14 December 22
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Opinion: Lack of party affiliation does not define political 'independence,' not when politicians need so much money to run and where that money comes from.
One thing.
OK, maybe two things.
I believe the senator, for example, when she said that she “never fit perfectly in either national party.” Although I’d imagine there are many individuals, Republicans and Democrats, who feel the same way but remain in their respective parties, recognizing that it is virtually impossible to fit “perfectly” into any large, diverse political organization. Or any other kind of organization. Or religious faith. Or club, or team, or profession. Even a family.
The senator is also 100% correct when she wrote in her op-ed for The Arizona Republic that her Senate seat “doesn’t belong to Democratic or Republican bosses in Washington.”And she is dead on again when she said her position in the Senate “doesn’t belong to me.”
No politician in D.C. is 'independent'
Where Sinema drifts over the center line of the road separating truth from falsity is when she said her Senate seat “belongs to Arizona.”
Well … not really.
And where she completely swerves off the pavement and plunges into a ditch is when Sinema labels herself as “independent.”
In the election:How Republican voters helped Democrats win
The senator knows very well that no one operating in the political big leagues is “independent,” not given the amount of money needed to get and keep the jobs they have.
Stepping away from the Democratic Party wasn’t philosophical for Sinema. It was tactical.
Sinema knows how to cultivate wealthy friends
She has a plan. She always has a plan. She also has about $8 million in her campaign war chest and has a proven record of having raised tens of millions more.A politician can’t accumulate that kind of cash by being independent. She needs friends. Sinema has some very wealthy ones, and she knows how to cultivate them.
She irritated Democrats with her unwillingness to alter the filibuster rule in order to protect voting rights, and by going against a minimum wage increase as part of a pandemic relief bill.
She also spoiled Democrats’ efforts to raise taxes on the biggest corporations and the wealthiest Americans.
She answers to 'corporations and billionaires'
And Sinema protected a tax loophole that saved private equity and investment firms what is estimated to be $35 billion.Kim Clausing, a former Treasury Department official, said of that, “Those special interests get special tax treatment because they find susceptible politicians who accept their arguments. In this case Sinema.”
It has been pointed out that since the start of the 2018 election cycle, Sinema has drawn contributions of least $2 million from the securities and investment industry.That is why, after Sinema’s announcement, the Arizona Democratic Party said Sinema answers to “corporations and billionaires.”
It’s true that Sinema has collected a lot of cash from the superrich, including superrich GOP donors. It’s why others have called her a “hypocrite” who, in the words of possible Senate candidate Rep. Ruben Gallego, puts “her own interests ahead of getting things done for Arizonans.”
And why Rep. Raúl Grijalva said Sinema’s “alignment with wealthy and corporate interests has crippled her ability to support the Democratic agenda.”
Sinema's critics aren't exactly clean, either
Her critics have a point.
On the other hand, Democrats and Republicans have agendas as well. And agendas cost money. And the people who pay for a political party’s agenda have their own agendas. Which means agendas come with strings.
Nobody is clean.
The thing that makes the financially compromised, fat-cat dependent Republicans and Democrats a tad more credible than Sinema, however, is that they make no claim of being independent.
President Joe Biden delivers remarks on unions and pensions the week after calling on Congress to impose a contract on rail workers. (photo: Chip Somodevilla/Getty)
If he wanted to, Joe Biden could give railworkers the sick days they’re seeking without any need for Senate approval. He is choosing not to.
In the wake of recent events, the official position of the Biden White House continues to be that railworkers should indeed be afforded the paid sick time they had been set to strike for. That’s notable because, as commentators like the American Prospect’s David Dayen (and, as of last Friday, numerous members of the House and Senate as well) have pointed out, a clear avenue for doing exactly that remains open — one that bypasses the arcane rules of the Senate entirely. As an open letter signed by Bernie Sanders and some seventy-one other representatives points out, Biden has at his disposal the power to issue an executive order mandating federal contractors to provide their workers with paid sick days.
