05 March 21
This Is a Fundraiser that Must Succeed
We must find a way this time around to raise the bar on raising funding. We do not need, and we have never needed a windfall. We do however need to avoid at all costs a financial meltdown.
The time is now.
Marc Ash
Founder, Reader Supported News
If you would prefer to send a check:
Reader Supported News
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04 March 21
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Bess Levin | White House Doc Who Said Trump Could Live to 200 Reportedly Sexually Harassed Staff, Got Wasted on the Job
Bess Levin, Vanity Fair
Levin writes:
Ronny Jackson allegedly got drunk while accompanying the president on work trips and demanded a female subordinate join him in his hotel room.
emember Ronny Jackson? Former White House doctor nicknamed the Candyman because of the way he allegedly doled out prescription drugs? Claimed that Donald Trump had “incredibly good genes” and that if he’d eaten a little healthier, he could have lived to be “200 years old”? Earned a nomination to run the Department of Veterans Affairs, which he later withdrew over accusations that he created a toxic work environment and was drunk on an overseas work trip? Now serves Texas’s 13th Congressional District, after claiming on the campaign trail that Barack Obama had spied on the 2016 Trump campaign and writing that “Every Deep State traitor deserves to be brought to justice for their heinous actions”? There’s a new Pentagon report out concerning his behavior, and it’s not a great look!
In a review of Jackson’s time as the top White House doctor, the Department of Defense’s inspector general concluded that he made “sexual and denigrating” comments about a female underling, violated the government’s policy concerning drinking on a presidential trip, and took prescription-strength sleeping drugs that caused concern from his coworkers about his ability to do his job. Per CNN:
Allegations about his explosive temper and creating a hostile work environment are consistent throughout his time in both the Obama and Trump administrations as an “overwhelming majority of witnesses (56)...who worked with RDML Jackson from 2012 through 2018 told us they personally experienced, saw, or heard about him yelling, screaming, cursing, or belittling subordinates,” the report says. “Many of these witnesses described RDML Jackson’s behavior with words and phrases such as ‘meltdowns,’ ‘yells for no reason,’ ‘rages,’ ‘tantrums,’ ‘lashes out,’ and ‘aggressive.’ These witnesses also described RDML Jackson’s leadership style with terms such as ‘tyrant,’ ‘dictator,’ ‘control freak,’ ‘hallmarks of fear and intimidation,’ ‘crappy manager,’ and ‘not a leader at all,’” it adds.
During an April 2014 presidential trip to Manila, a witness said Jackson started drinking in the hotel lobby shortly after arrival and then got in a car with a drink in his hand after declaring he was going “out on the town,” which is definitely the sort of behavior you want to see from the person charged with taking care of the president of the United States’ health. Another witness told investigators that he smelled alcohol on Jackson’s breath that evening and that back at the hotel, Jackson was seen “pounding” on the door of a female subordinate’s room. When she opened the door, he allegedly told her, “I need you,” and, “I need you to come to my room.” On a separate presidential trip to Asia that same month, witnesses said Jackson commented about a female medical subordinate’s breasts and butt, saying she had “great tits” and “what a nice ass,” adding that he wanted to “see more of her tattoos.”
Two years later, in Bariloche, Argentina, two witnesses told the I.G. they saw Jackson drinking a beer while he was serving as the physician to the president and in charge of providing medical care for a presidential trip, despite regulations prohibiting him from 24 hours before the president’s arrival until two hours after he left. Jackson, the witnesses said, dismissed the regulation as “ridiculous.” Another witness said Jackson later smelled of alcohol, though she was unsure if he was drunk.... These two allegations of alcohol use both occurred under the Obama administration, but the report details a series of incidents under both Obama and Trump in which Jackson lost his temper, cursing at subordinates.
At least six witnesses, all of whom were medical personnel, also told investigators that Jackson took Ambien, a prescription medicine used to treat insomnia, on long flights while on duty for providing medical care for government officials, including the president. The witnesses said they were concerned about the Ambien because it often leaves users drowsy and can impair someone’s mental alertness. But the I.G. report notes there is no specific restriction on the use of Ambien during long flights.
