19 July 20
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19 July 20
David Sirota, Jacobin
Sirota writes: "Chief Justice John Roberts has created the most conservative court in modern history."
Supreme Court Justice John Roberts has been praised recently as a heroic force for moderation. But his court’s recent ruling just helped Wall Street giants stomp on thousands of public-sector workers and retirees in one of America’s poorest states.
hief Justice John Roberts has created the most conservative court in modern history: In just the last few weeks, his court has helped financial firms bilk pension funds, strengthened fossil fuel companies’ power to fast-track pipelines, limited the power of regulatory agencies that police Wall Street, and stealthily let Donald Trump hide his tax returns. As a reward for Roberts’s continued defense of the wealthy and powerful, much of the national media has obediently depicted him as a great hero of moderation, because he sort of seemed to snub Trump in a handful of other rulings.
The press corps is willfully covering up the Roberts Court’s class war — and the cover-up is happening even as the court’s latest salvo is now reverberating far away from the Washington political theater out here in the actual, real world.
Indeed, one of the Supreme Court’s least-noticed rulings in the last few months just helped the planet’s most rapacious financial firms — and one of Donald Trump’s billionaire pals — stomp on thousands of public-sector workers and retirees in one of America’s poorest states. It also helped Wall Street avoid a full public examination of schemes that fleece investors. As one industry trade publication put it: “Hedge fund managers slept a little bit easier” after the events that unfolded last week.
The Kentucky Case That Wall Street Really Feared
All of this traces back to the Supreme Court’s recent Thole v. US Bank ruling, which we first reported on in June. That radical opinion — which has gone unmentioned in all the Roberts hagiographies — effectively barred retirees from suing when their employers let Wall Street firms bilk their pension funds.WALL
This was a huge win for both employers and the financial firms that drain retirement systems — and it was a victory that came at exactly the moment the Securities and Exchange Commission and FBI are sounding alarms about such firms’ exorbitant fees, conflicts of interest and secrecy.
This story could have ended there — and if you paid attention to the news (or lack thereof) you may have thought it did. However, less than six weeks after this travesty, the Thole ruling was just used by Kentucky judges to shut down another landmark case that Wall Street really feared — a case that could have forced some of the globe’s most powerful financial firms to open up their secretive schemes to public scrutiny for the first time.
The Kentucky case was filed by public-sector retirees who alleged that Wall Street behemoths including KKR and The Blackstone Group misled their state pension fund into investing in “extremely high-risk, secretive, opaque, high-fee and illiquid vehicles” that enriched the firms with excessive fees while delivering subpar returns that exacerbated the state’s financial crisis. Among the named defendants was billionaire Blackstone CEO Stephen Schwarzman, a top outside adviser to President Trump.
The plaintiffs in the case argued that in order to protect the pension system, the court needed to recognize workers’ standing to sue because the Kentucky pension officials who authorized the original investments would never take legal action that might spotlight their own complicity in the alleged rip-off schemes.
“The current (pension board) cannot and will not sue themselves or their alleged co-actors and any demand that they bring this suit would be a useless act,” they asserted. “All (pension) trustees have been involved in the wrongdoing and will not subject themselves to suit or public exposure and scrutiny.”
Preventing a Potential Pentagon Papers Moment for Wall Street
If the case went forward, KKR and Blackstone could have been compelled to turn over documents detailing all the secret fees, shell games and get-rich-quick schemes they use to profit not only off of Kentucky workers, but off of millions of public workers and retirees across the nation whose pension funds they manage. It would have been a potential Pentagon Papers moment for Schwarzman and other Wall Street billionaires.
But that’s when the Kentucky Supreme Court stepped in last week to side with the Wall Street firms and shut down the case — and to do that, they relied on the Roberts Court.
In its opinion, which cited the Thole ruling eighteen separate times, the Kentucky court asserted that the case should be thrown out because even though the Wall Street firms may have bilked the now-beleaguered pension fund, the Kentucky workers themselves had not yet seen a reduction in their promised benefits — and so therefore, the workers did not have standing to sue.
“Our decision today borrows heavily from the analysis of Thole,” wrote the Kentucky judges, who have their own separate, well-funded state pension system that didn’t funnel money into the high-risk investments.