Such an action, though almost certain to be challenged in court, would have both precedent and democratic legitimacy on its side. Majorities in both houses of Congress, after all, have actually voted for sick days already. Moreover, a 2015 executive order issued by Barack Obama that extended them to roughly three hundred thousand workers employed by federal contractors provides a clear template. That order, as detailed by Rebecca Burns, Julia Rock, and Matthew Cunningham-Cook, included certain concessions demanded by various actors in the business lobby and, as a result, railworkers (and a number of others) were indefensibly excluded.
If he wanted to, Biden could act now to try and correct this omission. As the letter sent by Sanders and other lawmakers points out, the total cost of providing seven paid sick days to roughly 115,000 rail workers would be about $321 million. If that sounds like a lot of money, it shouldn’t: as the same letter observes, it actually constitutes less than 2 percent of the industry’s annual profits. The self-interested arguments of rail barons as to why workers in their own sector should be excluded from existing federal sick time provisions, in other words, don’t stand up to basic scrutiny. Rail companies have been enjoying tremendous profits for years and could easily fund them if compelled to do so.
It’s a big if, of course, because the triangulating rhetoric of the Biden White House to date doesn’t inspire much confidence. Throughout this whole affair, the administration has clearly prioritized avoiding a strike at all costs — and has both acquiesced to the Chamber of Commerce and strong-armed workers in order to do so. Nevertheless, if Biden were interested in rebuilding his now thoroughly tarnished reputation as a prolabor president, using the tremendous executive authority at his disposal to confront the rail companies would be an obvious place to start.
A confrontation with private industry is what would almost certainly be required — not only because an executive order would be challenged in the courts but because the Democratic Party has been all too keen to cultivate ties with leading rail barons like BNSF’s Warren Buffett.
Still, failure to pursue the most obvious and direct path to winning more than one hundred thousand workers paid sick time would represent yet another glaring — and revealing — case of Democratic leaders refusing to act in the very manner their own outwardly prolabor rhetoric demands.
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A business center in St. Petersburg, Russia, that is believed to house an Internet Research Agency 'troll factory' in 2018. (photo: Dmitri Lovetsky)
locked on Twitter and Facebook, these propagandists have resurrected on under-moderated social media apps designed for conservatives, according to research from Stanford University and Graphika.
Some of Russia’s most notorious propagandists, largely blocked on Twitter and Facebook, have resurrected on under-moderated social media apps designed for conservatives, according to new research from Stanford University.
A report published Tuesday by the Stanford Internet Observatory and the social media analytics firm Graphika indicates that some of the same people tied to Russia’s Internet Research Agency are active on the four major platforms launched in recent years to target those who deem mainstream social media companies too liberal: Gab, Gettr, Parler, and former President Donald Trump’s service, Truth Social.
Some of the most effective content from the Russia-tied accounts came by mimicking fan pages for Kid Rock, the rock-rap persona of 51-year-old Robert James Richie, whose career found a second life as a high-profile supporter of former President Donald Trump.
In an emailed statement, Gettr CEO Jason Miller said the company “takes a robust and proactive approach to moderation.” Emails to Gab’s address for press inquiries bounced back. Parler and Truth Social didn’t respond to a request for comment.
The IRA, a “troll farm” founded by Yevgeny Prigozhin, a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, effectively infiltrated Facebook and Twitter in 2016 by hiring mostly Russians to pose as Americans online and create politically extreme accounts to polarize discourse in the U.S. In 2018, former FBI Director Robert Mueller, then a special counsel for the Justice Department, indicted the IRA, Prigozhin and 12 others involved in its operations. Prigozhin remains on an FBI wanted list and said in November he planned to continue to interfere in American elections.
It’s unclear to what degree the IRA still exists as an organization under that name. Since the indictment, Facebook and Twitter have periodically purged accounts from their platforms that they tie to the same operators, and those accounts rarely gain much from users.
