Democrats Are One Vote Shy of Bypassing the Filibuster. Some Say They Should Have Won It in Wisconsin

Time

Democrats Are One Vote Shy of Bypassing the Filibuster. Some Say They Should Have Won It in Wisconsin

Mini Racker – January 3, 2023

WI Democratic Senate Candidate Mandela Barnes Campaigns 2 Days Before Midterms

Wisconsin Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes, who lost a bid for U.S. Senate last year, speaks to supporters on November 6, 2022 in Milwaukee. Credit – Scott Olson—Getty Images

Senator Chuck Schumer, the majority leader, is set to gavel in the new Senate on Tuesday after midterm elections in which his party retained all of its seats and picked up an additional one in Pennsylvania. Yet despite the good fortunes for Democrats, efforts to advance their agenda in the Senate will largely remain blocked by two speed bumps: Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema.

In the Senate, opponents can derail most bills with a filibuster unless supporters have 60 votes. Democrats need 50 votes to bypass the filibuster. They have 49. Manchin, the most conservative Senate Democrat, opposes changing Senate rules to allow his party to pass more bills with a simple majority. So does Sinema, who recently became an independent and has said she won’t caucus with Democrats. That leaves Democrats one vote shy of bypassing the filibuster on issues like abortion and voting rights.

In the minds of some progressives, the crucial 50th vote was within reach in Wisconsin, where right-wing Sen. Ron Johnson’s margin of victory was 1%. It was the closest Senate race that Democrats lost last year, and one that supporters of Democrat Mandela Barnes say raises uncomfortable questions about the limits of the party’s support for progressive candidates, particularly Black ones.

“I think that there’s certain powers that be that also have a vested interest in progressives and people of color not winning in swing states, because what that means is that the floodgates are open and more progressives can run,” says Adam Green, co-founder of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, which supported Barnes’ campaign.

In the weeks before Election Day, Republicans seized on crime as a sore spot for Barnes. Ads against the Wisconsin Democrat painted him as “too dangerous” for the state. One included his name overlaid on a crime scene. Critics said the ads played on racist fears of Black men. Democrats both in Wisconsin and nationally feared the strategy was working.

“Every digital outlet, anything with a screen, was screaming with anti-Barnes propaganda,” says Ben Wikler, the chairman of the Wisconsin Democratic Party. “I don’t know a single Democrat in Wisconsin who wasn’t ripping their hair out in September. There was a sense of worry, bordering on panic.”

Barnes’ campaign raised more than $40 million and outside groups spent tens of millions more backing him. But all that paled in comparison to what Johnson supporters poured into the race. Johnson’s backers included the usual Republican juggernauts, as well as a super PAC partly funded by Liz and Dick Uihlein, top GOP megadonors who have a summer home in the state.

While earlier polls saw Barnes leading, Johnson began to eclipse him in September. Johnson ultimately won re-election by about 27,000 votes, out of more than 2.6 million cast. Some Barnes supporters are convinced a little extra money in the final stretch could have made all the difference. “The reality here is, five million more dollars spent in September, we probably win this race,” says campaign manager Kory Kozloski.

‘Garbage Partisan Polls’

Heading into the election season, Johnson was widely viewed as the most vulnerable Republican Senator. Not only was he the only one running in a state that President Biden narrowly won in 2020, but his approval rating was among the lowest in the Senate. In recent years, he has expressed openness to anti-vaccine conspiracy theories, advanced baseless claims of election fraud, and downplayed the Jan. 6 attack. To Democrats, his positions appeared too extreme for voters in battleground Wisconsin.

Throughout the Democratic primary, Barnes remained the frontrunner. The state’s first Black lieutenant governor, Barnes frequently drew comparisons to former President Barack Obama for his potential to make history again—he would have been Wisconsin’s first Black senator—but also for his ability to appeal to a multiracial coalition of working-class people.

His record also included potential drawbacks. While serving in the state assembly, Barnes built a reputation as a staunch progressive, particularly on criminal justice issues. His sponsorship of a plan to end cash bail became an especially salient campaign issue last year after a man released on bail killed six by driving his car through the Waukesha Christmas parade. Barnes argued that his proposed bail reforms would have kept the perpetrator in jail, but Republicans pounced anyway. They also highlighted his history of questioning police budgets and a photo of Barnes holding an “Abolish ICE” T-shirt. His campaign insisted Barnes did not support defunding the police or abolishing U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Among Barnes’ progressive allies, there’s a sense that national Democratic strategists and donors may have supported Barnes, but that their support was halfhearted, because they viewed his past statements on criminal justice as major liabilities. In the weeks ahead of Election Day, the pessimism around Barnes’ chances grew, with some Democrats privately predicting he could lose badly.

“The takeaway to me is to not pay attention to garbage partisan polls from the right,” Wikler says.

Maurice Mitchell, the national director of the Working Families Party, argues that those Democrats who painted Barnes as too progressive didn’t support him strongly enough in the aftermath of the primary, a lack of enthusiasm that dampened efforts to get deep-pocketed donors to spend what was needed on his behalf in Wisconsin.

“We have to invest in our young talent,” Mitchell says. “When Mandela is one of the more talented voices in the Democratic Party, this was the opportunity to show full investment, and it was a missed opportunity.”

Apart from their efforts protecting incumbents, Democrats made their most significant investments last year in Pennsylvania, where John Fetterman flipped a Senate seat. He did so despite a criminal justice record that Republicans portrayed as prioritizing the treatment of criminals over public safety—the very same attack that stymied Barnes.

To be clear, national Democrats also put lots of money into helping Barnes win. After Fetterman, Barnes was the non-incumbent who got the most outside spending. Senate Majority PAC, which is affiliated with Schumer, and other affiliates invested over $40 million in paid media in the race, starting attacks against Johnson early in the year and outspending its Republican counterpart during the general election period. But according to data provided by the Barnes campaign, that dynamic shifted drastically in September, when outside spending on ads attacking Barnes dwarfed outside spending on anti-Johnson ads, largely thanks to Johnson’s wealthy backers.

