17 December 20
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17 December 20
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RSN: Marc Ash | Sanders for Labor Secretary
Marc Ash, Reader Supported News
Ash writes: "Bernie Sanders has made clear his desire to be Labor Secretary in the Biden administration. There are some very important reasons why he should be."
As a leading contender for the Democratic presidential nomination, Sanders had a very strong following among Democratic voters and particularly progressives.
To be totally honest, Sanders did more to inspire enthusiasm among Democratic voters than any other candidate for the nomination. When the nomination went to Joe Biden, Sanders had the ability to play the role of the spoiler, which he could have done very effectively, or to join the alliance to defeat Donald Trump and in essence save the Republic.
Sanders never hesitated for an instant. He never aired a grievance that he had been treated unfairly by the Democratic establishment and its media allies, which in truth he absolutely had been. Instead, he put his full support behind the Biden-Harris ticket and made a compelling and successful argument to his supporters to do the same.
Sanders supporters and the broader progressive community heeded the call and joined the effort without prejudice or reservation with regard to the policy differences, which are substantial. Now Sanders and the progressive community want what is due them, and they should have it.
Moreover, Sanders as Labor Secretary within this Democratic administration could do badly needed and important work to restore the relationship between the Democratic Party and labor. A relationship that has deteriorated significantly over the past three decades, to the detriment of the Democrats and the benefit of the Republicans.
Sanders’s credibility among union members and a wide array of American workers is rooted in their confidence in his commitment to higher wages and better benefits. That trust and confidence would be an invaluable asset to the Biden administration and the Democratic Party.
Sanders would, of course, want concessions. American workers have had more than their fill of unfulfilled promises from Capitol Hill. Sanders would vigorously push for material gains that many in Congress on both sides of the aisle do not want to allow. But if he succeeds as a member of the Biden administration, the gains for the Democrats long-term and in the 2022 midterms could be very significant. This is badly needed and valuable energy.
Today, in the wake of the success of the broad-based effort to defeat Trump and preserve Democracy, Biden has a historic coalition. Nominating Sanders to the post he wants would go a long way toward holding the coalition together and mobilizing it for future battles.
Nominate Bernie Sanders for Labor Secretary.
Marc Ash is the founder and former Executive Director of Truthout, and is now founder and Editor of Reader Supported News.
Reader Supported News is the Publication of Origin for this work. Permission to republish is freely granted with credit and a link back to Reader Supported News.
Attorney General William Barr. (photo: Doug Mills/The New York Times)
William Barr's Exit Is Bad News for Trump's Hopes of an 11th-Hour Pardoning Spree
Lloyd Green, Guardian UK
Green writes: "Without Barr at his side, Trump now faces a long list of supplicants. In addition to Trump mulling a self-pardon, he also confronts the issue of granting pardons to Javanka, two of his sons, Rudy Giuliani and Ken Paxton, Texas' attorney general who is under an active FBI investigation. Here too, Barr's words may come back to haunt the president."
n Monday, Donald Trump announced the exit of William Barr from the justice department. Finally, the president had succeeded in imposing his will upon someone, anyone, after weeks of repeated failures. On the very day that marked the 300,000th American death to Covid-19 and the electoral college’s ratification of Joe Biden’s victory, Trump had again hounded his attorney general from office. Jeff Sessions is no longer a club of one.
Yet Barr also won’t be there if and when the president delivers his final round of pardons, a likely relief to the president’s legal spear carrier but also a reason for Trump to fret: Barr knows a thing or two about 11th-hour pardons. Mike Flynn is only the latest.
As attorney general to George HW Bush, Barr successfully urged the late president to grant a passel of pardons in the aftermath of the Iran-Contra scandal and Bush’s 1992 loss to Bill Clinton. Indeed, in Barr’s telling he was a driving force nearly three decades ago, running roughshod over justice department “naysayers”.
Specifically, Barr fought for the pardon of Caspar Weinberger, Ronald Reagan’s defense secretary who was under indictment, and five others, including Elliot Abrams. In time, Abrams would join the administration of George W Bush and eventually serve as Trump’s special representative for Iran and then Venezuela.
In a 2001 interview, the law-and-order Barr framed things this way: “The big ones obviously were the Iran Contra ones. I certainly did not oppose any of them. I favored the broadest.”