They noted that “the Supreme Court in Thole recently rejected this exact argument” that the Kentucky workers were making.
Back in Washington, none of this made any news — the press was too busy helping manufacture their saccharine fairy tale about Roberts saving the world, even as he was ruining it for millions of workers.
But despite that news blackout, you can rest assured that the most powerful people in the financial industry noticed the ruling — and are deeply grateful for a Roberts Court that lets them continue stealthily vacuuming Americans’ meager retirement savings into billionaires’ bank accounts.
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The White House at night. (photo: Susan Walsh/AP)
Trump Administration Pushing to Block New Money for Testing, Tracing and CDC in Upcoming Coronavirus Relief Bill
Erica Werner and Jeff Stein, The Washington Post
Excerpt: "The Trump administration is trying to block billions of dollars for states to conduct testing and contact tracing in the upcoming coronavirus relief bill, people involved in the talks said Saturday."
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Erica Werner and Jeff Stein, The Washington Post
Excerpt: "The Trump administration is trying to block billions of dollars for states to conduct testing and contact tracing in the upcoming coronavirus relief bill, people involved in the talks said Saturday."
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Federal officers use tear gas and other crowd dispersal munitions on protesters outside the Multnomah County Justice Center on Friday in Portland, Ore. (photo: Mason Trinca/Getty Images)
ALSO SEE: Portland Mayor Demands Trump Remove Federal Agents From City
Oregon Sues Federal Agencies Over Protest Enforcement
Conrad Wilson and Dirk Vanderhart, NPR
Excerpt: "The Oregon Department of Justice is suing several federal agencies for civil rights abuses, and state prosecutors will potentially pursue criminal charges against a federal officer who seriously injured a protester."
rotests in Portland, Ore., continued through early Sunday morning, following the Oregon Department of Justice's announcement it would be suing several federal agencies for civil rights abuses in the state. Demonstrations have taken place in the city for weeks following the police killing of George Floyd in May.
Conrad Wilson and Dirk Vanderhart, NPR
Excerpt: "The Oregon Department of Justice is suing several federal agencies for civil rights abuses, and state prosecutors will potentially pursue criminal charges against a federal officer who seriously injured a protester."
rotests in Portland, Ore., continued through early Sunday morning, following the Oregon Department of Justice's announcement it would be suing several federal agencies for civil rights abuses in the state. Demonstrations have taken place in the city for weeks following the police killing of George Floyd in May.
Protesters dismantled fences in front of the Multnomah County Justice Center and Hatfield Federal Courthouse. The U.S. Attorney's Office in Oregon had previously said the fences were in place to "de-escalate tensions between protesters and federal law enforcement officers" and allow repairs on the buildings to begin.
Demonstrators also set fire to the Portland Police Association building, according to Portland police. The fire was put out later in the evening, and police declared a riot in the area.
Tear gas and flash bangs were used on protesters and arrests were made, according to videos and photos from the scene posted on social media.
The Oregon Department of Justice announced Saturday it would be suing several federal agencies for civil rights abuses, and state prosecutors will potentially pursue criminal charges against a federal officer who seriously injured a protester.
The federal lawsuit names the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, the U.S. Marshals Service, the United States Customs and Border Protection, and the Federal Protective Service, agencies that have had a role in stepped-up force used against protesters since early July. The state filed the lawsuit late Friday night.
It lists defendants as John Does 1-10 because the "identity of the officers is not known, nor is their agency affiliation," the lawsuit states.
According to Oregon DOJ spokeswoman Kristina Edmunson, the suit accuses the agencies of engaging "in unlawful law enforcement in violation of the civil rights of Oregon citizens by seizing and detaining them without probable cause."
State attorneys are asking a judge to issue a temporary restraining order that "would immediately stop federal authorities from unlawfully detaining Oregonians," the DOJ said in a release.
The lawsuit is asking a judge to find that the federal agencies' tactics are indeed unlawful and violate Oregonians' First, Fourth and Fifth amendment constitutional rights.
It is also asking that federal agents and officers identify themselves and their agencies before detaining or arresting any person, explain to the person why they're being arrested or detained, and not arrest any person without probable cause or a warrant.
