#revolving-door — Public Fediverse posts
Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #revolving-door, aggregated by home.social.
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@GeofCox @RejoinEU Thanks for that. I made a mental note to research his board memberships yesterday but didn't get around to it.
#warmongering #RevolvingDoor -
What Happens to the Appeal in Twin Metals v. US if the Senate Passes HJR 140?
Forbes Magazine has excerpted and posted the same moment from the Rules Committee hearing on House Joint Resolution 140 that I did the other day: Pete Stauber’s embarrassing concession that he brings HJR 140 on behalf of a Chilean conglomerate, a foreign company that will ship Minnesota’s ore to China for processing. This was just minutes after the congressman gravely warned that “China, our adversary,” has a “stranglehold” over critical and rare earth minerals.
A publication like Forbes has a lot more reach than I could ever hope to have, so it’s too bad they didn’t offer a little context and commentary to help people understand some of what’s at stake in this exchange, the anti-scientific posture Stauber’s resolution takes, and the abuse of legislative process it represents. I don’t believe that’s well or widely understood.
(I also think there could be a lot more reporting on the various ways that the play for the mineral resources of the Duluth Complex intersect with what’s happening in Minneapolis right now, but that’s a another story, one I started to grapple with here.)
The House passed HJR 140 on Wednesday. Should the resolution of disapproval pass in the Senate, HJR 140 will improve Twin Metals’ North American prospects. By how much is hard to say. This resolution does not permit the mine. As Stauber reminded everyone at the hearing, Antofagasta will still have to take its Twin Metals project through the normal channels of review. (In the hearing, Democrats rightly balked at this suggestion, noting that those channels and the agencies that run them are now captured or seriously compromised.) Advocacy groups, too, have tried to assure supporters that this doesn’t mean that Twin Metals can start building its mine on the edge of the Boundary Waters. It doesn’t. But the legislation will knock down some formidable barriers, most immediately at the DC Circuit Court of Appeals.
A little refresher. In September of 2023, Judge Christoper Cooper dismissed Twin Metals v. US on two grounds: the mining company had come to the wrong court, and it had no claim. HJR 140 could solve one of these issues for Antofagasta — the lack of a claim — and it might just render the case moot.
It seemed pretty clear that the mining company was going to lose its appeal of Cooper’s decision. They tried to delay oral argument, to no avail. Argument at the DC Circuit was held in January of 2025, and the outlook did not change. But what the mining company could not accomplish at law they could now accomplish by other means. Trump was inaugurated just one week after oral argument. Then the federal government did an about-face, took the mining company’s side in the dispute, and won a motion for abeyance. That put the case on hold until October. In October, the Chilean conglomerate and the US government went back to the court and asked for more time. Now the whole matter is on hold until April of this year.
So Stauber’s resolution comes at an incredibly opportune moment, just months before the mining company has to go back to court. How its passage will play into Twin Metals v. US is clear. In the 2023 case that is now on appeal, Judge Cooper ruled that the Bureau of Land Management’s decision to deny Antofagasta’s Preference Right Lease Applications and to reject its Mine Plan of Operations was lawful because the Biden administration had withdrawn the lands in question. If the Senate now joins the House to disapprove the Public Land Order authorizing the 20-year mineral withdrawal, voila: the agencies’ hands are now untied. The Bureau of Land Management will have new legal basis, or at least legal cover, for reviewing and approving the Lease Applications and the Mine Plan of Operations.
This is not just serendipity. It looks like a fairly well-coordinated scheme, one that I suspect was put together by the Bernhardt Group, but I don’t have the records to make that case persuasively. Watch for Antofagasta’s motion to dismiss their appeal at the DC Circuit once the agencies start to deliver.
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#ANTO #antiScience #corruption #HJR140 #HouseJointResolution140 #revolvingDoor #Water -
House GOP Bill Would Roll Back Key Protections in US Chemical Safety Law
“This bill is a chemical lobby wish list,” said one critic. -
Brendan Carr Says Destroying Consumer Protection, Media Consolidation Rules, And Corporate Oversight Will Be Great For Everyone
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"A 2024 analysis by climate watchdog Floodlight identified a “generational resurgence of fraud and corruption in the utility sector” costing electricity consumers at least $6.6 billion over the past five years.
Over that same time period, utilities’ shareholders have claimed losses of over $12 billion after alleging corruption or fraud, and electric companies have paid out half a billion in related settlements. Since 2019, seven power industry executives have been federally indicted or pleaded guilty to crimes
A standout example is the FirstEnergy nuclear bailout scandal. In 2020, Ohio’s House speaker and Public Utilities Commission chairman were indicted on federal racketeering charges after accepting $61 million in bribes from grid operator FirstEnergy in exchange for $1.3 billion in taxpayer-funded nuclear power subsidies.