As for limiting Bush’s pardons to just Weinberger who was facing perjury charges, Barr was having none of that. He explained: “There were some people arguing just for Weinberger, and I said: ‘No, in for a penny, in for a pound.’”
At the time, Abrams had already pleaded guilty to withholding information from Congress, but Barr was not deterred. Rather, Barr “felt” that Abrams “had been very unjustly treated”. As expected, Lawrence Walsh, the then independent counsel, saw things differently, saying: “The Iran-Contra coverup ... has now been completed.”
Years later, Barr would distort the findings of the Mueller report, earning the ire of Mueller, his one-time friend and of Reggie Walton, a George W Bush appointee to the federal bench. In a 23-page opinion, Walton “seriously” questioned whether Barr “made a calculated attempt to influence public discourse about the Mueller Report in favor of President Trump despite certain findings in the redacted version of the Mueller Report to the contrary”.
To be sure, that was not the last time that Barr would draw fire from the courts. In the aftermath of the justice department’s tortured efforts to drop the government’s case against Flynn and Trump’s pardon, another federal judge, Emmet Sullivan, hammered Barr’s leadership. Like Walton, Sullivan too was distressed by the government’s capacity for contortion to placate Trump.
Even as he dismissed the charges against Flynn, Sullivan opined: “In view of the government’s previous argument in this case that Mr Flynn’s false statements were ‘absolutely material’ because his false statements ‘went to the heart’ of the FBI’s investigation, the government’s about-face, without explanation, raises concerns about the regularity of its decision-making process.”
As Barr departs Main Justice, he has extracted price for his rushed retirement. Against the backdrop of Trump’s baseless claims of electoral fraud and theft, Barr jabbed his boss in the eye. His resignation letter declared that “it is incumbent on all levels of government, and all agencies acting within their purview, to do all we can to assure the integrity of elections and promote public confidence in their outcome”.
Without Barr at his side, Trump now faces a long list of supplicants. In addition to Trump mulling a self-pardon, he also confronts the issue of granting pardons to Javanka, two of his sons, Rudy Giuliani and Ken Paxton, Texas’ attorney general who is under an active FBI investigation. Here too, Barr’s words may come back to haunt the president.
At his 2019 confirmation hearing, Barr testified that the president possessed the power to pardon family members but could also face prosecution if the pardon was tied to a broader effort to obstruct justice. Barr explained that while the president possesses the “power to pardon a family member’’, if it was “connected to some act that violates an obstruction statute, it could be obstruction”.
Come 12:01 pm on 20 January 2021, Trump loses immunity and becomes fair game for prosecutors. Already, Cyrus Vance, Manhattan’s district attorney, is eagerly circling Trump and his business. As for the southern district of New York, they have already labeled Trump an unindicted co-conspirator.
What comes next remains.
Ronald Reagan's economic policies, dubbed 'Reaganomics', included large tax cuts and were characterized as trickle-down economics. (photo: Wikimedia)
Tax Cuts for Rich Don't 'Trickle Down', Study of 18 Countries Finds
Grace Dean, Business Insider
Dean writes: "Large tax cuts for the rich don't lead to economic growth and employment but instead cause higher income inequality, a new study that examined tax cuts over 50 years suggested."
A recent paper by David Hope of the London School of Economics and Julian Limberg of King's College London found that tax cuts for the rich in 18 countries predominantly benefited the wealthy.
"Our analysis finds strong evidence that cutting taxes on the rich increases income inequality but has no effect on growth or unemployment" in the short and long term, the researchers wrote.
After major tax cuts for the rich were introduced, the top 1% share of pretax national income increased by almost 1 percentage point, they found.
Their findings counter arguments that tax cuts for the rich "trickle down" to benefit other people — which the researchers noted have been part of the rationale for major tax reforms in the US.
Supporters say tax cuts for the rich can lead wealthy people to put in more hours and effort at work, boosting economic activity, the researchers said. Other arguments for trickle-down tax cuts include that they allow wealthy people to invest more and benefit the economy.
Hope and Limberg analyzed major tax cuts for the rich in 18 countries that are part of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, including the US, Japan, and Norway, from 1965 to 2015.
Top incomes have risen rapidly since the 1980s — and as they grew, more tax cuts for the wealthy were introduced, the researchers said.
The researchers said their results were in line with a 2014 paper published in the American Economic Journal that suggested that lower taxes for the rich caused high earners to seek pay raises.
