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trump: I won the election by a lot !
Month: November 2020
‘Betsy DeVos made a mess’ of the U.S. student loan system, teachers’ union boss says
Yahoo – Finance
‘Betsy DeVos made a mess’ of the U.S. student loan system, teachers’ union boss says
Fixing the U.S. student loan system goes beyond just debt forgiveness, according to one teachers’ union leader, and the current administration hasn’t done much to help borrowers.
“Look, Betsy DeVos made a mess of this,” Randi Weingarten, head of the American Federation of Teachers, told Yahoo Finance Live (video above). “We have sued DeVos several times. We sued Navient. … But ultimately, just like mortgages, and just like other things, student loan debt needs to be transparent.”
The burden of the financial aid “needs to be clear,” Weingarten added. “People need to know what their choices are. And then we need to try to mitigate it to actually make [sure] student loan debt is not a death sentence for people.”
‘There’s a lot that you can do’
Currently, roughly 44 million Americans hold nearly $1.7 trillion in student loan debt.
Multiple lawmakers have proposed — through various bills and even on their respective campaign trails — cancelling debt for 37 million borrowers holding federal student loans. These loans are owed by Americans to the U.S. Department of Education.
Most recently, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) called for President-elect Joe Biden to use executive action to cancel “billions of dollars in student loan debt,” which she argued could be the “single most effective executive action available to provide massive consumer-driver stimulus.”
Weingarten stressed the same: “There’s a lot that you can do, executive action to clean this up.
Aarthi is a reporter for Yahoo Finance. She can be reached at aarthi@yahoofinance.com.
Column: Just when you thought the president could sink no lower….
Los Angeles Times
Column: Just when you thought the president could sink no lower….
“Despite the Left’s attempts to undermine this Election, I will NEVER stop fighting for YOU,” President Trump assured me in a fundraising email.
I don’t take campaign fundraising emails seriously (never mind literally). They’re all pretty stupid.
But this one was obviously different, for the simple reason that the election is over. Indeed, this note — one of a great many sent by the Trump campaign recently — was a plea for money to pay for the legal effort to reverse an election Trump lost by the same margin of electoral votes he once claimed amounted to a “massive landslide.” And if you read the letter’s fine print, you’ll discover that “fighting for you” actually means “fighting for me.” Most of the money from small donors will go not to the legal effort, but rather to pay down campaign debt.
In a sense I’m grateful that Trump is doubling down on everything wrong about his presidency in its final chapter. Yes, this is embarrassing for the country. Yes, Trump’s radioactive conspiracy theory of a stolen election will have a long, poisonous half-life. But Trump is removing all doubt that his narcissistic presidency was always entirely about him.
The country is in the midst of a health and economic crisis, but Trump’s primary focus is licking his own wounds, not tackling the country’s. He has largely abandoned formal intelligence briefings and hasn’t met with the coronavirus task force in months. Instead, with the exception of a Veterans Day visit to Arlington National Cemetery and a Friday night statement on the pandemic, he’s conducted his post-election presidency doing precisely what he’s always done — subordinating the office to his own wants, desires and petty grievances.
He punctuates his brooding and sulking with pathetic tweets brimming with conspiratorial or otherwise deranged hogwash, including the repeated claim “I won the election.” He continues to insist, as he has throughout his presidency, that proof for his lies is just around the corner. On Sunday, he promised a new lawsuit showing the “unconstitutionality” of the 2020 election.
“Nixon’s real tragedy is that he never had the stature to be a tragic hero,” Gary Wills wrote in “Nixon Agonistes.” “He is the stuff of sad (almost heartbreaking) comedy.” I think that’s a little unfair to Nixon, but it’s dead on with Trump.
It would take a heart of stone not to laugh, as he finally turns on the real Judas in his eyes, Fox News (where I am a contributor). The network, he tweets, “forgot what made them successful, what got them there. They forgot the Golden Goose. The biggest difference between the 2016 Election, and 2020, was @FoxNews!”
