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You are here: Home / Economics / C.R.E.A.M. / Late Night Open Thread: Rep. Gunbunny Makes Bank From Extraction-Industry Friends

Late Night Open Thread: Rep. Gunbunny Makes Bank From Extraction-Industry Friends

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I’d gotten the impression Boebert’s campaign was a rob-Peter-pay-Paul attempt at free publicity for her little salmonella shack, but maybe she’d already signed the papers selling her… integrity… to Big Oil:

When Lauren Boebert, the gun-toting Republican firebrand, was running for Congress last year, she traced her income to Shooters Grill, a restaurant she and her husband own in Rifle, Colo.

She suggested her husband also did some consulting, listing “Boebert Consulting — spouse” on her candidate form, but identified his income source as “N/A.”

Only now, with Boebert not just in Congress but on the House Natural Resources Committee, has she revealed that her husband made $478,000 last year working as a consultant for an energy firm. He made $460,000 the year before, she disclosed in a filing Tuesday with the House of Representatives. Her husband, Jayson Boebert, earned that income as a consultant for Terra Energy Productions, according to the filing.

Boebert has been a staunch advocate for the energy industry during her first six months in office, introducing a bill in February seeking to bar the president from issuing moratoriums on oil and gas leasing and permitting on some federal land…

Boebert Consulting was formed in 2012 but is classified as delinquent, according to the secretary of state’s office, meaning it hasn’t filed the necessary reports or kept a registered agent on file. No business by the name of Terra Energy Productions is registered in Colorado, according to a database maintained by the secretary of state’s office. Terra Energy Partners is an oil and gas exploration and production company headquartered in Houston. The company did not respond to several messages from The Washington Post.

Rocky Mountain asked Colorado’s Oil and Gas Conservation Commission to approve without a hearing its application for 17 new gas wells just outside Rifle in Garfield County, Colo., according to a letter to the commission. The application, originally filed in May, has faced blowback from Colorado’s chapter of the Sierra Club, among others.

Boebert’s belated disclosure of her husband’s income came on the same day the Federal Election Commission inquired about her use of campaign funds for personal expenses. A letter from a senior campaign finance analyst at the FEC asked Boebert’s campaign treasurer for additional information about four Venmo payments made in May and June of this year totaling more than $6,000. Filings describe each payment as a “personal expense of Lauren Boebert billed to campaign account in error.” The filings say the “expense has been reimbursed.”…

“It’s not collusion if she actually believes the oil industry, not the voters, are her real constituents…”

Reader Interactions

82Comments

  2. 2.

    Raoul Paste

    Is she the one who expensed 38,000 miles of driving within 90 days of campaigning?

    The math on that is pretty interesting

  4. 4.

    mrmoshpotato

    So instead of throwing this gun humper into the Sun, she should be thrown down an oil well.

  6. 6.

    Jackie

    @Raoul Paste: She is! Her math skills can be excused due to her dropping out of high school. Or not.

    I’m sincerely hoping these last unfortunate revelations get her voted out next year.

  7. 7.

    mvr

    I’m getting to be a bad person. If global warming is going to kill many of us, I take comfort in the thought that people like her will likely come to an unhappy end one way or another.

    And I don’t even believe in retribution.

  10. 10.

    sdhays

    I hate the use of “energy industry” for “oil drilling” almost as much as I hate the use of “defense” as a euphemism for “war”.

  12. 12.

    LongHairedWeirdo

    “It’s not collusion if she actually believes the oil industry, not the voters, are her real constituents…”

    I know you know that’s bull crap, but it’s actually Constitutional bull crap. She owes her position’s existence to “we, the people of the United States…” who “…ordained and established this Constitution for the United States of America”.
    So, while the light governor of Texas can pretend that Democrats should be the only people who need to talk to Black people about vaccination, and I have no idea if the Texas constitution says “it’s perfectly okay to be a total dick, and not give a flying fornication at a rolling doughnut about the people of Texas, even if you’re serving in elected office”, it’s nevertheless impossible for Boebert to make that claim. She’s supposed to be serving the people of the United States first, her constituents second, and her political party third. Not the opposite.​

  13. 13.

    NotMax

    Will continue to rebel against the term gunbunny.