"Cutting taxes on the rich increases top income shares, but has little effect on economic performance," Hope and Limberg concluded.
Taxes have been scrutinized during the pandemic as countries look for ways to fund COVID-19 relief efforts.
Earlier this month, Argentina enacted a one-off "millionaire tax" to help pay for its pandemic response. Fewer than one in 100 earners will pay the tax, which the government hopes will raise $3.78 billion.
UK experts have also called for a similar one-time wealth tax, which the Wealth Tax Commission has said could raise £260 billion, or about $348 billion, in five years.
In July, 83 millionaires — including the Ben & Jerry's cofounder Jerry Greenfield and the Disney heiress Abigail Disney — signed a letter asking for higher taxes on the superrich to pay for COVID-19 relief.
In an opinion article for Business Insider in August, Max Burns, a veteran Democratic strategist, said President Donald Trump's COVID-19 relief proposal with a 50% cut in weekly unemployment payments and a payroll-tax cut was "just another tax cut for the wealthy in disguise."
Officers with a police dog approached protesters after they marched onto the I-680 freeway during a Black Lives Matter demonstration in Walnut Creek, California, on June 1. (photo: Jose Carlos Fajardo/Bay Area News Group
Police Use Painful Dog Bites to Make People Obey
Abbie Vansickle and Challen Stephens, The Marshall Project
Excerpt: "In the cell phone video, a man lies sprawled in a parking lot. Two passersby and a state trooper hold him to the ground. A police officer comes into view, dragging a dog on its hind legs."
Police are allowed to use “pain compliance.” But experts say dog bites are too unpredictable and severe.
“You’re gonna get bit!” the officer shouts at the man on the pavement. It’s after 8 p.m. but still daylight outside a busy grocery store.
The man appears to pull his hands underneath him, away from the handcuffs.
The officer, holding the dog’s collar with both hands, guides its mouth toward the man’s right leg, and the animal sinks its teeth into flesh. The man screams in pain.
This scene unfolded during a traffic stop July 7 in Yakima, a city of about 94,000 in the arid farmlands in the south-central part of Washington state. As the bystander-shot video spread online and sparked questions from the community, Yakima police explained to local media that they were using the dog for “pain compliance.”
“Just because force doesn’t look good doesn’t mean it’s wrong,” Yakima Police Chief Matthew Murray said recently to The Marshall Project. “At the end of the day this worked.”
“Pain compliance” is a catch-all term for the methods police officers use to get a suspect under control. The idea is to apply quick, targeted amounts of pain—digging a thumb into a sensitive pressure point, twisting a wrist, stunning with a Taser—to force a person to follow orders.
And police across the country, from Utah, to Ohio, to Arizona, also use dogs to hurt people in an effort to make them obey. The Marshall Project, AL.com, IndyStar, and the Invisible Institute examined more than 150 police dog bites nationwide and found numerous instances of their use for pain compliance—often on people who were unarmed and suspected only of minor offenses like traffic violations. Several suffered severe injuries, requiring surgery or months of recovery.
Videos showing officers hoisting dogs into cars or placing them on top of people already held on the ground have added to a growing examination of what tools should be available to law enforcement to make people submit. About 140 miles northwest of Yakima, the top brass at the Seattle Police Department last year banned using dogs for pain compliance after a controversial bite. And in a few weeks, Washington’s Legislature plans to debate statewide restrictions on the use of police dogs.
“I don’t even know what it means to have a K-9 do pain compliance,” said Geoffrey Alpert, professor of criminology at the University of South Carolina and an expert on use of force. “It’s a violent act.”
Departments that use dog bites for pain compliance say it’s an important tool to get someone into custody without jeopardizing officers’ safety or resorting to deadly force. Experts say dogs should be removed as soon as the person stops struggling or is handcuffed.
Our investigation, however, found several cases in which bites used for compliance went on even after a person had stopped resisting.
Pain compliance isn’t a new idea. Experts said it’s routinely taught to law enforcement officers. Some departments advise officers to start small with wrist or finger twists and, if that fails, work up to Tasers, batons and dogs. Others train officers to go directly to the type of force they think is reasonable to control someone.
There aren’t federal regulations, and court cases offer only general guidance for the use of force. So each department has its own policies for using dogs.