Never mind that Fox was No. 1 in every time slot more than a decade before Trump descended that escalator in 2015. Never mind, that for four years, he began his day with his Presidential Daily Brief — “Fox and Friends” — and ended it with the primetime gang. And never mind that Trump and the opinion side of the network remain in a deeply codependent relationship.
He still didn’t get the full-throated, unwavering praise he needed, so now he finds joy in thinking about creating a new competing network, one without all the obvious anti-Trump bias!
Most presidents, if they’re remembered at all, get summarized with a single sentence. Whatever Trump’s sentence might have been before the election, he managed to rewrite it after the election: “A one-term president who was the first in American history to refuse to concede or recognize the election results.” Talk about scoring after the buzzer.
George H.W. Bush, the last incumbent president to lose a reelection bid, left office (after graciously conceding) in fairly bad odor on the right. After eight years of Bill Clinton, however, nostalgia for Bush was so strong, his son parlayed his patronymic name ID into a winning presidential bid.
If Trump had followed a similar course, he (or perhaps his sybaritic scion) might have cashed in on similar nostalgia after four years of a Biden presidency almost certain to be seen as disastrous by those on the right. Instead, he has chosen to prove that those of us who said “character is destiny” were right all along.
Let Trump continue insisting he didn’t really lose — it’s impossible to stop him after all. Let those who believe him — or pretend to — continue to march and tweet and rant, including the many highly compensated media personalities who’ve gotten rich off the Trump train.
But for the rest of us, the one thing we won’t ever feel about the Trump presidency is nostalgia — not least because he won’t really be gone. Even after he leaves the White House, he’ll be fighting for himself — and making sure we hear him — for the rest of his days.
Butter Is Booming, Whole Milk Is Back and Dairy Is Surviving
Bloomberg
Butter Is Booming, Whole Milk Is Back and Dairy Is Surviving
Justin Fox November 15, 2020
(Bloomberg Opinion) — With Americans staying home more than usual because of the pandemic, and doing lots of baking and cooking to pass the time, this has been a banner year for butter.
Land O’Lakes, the Minnesota-based dairy cooperative, expects to sell 275 million to 300 million pounds of the stuff this year — a 20% increase — as rising retail demand more than makes up for lost restaurant business. Nationwide, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, butter production is up 6% over the first nine months of the year and is on track to top two billion pounds for the first time since 1943.
This year’s boom is, as is apparent from the chart, part of a longer-term comeback. On a per-capita basis, Americans eat far less butter than they did in the early decades of the 20th century. But they eat more than they did in the 1980’s and 1990’s.
After staving off competition from margarine with nearly a century of lobbying for margarine bans, taxes and color restrictions, butter producers lost their regulatory advantages in the 1940’s and 1950’s and ceded a lot of market share to the cheaper spread — which had originally been derived from beef fat but was by then mainly made out of vegetable oil. As medical researchers began to link consumption of animal fats with heart disease in the 1950’s and 1960’s, margarine gained even more ground as a purportedly healthier alternative.
Those health claims were later mostly debunked, and the price difference between butter and margarine began to matter less as incomes rose and families shrank (food purchased for off-premises consumption accounted for more than 18% of consumer spending in the early 1950’s and just 6% in 2019).
Butter also benefited from the emphasis on genuine ingredients accompanying the good-food revival that began in the 1960’s (Julia Child certainly wasn’t going to use margarine). And let’s be honest, it tastes better. Corn oil, olive oil and other vegetable oils now play a much bigger role in American diets than they used to, so butter will probably never regain its central status of a century ago. But it’s not going away.
“It’s a survivor story,” says Peter Vitaliano, vice president of economic policy and market research at the National Milk Producers Federation.
The same goes for the dairy industry in general. It can seem awfully embattled from time to time, and for good reason. Giant, highly productive dairies have been driving lots of smaller farmers out of business. Competition from “milks” made of almonds, oats, soybeans and other plants has taken market share from the real thing and led to a dairy industry lobbying campaign reminiscent of the margarine wars of yore. President Donald Trump’s trade policies have caused problems too. Two big milk marketers, Borden Dairy Co. and Dean Foods Inc., have filed for bankruptcy in the past 12 months.