One Wisconsin political strategist noted to TIME that John Stocks, a former executive director of the National Education Association who now advises some of the country’s wealthiest left-of-center donors on which candidates to support, did not push donors to invest in Barnes. Stocks declined to comment.

‘A Strategic Mistake’

The closeness of Johnson’s win has some progressives lamenting the money Democrats spent elsewhere. They complain most frequently about Tim Ryan, the Democratic nominee in the Ohio Senate race who portrayed himself as a moderate and lost by six points to J.D. Vance, the author of Hillbilly Elegy who won the GOP primary with the backing of Donald Trump.

“Whether explicitly or implicitly, it’s like, ‘Oh, we have kind of a white guy populist running in Ohio,’” says Green, with the Progressive Change Campaign Committee. “It spoke to some people in a way that a Black progressive running in Wisconsin did not, and that’s really unfortunate, resulting in some very bad political choices.”

Ryan was long considered a longshot in Ohio, where Trump won two years earlier by 8 percentage points. Senate Majority PAC did not spend in the Ohio Senate race, but other Democratic groups did. Among those who prioritized Ohio was Dmitri Mehlhorn, who advises LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman and other wealthy donors.

“We got [Republicans] to spend a bunch of money,” says Mehlhorn, reflecting on the decision to spend in Ohio. “That money, along with critical attention and time, came at the expense of Republican efforts in other battlegrounds. If the GOP hadn’t had to spend that effort in Ohio, would they win Nevada?”

Mehlhorn adds that his network of donors did invest millions in Wisconsin, including by donating to Barnes’ campaign directly.

“That said, we believe that our allies in Wisconsin benefit from our work to expand the map,” he says.

The contrast between the Ohio and Wisconsin results could inform how Democrats approach a tough Senate map in 2024. Barnes’ narrow loss provides a proof point that a young, Black progressive can be competitive in a swing state in the middle of the country, and suggests the fears about his criminal justice record were not as much of a handicap as some Democrats had feared.

“I think in the end, you see that that underestimated how good a candidate he was,” says Charles Franklin, who runs the Marquette Law School Poll in Wisconsin.

But while progressives suggest that the difference between a win and a loss in Wisconsin was more investment, others wonder if the Barnes campaign made a strategic error in not directly rebutting Johnson’s attacks earlier on.

“The remaining question is, was there a campaign strategy during that first month, where he might have hit back harder, might have moved away from his more positive campaigns sooner?” Franklin asks.

Throughout the general election, Barnes’ campaign centered the Democrat’s own uplifting biography, while attacking Johnson mostly on abortion.

“When [voters] got to know him, they didn’t believe the ads,” says Kozloski. “They saw through all the BS that the Republicans were trying to throw at him.”

Ultimately, what Republicans threw at Barnes cost him the race. What remains to be seen is what strategy Democrats will pursue to shield their candidates from such attacks in the future—or if they’ll pursue any new strategy at all.

“It’s very easy, after electoral losses like that, to learn the wrong lessons, or not learn a lesson at all, and just kind of move forward,” Mitchell says. “And we think that that would be a strategic mistake.”

Incoming Iowa attorney general Brenna Bird tells 19 staffers to resign

The Des Moines Register

Incoming Iowa attorney general Brenna Bird tells 19 staffers to resign

Jared Strong/Capital Dispatch – January 3, 2023

The incoming, newly elected Iowa attorney general has asked for the resignations of 19 current staffers, including many in leadership positions but also some longtime staff attorneys, according to Lynn Hicks, a spokesperson for the office who was among those asked to resign.

Brenna Bird, a Republican county attorney who defeated longtime Attorney General Tom Miller, a Democrat, in the November election, requested the resignations on Dec. 22, according to letters obtained by Iowa Capital Dispatch.

“We appreciate your past service to the State of Iowa,” wrote Sam Langholz, whom Bird has selected as her chief deputy when she takes control of the office next week. “But the people of Iowa have elected a new attorney general. To best serve them — and to do the things she told Iowans she would do — the Attorney General-Elect is realigning the office and building a new team that matches her vision for the office.”

Bird pledged during her election campaign to more vigorously defend laws enacted by the Republican-controlled Legislature and to challenge policies enacted by President Joe Biden, a Democrat.

Langholz, former senior counsel for Gov. Kim Reynolds, has worked for the attorney general’s office for about two years and has helped defend against challenges to the governor’s policies and administrative actions.

His letter to 19 of his colleagues asked that their resignations be effective at 8:30 a.m. Jan. 3, at the latest.

“We are timing this transition date and time so that you will receive holiday pay on January 2, regular pay for 30 minutes on January 3, and your normal health insurance coverage for the month of January,” Langholz wrote.

He said the notices of resignation were due on Dec. 28 — six days after the letters were sent.

Hicks, who is Miller’s chief of staff, is among at least 10 who have acquiesced to the requests or had already planned to resign, according to copies of the resignation letters and other information he provided to Capital Dispatch with the consent of the employees. He identified a total of 13 of those asked to resign.

The 19 employees represent less than 10% of the total staff, which has about 150 assistant attorneys general and more than 200 people total, according to state salary records.

Replacing top staffers is common when someone new is elected to a statewide executive position, especially when they are tied to a different political party. However, the letters also targeted attorneys more closely involved in litigating cases, several of whom have been with the office for more than two decades.

“It has been my great honor serving the people of the state of Iowa — particularly the most vulnerable amongst us including older Iowans, veterans, and other at-risk individuals — and am disappointed that I was asked to resign,” wrote Chantelle Smith, an assistant attorney general whose focus is elder abuse and who has been employed by the office since about 2000, according to state records.