    Bunnies are fuzzy and cute.
    Boebert is not.
    Guns are not.
    Q.E.D.
    .

  15. 15.

    david

    But did her husband engage in any insider trading? If Bober is going to learn, learn from the best.

  16. 16.

    LongHairedWeirdo

    @sdhays: I’ll give you that, but keep in mind that no war has ever been won on defense. (The Civil War *could* have been won on defense – one of several reasons why Lee wasn’t a very good General. Hey, credit where it’s due, Lee was a brilliant tactician, and you never wanted to try to out-maneuver him, but Grant out-generaled, out fought, and out-strategized him. Yeah, he has a reputation as a brute, but that’s mostly because he understood “a rest now would be good, finishing the war that much sooner would be better. If they’re running after three days of fighting, we pursue – yeah, we’ve been fighting three days, but so have they – and they’re running scared, to boot.)

    To defend, you need to attack, and prove that continuing the war is far, far, worse than accepting some surrender conditions that will look far more reasonable when the enemy army’s ass has been appropriately kicked. (I don’t mean beat up on the donkeys – just in case a Republican was reading this and about to insist LIE-berals love cruelty to animals and donkey kicking!)

  22. 22.

    Another Scott

    @Steeplejack (phone): Sounds like the RWNJ crisis actors may have been victims of a scam…

    gripeo.com/explore-talent-review/

    True?  Who knows.  But I wouldn’t be surprised…

    Let’s see, the ExploreTalent web page’s “About Us” puts up a full page ad before showing any information.  Even in a Private Browsing window.  Who does that??

    FWIW.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  24. 24.

    phdesmond

    @NotMax:

    do you have a handy replacement phrase to offer?  perhaps “gun moll” (nice oldies feel)?

    this may have a positive outcome.

  25. 25.

    Steeplejack (phone)

    @Another Scott:

    I have no doubt that Explore Talent was a scam, but it appears that someone (unknown) used it as a resource to find willing pawns and operators for all sorts of right-wing operations. Boebert’s congressional campaign is particularly implausible: she came out of nowhere with levels of financing and media resources that seem far beyond her capabilities at the time.

  29. 29.

    Alison Rose

    @phdesmond: Considering she’s a lying piece of crap, maybe gunrat. Or since she’s dumb as a box of rocks, gunturkey. But sadly, none of the alternatives roll off the tongue as nicely as gunbunny.

  31. 31.

    RaflW

    How about Barbarella Salmonella? (OK, gun isn’t in there, and I realize that Jane Fonda is not a right wing greasy spoon ‘entrepreneur’, but it’s just fun to say).

    As to her husband, what was his job before she got elected, and if it was ‘petroleum consultant’ then, was his income even remotely close to half a mil a year? He may not be in legal jeopardy (I just dunno) but it stinks like a hog pen.

  32. 32.

    trollhattan

    Keep your eyes on this.

    A California judge on Friday ruled that a 2020 ballot measure exempting rideshare and food delivery drivers from a state labor law is unconstitutional because it infringes on the Legislature’s power to set workplace standards.

    Alameda County Superior Court Judge Frank Roesch wrote Proposition 22 is unconstitutional because “it limits the power of a future Legislature to define app-based drivers as workers subject to workers’ compensation law.” That makes the entire ballot measure unenforceable, Roesch said.

    Roesch further wrote that a provision in the initiative that prevents the Legislature from granting collective-bargaining rights to drivers is unconstitutional because it “appears only to protect the economic interests of the network companies in having a divided, ununionized workforce.”

    The provision applies unless a seven-eighths majority in the Legislature votes to grant collective bargaining rights to drivers.

    The initiative, which Californians approved with 58% of votes in November, exempts drivers for companies like Uber, Lyft and DoorDash from the 2019 labor law known as Assembly Bill 5, which requires companies to give benefits to more workers.
    The companies spent some $200 million pushing for Prop. 22, which obligates them to provide a health care subsidy and wage floor in lieu of complying with AB 5.
    sacbee.com/news/politics-government/capitol-alert/article253647838.html#storylink=cpy

  35. 35.

    phdesmond

    this looks like a group-composed poem in process.  one question is, what will become of “gunbunny”?   split opinions there, votes for  and creations of numerous other  terms!   everybody wins.