But the big picture for the industry since 1980 or so is of declining demand for its core product (milk, that is) being more than offset by rising sales of almost everything that can be made out of milk.
Even within milk sales there’s been an interesting shift lately, with whole milk outselling 2% milk for the first time in 15 years in 2018 and building on its lead in 2019, and skim milk sales drifting downward. If you’re going to drink milk, and not smashed-up almonds mixed with water, then you might as well drink the milkiest kind of milk.
Whole milk happens to be the most profitable product for dairy farmers, as it’s basically just what comes out of the cow and thus doesn’t require them to share much revenue with processors. It also has benefited from the new eat-at-home normal of the pandemic, with sales up 4.1% through August (2% milk sales are up too, with skim and 1% down).
But on the whole, it is products made of milk that have kept the industry going. The butter revival is one aspect of this. The rise of yogurt, which was close to nonexistent in the U.S. before the 1970’s, is another, even though it has faded a bit lately.
The main driver of the dairy industry’s resilience, though, has been cheese. Americans consume almost three times as much of it per-person as they did in 1970.
Not all of this is the result of what you’d call organic consumer demand. Yes, the big gains in Italian cheese consumption seem to reflect the fact that we eat a lot more pizza than we used to. One can also see hints in the data of the rising popularity of Mexican food (which in its north-of-the-border incarnation contains lots of Cheddar and Jack cheese), bagels’ emergence from regional-food status (cream cheese!) and other fun food trends.
But as cheese can be stored for longer than milk or butter or yogurt, it’s also something the dairy industry makes when it has more milk than it knows what to do with, resulting in the infamous “cheese mountain” that is occasionally reduced in size by big government purchases. Those have been especially big this year, with the Agriculture Department so far delivering more than 118 million food boxes — each containing several pounds of dairy products, mainly cheese — to food banks and other charities as part of pandemic-relief efforts.
The industry has also found new things to sell beyond milk, butter, yogurt and cheese, and new places to sell them. Forty years ago the U.S. hardly exported any dairy products. Now it exports a fair amount of cheese, mainly to Mexico, South Korea and Japan, and even bigger quantities of cheese-making byproducts such as whey powder, whey protein isolate and lactose, all of which are used in manufacturing foods and dietary supplements.
The main byproduct of modern butter-making is skim milk powder, most of which is exported to Mexico and Southeast Asia to be reconstituted, often in combination with vegetable oils, into various milk-like drinks. Overall, says Vitaliano, the U.S. exports about 4% of the milk fat it produces and 19% of the skim solids.
To bring things back to butter, the U.S. actually imports more of the stuff than it exports, with Ireland’s Kerrygold the No. 2 butter brand in the U.S. after Land O’Lakes. But the import quantities are still small relative to domestic production. So this year of high butter demand has been good for U.S. dairy cooperatives that specialize in the stuff, such as Land O’Lakes and No. 1 producer California Dairies Inc., which makes Challenge and Danish Creamery butter. (Both Land O’Lakes and California Dairies also produce private-label butter for retailers, so their role in supplying the country with butter goes way beyond their own brands.)
It has also been a good year for California dairies in general, given that the state accounts for just over 30% of U.S. butter production, with Land O’Lakes a big presence there too. Wisconsin, “America’s Dairyland,” focuses more on cheese, with a quarter of U.S. production. New York is tops in yogurt, with about 15% of production.
In terms of milk output for all purposes, California is No. 1 at more than 18% of the national total. It has held the top spot since passing Wisconsin in 1993, but the latter has been narrowing the gap lately. Idaho recently overtook New York for third place, and Texas may be nipping at its heels soon. For an ancient, not exactly fast-growing industry, dairy has a lot more drama than you might expect.
This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.