Hicks said others who were asked to resign include:

Nathan Blake, the chief deputy attorney general.
Jessica Whitney, the deputy attorney general for public protection and the director of the office’s Consumer Protection Division.
Matt Gannon, the first assistant attorney general, who wrote in his resignation letter: “I wish you success. I have my doubts.”
Chandlor Collins, director of the Human Services Division.
Emily Willits, director of the Licensing and Administrative Law Division.
Sandi Tibbetts Murphy, director of the Crime Victim Assistance Division who wrote in her resignation letter: “It has been a singular honor to serve the people of Iowa, and specifically victims of crime, as part of this Division and I hope that its groundbreaking and pivotal work continues unabated.” Bird has said she might overhaul the division, given her experience prosecuting crimes and interacting with victims of those crimes.
Heather Adams, an assistant attorney general who specializes in licensing and administrative law and public health who had worked for the office since 1994. She told Capital Dispatch: “I do not know why I was asked to resign. I, too, was deeply disappointed to be asked to submit my resignation. I have faithfully served the office, the public, and my public health clients for nearly 30 years — in a nonpartisan manner.”
Mari Culver, an assistant attorney general who specializes in consumer protection. She is the spouse of former Iowa Gov. Chet Culver, a Democrat.
Ashlee Kieler, a communications specialist who had already submitted her resignation.
Ellen Ramsey-Kacena, an assistant attorney general who specializes in human services and family law.
Donn Stanley, an assistant attorney general who specializes in consumer protection. Stanley has worked for the office for about two decades and previously held leadership roles. He also took a leave of absence from the office to be campaign manager for Gov. Culver in 2010.
Sharon Wegner, an assistant attorney general in the Special Litigation Division.

Iowa Attorney General Brenna Bird, who took office Tuesday.

Langholz noted that Miller also installed his “own team” to lead the office after he was first elected in 1978, based on media accounts at the time, and that the number of requested resignations are less than 8% of the total staff. They are at-will employees and “can be terminated at any time and for any lawful reason,” Langholz said.

“To implement her vision for the office, the Attorney General-elect will build a new team that shares her goals and values,” according to a prepared statement Langholz provided. “The Attorney General-elect appreciates the service to Iowa from the individuals leaving the office.”

Outgoing NY House rep on George Santos: ‘I’m being succeeded by a con man’

The Hill

Outgoing NY House rep on George Santos: ‘I’m being succeeded by a con man’

Caroline Vakil – January 3, 2023

Rep. Thomas Suozzi (D), whose New York seat was won by Rep.-elect George Santos (R) in November, said in an op-ed published on Tuesday that he was being “succeeded by a con man” amid rising controversy about Santos’s credentials.

Suozzi, who currently represents New York’s 3rd Congressional District and will be leaving Congress after he forwent reelection to run for governor, wrote in an editorial for The New York Times that Santos “must be removed by Congress or by prosecutors, because there is no indication that he will be moved by conscience to voluntarily resign.”

“Sure, some candidates say and do anything to get into office and then abuse the public trust. In Mr. Santos, we have someone who abused the public trust even before he got into office; it’s mind-boggling to think what his actions and conversations will be like in Congress on behalf of his constituents,” Suozzi wrote in the Times. “I know from my experience as a mayor of my hometown, as a county executive and as a member of Congress that you cannot get things done without building trust with your colleagues. How can Mr. Santos be trusted? How could he be effective?”

House lawmakers have urged for an investigation into the New York Republican after reporting from the Times published last month noted inconsistencies about Santos’s claims about his personal and professional history, including graduating from Baruch College in New York and working for Goldman Sachs and Citigroup.

The Long Island Republican eventually admitted he had been guilty of “embellishing my resume” during an interview with the New York Post later in December, and a prosecutor in New York, who is a Republican, later announced she would be opening an investigation into Santos.

It’s unclear if Santos will resign, though many, including Suozzi, have called on him to step down. House GOP leadership has largely remained silent about the controversy given the slim Republican majority in the House and Santos’s expressed support for a Speakership vote for House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.).

For first time in decades Iowa has an all-Republican congressional delegation. Here’s what they want to do

The Des Moines Register

For first time in decades Iowa has an all-Republican congressional delegation. Here’s what they want to do

Katie Akin, Des Moines Register – January 3, 2023

When U.S. Rep-elect Zach Nunn swears into office on Tuesday, it mark the first time since the 1950s that Iowa’s D.C. delegation will be comprised of entirely Republicans.

It’s the result of a strong midterm election cycle for the Iowa GOP: Nunn won election to Iowa’s 3rd District seat in November, ousting two-term incumbent Democrat Cindy Axne. Republican incumbents won reelection to the state’s other three U.S. House seats.

Nunn anticipates Iowa’s four Republican votes will give the state more power in the House, where Republicans will hold a majority in 2023.

“This is the loudest voice that Iowa is going to have in Washington, basically since the Eisenhower administration,” Nunn told the Des Moines Register.

Flanked by his family, 3rd Congressional District candidate Zach Nunn, a Republican, addresses his supporters during the Iowa GOP election night celebration on Tuesday, Nov. 8, 2022, at the Hilton Des Moines Downtown.

Iowans also reelected U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley to his eighth Senate term. He will join Republican U.S. Sen. Joni Ernst, who has another four years remaining in her term.

However, Iowa’s “red wave” was an outlier in the country where Democrats hung onto seats and cling to their control of the U.S. Senate. After two years of a Democratic trifecta, Congress will be divided in 2023, making it harder for either party to push through their priorities.

More:The Republican red wave foundered nationally, but in Iowa it swept away Democrats

In pre-election candidate surveys, recent statements and interviews with the Register, Iowa’s congressional representatives outlined their goals for the upcoming term: curbing inflation, addressing illegal immigration and promoting the year-round sale of biofuels. They also highlighted potential bipartisan efforts, including bills to lower prescription drug prices and support community colleges.

Lawmakers promise to focus on biofuels, economy, ‘reducing government interference’

Incumbent U.S. Reps. Randy Feenstra, Ashley Hinson and Mariannette Miller-Meeks each said in pre-election surveys: promoting and legalizing the year-round use of biofuels would be a top domestic priority for 2023.

Under current law, higher ethanol blends may not be sold in the summer months due to concerns about increased air pollution. President Joe Biden temporarily waived that standard in 2022 to help combat high fuel prices, but Iowa leaders called for a more permanent change.

“I am committed to proving that clean, renewable energy is attainable for every state by using Iowa as a framework to show how it can be done,” Miller-Meeks had said.

Hinson argued that focusing on biofuels will help address inflation, which appeared to be soaring before the election.