The agency said that its Criminal Justice Division, joined by Multnomah County District Attorney Rod Underhill, has opened a criminal investigation in the case of Donavan LaBella, a demonstrator who was shot in the head with an impact munition last Saturday night, Edmunson said.
Those munitions are intended to be aimed below the waist.
LaBella's mom said she believes the officer aimed at LaBella's head."He's 6-foot-5," said Desiree Labella, referring to her son. "He has to be a terribly trained marksman to be off by 3 feet to hit him in the forehead right between the eyes. If he's that bad of a shot at such a short distance, he shouldn't have a gun."
The lawsuit, which is the second announced against federal authorities on Friday, comes after reporting by Oregon Public Broadcasting that revealed federal agents have detained peaceful protesters using unmarked vehicles, with little explanation or indication of which agency they belong to or why people are being taken into custody.
"I share the concerns of our state and local leaders — and our Oregon U.S. Senators and certain Congressional representatives — that the current escalation of fear and violence in downtown Portland is being driven by federal law enforcement tactics that are entirely unnecessary and out of character with the Oregon way. These tactics must stop," Oregon Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum said in a statement.
The state's lawsuit specifically highlighted the case of Mark Pettibone, a demonstrator who was snatched off the street by federal officers in the early hours of July 16, put into a van and brought to the federal courthouse.
"On information and belief, defendants did not have a warrant to seize Pettibone or the other citizens who have been detained, and will continue to seize individuals off the street without a warrant, in the absence of an injunction," the lawsuit reads.
Because the federal agents were not identified and their vehicles were unmarked, the lawsuit states that Oregonians could be at risk of kidnapping by "militias and other civilian 'volunteers' taking it onto themselves to pull peaceful protesters into their cars, in a manner that resembles the federal actions described."
Pettibone echoed that concern in his declaration within the lawsuit.
"I did not know whether the men were police or far-right extremists, who, in my experience, frequently don military-like outfits and harass left-leaning protesters in Portland," Pettibone said.
Pettibone's arrest has spurred national attention as President Trump has made Portland a focal point in recent days, saying local elected leaders have been overly lenient on protesters. On Thursday, acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf flew into Portland to tour the Mark O. Hatfield Courthouse, the federal facility where graffiti and other vandalism has been frequent in seven weeks of protests over police violence and racial injustice.
Since arriving just before July 4, the officers from Customs and Border Protection's elite U.S. Border Patrol Tactical Unit and the U.S. Marshals Special Operations Group have guarded Portland's federal courthouse. They've also assisted the Portland police in clearing protesters from city streets.
City, state and congressional leaders have criticized the federal force's use of weapons against protesters and have demanded their departure.
"The federal administration has chosen Portland to use their scare tactics to stop our residents from protesting police brutality and from supporting the Black Lives Matter movement," Rosenblum said in a statement. "Every American should be repulsed when they see this happening. If this can happen here in Portland, it can happen anywhere."
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The St Pancras branch of the National Unemployed Workers' Committee Movement stage a demonstration to demand 'work or maintenance' in March 1925. (photo: Topical Press Agency/Getty Images)
Unemployed Workers Can Fight Back
Marcus Barnett, Jacobin
Barnett writes: "In the Depression-era United Kingdom, the National Unemployed Workers' Movement mobilized thousands to resist the indignities of unemployment. We're entering another period of massive economic crisis - and just like workers then, unemployed workers today can fight back."
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Marcus Barnett, Jacobin
Barnett writes: "In the Depression-era United Kingdom, the National Unemployed Workers' Movement mobilized thousands to resist the indignities of unemployment. We're entering another period of massive economic crisis - and just like workers then, unemployed workers today can fight back."
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Mohammed bin Zayed has built strong alliance with French President Emmanuel Macron (photo: AFP)
France to Investigate Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Over Torture Accusations
The Middle East Eye
Excerpt: "French authorities are opening an investigation into allegations that Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed has been complicit in acts of torture."
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The Middle East Eye
Excerpt: "French authorities are opening an investigation into allegations that Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed has been complicit in acts of torture."