However, those propagandists appeared more successful on the conservative apps. Though they don’t have major reach, they have thousands of seemingly authentic followers on each platform, the Stanford and Graphika researchers said. Many of those users follow multiple accounts from the same propagandists. Such sites have become the first place a small but dedicated number of conservatives go for news, and conservative influencers sometimes mine them for content to share on other platforms.
The Russian-backed channels’ most viral moment came in June, when Trump’s son Donald Trump Jr. posted a screengrab from one of the propagandists’ fake Kid Rock pages on Gettr to his Instagram account, where the younger Trump has more than 6 million followers. The screengrab indicated a false claim about coronavirus treatments and was flagged by Instagram as “missing context.”
Trump Jr. aide Andy Surabia did not respond to a request for comment.
Representatives for Richie did not respond to requests for comment either.
The research also found an incident, posted on the propagandists’ channels on all four platforms, that appeared to be orchestrated in real life. Each of the channels posted multiple, seemingly original, photos of a man in New York City handing out toilet paper with President Joe Biden’s face on it.
Mueller’s indictment accused the IRA of helping Trump supporters organize rallies ahead of the 2016 election.
Graphika’s director of investigations, Tyler Williams, said the IRA-style activity on the conservative platforms reflects the same style previously used. The difference is that the content simply isn’t moderated as much on the conservative platforms.
“The tactics are exactly what we’ve come to expect from these actors since 2016. They use fake personas to imitate, infiltrate and attempt to influence a specific online community,” said Williams.
“These personas then coordinate across multiple platforms to amplify division and exacerbate existing tensions,” he added. “This is precisely the behavior that gets them caught on Facebook and YouTube, but on alt-tech platforms they appear to enjoy relatively free rein.”
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Kenneth Walker III, the boyfriend of Breonna Taylor, stands next to a painting of her at Jefferson Square Park in Louisville, Kentucky, on 13 March 2022. (photo: Jon Cherry/Reuters)
Kenneth Walker claimed officers violated his rights when they burst into Taylor’s apartment and killed her in March 2020
Kenneth Walker filed the lawsuits against the Kentucky city in state and federal court, claiming plainclothes officers violated his rights when they burst into Taylor’s apartment while the couple was asleep and killed her on 13 March 2020, during the botched raid.
Taylor’s death “will haunt Kenny for the rest of his life”, Walker’s attorney, Steve Romines, said in a statement to the Post. “He will live with the effects of being put in harm’s way due to a falsified warrant, to being a victim of a hailstorm of gunfire and to suffering the unimaginable and horrific death of Breonna Taylor.”
Neither Romines nor an attorney for the city of Louisville were immediately available for comment.
Walker fired once at what he said he believed were intruders. Three officers responded with 32 shots, none of which hit Walker. Six struck Taylor, killing her. Walker was arrested and charged with attempted murder but charges were dropped.
The killing of Taylor, along with the killings of George Floyd in Minneapolis, Ahmaud Arbery in Georgia and others, sparked outrage and galvanized protests that peaked in intensity during the summer of 2020.
Taylor’s killing also shone a spotlight on no-knock raids, a controversial police tactic that can be dangerous for police and civilians.
In August, US prosecutors charged four former Louisville police officers for their roles in the raid. The federal charges came five months after a Kentucky jury acquitted former detective Brett Hankison of wanton endangerment. Hankison’s stray bullets during the raid hit a neighboring apartment.
Arizona's outgoing Republican governor claims the wall is needed to stop an 'unprecedented' crisis at the border. (photo: Reuters)
Resistance is mounting to a controversial plan from Arizona's governor to build a wall of shipping containers along the US-Mexico border.
Construction began earlier this year, with Mr Ducey saying it was an attempt to "secure" the border.
Critics say the project unlawfully cuts through tribal and federal lands.
With just weeks left until Mr Ducey leaves office, work crews operating along Arizona's eastern border with Mexico have been making progress on the barrier, which consists of double-stacked shipping containers and razor wire.