“I am championing an all-of-the-above energy strategy that prioritizes Iowa biofuels to bring down the cost of gas and restore our energy independence while boosting Iowa’s agriculture economy,” Hinson ha d said.

Nunn said his top domestic priority would be addressing inflation and “reducing government interference with our lives.” As he did on the campaign trail, Nunn called for the federal government to mirror Iowa, where the Republican-led Legislature championed tax cuts and a budget surplus.

“It was the number one issue that I heard when I knocked on doors,” he said. “It’s the number one issue that I still continue to get email about.”

Meanwhile, Grassley said Friday he was calling on the Biden administration to make a New Year’s resolution for “border security.”

“The Biden administration’s border policies are allowing Mexican drug cartels to rule the roost along our southern border. And that has created grievous harm to the social fabric of America,” Grassley’s statement said. “Let’s ring in the New Year with a commitment to stop the humanitarian and drug trafficking crises at our border once and for all.”

Ernst also said “our national security and defense remain top of mind” as she goes into the 2023 session.

“While we secured a number of strong priorities in this year’s defense package, I’ll continue to push legislation that ensures our military remains the most lethal fighting force on the face of the planet,” Ernst said in a statement Thursday.

More:Republicans appear poised to expand majorities in Iowa Legislature after election red wave

Iowa may be all red but ‘there’s still a lot of opportunity for good bipartisan work’

Republicans won a slim majority in the U.S. House — a power shift that included Nunn’s flipped 3rd District seat.

But with Democrats controlling the Senate and Biden still in office, Iowa’s all-red delegation will need to work across the aisle to get anything signed into law.

“I’m not naive,” Nunn said. “I think it’s gonna be challenging… but there’s still a lot of opportunity for good bipartisan work to happen.”

Nunn and Grassley had said they were interested in working with Democrats to lower the cost of prescription drugs. Grassley has pointed toward a 2019 bill he sponsored with U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden, a Democrat, to cap out-of-pocket prices for medication. That bill passed a Senate Finance Committee vote that year, when Republicans controlled the Senate. It has not advanced since.

“Our bipartisan bill would lower costs without harming life-saving cures and treatments the American people expect,” Grassley has said.

Miller-Meeks, an ophthalmologist, was also hopeful that lawmakers could find common ground on medical issues. She highlighted a bipartisan proposal to improve protocols for step therapy, a practice that requires patients to try cheaper medications before being prescribed more costly prescriptions.

Ernst said she intends to use her role on the Democrat-led Senate Small Business Committee to address childcare shortages. She also emphasized the importance of the annual farm bill, promising to “prioritize the needs of Iowa’s farmers and growers on the Senate Agriculture Committee.”

Hinson said hopes to work with Democrats on community college programs and expanding Pell Grants. Feenstra said he intends to keep pushing for a bipartisan bill to require more price transparency from major meatpacking companies.

The next stage of Russia’s secular decline comes in 2023

Los Angeles Times

Op-Ed: The next stage of Russia’s secular decline comes in 2023

Simon Johnson – January 3, 2023

People watch as Russian President Vladimir Putin delivers his speech after a ceremony to sign the treaties for four regions of Ukraine to join Russia in the Moscow's Kremlin, during a meeting in Sevastopol, Crimea, Friday, Sept. 30, 2022. The signing of the treaties making the four regions part of Russia follows the completion of the Kremlin-orchestrated "referendums." (AP Photo) — Russian President Vladimir Putin delivers a speech in September declaring the annexation of four regions of Ukraine. (Associated Press)

After a year of big surprises, led by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the global spike in inflation rates, and the collapse of cryptocurrency ventures, what kind of year will 2023 prove to be? This kind of short-run question is hard to answer because repercussions of global events can spread so quickly and unpredictably. But the last 12 months highlighted one major trend that will shape what happens next, in 2023 and beyond: the decline of Russia.

Russian aggression is nothing new. Moscow has been invading other countries since the mid-1990s and has occupied parts of Ukrainian territory since 2014. But the brutality of Russia’s attacks in Ukraine since last February and the most recent phase, destroying civilian energy infrastructure, is widely seen as amounting to a war crime. It is unlikely to change the course of the war, which Russia is losing.

In the bigger picture, Russia has again entered a period of secular decline, during which it will have limited access to Western investment, technology or consumer goods. Russia’s empires have collapsed before, in 1917-18 and again when the Soviet Union imploded in 1989-91. In both cases, the collapse took a while to get going, and then proved quite complete. Of course, historically Russia has also been able to reassert control over time, and during the 1990s, by getting a lot of help from Western companies.

This time, too, we should expect a long struggle for power within Russia, with serious existential risks for the world, including who ends up controlling Russian nuclear weapons. But the more direct economic impact will be reflected in the world energy market.

Demand for Russian fossil fuels is way down. Before its 2022 invasion of Ukraine, Russia produced about 10.8 million barrels of oil per day, of which around 8 million were exported either as crude or refined products. The sharp decline in Russian economic activity means that more oil is available for export, but the European Union, the United States, and their allies are now buying crude from other suppliers — and the same will be true for refined products from February 2023.

The International Energy Agency predicts that Russian oil exports will fall to around 6 million barrels per day over 2023-24. Over the medium term, India might buy 1-2 million barrels and China could sop up the rest — assuming both countries want to become more dependent on a malevolent and unreliable partner.

Purchases by India, China, and a few others can still result in a lot of free cash flow and tax revenue for Russia. Whoever leads Russia will put much of these proceeds into building and buying weapons — including missiles with which it can hit a wide range of countries from long distance. NATO member countries are, one hopes, protected to some extent by the threat of retaliation, but Russia can be expected to engage in sabotage and other deniable attacks on Western energy infrastructure and similar vulnerable strategic targets.

During the Cold War, the Soviet Union was careful not to attack Western Europe and the U.S. too directly (and vice versa). Instead, both sides used proxy wars and other forms of pressure. This time, however, we should expect much more direct confrontation. The Russian elite have boxed themselves into a corner, with a bizarre set of beliefs — right-wing nationalism on steroids — and long-range weapons. Giving ground to these extremists will only embolden them to take more.