The cause of all this graft? Deregulation. In 2005, Congress repealed the 1935 Public Utility Holding Company Act, which barred electric utilities from donating treasury funds to political campaigns. Since then, public utilities commissions, by approving rate hikes, have delivered roughly $4 million in additional annual profits to the industry.
Meanwhile, watchdogs describe a “revolving door” in which executives hop between utility commissions and the private-sector firms they regulate with few restrictions or oversight. One study of 473 public utility commissions found that 50 percent of commissioners went on to take a job within or adjacent to an industry they oversaw."
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"Niamh Sweeney was announced in September as the pick for third commissioner for Ireland's already highly-controversial Data Protection Commission (DPC), rounding out its three-person leadership team.
However her work at Meta from 2015 to 2021 raises concerns from civil society.
In an open letter to the Irish government on Thursday (23 October), signed by the Irish Council for Civil Liberties, noyb, ARTICLE 19, the European Centre for Press and Media Freedom, plus 40 others, highlights the conflict of interest Sweeney brings to a position that is supposed to police the same firms in which she used to work.
This appointment “raises serious questions about the DPC’s independence at a time when its impartiality is of critical importance for the entire Union, and when public trust is already fragile,” the letter states."
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Kent Dybvig dares to redefine "brevity" by cramming a Scheme machine into 400 lines of C, presumably to make programmers feel inadequate. 🤯 Meanwhile, #GitHub practices its impression of a revolving door—sign in, sign out, repeat ad nauseam. 🔄💻
https://gist.github.com/swatson555/8cc36d8d022d7e5cc44a5edb2c4f7d0b #KentDybvig #Brevity #Challenge #RevolvingDoor #Programming #Humor #HackerNews #ngated -
Fox has been named Head of the Hen House in #Ireland.
https://www.irishtimes.com/business/2025/09/17/ex-tech-lobbyist-named-to-data-protection-commission/
#DataProtection #privacy #GDPR #Meta #lobbying #facebook #RevolvingDoor cc @lobbyctrl_tech @corporateeurope
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Trump looks to buy stakes in military corps raising concerns about private contractors and war conflicts | The Independent
With a semi-nationalized military-industrial complex, the revolving door won't be needed.
#defenseContractors #nationalization #revolvingDoor #TrumpRegime
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While I was remembering #FDotM scribblings from last November, Primus Canis himself was making new ones:
Key line: "Did you know that since 2001 almost every federal resources minister has gone to work for the fossil fuel industry shortly after leaving parliament?"
#RegulativeCapture #DirtyEnergyDirtyPolitics #RevolvingDoor #corruption #auspol #ALP #Coalition #NetZero #FossilFuelExports #CarbonAccounting #ClimateDisruption -
Arms trade news
Grim reading in Campaign Against the Arms Trade’s latest newsletter
May 2025
The CAAT Newsletter (Spring 2025, Issue 272) has details of what’s happening in the world of arms sales a world in which the UK is a big player. Our previous post discussed the continuing sale of arms to Israel which is subject to an Appeal Court hearing starting on 13th. Also we mentioned the role of the RAF in carrying out hundreds of flights over Gaza and quite what is being done with the information gleaned is not revealed.
Arms sales are important for several reasons. Weapons have an enormous capacity to do great harm in the wrong hands. Governments need to exert great control over licensing to ensure that arms do not fall into such hands. British governments are frequently to be heard claiming it exercises ‘robust’ controls. It is doubtful that this is the case and CAAT have often noted the considerable use of open licences which means little effective control exists.
The current Labour government has a policy of growth which seems to dominate thinking. As the court case will reveal, and papers have already revealed, this seems to trump considerations of human rights. CAAT News has the following examples:
- The Defence Secretary has held meetings with counterparts in Saudi Arabia and Turkey to discuss opportunities for expanding military cooperation which is likely to involve arms sales. Both countries have woeful human rights records. Saudi has a full array of violations including public executions, use of torture, restrictions on women’s rights and repression of any opposition or free speech. Turkey has carried out baseless prosecutions against journalists, human rights defenders and opposition leaders, thousands of whom are in gaol.
- Eurofighter sales – which the UK co-produces – are planned for Qatar and Turkey. The latter is involved in bombing Kurdish groups in its own country and Iraq. Qatar is another repressive Gulf state and is highly corrupt.