That progress has recently been slowed by days of protests from environmental groups, who say that the barrier poses a danger to native species and natural water systems in the region.
Incoming governor Katie Hobbs has yet to decide what to do with the containers.
In Arizona's Santa Cruz county, Sheriff David Hathaway said that he plans to arrest construction crews working on the barrier if they reach his county.
"The area where they're placing the containers is entirely on federal land, on national forest," Mr Hathaway told local news station Fox 10.
"It's not state land, it's not private land, and the federal government has said this [is] illegal activity."
The BBC has reached out to the Santa Cruz County Sheriff's Office for comment.
Still, the initiative has the support of the sheriff of nearby Cochise county, who said in a statement that he believes it will "deter crime and stop criminal behaviour".
Federal agencies have called the barrier unlawful and ordered state officials to stop the work.
In response, in late October, Mr Ducey filed a lawsuit claiming that the state has the right to take action to put an end to an "unprecedented crisis" in which "countless migrants" are crossing the border.
"The result is a mix of drug, crime, and humanitarian issues the state has never experienced at such a significant magnitude," the lawsuit reads.
The federal government is asking for the lawsuit to be dismissed.
The governor-elect, Ms Hobbs, has been opposed to the barrier but it's unclear if she plans to remove the containers after her inauguration on 5 January.
While she had previously suggested that the containers would be re-used to create affordable housing options for low-income residents, last week she said she was looking at all options and warned that she "doesn't know how much it will cost to remove the containers and what the cost will be".
The debate about Mr Ducey's border barrier comes amid record-breaking numbers of migrants arriving at the US-Mexico border.
In the 2022 fiscal year that ended in September, a total of 2.38 million migrants were detained at the border, marking a 37% increase over the prior year.
Officials in a number of mostly Republican-led states have harshly criticised the Biden administration's handling of what some have termed a migrant "crisis".
Earlier this year, three states - Texas, Arizona, and Florida - announced initiatives to move migrants to Democratic-led ones, which they have accused of being "sanctuary" jurisdictions that fail to enforce immigration laws.
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A mother holds her malnourished child in Dollow, Somalia. (photo: Mark Condren/UNICEF)
If aid is not scaled up, famine is expected in southern Somalia between April and June 2023, humanitarians say.
As a result of severe food insecurity, several parts of the country are in danger of famine in the coming months, according to a new food security report by UN and other experts released on Tuesday.
The report said more than 8 million people face “an unprecedented level of need” after five consecutive failed rainy seasons and “exceptionally high” food prices.
The report “does not lead to a declaration of famine at this point, in large part thanks to the response of humanitarian organisations and local communities”, Jens Laerke, spokesman for UN humanitarian agency OCHA, told reporters on Tuesday.
But, he warned, that “does not mean that people are not experiencing catastrophic food shortages”.
“They have kept famine outside the door, but nobody knows for how much longer,” he said.
“The underlying crisis has not improved.”
The report indicated surging numbers of people at the highest level on the UN’s five-scale food insecurity classification, known as IPC, which means they have dangerously little access to food and could face starvation.
When a large enough portion of a population is estimated to be at IPC level 5, a famine is declared.
Between now and next June, the number of people at IPC5 in Somalia is expected to more than triple from 214,000 to 727,000 as drought, violence and displacement continue to threaten people’s lives and livelihoods, according to the UN.
At the same time, some 8.3 million people across the country are expected to be at crisis level (IPC3) or above between April and June next year, up from 5.6 million today, the report said. A full 2.7 million of them are expected to be at IPC level 4, facing major food shortages, very high acute malnutrition and excess mortality.
“The situation can hardly get any worse,” Laerke warned.
He called on countries “to step up and help the humanitarian organisations continue the very important and truly life-saving work” in Somalia.
Food security experts earlier this year warned of famine in parts of Somalia by the end of this year if there was no increase in international humanitarian assistance. Humanitarian workers say the war in Ukraine has diverted the funding of some key donors.