The need to limit over time how much cash Russia can spend on aggression is why the price cap on Russian oil exports is so important. The evidence so far is that this is working as intended.

But further measures are needed, including accelerated investments in renewable energy to reduce world demand for oil. If we continue to depend on Russia and its allies in the OPEC+ cartel, the ability to disrupt our economies will remain immense. There is now a pressing national security dimension to the energy transition.

High inflation in the 1970s had multiple causes, beginning with tight economies in the 1960s and the Vietnam War. But the problems were exacerbated by two oil price shocks, in 1973 and 1979. OPEC+ members understand that they have the power to do this again, at a time of their choosing — or the next time Russia asks for a favor.

Oil demand and supply are quite unresponsive to oil prices in the short run, but historically quite responsive over five to 10 years. In 2023 and beyond, the West needs to focus more intently on reducing demand for fossil fuels, particularly oil, and increasing the supply of alternative energy sources outside the control of Russia and OPEC.

Simon Johnson, a former chief economist at the International Monetary Fund, is a professor at MIT Sloan School of Management.

Jared Kushner blocked Biden’s access to COVID-19 planning in the final days of the Trump era, former aide says

Insider

Jared Kushner blocked Biden’s access to COVID-19 planning in the final days of the Trump era, former aide says

Joshua Zitser – December 30, 2022

Jared Kushner denied Biden’s team access to COVID-19 plans in late 2020, a former aide said.
Kushner said Biden’s team should “absolutely not” be looped in, claimed Alyssa Farah Griffin.
She made the claim in a newly released transcript of her interview with the Jan. 6 House panel.

Jared Kushner ordered that the incoming Biden administration be excluded from COVID-19 planning in the aftermath of the 2020 election, a former aide said.

Alyssa Farah Griffin made the claim in an interview with the House select committee investigating the Capitol riot, according to a newly released transcript.

Farah Griffin told the panel that Kushner shot down the a suggestion to include President Joe Biden’s transition team in planning discussions after the election had been called for Biden, per the transcript.

At the time, Trump was angrily refusing to concede defeat, and hyping his baseless theory that the election had been stolen. Though he left office in January 2021, he continues to claim he won the 2020 vote.

In the transcript, Farah Griffin described former COVID Task Force coordinator Dr. Deborah Birx asking whether they should be “looping” the incoming Biden transition in.

“Jared just said, ‘Absolutely not,'” Farah Griffin told the panel. “And then we just moved on.”

Farah Griffin’s allegation, which was first reported by The Independent, is the first to directly put blame for the stonewalling on Kushner.

Biden officials complained at the time that the Trump administration was refusing them access to COVID-19 data in the weeks after the election.

Former Surgeon General Vivek Murthy told “Fox News Sunday” on November 15, 2020, that the Trump administration had stonewalled crucial COVID-19 data and plans.

Biden also said that week that Trump officials were harming the US by denying them access, per The New York Times.

“If we have to wait until January 20 to start that planning, it puts us behind,” Biden told reporters, referring to the date of his inauguration. “More people may die if we don’t coordinate.”

In the same speech, Biden pressed the Trump administration to provide more details about the allocation of COVID-19 vaccinations. “The sooner we have access to the administration’s distribution plan, the sooner this transition would be smoothly moved forward,” Biden said, per Politico.

It comes from one of the dozens of witness transcripts released by the January 6 committee in the past week.

Kushner did not immediately respond to Insider’s request for comment.

Greta Thunberg’s Response To Andrew Tate Getting Arrested Is One For The History Books

BuzzFeed

Greta Thunberg’s Response To Andrew Tate Getting Arrested Is One For The History Books

December 30, 2022

Twitter has been pretty fun for the past 24 hours all thanks to Greta Thunberg.

It all started with misogynistic internet personality, Andrew Tate, making a random swipe at Greta.

In case you didn’t know, Andrew Tate was banned from Twitter in 2017 for hate speech.

He was recently allowed back on the platform because of the new changes Elon Musk made.

- / Twitter account of Elon Musk/AFP via Getty Images — – / Twitter account of Elon Musk/AFP via Getty Images

He took this opportunity to tweet at climate activist Greta Thunberg about owning 33 cars:

Hello Greta Thurnberg: I have 33 cars. My Bugatti has a w16 8.0L quad turbo. My TWO Ferrari 812 competizione have 6.5L v12s. This is just the start. Please provide your email address so I can send a complete list of my car collection and their respective enormous emissions.

Greta responded:

yes, please do enlighten me. email me at smalldickenergy@getalife.com

Andrew Tate:

Hello Greta Thunberg: I have 33 cars. My Bugatti has a w16 8.0L quad turbo. My TWO Ferrari 812 competizione have 6.5L v12s. This is just the start. Please provide your email address so I can send a complete list of my car collection and their respective enormous emissions.

People on Twitter collectively lost their minds over her reply:

George Conway Replying to Greta Thunberg:

“this may well be the greatest tweet of all time”

And then Andrew tweeted this cigar smoking rant:

Thank you for confirming via your email address that you have a small penis @GretaThunberg

The world was curious.

And I do agree you should get a life ❤️ https://t.co/mHmiKHjDGH pic.twitter.com/SMisajQRcf
— Andrew Tate (@Cobratate) December 28, 2022

But there’s something in this video that Andrew is probably regretting…

The pizza box:

The pizza box is from a Romanian chain of restaurants.

That box apparently allowed police to locate him, and he and his brother were arrested on human trafficking charges:

BREAKING: Andrew Tate and brother Tristan arrested in Romania in human trafficking probe pic.twitter.com/b5eaZrErAb
— BNO News (@BNONews) December 29, 2022

But that’s not all!

Greta got the last word with her response to the arrest:

“this is what happens when you don’t recycle your pizza boxes”

Wowzaaa.

It’s just too real!!!

I think this tweet from George Takei sums it up best:

So…Elon Musk let Andrew Tate back on Twitter, and Tate promptly used it to reveal his whereabouts to authorities in Romania who then arrested him. All because Greta Thunberg owned him so hard his little wee-wee fell off. Do I have that right? Please say I have that right.