Experts say pain compliance must balance using enough force to get control but not so much pain that the suspect can’t respond to commands. A dog’s bite can flood the body with adrenaline, making it hard to concentrate on anything other than fighting the dog, said Kyle Heyen, a former police officer and consultant on patrol dogs. He compared it to an athlete overwhelmed with adrenaline who can’t hear the noise of the crowd.
“There’s so much pain that people can’t even comprehend what’s going on,” Heyen said. “It’s overriding pain. It’s not going to get their attention.”
Shane McGough called it the worst pain he ever experienced, so terrifying, he said, that it altered the course of his life.
A native Arizonan, McGough had been tubing and drinking on the Salt River outside Phoenix on July 15, 2017, when he and some friends got involved in an argument with someone in the parking area. Two deputies arrived. When one of them began to search a truck belonging to McGough’s friend, McGough objected.
McGough said one deputy grabbed him by the throat, and he reacted with a punch. The second deputy tried to tackle McGough. All three men went to the ground and the second deputy broke his leg. McGough was arrested and taken to a sheriff’s office substation.
Police bodycam videos show officers there used a dog to bite him for more than 3 minutes while he was still handcuffed and on the cell floor. McGough repeatedly begged officers to remove the dog, and cried out, “I’m complying, sir, I’m complying,” while officers holding him down struggled to remove his handcuffs.
“I was in so much pain I would have done anything to get that dog off me,” said McGough, now 29.
McGough sued the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office, which did not respond to requests for comment for this story. In court documents, the officers’ lawyers argued, in part, that McGough was not being compliant. Bodycam videos show McGough cursing at one deputy and generally questioning why he’s being arrested. The sheriff’s court filings said the officers tried to use a “controlled placement bite” to get his “full submission” and remove the handcuffs.
McGough’s lawyer, Steve Guy, called the bite “jailhouse justice” for the deputy’s broken leg.
“It was purely punitive,” Guy said, adding that McGough was not resisting the officers but “flinching and moving defensively, trying to protect himself.”
McGough pleaded guilty to aggravated assault, and he said he served six months in jail. His lawsuit is still awaiting trial. He said he lost his office job, and later moved to Idaho to be away from people. He now works in construction.
He still has roughly 25 teeth marks, some numbness and brownish, purple scars. But the emotional toll of the dog bite is heavier, he said: “I don’t even really like to go out. Whenever I see a police officer I’m really scared. I start shaking and hyperventilating.”
No national agency tracks police dog bites, or their use for pain compliance. But Randy Means, a lawyer and police consultant who trains departments on proper use of force, said officers use dogs less frequently for that purpose than in decades past. He said police now have other tools like Tasers and chemical sprays, which are easier to control and are less likely to cause life-altering injuries.
“The dog is more unpredictable,” Means said. “The dog chomps into somebody’s leg—you don’t know whether it’s going to be a muscle, a tendon or, God forbid, an artery.”
Still, cases of dog bites used for compliance continue to surface. In Canton, Ohio, police hoisted a dog into a man’s car during a traffic stop after he refused to give his name or an ID. In Salt Lake City, Utah, a video released this fall as part of a larger examination of the police canine unit shows a handler guiding the dog to bite a domestic violence suspect who is lying on the ground as police handcuff him.
The city of Tukwila, just south of Seattle, paid $100,000 in 2016 to settle a lawsuit after police officers sicced a dog onto a man. His alleged offense: dancing and yelling while trespassing in a freight yard. The man was on the ground with officers on top of him when the dog was released to bite his legs and buttocks, according to a dashcam video and court records. The lawsuit argued that the city’s policy of using bite dogs for pain compliance violated the U.S. Constitution’s ban on excessive force.
“The technique goes away, and then the pain goes away,” said Joe Shaeffer, the lawyer who represented the Tukwila bite victim. “I don’t think there’s any world in which canines can be considered to be pain compliance.”
Concerns about long, unpredictable bites led the Seattle Police Department to ban the practice.
On Dec. 5, 2018, three officers responded to a call of a homeless man throwing rocks at windows at office buildings south of downtown Seattle. They tried to handcuff the 26-year-old, who was not armed, but he pulled away, according to a police summary.
They wrestled him to the ground. One officer punched him in the side four times, according to the Seattle Office of Police Accountability’s report. Another kneed him. That’s when the third officer released his dog.
For 37 seconds, the dog chewed on the man’s leg and buttocks, biting him six times, the report said. Officers put on the handcuffs.