The report, the probe for which began before Jackson retired from the Navy in 2019, recommends that the secretary of the Navy take “appropriate action” regarding the findings, which could include a review of Jackson’s pension. In a statement issued to CNN on Tuesday, Jackson said that “Democrats are using this report to repeat and rehash untrue attacks on my integrity,” adding, “I take my professional responsibility with respect to prescription drug practices seriously; and I flat-out reject any allegation that I consumed alcohol while on duty.” He did not address the allegations re: commenting on a female subordinate’s “tits” and “ass,” or demanding that a staffer come to his hotel room.
F-35 fighter jet. (photo: Getty)
William Astore | Rewarding Failure: Why Pentagon Weapons Programs Rarely Get Canceled Despite Major Problems
William Astore, TomDispatch
Astore writes: "Cancel culture is a common, almost viral, term in political and social discourse these days. Basically, somebody expresses views considered to be outrageous or vile or racist or otherwise insensitive and inappropriate."
READ MORE
Activists protest outside federal court during a hearing related to President Donald Trump's financial records on October 23, 2019, in New York City. (photo: Drew Angerer/Getty)
In Trump Probe, Manhattan District Attorney Puts Pressure on His Longtime Chief Financial Officer
David A. Fahrenthold, Jonathan O'Connell, Shayna Jacobs and Tom Hamburger, The Washington Post
he Manhattan district attorney is delving deeply into the personal and financial affairs of the chief financial officer for former president Donald Trump’s company, probing the extent of Allen Weisselberg’s loyalty to Trump and scrutinizing a Trump-owned apartment once occupied by Weisselberg’s son, according to people familiar with the investigation.
This questioning is now led by a former mob prosecutor, and one person familiar with the investigation said it is aimed at “flipping” Weisselberg — attempting to turn one of Trump’s longest-serving and most important aides into a witness against him.
Cyrus R. Vance Jr. (D), Manhattan’s top prosecutor, has not formally accused anyone of wrongdoing, including Trump, Weisselberg or the latter’s family. But the focus on Weisselberg underscores the depth and ambition of Vance’s inquiry, a criminal investigation broader than any Trump’s company is known to have faced before.
Vance’s focus on Weisselberg has included questions related to two of his adult children, a tactic that could be an effort to increase pressure on the elder Weisselberg. One of Weisselberg’s sons also works for the Trump Organization, where he manages the company’s Central Park ice rinks. Another Weisselberg son works for a company that has extended loans to the Trump Organization.
Vance recently obtained millions of pages of Trump’s tax and financial records. Now he appears to be focused on their human equivalent: a man who has paid Trump’s bills and kept his books since the 1980s.
Weisselberg has been CFO since 2000 and has said he handles nearly all the company’s financial transactions. He once described himself in a deposition as Trump’s “eyes and ears . . . from an economic standpoint.”
“Allen is in charge of everything,” said one former Trump employee, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter, as did several people familiar with the investigation.
Vance declined to comment for this report. So did the Trump Organization and Mary Mulligan, an attorney for Weisselberg.
Typically, efforts to flip witnesses have two parts: First, prosecutors work to build evidence that a witness may have their own legal liabilities. They then try to convince the witness to save themselves by turning on a higher-up.
The person with knowledge of the case said investigators were trying to “cast a wide net . . . looking to shake the tree a little bit.”
In this case, prosecutors have scrutinized Weisselberg’s work in helping to assess the value of Trump buildings as the company sought to obtain loans or property-tax reductions, people familiar with the investigation said. They have also asked about a Trump-owned luxury apartment where Weisselberg’s son Barry lived for several years. The exact nature of Vance’s interest in the apartment is not known, but if Barry Weisselberg, who manages Trump’s ice skating rinks, got the apartment rent-free, that might be considered a fringe benefit of his job and subject to income tax.
Two people with knowledge of the district attorney’s probe said the team has also been analyzing the finances of the cash-only skating rink where Barry Weisselberg works.
At the same time, investigators have asked detailed questions about Allen Weisselberg’s financial history and his feelings about Trump, according to people familiar with the investigation.
“All the real estate that he’s had. Every house, every car, every perk. The way his lifestyle goes. Is he frugal? Is he generous?” one of the people recounted, listing investigators’ questions about Allen Weisselberg. “What’s his relationship with Donald? . . . How loyal is each person to each other?”