Happy New Year!

Key Takeaways From Trump’s Tax Returns

The New York Times

Key Takeaways From Trump’s Tax Returns

Jim Tankersley, Susanne Craig and Russ Buettner – December 30, 2022

Former President Donald Trump speaks at a rally inside the Alaska Airlines Center in Anchorage, Alaska, July 9, 2022. Thousands of pages of Trump's tax documents were released on Friday, Dec. 30. (Ash Adams/The New York Times) — Former President Donald Trump speaks at a rally inside the Alaska Airlines Center in Anchorage, Alaska, July 9, 2022. Thousands of pages of Trump’s tax documents were released on Friday, Dec. 30. (Ash Adams/The New York Times)

Democrats on the House Ways and Means Committee have followed through with their vow to make public six years of former President Donald Trump’s tax returns, giving the American public new insight into his business dealings and drawing threats of retaliation from congressional Republicans.

The release Friday morning contained thousands of pages of tax documents, including individual returns for Trump and his wife, Melania, as well as business returns for several of the hundreds of companies that make up the real estate mogul’s sprawling business organization.

The committee had this month released top-line details from the returns, which showed that Trump paid $1.1 million in federal income taxes during the first three years of his presidency, including just $750 in federal income tax in 2017, his first year in office. He paid no tax in 2020 as his income dwindled and his business losses mounted.

The documents contain new details not revealed in those earlier releases. New York Times reporters are combing the pages for key takeaways. Here is a list.

Trump made no charitable contributions in 2020.

As a presidential candidate in 2015, Trump said he would not take “even one dollar” of the $400,000 salary that comes with the job. “I am totally giving up my salary if I become president,” he said.

In his first three years in office, Trump said he donated his salary quarterly. But in 2020, his last full year in office, the documents show that Trump reported $0 in charitable giving.

Also in 2020, as the pandemic recession swiftly descended, Trump reported heavy business losses and no federal tax liability.

In the earlier years, White House officials made a point of highlighting which government agencies were receiving the money, starting with the National Park Service in 2017. The tax documents released Friday show that Trump reported charitable donations totaling nearly $1.9 million in 2017 and just over $500,000 in both 2018 and 2019.

In a bad year for business, Trump didn’t take a full refund.

Trump reported nearly $16 million in business losses in 2020, which swamped his other income and left him with no federal income tax liability. But the tax documents show that he made nearly $14 million in tax payments to the federal government over the course of the year.

Those payments left him with the potential for a large income tax refund from the government — like the ones many taxpayers find when they go to file their taxes every March. In Trump’s case, he chose not to take the full refund available to him. He claimed a refund of just under $5.5 million, then directed the IRS to apply another $8 million to his estimated taxes for 2021.

His own tax law may have cost him.

The tax law Trump signed in late 2017, which took effect the next year, contained some provisions that most likely gave him an advantage at tax time — including the scaling back of the alternative minimum tax on high earners.

But one provision in particular drastically reduced the income tax deductions Trump could claim in 2018 and beyond: limits that Republicans placed on deductions for state and local taxes paid.

The so-called SALT deduction disproportionately hit higher earners, including Trump, in high-tax cities and states like New York. In 2019, he reported paying $8.4 million in state and local taxes. Because of the SALT limits included in his tax law, he was able to deduct only $10,000 of those taxes paid on his federal income tax return.

Those losses could have been mitigated at least in part by other sections of the law that were favorable to wealthier taxpayers like Trump.

Fred Trump is a silent actor in the returns.

Fred Trump, Trump’s long-deceased father, has continued to have an effect on his son’s finances.

In 2018, after a decade in which the former president declared no taxable income, he reported taxable income of more than $24 million and paid $1 million in federal taxes, nearly the entire total he paid as president.

That income, as previously detailed by the Times, appeared to be the result of more than $14 million in gains from the sale of an investment his father made in the 1970s, a New York City housing complex named Starrett City, which became part of Trump’s inheritance.

But the new documents show that the effect of his inheritance in 2018 was far greater: Trump reported $25.7 million in gains from the sale of business properties that he and his siblings inherited or took through trusts, including the sale of Starrett City.

The sales of business properties Trump created himself came at a loss, however, dragging down his net proceeds and somewhat reducing his tax liability, the tax itemization shows.

That included a total of $1 million in property sold at a loss by 40 Wall St., his office building in Manhattan, and DJT Holdings LLC. He recorded another $1 million loss bailing his son Donald Trump Jr. out of a failed business to build prefabricated homes.

Trump also received tens of thousands of dollars in dividends while he was in the White House from trusts that were established for him when he was young, his tax returns show.

A new tax firm got involved in 2020.

For years, Trump used the accounting firm Mazars USA to prepare his taxes and those of his businesses. Donald Bender, Trump’s longtime accountant at Mazars, had long been listed on the former president’s taxes as his accountant.

The firm formally cut ties with Trump and his businesses this year, saying it could no longer stand behind a decade of annual financial statements it prepared for the Trump Organization.

But it turns out Mazars and Trump had begun distancing themselves from each other as early as 2020. That year, BKM Sowan Horan, a Texas-based accounting firm, prepared Trump’s taxes, his returns show.

Republicans are threatening retaliation.

The release of the documents Friday set off a new round of attacks between Democrats and Republicans on Capitol Hill, including threats of escalating — and politically motivated — future releases of private tax information.

Democrats cast the move as necessary oversight on a president who broke decades of precedent in declining to release his returns.

“Trump acted as though he had something to hide, a pattern consistent with the recent conviction of his family business for criminal tax fraud,” Rep. Don Beyer, D-Va., a Ways and Means Committee member, said in a news release. “As the public will now be able to see, Trump used questionable or poorly substantiated deductions and a number of other tax avoidance schemes as justification to pay little or no federal income tax in several of the years examined.”

But Republicans — who won control of the House in November — warned Democrats that they had started down a dangerous road and that public pressure could push the incoming majority to release returns from President Joe Biden’s family or a wide range of other private individuals.