“First bite,” said the dog handler, according to a description of bodycam video in the report. Then, he and another officer high-fived.
The police department has not released the video, citing a backlog in processing public records requests.
Investigators found the handler violated department policy by using the dog. The handler told them the bite gave the man “something to think of and deal with” so other officers could handcuff him. He also said he’d used his dog for pain compliance “hundreds” of times.
The man who was bitten could not be reached for comment. The department said the handler has left the agency, but referred other questions to the Office of Police Accountability. After investigating the incident, that office recommended outlawing dogs for pain compliance.
“The risk of harm is substantial, and it greatly outweighs the law enforcement interest in gaining compliance with orders,” according to Andrew Myerberg, the office’s director. He said in an email that using dogs for pain compliance is “not reasonable, necessary and proportional.”
Seattle’s ban has caught the attention of national researchers who are studying best practices for police bite dogs.
There’s no clear consensus on when and how these dogs should be used to bite. The country’s roughly 18,000 police agencies need national standards, said Chuck Wexler, executive director of the Police Executive Research Forum, a law enforcement policy nonprofit.
He said police have struggled to find the most humane ways to arrest people who resist, but biting them with a dog should not be an option outside of extreme circumstances, like dealing with someone armed with a gun. “What’s different here is that with a K-9 you’re actually going beyond anything else, in some ways, because the bite is creating an injury,” he said.
Balancing officers’ need to take people into custody while answering public concerns about use of force is a thorny issue for departments reviewing their tactics.
“A certain segment of the population have been conditioned to believe that all force is wrong,” said Murray, the Yakima police chief. “People who choose to commit criminal acts, a lot of them aren’t compliant. If society expects us to maintain order, then we have to, on a lot of occasions, use force.”
The Yakima dog bite incident began as a routine traffic stop: a Washington State Patrol trooper tried to pull over the driver of a pickup truck. The trooper said he saw the truck cross the road’s centerline.
The driver eventually pulled into the grocery store’s parking lot, got out and cursed at the officer, according to a court filing. The trooper first pulled out his gun and then his Taser, but did not use either. He instead tackled the man, who fell to the ground. Two bystanders helped the trooper and held the man down.
That’s when the Yakima police officer arrived with his patrol dog. He yelled out warnings to the 53-year-old man, according to the video. But passersby can be heard on the video yelling out that the man didn’t appear to speak English and couldn’t understand the officers’ commands. They shouted out warnings to the man in Spanish.
After the dog bit the man, officers handcuffed him and pulled off the dog. He was taken to a local hospital for treatment before being booked into jail. County prosecutors did not file charges against him, according to court records. The case is still being evaluated by municipal court prosecutors.
The man could not be reached for comment.
Murray said the officers’ options were limited. The man was acting erratically near a busy store, he said. Officers did not want to use a Taser or chemical spray because of the proximity of the two bystanders helping to hold him down.
He said his department doesn’t plan to change its policy on using dogs for pain compliance.
But Washington state may end up as a testing ground for more restricted use of bite dogs, possibly forcing the chief’s hand.
At the start of its upcoming session in January, the state’s Legislature plans to take up a sweeping measure aimed at curtailing police use of force. One of the central proposals: restricting police dogs.
The bill’s sponsor, Democratic Rep. Jesse Johnson, said he doesn’t want police using dogs to bite people outside of extraordinary circumstances, like an active shooter.
“We feel like less lethal alternatives do not include dogs,” Johnson said. “I see it like a chokehold or a neck restraint. It’s less lethal than a gun, but when it’s used improperly, or if something goes wrong, it can end really badly.”
People wait in line on the first day of advance voting for Georgia's Senate runoff election at the Bell Auditorium in Augusta, Ga., Monday, Dec. 14, 2020. (photo: Michael Holahan/AP)
Georgia Is Showing Up Big for the Senate Runoff Vote
Paul Blest, VICE
Blest writes: "Georgia's Senate runoff next month is the most pivotal non-presidential election in recent memory, with two seats up for grabs that will either give Democrats the critical majority they need to govern, or provide Republicans with a bulwark against the Biden administration."
The state cast more ballots during the first day of in-person voting than it did in for the same day of the November election.
And if the first day of in-person voting is any indicator, Georgia voters are well aware that they will decide who controls the direction of the U.S. government for the next two years.