- We have noted before the question of the Revolving Door where politicians, ministers, senior civil servants and military personnel leave their posts and head off for lucrative appointments/directorships/consultancies with arms firms. It is an open invitation for corruption and the ACOBA system seems powerless to stop it. The Aerospace, Defence and Security Group, (ADS) the trade body for the defence industry representing all of the major arms makers, holds an annual dinner at the Grosvenor House Hotel in which, in the words of CAAT ‘The dinner’s purpose is to introduce them to one another and allow them to schmooze and entertain their powerful friends from Parliament and the Civil Service‘ … These kinds of dinners are where relationships are formed and built and where the next round of arms deals are made, over fine food and wines.’
- And it doesn’t end there. The Defence and Security Equipment International (DSEI) resumes in September at the ExCel Centre in London. This may be the largest such exhibition in the world. It is popular because the UK government invites representatives from a wide range of countries including those with appalling human rights records, some even on its own watch list. The thousands of attendees will be met by ‘a cast of compliant senior civil servants and politicians on hand to make sure things run smoothly’ (CAAT).
- … or even there because the Farnborough International Exhibition and Conference Centre is to host Security and Policing run by the Home Office. Again, a range of countries with dreadful human rights are cordially invited to view the latest in surveillance, tear gas and ammunition. Journalists are banned. Britain seems happy to be host to regimes who use this equipment to repress and intimidate oppositions, journalists or human rights people.
Growth or rights?
The government seems keen to actively support these activities and to do all it can to promote arms and surveillance equipment to repressive regimes. It does this while piously claiming that:
This Government is fully committed to the protection of human rights both at home and abroad. We are committed to the international human rights framework and the important role that multilateral organisations like the Council of Europe play in upholding it. (Ministry of Justice, November 2024, ref: CP 1192)
It is hard to square the multi-level activities to promote arms sales and in the process currying favour with some of the world’s worst regimes, with their stated desire to be upholders of human rights and the wellbeing of those at the end of it all. While politicians, civil servants, military brass and ministers ‘schmooze’ with the arms manufacturers in expensive London hotels, it may be hard for them to empathise with those who have been bombed, starved, driven from their homes or incarcerated, tortured or executed for no reason. All facilitated by the weapons and equipment they so admire whilst quaffing the Bollinger. Is it growth above all else?
Sources include: CAAT, The Canary, Amnesty
#armsFair #armsSales #CAAT #DSEI #Farnborough #government #PoliceAndSecurity #revolvingDoor
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"From North Africa to the Gulf, the UAE has aggressively expanded its counter-revolutionary strategy in the wake of the Arab Spring"
by Andreas Krieg: https://www.middleeasteye.net/big-story/abu-dhabi-built-axis-secessionists-across-region-how 🧵#geography #CivilWar #Africa #Emirates #oilAndGas #internationalTrade #interference #allies #Houthis #MiddleEast #RedSea #Dubai #AbuDhabi #UAE #Yemen #MuslimBrothers #terrorism #counterTerrorism #salafists #mercenaries #stateViolence #imperialism #fossilFuels #civilWar #PersianGulf #Gulf #geopolitics #hegemony #MAE #Sudan #Egypt #MENA #geoStrategy #sanctions #LNG #military #nuclear #power #longRead #lobbying #foreignPolicy #USA #Libya #influence #development #revolvingDoor #revolvingDoors #Clinton #Trump #Harvard #Wimbledon #ManchesterCity #foreignInfluence #arms #armsTrade #normalisation #SaudiArabia
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Financial sector's 'revolving door' practice for outside directors persists, raising concerns about board independence and effectiveness of corporate governance in South Korean financial institutions.
#YonhapInfomax #OutsideDirectors #FinancialSector #CorporateGovernance #BoardIndependence #RevolvingDoor #Economics #FinancialMarkets #Banking #Securities #Bonds #StockMarket
https://en.infomaxai.com/news/articleView.html?idxno=55248 -
@GottaLaff
Independent article from a week before January inauguration:
Trump gets the Fox News band back together for his second administration - Before he’s even entered office, Trump has already tapped 18 Fox Newsers
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/donald-trump-fox-news-second-administration-b2678911.html
Media Matters on previous administration / Fox News revolving door:
https://www.mediamatters.org/fox-news/comprehensive-review-revolving-door-between-fox-and-trump-administration
#FoxNews #trump #MAGA #DOGE #RevolvingDoor #kakistocracy -
Long read: How a peripheral state can leverage its wealth, strategic geography and alliances to exert outsized influence on regional and global affairs
"How the UAE can simultaneously be both a subject of imperialism and an agent of imperialist practices within its spheres of influence while challenging traditional imperialist actors": https://www.tni.org/en/article/the-emerging-sub-imperial-role-of-the-united-arab-emirates-in-africa
#geography #CivilWar #Africa #Emirates #oilAndGas #internationalTrade #interference #allies #Houthis #MiddleEast #RedSea #Dubai #AbuDhabi #UAE #Yemen #MuslimBrothers #terrorism #counterTerrorism #salafists #mercenaries #stateViolence #imperialism #fossilFuels #civilWar #PersianGulf #Gulf #geopolitics #hegemony #MAE #Sudan #Egypt #MENA #geoStrategy #sanctions #LNG #military #nuclear #power #longRead #lobbying #foreignPolicy #USA #Libya #influence #development #revolvingDoor #revolvingDoors #Clinton #Trump #Harvard #Wimbledon #ManchesterCity #foreignInfluence #arms #armsTrade #normalisation #SaudiArabia
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The Green Party of England and Wales has created a 'Green Business Group' where corporation can pay £500-1200 to become 'members' and get free conference passes and meetings with MPs/Councillors...