“Going forward, all future chairs of both the House Ways and Means Committee and the Senate Finance Committee will have nearly unlimited power to target and make public the tax returns of private citizens, political enemies, business and labor leaders, or even the Supreme Court justices themselves,” Rep. Kevin Brady of Texas, the top Republican on the Ways and Means Committee, said in a statement Friday.

Trump weighed in late Friday morning in an email statement that also raised the threat of retaliation.

“The Democrats should have never done it, the Supreme Court should have never approved it, and it’s going to lead to horrible things for so many people,” he said. “The great USA divide will now grow far worse. The Radical Left Democrats have weaponized everything, but remember, that is a dangerous two-way street!”

Congressman says Donald Trump ‘abused his power’ to hide his finances on a scale not seen since Nixon

Insider

Congressman says Donald Trump ‘abused his power’ to hide his finances on a scale not seen since Nixon

Rebecca Cohen – December 30, 2022

Rep. Don Beyer said Donald Trump “abused his power” to hide his finances.
The Democrat compared Trump’s attempts to “block basic transparency” to Richard Nixon.
A House committee published six years’ worth of Trump’s tax returns on Friday after a years-long legal fight.

A Democratic congressman compared former President Donald Trump to Richard Nixon, saying Trump “abused his power” to hide his finances from the public.

“Despite promising to release his tax returns, Donald Trump refused to do so, and abused the power of his office to block basic transparency on his finances and conflicts of interest which no president since Nixon has foregone,” Democratic Virginia Rep. Don Beyer said in a statement Friday.

Six years of Trump’s personal and business tax returns were released by the House Ways and Means Committee on Friday.

Beyer accused the former president of having “something to hide” as he refused to release tax documents as presidents since Nixon had done and fought Congress’ attempts to access them.

“As the public will now be able to see,” Beyer continued, “Trump used questionable or poorly substantiated deductions and a number of other tax avoidance schemes as justification to pay little or no federal income tax in several of the years examined.”

Beyer noted that tax laws in the US are “often inequitable, and that enforcement of them is often unjust.”

“Trump was able to bypass even the mandatory IRS presidential audit program for years, but many other wealthy and powerful people evade billions in tax dues every year through more quotidian tax avoidance. Congress has so much work to do to make tax enforcement in this country fairer, and that will continue to be a major priority for me as a member of the Ways and Means Committee going forward,” Beyer said.

The Ways and Means Committee voted on December 20 to release Trump’s tax returns from 2015 to 2020 after a long legal battle in which none of the courts who heard the case — including the US Supreme Court — sided with Trump.

The returns revealed just how much Trump earned in each of those years, showing that the former president — who campaigned as a successful businessman and passed sweeping tax cuts while in office — told the IRS he lost millions in the years before and during his presidency.

Town-by-Town Battle to Sell Americans on Renewable Energy

The New York Times

A Town-by-Town Battle to Sell Americans on Renewable Energy

David Gelles – December 30, 2022

Brendan Burton of Ospur, Ill., an ironworker and farmer, welcomes the wind farm and the jobs it would bring to the area. (Mustafa Hussain/The New York Times)

MONTICELLO, Ill. — Depressed property values. Flickering shadows. Falling ice. One by one, a real estate appraiser rattled off what he said were the deleterious effects of wind farms as a crowd in an agricultural community in central Illinois hung on his every word.

It was the 10th night of hearings by the Piatt County zoning board, as a tiny town debated the merits of a proposed industrial wind farm that would see dozens of enormous turbines rise from the nearby soybean and corn fields. There were nine more hearings scheduled.

“It’s painful,” said Kayla Gallagher, a cattle farmer who lives nearby and opposes the project. “Nobody wants to be here.”

In the fight against global warming, the federal government is pumping a record $370 billion into clean energy, President Joe Biden wants the nation’s electricity to be 100% carbon-free by 2035, and many states and utilities plan to ramp up wind and solar power.

But while policymakers may set lofty goals, the future of the American power grid is, in fact, being determined in town halls, county courthouses and community buildings across the country.

The only way Biden’s ambitious goals will be met is if rural communities, which have large tracts of land necessary for commercial wind and solar farms, can be persuaded to embrace renewable energy projects. Lots of them.

According to an analysis by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, the United States would need to construct more than 6,000 projects like the Monticello one in order to run the economy on solar, wind, nuclear or other forms of nonpolluting energy.

In Piatt County, population 16,000, the project at issue is Goose Creek Wind, which has been proposed by Apex Clean Energy, a developer of wind and solar farms based in Virginia. Apex spent years negotiating leases with 151 local landowners and trying to win over the community, donating to the 4-H Club and a mental health center.

Now, it was making its case to the zoning board, which will send a recommendation to the county board that will make a final call on whether Apex can proceed. If completed, the turbines, each of them 610 feet tall, would march across 34,000 acres of farmland.

The $500 million project is expected to generate 300 megawatts, enough to power about 100,000 homes. The renewable, carbon-free electricity would help power a grid that is fed by a mix of nuclear, natural gas, coal and some existing wind turbines.

But with more and more renewable-energy projects under construction around the country, resistance is growing, especially in rural communities in the Great Plains and Midwest.

“To meet any kind of clean energy goals which brings consumer benefits and energy independence, you’re going to see an increase in projects,” said JC Sandberg, interim CEO of the American Clean Power Association. “And with those increases in projects, we are facing more of these challenges.”

On Election Day last month, Apex saw its development efforts for a wind farm in Ohio die when voters in Crawford County overwhelmingly voted to uphold a ban on such projects. On the same day, voters in Michigan rejected ordinances that would have allowed construction of another Apex wind project. This month, local officials in Monroe County, Michigan, extended a temporary moratorium on industrial solar projects, delaying plans by Apex to develop a solar farm in the area.

“Projects have been getting more contentious,” said Sarah Banas Mills, a lecturer at the school for environment and sustainability at the University of Michigan who has studied renewable development in the Midwest. “The low-hanging-fruit places have been taken.”

In Piatt County, the zoning board decided to conduct a mock trial of sorts. During the first nine hearings, Apex and its witnesses made the case that property values would not decline and that other concerns about wind farms — that they are ugly, that they kill birds or that the low frequency noise they emit can adversely affect human health — were not major issues.

