{"id":29045,"date":"2018-04-06T19:18:54","date_gmt":"2018-04-06T19:18:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=29045"},"modified":"2018-04-06T19:18:54","modified_gmt":"2018-04-06T19:18:54","slug":"earth-to-potus-no-siege-at-epa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=29045","title":{"rendered":"Earth to POTUS: No &#8216;siege&#8217; at EPA"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div class=\"twitter-share\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?via=jkanelis\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/static.politico.com_.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-29046\" src=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/static.politico.com_-300x163.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"163\" srcset=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/static.politico.com_-300x163.jpg 300w, https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/static.politico.com_-768x416.jpg 768w, https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/static.politico.com_-1024x555.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/static.politico.com_.jpg 1160w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Someone needs to explain to the president of the United States &#8212; in language a second-grader might understand &#8212; what a conflict of interest looks like.<\/p>\n<p>It usually involves taking advantage of someone with a vested stake in a public policy, such as, oh, living for virtually free in a condo provided by a lobbyist whose interests might benefit from certain policies.<\/p>\n<p>Such is the case with Environmental Protection Agency Director <a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.com\/story\/2018\/04\/06\/trump-pruitt-jeff-sessions-505576\">Scott Pruitt<\/a>, who rents a condo for $50 per night from an oil company lobbyist. The lobbyist is trying to curry favor with EPA on policies that would benefit the oil company.<\/p>\n<p>Does one think that&#8217;s a conflict of interest? Yes! But if the answer is &#8220;no,&#8221; they need to look up the definition of the term.<\/p>\n<p>Donald Trump says Pruitt is &#8220;<em>totally<\/em> under siege&#8221; by what he calls the &#8220;fake news media.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Mr. President &#8230; ready my lips. No one is denying that the Pruitts are renting this condo from the lobbyist. The EPA director has offered some lame excuse that he pays that dirt-cheap rate only when he is staying there. How in the name of government ethics does that make it all right?<\/p>\n<p>Pruitt was a bad choice to lead the EPA from the beginning, given his penchant for rolling back rules designed to, um, protect the environment. That he&#8217;s been revealed as someone who likes living high off the generosity of a lobbyist only makes matters worse.<\/p>\n<p>So, Mr. President, stop with the &#8220;fake news&#8221; canard. It ain&#8217;t fake, sir. It&#8217;s true.<\/p>\n\n<div class=\"twitter-share\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?via=jkanelis\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Someone needs to explain to the president of the United States &#8212; in language a second-grader might understand &#8212; what a conflict of interest looks like. It usually involves taking advantage of someone with a vested stake in a public policy, such as, oh, living for virtually free in a condo provided by a lobbyist &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=29045\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Earth to POTUS: No &#8216;siege&#8217; at EPA<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[1110,1424,1607,1976,6733],"class_list":["post-29045","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-environmental-news","tag-conflict-of-interest","tag-donald-trump","tag-epa","tag-government-ethics","tag-scott-pruitt"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29045","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=29045"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29045\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29047,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29045\/revisions\/29047"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=29045"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=29045"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=29045"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}