https://actionnetwork.org/user_files/user_files/000/119/452/original/Green_Business_Network_newsletter_jan_feb25.pdf
What will this mean for the party's internal democracy, governance, or how responsive its new MPs are to it's membership...?
#greenpartyofenglandandwales #GPEW #democracy #corporateinfluence #revolvingdoor -
“Royal Mail should cut second-class delivery days, says regulator Ofcom.” Aren’t these regulators supposed to stick up for customers. The water and power ones are no use either. #Ofcom #Ofwat #RevolvingDoor
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The #revolvingdoor between government and 🏭 raises significant 💥 🤼 of interest concerns. High-level 🏢 ( often 🔄 between regulatory roles and private 🤑 sector jobs, using insider knowledge to influence policy. Critics argue this allows special interests to dominate, while proponents claim it brings valuable expertise to government. However, policies like cooling-off periods are frequently ineffective, failing to mitigate these conflicts. #Amakudari #Pantouflage #ConflictOfInterest #lobbyism
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In 2015, Ukrainian billionaire Victor Pinchuk's foundation donated $150,000 to not-yet President Donald #Trump's “charitable organization to book the then-presidential candidate to speak at a conference in Kyiv.”
Today @ABCNetwork reports former Trump official Kellyanne Conway is lobbying for the 2024 version of the same conference; payment, $50,000/month.
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“We know that carbon emissions are the root cause of environmental destabilisation. They are a key driver of increasingly extreme weather patterns, food price inflation, and water shortages.
So fossil fuel enablers should be made pariahs, not policymakers in the highest levels of government”
Clive Lewis, Labour MP
#FossilFuelLobby
#Tories
#BigOil
#RevolvingDoorhttps://theferret.scot/revolving-door-fossil-fuel-industry-uk-government/?
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Gen. Mark Milley’s Second Act: Multimillionaire
https://theintercept.com/2024/03/11/general-mark-milley-paid-speeches/
#NationalSecurity #speakerscircuit #hillaryclinton #revolvingdoor #Milley
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Going around and around and around... https://www.flickr.com/photos/woolamaloo_gazette/53565700866/in/photostream/
Revolving door at night, Haymarket Square
#Edinburgh #EdinburghByNight #Edimbourg #NightPhotography #photography #photographie #door #porte #RevolvingDoor #Haymarket #HaymarketSquare #architecture #BlackAndWhitePhotography
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"#RevolvingDoor" is a thing of the past. The status quo is rather public-private #coworking spaces with #HotDesking.
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#UK #RevolvingDoor #Surveillance #Biometrics #FacialRecognition: "The recently-departed watchdog in charge of monitoring facial recognition technology has joined the private firm he controversially approved, paving the way for the mass roll-out of biometric surveillance cameras in high streets across the country.
In a move critics have dubbed an “outrageous conflict of interest”, Professor Fraser Sampson, former biometrics and surveillance camera commissioner, has joined Facewatch as a non-executive director.
Sampson left his watchdog role on 31 October, with Companies House records showing he was registered as a company director at Facewatch the following day, 1 November. Campaigners claim this might mean he was negotiating his Facewatch contract while in post, and have urged the advisory committee on business appointments to investigate if it may have “compromised his work in public office”. It is understood that the committee is currently considering the issue."
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Ex-commissioner for facial recognition tech joins Facewatch firm he approved | Facial recognition | The Guardian
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/dec/10/ex-commissioner-for-facial-recognition-tech-joins-facewatch-firm-he-approved"Critics say Fraser Samson hiring is ‘outrageous conflict of interest’ as monitoring technology is rolled out in UK high streets"
#Corruption #RevolvingDoor #Capitalism #AI #FacialRecognition