  37. 37.

    phdesmond

    excellent contributions.  thank you.  i”ll try, and you can too, to put the various phrases into something resembling a poem.

    peter

  38. 38.

    scav

    What salt of the earth non-elite heart of the Real ‘merkan among us hasn’t forgotten the little half-mill part-time lemonade stand the traditional bread-winner squeezed in one dull weekend?

    Ken B:  ooooooooo, like. (also, Harpy Doll, for a no doubt odd reason).

  40. 40.

    BeautifulPlumage

    OT – it took some fast finger work to hit the Contact link on the ABC news website*, but I was able to send in a complaint about the Biden interview transcript being written to include the obvious stutters.

     

    * page kept lengthening once I scrolled to the bottom

  42. 42.

    NeenerNeener

    OT: I’m awake right now because a drunk smashed up his truck on my front lawn. I thought the bars were still closing early because of COVID.
    This is the 6th drunk to do this since I built this house in 2005. They must have really messed up their vehicles when this lot was all scrub brush and ash trees.

  43. 43.

    Kayla Rudbek

    OT: For once I did something productive with my allergy-induced insomnia. The kitchen counters and outside cabinets are all scrubbed down, the countertop appliances are all together or in a logical place, the liquor has been gone through and the nasty expired unopened margarita mix bottle is sitting on the counter for Mr. Rudbek to deal with.

    And earlier on Friday evening, I went to fibre space and scored their last skein of Neighborhood Fiber Company sock yarn in the Observatory Circle color, plus a knitting pattern book with a cicada shawl pattern and a cicada sweater pattern. So if things work out with the yarn looking all right in the pattern, the shawl will be cicada^2. Still have to figure out what to make with the Observatory Circle yarn.

    Now for a shower to hopefully remove the allergens seeping out of my skin, and then to bed.

  46. 46.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    The bit that puzzling, why is the Oil industry bribing her? She isn’t exactly a fast tracker in the Republican party and Conservative Crises actors usually work for a 50 dollars and bottle of fortified wine.  Oil Industry lobbyist have so much bribe money they are running out of people to bribe?

  47. 47.

    JoyceH

    Open thread stuff – the Post has an article about “Anti-Taliban fighters claim victories as first stirrings of armed resistance emerge”. What do you folks think? Are the Taliban going to have it all their own way this time? According to the article, the armed resistance seems to be home-grown and ad hoc – armed citizens and individual soldiers who don’t want to be ruled by the Taliban. If I recall correctly, when the Taliban took over the first time, they were ‘greeted as liberators’, since they were ousting brutal warlords and at least appeared to be idealistic young religious students. This time people know better.

  48. 48.

    Spanky

    And so it begins.

    KABUL — Groups of armed Afghans attacked the Taliban on Friday, driving Afghanistan’s new rulers out of three northern districts, the first assault against the Islamist militants since they swept into Kabul last week and seized control of the government.

    (Via WaPo)

  51. 51.

    raven

    @JoyceH:

    ”

    The slain ‘Lion of Panjshir’, Ahmad Shah Massoud, who was the face of resistance against the Taliban and earlier the Soviets in Afghanistan, left behind the legacy to his 32-year-old son. Like his father, Ahmad Massoud is now standing up for the Afghan people.

    Ahmad is the eldest among Massoud senior’s six children and he is the only son. He has launched an anti-Taliban front from the picturesque valley of Afghanistan’s Panjshir province along with Amrullah Saleh, who was the Vice-President of Afghanistan in the Ashraf Ghani government and now claims to be the caretaker President.”

     

  52. 52.

    Geminid

    Lauren Boebert did not exactly come out of nowhere. She achieved a lot of notoriety spring of 2020 by keeping her restaurant open in defiance of Governor Polis’ lockdown. Before that she was a little famous for having armed waitresses. So she appealed to at least two “populist” strands on the right. That of course does not mean that were not more organized entities backing her.

    Incumbent Scott Tipton seems to have been caught sleeping. He lost to Boebert with $300,000 in his campaign account, presumably reserved for the general election. Boebert’s Democratic opponent and independent groups did a fairly good job publicizing Boebert’s flaws. One Pueblo-based group of veterans even put up billboards with Boebert’s mugshot from her failure to appear arrest. But there was very little ticket splitting last year, and Boebert carried the Colorado 3rd by 6%, same as trump.