A person familiar with thinking at the Trump Organization said company executives are confident their practices for assessing the value of property fall within industry norms for New York City. The person also said there is broad confidence in Weisselberg’s loyalty.
Trump is now facing two wide-ranging probes of his financial practices: Vance’s inquiry and a separate civil investigation by New York Attorney General Letitia James (D).
The district attorney’s criminal investigation began in 2018 and focused initially on hush-money payments that Trump attorney Michael Cohen made just before the 2016 election to women who claimed they had affairs with Trump.
Since then, however, his investigation has expanded to cover a wide swath of Trump’s financial activity before the presidency. Vance has subpoenaed records from a variety of sources, according to documents and officials: Trump’s insurance brokers, his lenders, property-tax authorities in New York, even planning and zoning records from a small town that includes a Trump-owned mansion.
Trump has called both inquiries politically motivated. After the Supreme Court last month allowed Vance to obtain his taxes, the former president called the investigation a “fishing expedition.”
People familiar with Vance’s inquiry say it has taken on new urgency since the recent hiring of Mark F. Pomerantz — an attorney who prosecuted Gambino crime family boss John Gotti’s son in the 1990s — on a special assignment.
Vance has sat in on recent interviews, conducted virtually because of the coronavirus pandemic, but let Pomerantz lead the questioning, people familiar with the investigation said.
In those sessions, Pomerantz has focused on Weisselberg, asking wide-ranging questions about the accountant, in an apparent effort to build a broader profile of the longtime Trump employee. The recent focus on Weisselberg was first reported by the New York Times.
“Have you ever met his wife?” one witness was asked recently, according to a person familiar with the investigation. “Have you ever been to his home?”
Investigators have also asked about the apartment in the Trump Parc East building, on Central Park South, where Barry Weisselberg lived for several years. Jennifer Weisselberg, Barry Weisselberg’s ex-wife, told Bloomberg News last year that the couple lived there free. She said she believed at the time the apartment was a wedding gift from Donald and Melania Trump. This week, a spokesperson for Jennifer Weisselberg declined further comment.
City property records show the unit belonged to a Trump-owned entity, Trump CPS LLC. The company later sold the unit in 2014 for $2.8 million.
IRS rules say that if an employer provides an apartment rent-free, it typically should be considered part of the employee’s compensation and subject to income tax. There are exceptions, but they are aimed at people such as live-in maids and building superintendents, who live where they work and are constantly on call. It is not known how Barry Weisselberg or the Trump Organization treated the apartment for tax purposes.
A person familiar with the investigation said prosecutors have been examining portions of Barry Weisselberg’s tax returns.
The Trump Organization did not respond to questions about the apartment. Barry Weisselberg did not respond to a request for comment; his brother, Jack Weisselberg, told The Washington Post he was declining comment for both of them.
Investigators have also asked witnesses about loans made to the Trump Organization by Ladder Capital Finance — Jack Weisselberg’s employer, according to people familiar with the investigation. As part of that process, lenders typically ask about the financial health of the buildings, including the occupancy level and the total rent paid by tenants.
Ladder Capital has loaned the Trump Organization more than $270 million, related to four buildings in Manhattan. The loan documents were signed by other Ladder Capital executives, not Jack Weisselberg.
Neither Ladder Capital nor the Trump Organization has responded to questions asking if Jack Weisselberg played a role in obtaining the loans.
It is unclear what testimony, if any, Allen Weisselberg has provided to Vance’s office.
In the past, however, Weisselberg has provided testimony to government investigations into Trump’s financial dealings.
In 2017, Weisselberg spoke to investigators for a New York attorney general investigation of Trump’s charity, the Donald J. Trump Foundation. He told them that the charity’s board never met, that the charity had “no policy” for determining whether its spending followed nonprofit laws, and that the charity had been co-opted by Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign, in violation of a ban on mixing charities and politics.
The attorney general later used Weisselberg’s testimony against Trump, in a lawsuit that ended with a New York judge ordering Trump to pay a $2 million penalty.