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Sunday Song: Leonard Cohen | The Partisan
Leonard Cohen, YouTube
Cohen writes: "Oh, the wind, the wind is blowing. Through the graves the wind is blowing. Freedom soon will come. Then we'll come from the shadows."
Leonard Cohen, YouTube
Cohen writes: "Oh, the wind, the wind is blowing. Through the graves the wind is blowing. Freedom soon will come. Then we'll come from the shadows."
Indonesia's dam project might devastate the most critical areas of the Batang Toru ecosystem and drive the Tapanuli orangutan to extinction. (photo: Tim Laman/Wikimedia Commons)
Critically Endangered Orangutan Species in Indonesia Gets Reprieve as Controversial Dam Delayed
Hans Nicholas Jong, Mongabay
Jong writes: "Construction of a hydropower plant in the only known habitat of a critically endangered orangutan species on the Indonesian island of Sumatra might be delayed for up to three years due to COVID-19 and funding issues."
Hans Nicholas Jong, Mongabay
Jong writes: "Construction of a hydropower plant in the only known habitat of a critically endangered orangutan species on the Indonesian island of Sumatra might be delayed for up to three years due to COVID-19 and funding issues."
Muhammad Ikhsan Asaad, who oversees the project for state-owned utility PLN, said the Batang Toru plant was supposed to start operating in 2022, based on the agreement between PLN and project developer PT North Sumatra Hydro Energy (NHSE).
"But it might be delayed to 2025, mainly because the drawdown from lender Bank of China is stopped due to environmental concerns as well as COVID-19," he said.
In construction, a drawdown refers to a situation in which a company receives part of the funding necessary to complete a project, and the rest of the funding might be disbursed gradually over the course of the project.
The project is estimated to cost $1.68 billion, financed through equity and loans.
NSHE initially sought loans from funders like the World Bank's International Finance Corporation (IFC) and the Asian Development Bank (ADB). But following the description of a new orangutan species, the Tapanuli orangutan (Pongo tapanuliensis), in the Batang Toru ecosystem in northern Sumatra in 2017, environmentalists have called for the project to be stopped or at least halted to allow for an independent scientific study of its impact on the newly known species.
They say the project might devastate the most critical areas of the Batang Toru ecosystem and drive the Tapanuli orangutan to extinction. Only 760 of the great apes are estimated to survive in a tiny tract of forest less than one-fifth the size of the metropolitan area that comprises Indonesia's capital, Jakarta.
Shortly after its description, the Tapanuli orangutan was categorized as critically endangered on the IUCN Red List due to its decreasing population trend — down by 83% in just three generations — and heavily fragmented distribution.
The IFC and ADB subsequently distanced themselves from the project. And in March 2019, the Bank of China, which is also involved in financing the project, said it had "noted the concerns expressed by some environmental organizations" and promised to carefully review the project. It has not issued any further public updates, leaving the funding for the project uncertain.
NSHE has previously confirmed that the project's funding was in doubt as a result of campaigns against the dam.
PLN director Zulkifli Zaini said environmental issues were among the reason why the project might be delayed.
"It is true that the project faced hurdles from NGOs over environmental issues," he said. "There are apes and other [animals] there."
The coronavirus outbreak has also proved to be a setback, with the work on the hydropower plant put on hold since January after construction workers from Chinese state-owned contractor Sinohydro, who had gone home for the Lunar New Year holiday, were barred entry back into Indonesia over health concerns.
NSHE has submitted a request to PLN, as the buyer of the plant's power, to push the start of the dam's operation to 2025. But the utility said a decision hadn't been made yet.
"NSHE and PLN are still in the stage of discussion or collective review regarding the target of the Batang Toru hydropower dam operational target," NSHE spokesman Firman Taufick said. "Whatever the result of the discussion between NSHE and PLN, we will always follow the policy and direction from PLN."
A decline in electricity consumption as a result of suspended economic activity during the pandemic is another factor that could delay the project, according to Riza Husni, chairman of APPLTA, a national association of hydropower plant developers.
Dana Tarigan, the head of the North Sumatra chapter of the Indonesian Forum for the Environment (Walhi), said he hoped PLN would take into account the environmental concerns over the project in making a decision.