Justin Fox is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering business. He was the editorial director of Harvard Business Review and wrote for Time, Fortune and American Banker. He is the author of “The Myth of the Rational Market.”
South Dakota ER nurse recalls how dying coronavirus patients spend last minutes insisting virus isn’t real
South Dakota ER nurse recalls how dying coronavirus patients spend last minutes insisting virus isn’t real
South Dakota ER nurse Jodi Doering has seen some disturbing examples of COVID-19 denial as she works through the pandemic.
After a Twitter thread of her experiences started circulating, Doering appeared on CNN’s New Day on Monday to describe how South Dakota hospitals are overwhelmed with coronavirus patients — and yet some of them don’t believe the virus they have is real. While many patients are “grateful for the care they receive” from nurses, some COVID-19 patients spend their last moments refusing to call family and friends because they’re convinced they’re going to be fine, Doering said. “Their last dying words are, ‘This can’t be happening. It’s not real,'” Doering recalled. In some cases, patients even insist they have the flu or lung cancer to avoid acknowledging the coronavirus.
A South Dakota ER nurse @JodiDoering says her Covid-19 patients often “don’t want to believe that Covid is real.”
“Their last dying words are, ‘This can’t be happening. It’s not real.’ And when they should be… Facetiming their families, they’re filled with anger and hatred.” pic.twitter.com/tgUgP6znAT
— New Day (@NewDay) November 16, 2020
Doering went on to mention how more people have died of COVID-19 in South Dakota — 644 — than even live in the town where she’s from. South Dakota has the highest COVID-19 mortality rate of almost anywhere in the world — only North Dakota and the entire countries of Belgium and the Czech Republic rank higher. Without a mask mandate and with low rates of mask wearing, the Dakotas have seen coronavirus cases spike over the past few months.
More stories from theweek.com
Village Peoples Take on trump
Weekend Update: The Village People on Donald Trump Using Their Music – SNL
Secret intelligence exists that ‘would cast Trump in very negative light’, warns ex-FBI chief
Independent
Secret intelligence exists that ‘would cast Trump in very negative light’, warns ex-FBI chief
Former acting FBI director Andrew McCabe has warned that classified intelligence from bureau’s investigation into President Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign ties to Russia could contain information that would “risk casting the president in a very negative light”.
Mr McCabe has been at the centre of a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, in which a Republican-controlled panel is reviewing the FBI’s recision to initiate the investigation.
He testified before the panel on Tuesday and told lawmakers that officials had a “duty” to carry out the investigation due to the information they had collected. Mr McCabe personally approved the decision to investigate Mr Trump for possible obstruction of justice.
In an interview with CNN on Friday night, Mr McCabe was asked what the risks were if more information from the Russia investigation was to be declassified.
CNN anchor Andrew Cuomo said Mr Trump was told by Devin Nunes, a close ally of the president’s and former chair of the House Intelligence Committee, that if more previously unreleased information comes out, the more it will appear that the president was “framed”.
“From your knowledge, is there anything that could come out that people would look at and say, ‘wow, I can’t believe they ever included the president in this analysis, he and his people clearly did nothing’?” asked Mr Cuomo.
Mr McCabe replied: “There is some very, very serious, very specific, undeniable intelligence that has not come out, that if it were released, would risk compromising our access to that sort of information in the future.
“I think it would also risk casting the president in a very negative light – so, would he have a motivation to release those things? It’s almost incomprehensible to me that he would want that information out, I don’t see how he spins it into his advantage, because quite frankly, I don’t believe it’s flattering.
Asked if Mr McCabe thought there was more “bad stuff” about Mr Trump that wasn’t already publicly known, he replied: “There is always more intelligence, there is a lot more in the intelligence community assessment than what is ever released for public consumption.
“The original version of that report was classified at the absolute highest level I have ever seen. We’re talking about top secret, compartmentalised code word stuff, and it would be tragic to American intelligence collection for those sources to be put at risk.”