And Weisselberg also accepted a deal from federal prosecutors focused on Cohen’s hush-money payments, in which Weisselberg testified about others in exchange for immunity for himself. Prosecutors were interested in the Trump Organization’s reimbursement of Cohen for the hush-money payments.
Cohen later pleaded guilty to two felony counts related to those payments. He was sentenced to prison but was released to home confinement last year because of concerns about the coronavirus pandemic.
On Twitter this week, Cohen seemed to relish the idea that Weisselberg was facing new scrutiny, after putting so much scrutiny on him.
“Remember that Allen Weisselberg received (federal) immunity from the SDNY to provide information and testify against me for the @StormyDaniels payment,” he wrote on Tuesday, adding the hashtag “#KarmaBoomerang.”
Chao and her husband, Mitch McConnell, during a swearing-in ceremony at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 3. (photo: Samuel Corum/Getty)
Ethics Report Finds Elaine Chao Used Trump Cabinet Post to Promote Family Interests
Elliot Hannon, Slate
Hannon writes:
he inspector generals are coming for Trumpworld! For an administration with a historic aversion to ethics and the propriety of public service, there has been a lot for these internal governmental watchdogs to dig in to. On Wednesday, the inspector general at the lowly old Transportation Department, perhaps the least glamorous of all the Cabinet gigs, released its report outlining the ways in which former Secretary Elaine Chao managed to use the position to deploy public resources to benefit her family. The instances of wrongdoing were not particularly subtle and the department watchdog referred the case to the Department of Justice late last year for possible criminal prosecution. The Justice Department, in the final weeks of the Trump administration, declined to advance the case.
Most of Chao’s questionable behavior revolved around her father, James Chao, and his shipping business, the Foremost Group, which made its mark transporting raw materials, like coal and iron, to China, and continues to do extensive work with Chinese state-owned businesses. The Shanghai-born patriarch of the family started the business after emigrating to the U.S. in the 1950s but has since turned the operation over to Chao’s younger sister Angela Chao. As the secretary of transportation, Elaine Chao was charged with overseeing the American shipping industry. What could possibly go wrong?
For starters, investigators said that Chao routinely asked government employees to help her father in a number of ways, from updating his Wikipedia page to promoting his biography and even building a public relations strategy for the longtime shipping magnate. Chao also made highly questionable moves, such as giving an interview, as a Cabinet-level public official, to a Chinese-language TV station that resembled an infomercial about her father’s success and business acumen. The interview was conducted at the New York City headquarters of the Foremost Group.
Then there was the proposed 2017 trip to China for the Chao family that raised ethics concerns and was ultimately canceled. From the New York Times:
The investigators found that Ms. Chao had used her staff to arrange details for Mr. Chao’s trip to China in October 2017, including asking, through the State Department, for China’s Transport Ministry to arrange for two cars for a six-person delegation, which included Ms. Chao’s younger sister Angela Chao, who had succeeded their father as head of the family shipping company, and Angela Chao’s husband, the venture capitalist Jim Breyer. The trip had been scheduled to include stops at locations in China that had received financial support from the company and also a meeting with “top leaders” in China that was to include Elaine Chao’s father and sister, but not other members of Transportation Department staff.
Chao pushed back against accusations of misusing her office by chalking it up to cultural differences, pointing to a memo outlining the importance of promoting her father as part of her governmental work. “Anyone familiar with Asian culture knows it is a core value in Asian communities to express honor and filial respect toward one’s parents,” the September 2020 memo said. “Asian audiences welcome and respond positively to actions by the secretary that include her father in activities when appropriate.”
Deb Haaland at the hearing last week. (photo: Leigh Vogel/Getty)
Republicans Used Oil Industry-Backed Study to Criticize Deb Haaland
Alex Kotch, Guardian UK
Kotch writes:
Senators posed misleading questions as they cited findings of a widely criticized research report
epublican senators cited a study commissioned by the biggest oil and gas trade association in the US in their criticisms of Deb Haaland, Joe Biden’s nominee to lead the Department of the Interior, during a confirmation hearing last week.
Republicans on the Senate energy and natural resources committee referenced the study, which has been widely criticized by conservationists, as they grilled Haaland, a Democratic US representative from New Mexico, on her past statements about energy issues and the Biden administration’s climate plans.