More than 168,000 Georgians voted on Monday, the first day anyone could cast an in-person ballot, according to the New York Times. By comparison, 126,000 people voted during the first day of early voting in the November election, more than a 30 percent increase.
Georgia voters have also requested more than 1.2 million mail ballots so far, with more than 260,000 ballots already counted and accepted, according to data collected by the U.S. Elections Project. That means that combined with in-person voting, more than 400,000 people have already cast their ballots with more than two weeks remaining until the Jan. 5 Election Day.
"I should have expected long lines, this race is a big deal. The world is watching us," James Crawford, 54, told Reuters. "This will affect whether [President-elect Joe] Biden can get anything done, his ability to run the government."
The stakes of the Senate runoff elections couldn’t be higher.
GOP Sen. David Perdue will face off once more against Democrat Jon Ossoff, after Perdue narrowly topped Ossoff in November but failed to secure 50 percent of the vote necessary to claim victory in the state.
And in the second race, Democrat challenger Raphael Warnock will take on Republican Sen. Kelly Loeffler to fulfill the unexpired term of former Sen. Johnny Isakson, who retired at the end of 2019 due to health issues. In a crowded race last month that included 20 candidates for the Senate seat, Warnock got the most votes, but won less than a third of the ballots cast. Loeffler, who was appointed to Isakson’s seat this past January, came in second.
Both Senate races are considered tossups.
Long considered a Republican stronghold, Georgia has become younger and more diverse in recent years, particularly in its suburbs. The state narrowly went for Democrat Joe Biden this year, the first time it has gone blue in a presidential race since 1996, in an election that saw just under 5 million ballots cast, up from 4.1 million in 2016.
Trump has baselessly disputed the results of the November presidential election in Georgia, falsely claiming that voting machines didn’t count votes for Trump. He’s also slammed Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and Gov. Brian Kemp, both Republicans Trump had endorsed in the past, for certifying the results of the election. Trump allies and lawyers Lin Wood and Sidney Powell have encouraged conservatives to boycott the Senate runoffs next month, claiming the machines are rigged.
On Monday, Democratic electors cast Georgia’s 16 Electoral College votes for Biden.
Raffensperger told the Wall Street Journal this week that the runoffs were going to be a “high-turnout election.”
“I would encourage all the candidates to make sure that they run hard, because we don’t have a runoff after the runoff,” Raffensperger said. “This is it.”
The Biden team's rapprochement strategy includes reducing restrictions on travel, investment and remittances for the island nation that are perceived to disproportionately hurt Americans and Cubans, say sources. (photo: Lisette Poole/Bloomberg)
Biden's Team Is Planning a Cuba Reset: Sources
Ben Bartenstein, Bloomberg
Bartenstein writes: "President-elect Joe Biden's team plans to bring the U.S. closer to normalized relations with Cuba, reversing many of the sanctions and regulations imposed during the Trump administration, according to people familiar with the matter."
That strategy includes reducing restrictions on travel, investment and remittances for the island nation that are perceived to disproportionately hurt Americans and ordinary Cubans, said the people, who requested anonymity because the new administration is still coming together. Other measures that target Cuba for human rights abuses would remain in place, the people said.
The prospect of a détente between Washington and Havana rekindles memories of the thaw that Biden helped champion during the Obama administration, when the two nations restored diplomatic ties that had been broken for decades following Fidel Castro’s rise to power.
But the president-elect is returning to an even messier scene: the Cuban economy is suffering its worst crisis since the collapse of the Soviet Union amid fallout from Covid-19 and U.S. sanctions. At the same time, Cuban intelligence officers have helped prop up Nicolas Maduro in Venezuela, allowing his regime to consolidate its grip on power in defiance of demands for free and fair elections.
With a packed domestic agenda, it’s unclear how quickly Biden will move on implementing his Cuba policy. Even if some changes happen early, the ongoing Covid-19 lockdown could delay the benefits of any measures that allow for greater travel to the island. It’s also unclear whether Biden will increase staffing at the U.S. embassy in Havana. The Trump administration pared back diplomatic operations after strange illnesses, including brain trauma, afflicted some U.S. diplomats and their families.
Biden said in October that the U.S. needed a new Cuba policy, though his team has been firm in condemning efforts by Havana to silence dissidents, including a recent raid on a house full of activists and artists.