The FBI has been accused by the Senate Judiciary Committee of going “rogue” with the Russia investigation, with one senator describing it as the “biggest scandal in the history of the FBI” on Tuesday.
Mr Trump has repeatedly railed against the FBI for the investigation and maintained there was “no collusion” between his 2016 presidential campaign and Russia.
In 2019, after a report by former FBI director Robert Mueller concluded that Mr Trump’s campaign did not conspire with Russia during the 2016 election – but did not clear him of obstruction of justice – Mr Trump tweeted: “No Collusion, No Obstruction, Complete and Total EXONERATION. KEEP AMERICA GREAT!”
During the hearing on Tuesday, Mr McCabe pointed out that Mr Trump fired then-director James B Comey in 2017 after Mr Comey refused to close an investigation into the president’s national security at the time, or say publicly that Mr Trump himself was not under investigation.
Mr McCabe said: “It became pretty clear to us that he did not want us to continue investigating what the Russians had done.
“We had many reasons at that point to believe that the president might himself pose a danger to national security and that he might have engaged in obstruction of justice, if the firing of the director and those other things were geared towards elimination or stopping our investigation of Russian activity.”
How the Koch brothers used their massive fortune to power a conservative crusade that reshaped American politics
Business Insider
How the Koch brothers used their massive fortune to power a conservative crusade that reshaped American politics
- The Koch Brothers fueled a conservative crusade that profoundly reshaped American politics.
- They built an influential network of donors aligned with their libertarian ideals of free-markets and lower taxes.
- Charles Koch recently wrote he had misgivings about the partisanship he fostered in a new book. “Boy, did we screw up! What a mess!” he wrote.
- Here’s a look at how the Koch brothers realigned the nation’s politics with their libertarian brand of conservatism.
Charles Koch is in the news after he shared lines from his newest book in a Wall Street Journal interview published Friday. He expressed regret for his role powering a conservative crusade that forever changed American politics.
“Boy, did we screw up! What a mess!” he wrote.
David and Charles Koch became a colossal political force in recent decades. Since the 1970s, they personally donated at least $100 million to aid the rise of the Tea Party movement and bolster the Republican Party, according to The New York Times.
They built an influential network of donors aligned with their libertarian ideals of free-markets, lower taxes, and shrinking the size of the federal government. As their network poured money into recent election cycles, critics assailed it as the “Kochtopus.”
The Koch brothers also funded initiatives that undercut climate science, and both “vehemently opposed the government taking any action on climate change that would hurt their fossil fuel profits,” author Jane Mayer wrote in her book “Dark Money.”
Here’s a look at how the Koch brothers realigned the nation’s politics with their libertarian brand of conservatism.
David Koch ran as the vice-presidential candidate for the Libertarian party in 1980, attacking campaign donation limits and calling for the repeal of laws criminalizing drug use and homosexuality. The loss compelled him to reevaluate his political approach, planting the seeds for the extensive donor network he would help create.
The Koch brothers founded Americans for Prosperity in 2004, now one of the most influential conservative political organizations. It counts more than 700 wealthy donors in its ranks and has chapters in 36 states. Its influence is only rivaled by the Republican Party.
The Koch Brothers were credited with financially aiding the rise of the Tea Party movement, which wrested control of the House for Republicans in the 2010 midterms at the tail end of President Barack Obama’s first term.
The Kochs backed the American Legislative Exchange Council, an organization of conservative state lawmakers and business lobbyists. They’ve drafted “model legislation” that lawmakers have introduced to cut taxes, weaken environmental protections, and promote other conservative ideas. More than 600 of them have become law across the US.
The Kochs have used their network to support academic programs and centers at colleges across the nation that teach conservative economic principles and theories. Its generated controversy from critics who argue it gives conservative organizations too much power in hiring and firing professors and researchers.
Source: Center for Public Integrity
As key players in the fossil fuel industry, the Koch brothers staunchly opposed efforts to fight climate change and have downplayed its risks. After the Supreme Court’s decision in Citizens United in 2011, the Kochs unleashed a wave of political advertising to elect Republicans who wouldn’t pass new environmental regulations.
