned to join the Koch-funded group Stand Together, leaving the regulatory body again essentially powerless as the November general election draws closer.

“The FEC’s brief period of functioning appears to be over,” tweeted Public Integrity reporter Carrie Levine.

Hunter’s last day is July 3.

“Republican FEC commissioner leaving to joining the Koch network’s dark money fundraising apparatus,” tweeted Dig Left researcher Andrew Perez. “Says a lot!”

In a statement reacting to the resignation, Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.), the chair of the Committee on House Administration, said the news “makes abundantly clear the shortsightedness of the Senate Majority’s naked partisanship in abandoning a longstanding tradition of confirming bipartisan pairs of Commissioners.”

“The FEC just emerged from a nine-month period without a quorum—the longest running period of the commission’s history—during which it was hamstrung from […]

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As hair salons, churches and restaurants reopen across the US, so are eviction courts. Advocates and experts say that an unprecedented crush of evictions is coming, threatening millions of Americans with homelessness as a possible second wave of the pandemic looms.

Sitting in her car parked outside of the little white house in Kansas City, Missouri, where she’d lived for two years, Tamika Cole was overwhelmed. She’d worked a long shift as a machine operator the night before, at a factory where she makes detergent bottles for $18 an hour. It’s good, stable work. Nevertheless, Cole was on the brink of losing her home. Her nerves were shot.

“What am I supposed to do?” she said. “I’m tired of crying.”

Cole said that she came home in early May to find an eviction notice affixed to her door. She believed that it was because of a dispute she had with her upstairs neighbour, but that her landlord never spoke to her about it before filing the eviction against her.

Due to the coronavirus, an eviction moratorium was in place […]

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On Thursday, five federal regulatory agencies voted to roll back a key financial rule enacted following the 2008 financial crisis. The change will make it easier for banks to invest in venture capital and will tweak some restrictions on bank investing in hedge funds and private equity—all forms of riskier investing that Congress limited after 2010.

The revised rule will also shrink the financial cushion that banks are required to keep on hand during certain types of derivatives trading. This particular change could free up an estimated $40 billion of capital for banks to trade with.

Sheila Bair, who served as chairman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation during the financial crisis, told CNBC that she believes the changes are “ill-advised” because “that $40 billion that will no longer be in banks to protect them” will expose the government to more risk. 

Called the Volcker rule, the original version of this regulation has long been one of the most controversial parts of the Dodd-Frank Act, a sweeping package of Wall Street reforms enacted after the 2008 crisis and the bailout that stabilized […]

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The Trump administration on Thursday night urged the Supreme Court to strike down Obamacare, pushing forward with its attack on the health care law as millions of newly jobless Americans may come to depend on its coverage.

The Justice Department in a new legal brief argues Obamacare in its entirety became invalid when the previous Republican-led Congress axed the unpopular individual mandate penalty for uninsured people. The filing comes weeks after President Donald Trump confirmed his administration would continue to press for Obamacare’s elimination, ignoring warnings from top aides about the risk of voter backlash in November.

“No further analysis is necessary; once the individual mandate and the guaranteed-issue and community-rating provisions are invalidated, the remainder of the ACA cannot survive,” the Justice Department stated.

Trump’s new legal brief offers fresh ammunition to Democrats and their presumptive presidential nominee Joe Biden, who believe their advantage on health care will help the party retake the White House and possibly the Senate this fall. On Wednesday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced plans to […]

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Anthony Tata is a combat veteran. But the retired Army brigadier general and Fox News commentator — now a nominee for the No. 3 post at the Defense Department — does not have the courage of his odious convictions.

CNN’s KFile team, led by ace Internet sleuth Andrew Kaczynski, has unearthed a long trail of deranged comments from Tata, many of which he recently deleted from Twitter in an unsuccessful attempt at cleanup. The first CNN story, on June 12, reported that Tata had called Islam the “most oppressive violent religion I know of” and that he had described President Barack Obama as a “terrorist leader” who did more to “help Islamic countries than any president in history.” Tata argued that Obama negotiated the Iranian nuclear deal because he had “Islamic roots” and wanted “to help Iranians and the greater Islamic state crush Israel.” In addition, he lashed out at Reps. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) and Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), calling them “violent extremists” and accusing Waters […]

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Let’s assume that Donald Trump loses the election in November.

Yes, that’s a mighty big assumption, despite all the polls currently favoring the Democrats. If the economy begins to recover and the first wave of Covid-19 subsides (without a second wave striking), Donald Trump’s reelection prospects could improve greatly. The Republican Party has a huge war chest ready to fund ads galore, massive targeted outreach, and widespread voter suppression. And if all that isn’t enough, the president could borrow a tactic from the dictators he so admires and cancel the election outright out of concern over the coronavirus or some fabricated emergency.

Playing up fears of Trump’s reelection is a useful get-out-the-vote strategy, but for the sake of argument, let’s imagine that the election happens and the president loses unambiguously. A majority of Americans will sigh with relief. Still, don’t count on Trump — and more important, Trumpism — evaporating like a nightmare at daybreak.

To begin with, there’s the president’s legendary base of support, the one-third of Americans who’d continue to back him even if he were […]

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The Trump administration issued policy guidance this week telling health insurance companies that they are not required by law to cover the Covid-19 tests employers may compel workers to undergo as a condition for returning to their jobs.

The announcement (pdf) Tuesday by the Departments of Treasury, Labor, and Health and Human Services alarmed healthcare advocates and lawmakers who warned the move gives profitable insurers a green light to push the costs of potentially expensive coronavirus screenings onto workers.

“Once again, the Trump administration is prioritizing corporate profits over people. I’m deeply concerned that this will disproportionately impact frontline workers.”
—Rep. Frank Pallone Jr.

The Families First Coronavirus Response Act, a relief bill President Donald Trump signed into law in March, includes a provision (pdf) mandating that insurers and employer-provided plans cover “Covid-19 testing and related services without cost-sharing.”

But the Trump administration says in its guidance that the law only requires insurers to […]

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