    Colorado will gain a seat under reapportionment next year, so districts will be substantially redrawn. But the new Redistricting Commission will probably leave the 3rd as Republican as before. It’s a “corner” district, with it’s western border on the Utah line and it’s southern border on New Mexico.

    Boebert does have a primary opponent, a crane operator from the western part of the district. She claims radicals like Boebert are ruining the Colorado Republican party. She’s right, and will still lose.

    On the Democratic side, rancher and  State Senator Kerry Donovan looks to be a strong candidate, cowboy hat and all. Donovan might have run last time, but it was thought that six-term incumbent Scott Tipton was too entrenched.

  53. 53.

    Kayla Rudbek

    @NotMax: the Vice President officially lives at Number One Observatory Circle. So something in her honor. She actually visited the store a few months back, and it made the news. I think that she scored another skein in the same color, but I don’t recall if she was going to crochet something with it or if was a gift for someone else. :)

  54. 54.

    Butter Emails

    @Spanky:

    The Taliban is going to have a huge problem if a city of 4 million people manages to organize a serious resistance with broad popular support.

  55. 55.

    Chris Johnson

    If she’s a white conservative (or indeed playing the role of one), it’s not corruption, it’s sparkling capitalism…

  56. 56.

    evodevo

    @Alison Rose: ​
      Well, I;m thinking the origin came from the term “ski bunny” or “snow bunny” for women who hang around ski resorts looking for dates, rather than ski experience…

  57. 57.

    debbie

    How the hell does Colorado accept a candidate who listed her income as N/A? I understand, in light of TFG, the GOP might not care, but others certainly ought to.

  59. 59.

    Geminid

    @Geminid: I got interested in the Colorado 3rd District last year because like my in Virginia 5th District a Republican incumbent lost the nomination to a challenger from the right. My own congressman was nebbishy one termer Denver Riggleman, so six term incumbent Scott Tipton’s loss was a bigger deal, more like Eric Cantor’s 2014 primary loss in the suburban Richmond Virginia 7th. Cantor’s tea party successor lasted two terms before he was taken out by ex-CIA agent Abigail Spanberger in 2018. Spanberger is the first Democrat to represent the VA 7th since the Virginia party realignment in the 1970’s.

    I think Boebert’s crane operating primary challenger has it right when she says that radicals like Boebert will ruin the Colorado Republican party. An alliance of tea party cranks and bible thumpers has the upper hand in the Virginia party now, and this is one reason Virginia has gone from purple to blue. The radicals do well in red exurban and rural districts, but come up short in suburban ones.

    These are now the major battlegrounds across the country. In 2018, Colorado’s  Jason Crow and Virginia’s Elaine Luria,  Jennifer Wexton, and Spanberger all flipped mostly suburban districts. Lucy McBath, Colin Allred and Libbie Fletcher did the same in Georgia and Texas, while Democrats flipped several suburban districts in California.

  60. 60.

    Geminid

    @Geminid: Representative Sharice Davids (KS-3) also flipped a largely suburban district in 2018. Davids won her first reelection fairly easily. Her next race will be tougher, as Kansas Republicans will try to eliminate her through redistricting.

  61. 61.

    NotMax

    @raven

    1) Outside of artillery personnel, who would grok such an arcane connection?

    2) She’s not serving in the military, either, so it’s even less applicable.

  63. 63.

    Geminid

    @NotMax: I think “gun bunny” is a term familiar to soldiers in other arms of the Army and the Marines. But here, it’s just a disparaging term that easily rolls off the tongue.

  64. 64.

    debbie

    @NotMax:

    I see it as a sarcastic kind of thing, playing off both sexy-type bunnies (as in Playboy) and raven’s military reference. Hell, I like gun bunny more than gun humper. FWIW.

  65. 65.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @Alison Rose: What’s wrong with gunbuzzard? Same number of syllables.

    I’d prefer gunslut for the brevity and assonance (note emphasis on the “ass”) and I’ll probably think of her (when forced to think of her at all) under that appellation (“the gunslut Boebert” [note consonantal off-rhyme]), but since the Jackaltariat would get its scraggly collective pelf all piffled up over that, I’ll keep it in my thoughts & off the blog from now on…

  67. 67.