Sources: Washington Post, The New York Times
During the 2016 presidential election, the Koch network spent around $750 million, putting it almost on par with the amount spent by the Republican Party. But the Kochs didn’t back Trump, and they’ve been critical of his policies on trade and immigration.
The Kochs ramped up their political efforts during the 2018 midterms, vowing to spend up to $400 million to support conservative candidates . But they lost many of their races and Democrats recaptured the House, exposing limits to their influence.
Source: Center for Responsive Politics.
The Kochs were key supporters of the First Step Act, a bipartisan criminal justice legislation that became law earlier this year. It was aimed at reducing recidism rates among federal prisoners, expanding early-release programs and modifying sentencing laws.
Charles Koch said in a Wall Street Journal interview published Friday he regretted the conservative partisanship he fostered. He shared several lines from his new book.
Boy, did we screw up!” he writes in his new book, “Believe in People: Bottom-Up Solutions for a Top-Down World.” “What a mess!
Michigan governor seeks shutdown of Great Lakes oil pipeline
Associated Press
Michigan governor seeks shutdown of Great Lakes oil pipeline
John Flesher
TRAVERSE CITY, Mich. (AP) — Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer took legal action Friday to shut down a pipeline that carries oil beneath a channel linking two of the Great Lakes.
Whitmer’s office notified Canadian company Enbridge Inc. that it was revoking an easement granted 67 years ago to extend a roughly 4-mile (6.4-kilometer) section of the pipeline through the Straits of Mackinac. The revocation takes effect in 180 days, when the flow of oil must stop.
“Enbridge has routinely refused to take action to protect our Great Lakes and the millions of Americans who depend on them for clean drinking water and good jobs,” the Democratic governor said in a statement. “They have repeatedly violated the terms of the 1953 easement by ignoring structural problems that put our Great Lakes and our families at risk.
“Most importantly, Enbridge has imposed on the people of Michigan an unacceptable risk of a catastrophic oil spill in the Great Lakes that could devastate our economy and way of life.”
Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel filed a lawsuit Friday to carry out Whitmer’s decision. Another pending case that Nessel filed last year targets the pipeline as a public nuisance.
Enbridge said there was “no credible basis” for Whitmer’s action.
“Line 5 remains safe, as envisioned by the 1953 Easement, and as recently validated by our federal safety regulator,” said Vern Yu, the company’s president for liquids pipelines.
Line 5 is part of Enbridge’s Lakehead network, which carries oil from western Canada to refineries in the U.S. and Ontario. The pipeline moves about 23 million gallons (87 million liters) daily between Superior, Wisconsin, and Sarnia, Ontario, traversing parts of northern Michigan and Wisconsin.
The underwater section beneath the Straits of Mackinac, which connects Lake Huron and Lake Michigan, is divided into two pipes that are 20 inches (50 centimeters) in diameter. Enbridge says they are in good condition and have never leaked.
Environmentalists say they’re vulnerable and that closing Line 5 should be part of a global effort to curb use of climate-warming fossil fuels.
“Line 5 remains exposed to uncontrollable and powerful forces, including exceptionally strong currents, lakebed scouring, new anchor and cable strikes and corrosion,” said Liz Kirkwood of For Love of Water.
Enbridge reached an agreement with then-Gov. Rick Snyder, a Republican, in 2018 to replace the underwater portion with a new pipe that would be housed in a tunnel to be drilled through bedrock beneath the straits.
The company is seeking state and federal permits for the $500 million project, which is not affected by Whitmer’s shutdown order.
Environmental activists, native tribes and some elected officials began pushing to decommission Line 5 after another Enbridge pipe spilled at least 843,000 gallons (3.2 million liters) of oil in the Kalamazoo River in southern Michigan in 2010.
Pressure grew as the company reported gaps in protective coating and installed supports when erosion opened wide spaces between sections of pipe and the lake bed.