The president-elect has also denounced Venezuela’s Maduro as a dictator. Just as the Trump administration connected Cuba and Venezuela policy, using sanctions as a tool intended to spur political change, Biden’s team may try to leverage a rapprochement in exchange for the Cubans reducing their presence in Venezuela and supporting a diplomatic resolution to the crisis there, according to the people.
Another complicating factor is Florida. While Biden’s advisers have criticized Trump’s Latin American policies for being heavily influenced by electoral politics, particularly the goal of winning the Sunshine State, they still face a sobering reality: The Democratic Party must defend a narrow House majority in 2022. Any policies that are perceived as easing pressure on Cuba and Venezuela without getting significant concessions from their left-wing governments could risk backlash at the polls.
For their part, investors are showing an early vote of confidence in Biden’s potential Cuba policy. The $43 million Herzfeld Caribbean Basin Fund, which is geared toward Cuba and the Caribbean, has surged 40% since the U.S. election.
Protesters gathered outside Manhattan Supreme Court before a lawsuit against Exxon Mobil. (photo: Jefferson Siegel/The New York Times)
Exxon's 'Emission Reduction Plan' Doesn't Call for Reducing Exxon's Emissions
Emily Pontecorvo, Grist
Pontecorvo writes: "ExxonMobil announced a new 'emission reduction plan' on Monday, and there's really just one thing you need to know about it: Exxon has not actually promised to reduce its emissions."
Following investor criticism of the company’s poor financial performance and failure to take action on climate change, the U.S. oil giant has pledged to reduce the greenhouse gas intensity of its upstream operations — the part of its business that involves finding and extracting oil and gas — 15 to 20 percent by 2025, compared with 2016 levels. But Exxon is emphatically not promising to cut its overall carbon footprint by 15 to 20 percent. It’s just saying that it will reduce the amount of greenhouse gases released during the production of each barrel of oil. If Exxon continues to grow its business, finding and extracting more and more oil, as it intends to do, its overall emissions impact could continue to grow.
“Exxon plans to up its production by 1 million barrels per day over the next 5 years,” said Andrew Grant, head of oil, gas, and mining research at the financial think tank Carbon Tracker, in a statement to Grist. “Reducing a minority of its lifecycle emissions by a small sliver is the thinnest of fig leaves for a big increase in overall emissions and a bet on continued business as usual.”
The only absolute measure Exxon has committed to is eliminating flaring and venting, the practice of burning off or releasing natural gas that leaks into the atmosphere during drilling, by 2030. “What we have tried to do is to develop specific actionable plans that we can hold our organization accountable to drive continuous improvement in emissions,” Peter Trelenberg, Exxon’s director of greenhouse gas and climate change said during a call with reporters.
But Exxon’s “thin fig leaf” is a departure from the industry norm. Grand climate pronouncements have become par for the course for Big Oil in 2020. BP, Shell, and Total all pledged this year to bring their net emissions to zero by 2050. Notably, these companies not only took responsibility for cutting the emissions from their operations, but for the climate impacts of burning their products, or their “scope 3” emissions. In its announcement on Monday, Exxon said it will begin publicly reporting its scope 3 emissions next year but maintains that it does not have control over reducing them.
“At a time when even U.S. peers like Occidental and ConocoPhillips have set net-zero targets for their operational emissions and committed to addressing their product emissions, this effort from Exxon falls short,” said Andrew Logan, senior director of oil and gas at the sustainable investing advocacy nonprofit Ceres, in a statement.
Exxon CEO Darren Woods has criticized other companies’ net-zero plans as being a “beauty competition,” and he’s not totally wrong. No oil companies have made it clear how much work the word “net” in net-zero is going to do. They haven’t specified what percentage of their emissions they intend to eliminate versus how much they expect to offset through natural or technological carbon sinks. And even though they’ve all pledged to cut at least some of their scope 3 emissions, those pledges vary in how far they go. Shell, for example, only aims to cut the carbon intensity of its scope 3 emissions, which again, means the total could continue to grow.
But there are small indications that these companies are preparing for a sea change: BP has said it plans to be producing 40 percent less oil and gas in 2030 than it did in 2019, and both BP and Shell have written down some of their oil and gas assets, meaning they recognize they aren’t worth as much as before. Both companies are also investing in renewable energy, albeit only as a small percentage of their total business.
Meanwhile, recent reporting by Bloomberg Green shows Exxon has tabled plans to capture its emissions, and before the pandemic, expected its total emissions to increase by 17 percent by 2025.
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