At issue in particular was the administration’s 60-day pause on new federal oil and gas leases, which several senators mischaracterized as a “ban”.
All Republicans on the committee have received significant campaign contributions from oil and gas political action committees and employees, and some are personally invested in the industry, as the Guardian and the Center for Media and Democracy recently reported.
Haaland, who would be the first Native American cabinet secretary, supports the Green New Deal and opposes fracking on federal land. As secretary of the interior, she would implement Biden’s climate agenda, which, though relatively ambitious, may not go as far as she would prefer.
As they criticized Haaland and Biden’s stance on federal leases, two of the senators cited projected job losses from a ban on federal oil and gas extraction that came from a study commissioned by the American Petroleum Institute (API). API is the country’s biggest oil and gas trade association and spent millions of dollars to help elect Republicans to Congress in the 2020 cycle.
John Barrasso of Wyoming, the ranking member on the committee and a top Senate recipient of oil and gas contributions, cited the institute’s September 2020 study three times during the hearings, and Cindy Hyde-Smith of Mississippi referenced it once.
On 23 February, Barrasso listed the study’s projected job losses for the states that committee members represent, leading with Haaland’s state of New Mexico (62,000 jobs) and his state of Wyoming (33,000).
“My question is for you: why not just let these workers keep their jobs?” asked Barrasso.
Conservationists have criticized the study. It considers a permanent ban on new and existing leases, not the current 60-day pause on only new leases, and predicts job losses over a two-year period. The energy news website DeSmog noted that these predicted job losses far exceed the total number of employees in the oil and gas extraction industry, and described the claim as “staggering”.
The industry has nearly “500,000 acres of federal public lands leases they have not yet developed, 31,000+ existing federal public lands oil & gas wells, and a stockpile of ~5,000 approved-but-unused federal public lands drilling permits”, according to the executive director of the Western Environmental Law Center.
“This Chicken-Little routine from API and the Western Energy Alliance shouldn’t fool anyone,” said Aaron Weiss, deputy director of the Center for Western Priorities, a non-partisan conservation and advocacy organization.
“The oil industry ‘studies’ that Barrasso and company keep citing are directly contradicted by oil executives themselves, who rightly point out to investors that they’re sitting on tens of thousands of approved drilling permits and tens of thousands more unused oil leases.”
The Western Energy Alliance is a trade group of more than 200 oil and gas companies that is suing the Biden administration over its pause on new leases. In a press release announcing the suit, it cites the API study and another study that the Western Energy Alliance secretly financed and was written by a professor who has received funding from the Charles Koch Foundation and is known for publishing industry-funded propaganda.
At other times during the hearings, Barrasso referenced the API study’s job loss numbers for New Mexico and Wyoming and its national estimate of nearly 1m lost jobs. The senator claimed that lost revenue from oil and gas production on federal lands would cost states’ education systems, a claim that API promoted in its “EnergyCitizens” advertising campaign last fall.
Barrasso has another potential conflict of interest. He owns as much as $500,000 worth of stock in Berkshire Hathaway, a conglomerate whose subsidiaries’ pipelines transported 8% of the natural gas Americans consumed in 2019.
Hyde-Smith, whose campaigns have received $357,000 from oil and gas Pacs and employees, cited the API report’s claim of 14,000 job losses over two years and potentially $32m in lost revenue in her state, Mississippi. She also listed the study’s projected national 68% decrease in offshore natural gas production by 2030 and a big increase in oil imports.
“By halting this production of essential fossil fuels, Mississippi jobs alone would be just decimated,” Hyde-Smith said.
Haaland corrected Hyde-Smith, reminding her that the Biden administration had paused, not banned, new leases.
Hyde-Smith’s communications director Chris Gallegos did not answer questions about the study but said: “Senator Hyde-Smith does not base her votes on political support or contributions, but rather on what she believes is in the best interest of Mississippi and the nation.” The office of Barrasso did not return a request for comment.
Marcela Mulholland, political director of the progressive polling and research group Data for Progress, said: “Republican senators like John Barrasso and Cindy Hyde-Smith whose campaigns are bankrolled by fossil fuel billionaires have tried for years to push the narrative that voters must choose between a livable planet and good jobs.