An anchor dragged by a commercial tug and barge dented both pipes in April 2018. One of the pipeline supports was damaged this summer, apparently by a boat cable.
In a termination notice, Whitmer’s office said the easement should not have been granted in 1953. Placing the pipes beneath a busy shipping lane with no protective cover violated the state’s duty to protect the public’s interest in Great Lakes waters and bottomlands, the document said.
It referred to a Michigan Technological University report that said oil discharged in the straits could harm fish and foul hundreds of miles of beaches, dunes and wetlands.
The notice said Enbridge repeatedly violated a requirement that the pipelines rest on the lake bed or have other supports at least every 75 feet (22 meters). Spaces exceeding the threshold have been detected as far back as 1963 and most were never dealt with, it said.
Enbridge has repeatedly defended its operation of the pipeline, saying the coating gaps posed no serious threat. It has installed more than 120 supports to improve stability and stepped up patrols and other measures to prevent anchor strikes.
The company said shutting down Line 5 would cause shortages of crude oil for refineries in Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and eastern Canada, as well as propane shortages in northern Michigan. It also would boost shipments of oil by rail or trucks, Enbridge said.
“Today’s move would kill jobs and increase fuel costs,” said Geno Alessandrini of the Michigan Laborers Union, which joined industry groups in criticizing Whitmer’s decision. “That’s the last thing Michigan needs as we work to overcome the coronavirus pandemic.”
Republican state Sen. Jim Stamas said the governor had sided with “environmental extremists” instead of “hardworking Northern Michigan families.”
Democratic U.S. Sen. Gary Peters, a member of the Senate committee that oversees the U.S. Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, endorsed Whitmer’s move and said he would work with officials “to swiftly evaluate alternatives to Line 5 while continuing to hold Enbridge accountable.”
‘What a mess’: Billionaire Charles Koch says he regrets fueling partisanship
Independent
‘What a mess’: Billionaire Charles Koch says he regrets fueling partisanship
Charles Koch, the libertarian tycoon who helped funnel billions of dollars to conservative causes and politicians around the country, says the era of hyper-partisanship he helped create was a “mess.”
“Boy, did we screw up!” he writes in a forthcoming book, according to the Wall Street Journal. “What a mess!”
He also wrote that backing the Tea Party, a grassroots conservative movement advocating for low taxes and small government that challenged both Democrats and mainstream Republicans during the Obama years, did not pan out either.
“It seems to me the tea party was largely unsuccessful long-term, given that we’re coming off a Republican administration with the largest government spending in history,” he told the paper.
They are stunning admissions—or perhaps just canny post-Trump messaging—from an individual who is arguably the most influential person in US politics outside of the politicians themselves.
The Koch network of donors and organizations has funded numerous Republican political campaigns; helped nurture the Tea Party; backed advocacy groups and think tanks like the American Enterprise Institute, the Cato Institute, and Americans for Prosperity; bankrolled climate change denialism across the country; and helped fund roughly 1000 faculty members at 200 universities.
They acted, in the words of one writer, as “a private political bank capable of bestowing unlimited amounts of money on favored candidates, and doing it with virtually no disclosure of its source,” thanks to the Citizens United decision and other rulings rolling back political spending limits from individuals and corporations.
In recent years, the Koch network has increasingly diverged from the Republican party of Donald Trump. It didn’t support his campaigns in 2016 or 2020, and Mr. Koch once compared the president’s Muslim ban to Nazi Germany.
And the president has no love lost for them either, thanks to public spats on issues like trade
In 2018, the Koch network announced it would begin supporting certain Democrats who aligned with their priorities, and the billionaire executive, 85, says he hopes to spend his final act in politics working on bipartisan solutions to issues like immigration and criminal-justice reform.
Despite the change in rhetoric, Koch Industries, the conglomerate responsible for Mr. Koch’s fortune, donated $2.8 million in 2020 to Republicans via its political action committee and employee donations, compared to $221,000 to Democrats.