Life is good in the Imperial City.

There's a plethora of exciting eateries. The museums are mostly free. And the money is good, but the post-gov lobbying and consulting gigs are even better. And then this guy wins and his appointees announce that you have to move somewhere where they grow corn. What are they thinking? You didn't join the Bureau of Land Management to be surrounded by corn, cows, and all that stuff. You're outta here.

Opponents of the Trump administration’s plan to break up the Washington, D.C., headquarters of the country’s public lands bureau are warning of a brain drain, saying many staffers who are being reassigned are opting to quit rather than move out West.

Brain? What brain?

Just think of the catastrophic brain drain if sufficient Bureau of Land Management personnel leave and then no one will know the exact period to order all the new office chairs.

Opponents have projected that the number of Bureau of Land Management staffers agreeing to move from headquarters could be as low as 15%,

Think of it as a new jobs creation program outside D.C.

But I imagine that an Obama or Clinton judge will step in and block the move because not enough proper notice was given, or because there wasn't a good enough reason for the move, or because, and this is the real one, he or she is hoping that the election or impeachment will nullify it.

The Trump administration says the plan will save taxpayers millions of dollars, lead to better, faster decisions and trim a “top heavy” office in Washington. Moving the bureau out of Washington is a long-cherished goal of Western state politicians who cite the preponderance of public lands in their part of the country and their lack of access to decision-makers.

I recall there being something in the Declaration of Independence about that.

But we all know that ranchers are not meant to have access to decision makers. Only environmental lobbyists are.

Bernhardt has called for about 300 positions to be switched from Washington to other offices in 11 Western states, including Nevada, Arizona and Utah. About 25 will be going to the new headquarters in Grand Junction, Colorado.

Better look for new jobs in D.C. than move to Grand Junction.

Current staffer Dave Hu, a fisheries biologist, has been asked to move to a field office in Denver but has told the bureau he’s trying to find a job with a different federal agency so he can stay in Washington.

Hu is listed as being on the advisory council of the Native Fish Coalition while working at BLM. There's an obvious conflict in working at a government agency and serving on the advisory council of an environmentalist organization whose interests are affected by BLM.

This is exactly the sort of conflict of interest that can be dealt with by draining the BLM swamp in D.C.