“Voters aren’t buying it. Data for Progress polling shows that voters across the country reject the notion that creating jobs and transitioning to clean energy are mutually exclusive. The reality is that launching an all-out, government-wide mobilization to stop climate change has the potential to create millions of good jobs across the country.”
The energy committee will vote on whether to advance Haaland’s nomination on Thursday. With the support of the Maine Republican Susan Collins and conservative Democrat Joe Manchin of West Virginia, Haaland is expected to pass the test.
API has been generous to Republican candidates, including those on the energy committee.
In 2020, API gave $5m to the Senate Leadership Fund, which spent tens of millions of dollars to elect the Republican committee members Steve Daines of Wyoming ($24.7m), who pledged to block Haaland’s nomination, and Roger Marshall of Kansas ($17.5m). The Super Pac also spent money to help Collins and attack the Democratic committee members John Hickenlooper of Colorado and Mark Kelly of Arizona.
In 2018, Barrasso’s most recent election year, API’s Pac donated $7,500 to his campaign. In 2020, Hyde-Smith’s most recent election, it gave $2,000 to her campaign. In that cycle, the Pac contributed $19,500 to senators on the energy committee, all of them Republicans.
API funds national political committees that support state Republican candidates as well, having given $125,000 to the Republican Governors Association, $50,000 to the Republican Attorneys General Association, and $25,000 to the Republican State Leadership Committee in 2018.
The institute has also donated to Charles Koch-funded organizations such as Americans for Prosperity and the Cato Institute.
Oil and gas boosters avoid talking about Biden’s plan to create 10m clean energy jobs. While the transition from fossil fuel jobs to good-paying green jobs may be tricky, the world needs to drastically decrease its fossil fuel consumption by 2030 to avoid climate change-induced drought, floods, extreme heat and poverty for hundreds of millions of people, according to a UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report from 2018.
In addition, the effects of the climate crisis are already costing the US huge amounts of money and are predicted to demand hundreds of billions annually by 2090. In 2020, hurricanes, wildfires, and other disasters in the US – many that were caused or intensified by the climate crisis – cost $95bn.
Saudi Arabia's crown prince. (photo: Bandar Algaloud/Saudi Royal Court)
Exiled Saudi Critics Say Biden's Refusal to Sanction MBS Over Khashoggi's Death Puts Them in Danger
Bill Bostock, Insider
Bostock writes:
audi critics living in exile have told The Guardian's Stephanie Kirchgaessner that President Joe Biden's refusal to sanction Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman over Jamal Khashoggi's murder is putting them in danger.
A report declassified last Friday by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence found that the crown prince directly ordered the 2018 murder of Jamal Khashoggi, a critical Saudi journalist and US resident.
The State Department sanctioned 76 Saudis connected with the hit, but Crown Prince Mohammed, also known as MBS, was spared.
The decision was widely criticized in Washington, and now activists and dissidents critical of MBS say that the move could embolden him to continue his crackdown on opposition.
"I am actually less safe now than I was before this," Iyad el-Baghdadi, an Arab activist who has long criticized of the crown prince, told The Guardian.
"The combined facts of [the US saying] 'Yes, he did it' and 'No, we cannot do anything about it but sanction some of his henchmen' is very dangerous."
El-Baghdadi, who was granted asylum in Norway in 2015, was taken into the protection of the country's intelligence services in 2019 after the CIA alerted them that Saudi authorities were seeking to silence him.
Khalid al-Jabri, the son of Saad al-Jabri, an exiled Saudi spy chief who has accused the crown prince of ordering a hit on his life, also told The Guardian that MBS "is probably thinking he can get away with future assassinations as long as he doesn't leave fingerprints."
"The lack of direct accountability will give MBS permanent impunity, rendering him more dangerous," he said.
Another exile, the Saudi vlogger Omar Abdulaziz, who currently lives in Canada, told The Guardian the US response sends a signal to MBS that he "can do whatever he wants."
In June 2020, Canadian federal police told Abdulaziz, a vocal critic of MBS, he was a "potential target" of Saudi Arabia. In 2019, an analysis by Citizen Lab found that Abdulaziz's phone had been hacked by the Saudi government.