"We're hoping PLN could see the rejection well," he told Mongabay. "There's not only the problem with COVID-19, but also rejections from many parties, whether it's because of [the potential impact on] the orangutan and other biodiversity, or on the safety of the people [living in nearby areas]."
Dana said Walhi had staged a protest in 2018 against the project outside the offices of PT Pembangkit Jawa Bali (PJB) Investasi, a subsidiary of PLN that serves as the project sponsor and a shareholder in the Batang Toru power plant.
The protesters demanded that PJB Investasi, which holds a 25% stake in NSHE, to withdraw from the project.
Dana also urged PLN to take into account a recent fact-check report by the IUCN that analyzes the many contradictory claims being made about the project's potential impacts, specifically assertions made by NSHE.
Fact-Checking
The report identifies several significant claims found in NSHE's publications or press releases as being inaccurate or misleading.
"In at least ten cases, assertions made in public-facing NSHE literature or on the NSHE website are found to be inconsistent with findings presented in earlier impact assessments conducted on behalf of NSHE," the report says.
The report also finds other claims made by NSHE contradict findings in peer-reviewed literature and technical reports.
"Some of these relate to the most controversial aspects of the project such as its impact on the Tapanuli orangutan and the ecology of the Batang Toru river, the demand for the power that the plant would produce, and the project's compliance with international investment standards," the report says.
Emmy Hafild, a senior adviser to NSHE's chairman, said the report mistakenly accounted for the whole project permit area, instead of its actual footprint, to assess its potential impact on the orangutan. She also said the permit area referred to in the report was based on the company's permit area during exploration stage, which was larger than the current permit area post-exploration.
"The IUCN fact check report is clearly wrong," Emmy said. "The report uses data that's already outdated and this is the location permit, not the footprint of the project."
Serge Wich, the co-vice chair of the IUCN primate specialists' section on great apes (SGA) and one of the researchers who described the Tapanuli orangutan, said it's clear the IUCN report refers to the whole permit area in fact-checking the company's claim.
"[A]nd we have always said that this indicates the maximum impact," he told Mongabay.
Wich said that while the project might not occupy the full area, its impact on the orangutan could still be devastating due to the location of the project, which lies at a key location for connectivity between the orangutan's subpopulations, split up across three separate blocks: west, east and south. By locating the dam there, the project would jeopardize that connectivity, he said.
Emmy denied the location of the project would impact the potential for a future forest corridor linking the western and southern populations of the orangutan.
"The footprint of the project has been checked by our friends [researchers] and it will not disturb the corridor," she said.
Wich said that might not be the case, as the latest Batang Toru ecosystem map provided by NSHE clearly shows that the project area is "a long wall-like structure cutting those three areas from each other."
Didik Prasetyo, an orangutan researcher at Jakarta's National University, who conducted a study on the project, said he's confident the hydropower dam will not threaten the orangutan as long as NSHE sticks to his recommendations. Among them: limiting the amount of traffic passing over the project's roads; and designing the project's overhead power lines to allow the orangutans to travel safely beneath them.
"If it's safe, then [the orangutans] will not be scared to briefly walk on the ground [to cross from one population to another]," Didik said. "The width of the road is not too dangerous for the orangutans if there's no one passing on the road. So we're recommending the traffic be limited to particular hours."
He said rehabilitating impacted areas is also crucial.
"We're recommending to the company that there are three areas that will be impacted significantly if the company doesn't manage [the project] sustainably," Didik said. "So we recommend these most-threatened areas to be restored as soon as possible."
He said there are 273 hectares (585 acres) of orangutan habitat in the project area, of which 84 hectares (207 acres) will be used as a location for permanent buildings by the company. The remaining 189 hectares (467 acres) will be reforested, he added.
NSHE said it will offset permanent forest loss caused by the project by planting trees in other areas, while temporary forest loss will be restored.
The IUCN report, however, says restoring affected areas might not be feasible. NSHE literature identifies heaps of dug-up dirt as the areas intended for restoration, but the IUCN says this might not be realistic because these areas consist of large amounts of unconsolidated material.
"The material is from underground and is potentially sterile to rehabilitation efforts and/or volatile to erosive processes," the report says.
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