They won some converts. Meg Miner, 61, a resident who was on the fence about the project, decided to support Apex after considering how the project would help fight climate change.

But others were worried about all the issues that the real estate appraiser mentioned, and more. “I moved here for nature, for trees, for crops,” said Sandy Coyle, who lives nearby and opposed the project. “I’m not interested in living near an industrial wind farm.”

Much of that skepticism appeared to be earnest concern from community members who weren’t sold on the project’s overall merits. On the fringe of the debate, however, was a digital misinformation campaign designed to distort the facts about wind energy.

The website of a group called Save Piatt County!, which opposes the project, is rife with fallacies about renewable energy and inaccuracies about climate science. On Facebook pages, residents opposed to the project shared negative stories about wind power, following a playbook that has been honed in recent years by anti-wind activists, some of whom have ties to the fossil fuel industry. The organizers of the website and Facebook groups did not reply to requests for comment.

As part of the Goose Creek Wind project, Apex has secured a commitment from Rivian, an upstart electric truck company, to buy power from the project, a development that drew skeptical replies in one Facebook group. “Scam artists in it together to fleece middle class taxpayers,” wrote one local resident in response to a news story about the deal. “Wake up.”

That milieu of misinformation appeared to sway some residents.

“These things are intrusive,” said Kelly Vetter, a retiree who opposed the project and disputed the overwhelming scientific consensus that carbon dioxide emitted from the burning of fossil fuels is dangerously warming the planet. “The company’s never going to have the community’s interest at heart.”

Apex declined to comment.

‘We All Want What’s Good for Society’

Smack in the middle of the area where Apex wants to erect its turbines sits the Bragg family’s farm, a roughly 1,500-acre plot that on a cold December afternoon was little more than an expanse of mud after the fall harvest and a week of rain.

Braxton Bragg, 40, who grew up on the land and returned after stints in the Peace Corps that took him to Mali and Mongolia, supports the project. He is concerned about climate change and said he already sees its effects. The rain is harder when it comes, the cold sets in later than it used to and, overall, the growing season is less predictable than it was when his grandfather worked the same land.

But his support for wind comes down to economics. Bragg has agreed to let Apex site one of its turbines on his property, and he expects to earn about $50,000 a year if it is built.

“It’s not going to save the farm or allow me to retire,” he said. “But just having that steady income every year, you know what you’re going to get.”

A few miles down the road is Gallagher Farms, another multigenerational operation. Like Bragg, Gallagher, 34, believes in climate change. She has invested in cover crops, which absorb carbon and lock it away in the soil, and other regenerative agriculture practices.

But Gallagher is opposed to the project. The aerial seeding of cover crops will cost more with wind turbines nearby and make it harder for her to sustainably farm. The use of heavy equipment to install turbines can disrupt drainage patterns in agricultural land, and Gallagher believes her farm will suffer.

Adding to her frustration is the fact that about 70% of the landowners who have agreed to let Apex put turbines on their property live outside Piatt County.

“They don’t live here, so they’re not impacted,” Gallagher said as she tended to her cattle before heading to yet another hearing.

More than anything else, Gallagher fears that the wind turbines, which she would see from her front porch, would disrupt the bucolic land she loves. In the predawn hours, she walks outside and listens to the crickets, which she worries will be drowned out by the low thrum of the turbines. At night, she watches the sun set over a grain silo in the west and doesn’t want the view marred by spinning turbines and flashing lights.

“We all want what’s good for society,” she said. “But it seems to be coming at the expense of our day-to-day lives.”

Bragg was sympathetic. “The only real argument that is valid, in my opinion, is that it’s going to change people’s sunsets and the beauty of living out in the country,” he said.

Still, he said, this was working farmland, and it was his right to put it to productive use.

“If you put your nice country house in the middle of my business, I’m sorry, there’s not much I can do about that,” Bragg said. “I think they probably would do the same thing if they were in my boat. The economics takes precedence over everything.”

Landowners such as the Braggs would receive about $210 million in lease payments over the project’s 30-year life, Apex said. And there would be other economic benefits, including $90 million in local taxes. And if the project is built, the company said it would create eight permanent jobs and employ nearly 600 people during construction, including men such as Brendan Burton.

Burton, an ironworker who has helped build several nearby wind farms, said the jobs would help fill the void created by factories that have closed or moved overseas.

“We’re not building things here like we used to,” he said. “We need the jobs.”

Burton added that he wanted to see his community contribute clean energy to the grid as well.

“We can’t keep burning coal or natural gas,” he said.

‘We’re Going to Make People Angry’

The debate in Piatt County has been remarkably civil. Similar hearings elsewhere have descended into shouting matches. In some cases, activists with ties to organizations that shield their donors have turned communities against proposed wind and solar projects.

That was the case in Michigan’s Monroe County, where local officials recently extended a moratorium that is blocking Apex from developing a solar project.

The opposition in Monroe County includes local residents, but also anti-wind activists with ties to groups backed by Koch Industries, which owns oil refineries, petrochemical plants, and thousands of miles of oil and gas pipelines. On Facebook, those skeptical of the Apex project shared negative stories about solar power, and opponents of the project went door to door distributing misinformation.

On another cold night in December, as the 11th hearing on the Goose Creek Wind project began at the Monticello community building, Phil Luetkehans, a lawyer hired by opponents of the project, called more witnesses, including an audiologist, who discussed what he said were the adverse health effects of wind turbines. A lawyer representing Apex cross-examined him, and the hearing stretched for more than four hours.

“Both sides are getting a full opportunity to portray their position and to put forth the facts, and the people who we elect will make those final decisions,” Luetkehans said. “Some communities end up saying, ‘No, we don’t want an industrial scale wind at this proximity to homes.’ Others say, ‘Yeah, we want the money.’”

Among those in the audience was Michael Beem, a newly elected member of the Piatt County board, which will ultimately decide whether Apex can build its wind farm. From the back of the room, Beem was bracing himself to make a choice that will undoubtedly leave this rural community divided.

“No matter what decision we make,” he said, “we’re going to make people angry.”