"No one is going to stop him, no one is going to punish him, they are going to call him a bad guy," Abdulaziz told The Guardian. "Justice has not been served."
In a justification of its decision not to punish MBS, the Biden administration said the US does not sanction the heads of other countries.
However, The Washington Post reported this week that behind the scenes, US officials didn't want to cause further tension between the US and Saudi Arabia by sanctioning the crown prince.
The Biden administration has already ended US support for the Saudi-backed war in Yemen and also declared that King Salman is Biden's opposite man, in a clear slight of MBS, who is the kingdom's de facto ruler.
On Tuesday Rep. Ilhan Omar introduced legislation to the House of Representatives to sanction MBS directly for ordering the hit on Khashoggi.
Khashoggi, who wrote for The Washington Post, was killed and dismembered during a visit to the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in early October 2018.
A trial in Saudi Arabia saw five members of the team that killed Khashoggi given 20-year jail terms. The five were initially sentenced to death, but Khashoggi's family issued them pardons.
Hatice Cengiz, Khashoggi's widow, said the sentencing made "a complete mockery of justice."
Coal miners enter a mine to start the afternoon shift in West Virginia's Mingo County. (photo: Robert Galbraith/Reuter)
As Coal Dies, the US Has No Plan to Help the Communities Left Behind
Emily Pontecorvo, Grist
Pontecorvo writes: "These two examples represent a larger trend in the West: While policies and proposals in some states (like Colorado, New Mexico, and Arizona) acknowledge the writing on the wall for the coal industry, others (like Wyoming and, to a lesser extent, Montana) are protecting it for dear life."
ere are two tales of the energy transition unfolding in coal country, USA.
In late 2019, Pacificorp, an electric utility that operates in six Western states, told Wyoming regulators it wanted to shut down several of its coal-fired power plants early and replace them with wind and solar power and battery storage. It said this plan would save customers hundreds of millions of dollars on their electric bills and promised to work with local leaders on transition plans for workers and communities affected by the closures.
Wyoming, a state whose economy relies significantly on coal mining and coal power, went on the defensive. State lawmakers had already passed a law requiring coal plant owners to search for a buyer before being allowed to close a plant. Now, with support from the governor, regulators ordered an unprecedented investigation to scrutinize Pacificorp’s analysis and conclusions. Ultimately they determined the plan was deficient — that the company had not adequately considered allowing the coal plants to stay open or installing technology to capture the plants’ carbon emissions.
One rectangle down on the U.S. map, in Colorado, 2019 was the year a new state law passed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions 90 percent by 2050. In parallel, Colorado established an Office of Just Transition to help the workers and communities affected by now-inevitable coal mine and power plant closures. To comply with that timeline, the state’s two largest electric utilities recently submitted plans, not unlike Pacificorp’s, to retire several coal plants early and replace them with renewables and batteries.
While Colorado regulators have not yet approved the plans, they’ll likely be concerned with whether the utilities will phase out coal fast enough. Meanwhile, the Office of Just Transition has released a plan to help coal communities adapt to the looming changes in their economies and has already begun outreach efforts.
These two examples represent a larger trend in the West: While policies and proposals in some states (like Colorado, New Mexico, and Arizona) acknowledge the writing on the wall for the coal industry, others (like Wyoming and, to a lesser extent, Montana) are protecting it for dear life. A new study by researchers at Montana State University examines this chasm and connects it to the absence of cohesive national energy transition policy.
“Unstable and rapidly changing policies at the national level send conflicting messages,” the authors write, “exacerbating uncertainty about the future pace and direction of the transition, when and how the rupture will occur, and how it will affect specific communities.” They found that across the board in the West, rural and isolated communities lack adequate plans or funding to navigate the coal transition, which is occurring rapidly, regardless of state policy, due to the arrival of cheaper and cleaner energy sources and stagnating demand for electricity.