Millions of people are at risk of starvation across the wider Horn of Africa, in the grip of the worst drought in 40 years after five consecutive failed rainy seasons wiped out livestock and crops. Neighbouring Ethiopia and Kenya also are struggling.
If assistance is not scaled up, Laerke said, “famine is expected to occur between April and June 2023 in southern Somalia,” including in the capital. Agropastoral populations in Baidoa and Burhakaba districts and displaced people in Baidoa town and in Mogadishu itself are most at risk, he said.
Famine is the extreme lack of food and a significant death rate from outright starvation or malnutrition combined with diseases like cholera.
A formal famine declaration means data shows more than a fifth of households have extreme food gaps, more than 30 percent of children are acutely malnourished and more than two out of 10,000 people are dying every day.
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Aerial footage shows the aftermath of the latest Keystone pipeline leak on Dec. 10, 2022. (photo: Nebraska Public Media)
Including last week’s spillage of roughly 14,000 barrels of crude — a threat to the environment, drinking water, and public health — the pipeline system that runs from Alberta, Canada to Texas has leaked 26,000 barrels of the toxic substance in the U.S. over the past 12 years, Bloomberg noted Monday, citing preliminary data from the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration.
“While Keystone is the largest spiller of crude oil since 2010, the refined fuel pipeline Colonial Pipeline’s Line 1 has spilled more liquid hydrocarbons than Keystone,” the outlet reported.
Bloomberg’s analysis came as the full extent of the damage caused by the latest spill, including the impact the leak could have on local water supplies, remains to be seen as Keystone owner TC Energy continues its clean-up efforts. Residents of Washington County, Kansas have reported smelling oil in the wake of the spill, which is believed to be the largest in Keystone’s history.
According to the Sierra Club, the Keystone 1 pipeline that leaked in northern Kansas has leaked 22 times in its history — including a dozen spills during its first year of operation in 2010. The Government Accountability Office warned in a report last year that “the severity of [Keystone’s] spills has worsened in recent years due to two large spills in 2017 and 2019.”
“The latest spill is another tragic reminder of the costs of our reliance on fossil fuels,” Matt Casale, director of the U.S. PIRG Education Fund’s environment campaigns, said in a statement late Monday. “At every stage, from extraction, to transportation, to burning, fossil fuels put our environment and health at risk. Not only are they the driving force behind climate change, but when the pipelines spill — and they always spill — the damage is severe. The path to a clean and healthy future is clear, and it doesn’t travel in an oil pipeline.”
John Rumpler, senior director of the Clean Water for America Campaign at Environment America, agreed, adding that “once again, a massive spill has reminded us of a simple truth: oil pipelines put clean water at risk.”
“Oil is toxic to humans and wildlife alike, and heavy crude, in particular, is exceedingly difficult to clean up once it has contaminated our rivers and streams,” Rumpler added. “Pipelines also often cross our nation’s wetlands — a risk that could be greatly magnified if the Supreme Court strips away their federal protections in Sackett vs. EPA. For the sake of clean water, it’s time to stop building new oil pipelines, and enforce more stringent safety standards on existing ones.”
President Joe Biden won applause last year for killing a proposed expansion of the Keystone pipeline known as Keystone XL, but the administration has gone to bat for other major fossil fuel projects in court, including the Line 3 tar sands pipeline. Biden has also resisted calls to issue an executive order shutting down existing oil pipelines and other dangerous fossil fuel infrastructure even as planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions continue to surge.
A September analysis by the Global Energy Monitor estimated that, overall, around 1,700 miles of oil pipeline capacity have been proposed or are already under construction in the U.S., more than any other country.
“It’s not a question of if a pipeline will leak, but when,” the advocacy group Food & Water Watch tweeted Monday. “To stop future leaks, we need to move away from pipelines and toward a 100% renewable energy transition.”
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