    NotMax

    @debbie

    There’s nothing sexy about Boebert’s fanaticism.

    @Geminid

    It’s either pejorative or it ain’t. Somehow don’t feel military types would accept it delivered as such.

    The upshot (no pun intended) is that it doesn’t work as conveying a negative, if anything it soft soaps the zealotry.

  72. 72.

    Geminid

    @NotMax: You are probably right. I don’t use this term myself, but that’s just me.

    It seems your state has an interesting visitor. The Times of Israel reports that former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is vacationing on the island of Lanai, 98% of which is owned by Larry Ellison. Ellison is a witness in at least one of Netanyahu’s three bribery charges.

    A Netanyahu spokesperson downplayed this aspect of the vacation by pointing out that his trial involved “hundreds” of witnesses, including his own lawyers. The spokesperson could have added that Netanyahu is as shameless as they come.

  73. 73.

    raven

    @NotMax: Here mister know it all

     

    Typically, armed forces personnel enlisted either in the military or Marine Corps which work artillery pieces. Usually denoted by insufficient psychological competence in addition to capability to just perform tasks that don’t require much reasoning.

  74. 74.

    No name

    @MomSense: I believe you are an accomplished knitter…do you think this pattern is something a not quite beginner but not quite advanced knitter could make?  It is stunning and I have been wanting to knit a shawl for the cooler weather.

  75. 75.

    Geminid

    @raven: The Cavalry seems to have attracted higher officers with insufficient psychological competence. When in 1940 the head of the U.S. Cavalry Corps was told to mechanize, General Herr responded, “Not one horse will I give up for a tank!”

    Higher authorities worked around Herr to set up the Armored Corps. Two years later the last Army Cavalry formation, a Dakotas National Guard unit, was disbanded.

  76. 76.

    Anne Laurie

    @raven: It’s a military term

    … which has been ‘repurposed’ to represent a ‘cute chick’ holding a weapon, for the delight of male gun-humpers.

    I still think Boebert just wanted to be the ‘cute chick’ humping a hot gun, but she didn’t have the face or the figure to carry it off.  On the other hand, her ‘better half’ is making more money from the oil execs than even a hot young thang was liable to make modeling, so…

  77. 77.

    Geminid

    @Anne Laurie: The husband’s consulting fee last year must have come later in the year. Boebert was an unlikely nominee before the June primary, and did not win her seat until November. The check was probably was handed over in a camo-printed envelope with the label,”NOT a Bribe!”

  78. 78.

    Miss Bianca

    You know, Scott Tipton, our former CD-3 rep, was a bastard, but he was an ordinary, run-of-the-mill Republican bastard. He made the local news, but was never splashed tabloid-style across national headlines like this. Never thought I’d hear myself say this, but I miss Scott Tipton.

    Meanwhile, next Wednesday night my local Democratic Party branch is hosting all 7 (!!) of the Democratic hopefuls lined up to run against Gunbunny. Should be an interesting evening!

  80. 80.

    J R in WV

    @Steeplejack (phone): ​
     

    Nothing creepy about this Matt Gaetz post!

    I dunno which is creepier, the extremely drugged look on the female, or the glazed psycho gleam in Gaetz’s eye. But the whole picture is psycho-level creepy for sure.

    I would be changing my locks out and getting all new phone numbers and email addresses if I knew Gaetz in any way shape or form… and then moving to a blue area of a blue state!

  81. 81.

    tokyokie

    @phdesmond: Late to the thread, but, in honor of the great Dashiell Hammett, who chose prison over kissing HUAC’s ass, let’s call her a “gat rat.”

     

    And I don’t think we need to worry much about her re-election. The largest city in her district is the severely depressed Pueblo. She will certainly vote against the infrastructure measures. And Pueblo’s steel mills are one of only three domestic sources of steel rail manufacturing.

  82. 82.

    fancycwabs

    You know who else makes six figures as a “consultant” even though you can’t actually hire him?

    That’s right, Chuck Blackburn. A.k.a. Mr. Marsha Blackburn.

    Bonus! His “consulting group” with only one employee (that would be Chuck) got $20k in PPP “loans” over the last two stimulus packages!

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