Once upon a time, the U.S. energy landscape was shaped by congressional action. But federal energy policy has grown increasingly divisive and difficult to pass. The Energy Act of 2020, included in the omnibus spending bill passed in December, was hailed as the first comprehensive update to national energy policy in 13 years. During the Obama and Trump eras, energy policy was primarily made via executive order. Barack Obama used this power to sign the Paris Agreement, put greenhouse gas controls on power plants, and pause leasing for new coal mines on federal land. Donald Trump used it to undo all three.
The researchers found that this ping-ponging of policy may have affected how individual coal workers perceived and planned for the future. One federal economic development expert they interviewed said participation in workforce retraining programs dropped off as Republican rhetoric about coal jobs coming back picked up on the 2016 campaign trail.
While some countries, like Canada, have national plans to phase out coal with federal programs dedicated to transitioning workers and communities, U.S. states have largely been left to their own devices to manage coal’s decline — leading to the contradictory approaches like those in Wyoming and Colorado. The researchers recommend that the federal government should establish clear timelines and strategies for the transition; otherwise it is undermining communities’ motivation and capacity for planning.
In isolated coal communities where there’s no easy or obvious replacement industry, there’s a desperate need for funding to replace lost tax revenue when a plant or mine closes — even in states that are actively trying to help with the transition. “There really isn’t, at this time, a tool or a mechanism to address that,” said Kelli Roemer, a geography Ph.D. student at Montana State University and the lead author of the study. “One of the biggest concerns is that the loss of tax revenue will lead to a loss of critical services and institutions that support resilience in those places,” Roemer said, referring to things like public schools and health services.
The federal government does offer grants specifically for coal transitions through a Department of Commerce program called Assistance for Coal Communities. Through the program, state and local governments, tribes, schools, and nonprofits can apply for funding for projects that develop new businesses and jobs in a community impacted by coal’s decline. But the program is flawed — communities can’t access these resources until after layoffs have been announced or closure plans formalized. “Many of the folks I interviewed are concerned that by the time communities are able to access those that it might be too late to really plan for something new,” said Roemer.
Experts say long-term federal financial support is crucial. One community development suggested to Roemer that grants and loans should be “on the order of billions per year over 10 years.” For the past few years, Congress has appropriated just $30 million annually for the Assistance for Coal Communities program. Colorado’s Just Transition Office estimates that closing all coal mines and power plants in the state could result in communities losing $40 million or more in annual tax revenues. It says its plan for helping workers alone would cost at least $100 million to implement — money the state legislature may not want to spend.
“No matter how worthy the purpose, we think it is improbable that lawmakers within the next few years would commit to this,” the office said in its recent action plan, noting that state budgets are increasingly constrained due to the COVID-19 pandemic. “The Federal Government is in a far better position to establish and fund uniform benefits for all energy workers in transition throughout the country.”
There are a variety of federal programs that offer grants and technical assistance to rural communities, but the burden is on each community to navigate the maze of options spread across multiple agencies. “What we recommend is the creation of a place where communities can go to get coordinated support, a place where the federal agencies can work together to align programs,” said Clark Miller, the director of the Center for Energy and Society at Arizona State University, who was not involved in the research.
The Biden administration took an initial step toward this type of coordination in January. In an executive order, Biden created a new Interagency Working Group on Coal and Power Plant Communities and Economic Revitalization housed at the Department of Energy. The group is tasked with delivering resources to revitalize the economies of coal, oil, and gas communities, and was given 60 days to identify all existing government programs that could be utilized to that end. Democratic Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia is also working on the issue — he introduced a bill earlier this week that would set aside $4 billion in tax credits to incentivize clean energy manufacturing projects in coal communities.
But before the government can dole out those resources, Miller said the U.S. needs to take a step back and identify all of the communities and workforces that are at risk in the energy transition. He and Julia Haggerty, the co-author of the new study, were part of a committee of experts recently convened by the National Academies, a nonprofit research organization that advises the government, to investigate the technology, policy, and societal dimensions of accelerating decarbonization in the U.S. In a report released in February, the group recommended the creation of a National Transition Task Force to conduct this kind of vulnerability assessment.
“We highlight the importance of early notification for these communities so that they know what’s coming,” Miller said. “Coal is on the tip of the spear, so to speak. There are a lot of communities in a lot of places that are gonna face serious economic transformations or declines. And we have to figure out how to help those communities.”
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