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Trump and his merry band of climate change deniers are tearing up clean policies in favor of the coal industry. Here are the reasons why Trump’s big bet on coal is so stupid. Your thoughts?
Trump and his merry band of climate change deniers are tearing up clean policies in favor of the coal industry. Here are the reasons why Trump's big bet on coal is so stupid. Your thoughts?
Posted by Robert Reich on Sunday, May 13, 2018
Tom Philpott May 5, 2018
Triton Tree/iStock
If you enjoy bacon or ham, chances are you’ve eaten pork from North Carolina, where about 16 million hogs—10 percent of the US total—are raised each year. The great bulk of that production takes place in a handful of counties on the state’s coastal plain—places like Baden County, home to more than 750,000 hogs but only 35,000 humans. Recently, a federal jury awarded more than $50 million in damages to 10 plaintiffs who live near one of the factory-scale hog operations.
The hog facility in the case, which raises hogs under contract for Murphy Brown, a subsidiary of China-owned pork giant Smithfield, is called Kinlaw Farm. Here’s a Google Earth image of it:
Those white buildings in three clumps of four are hog barns. A typical barn holds around 1,000 hogs. The brownish splotches are open-air cesspools known as lagoons, which store manure from all those animals before it’s sprayed on surrounding fields. I’ve been near operations like this, and the stench is blinding—pungent gases like ammonia and hydrogen sulfide permeate the air. In addition to revulsion, these gases can trigger ill health effects in neighboring communities, including eye irritation, chronic lung disease, and olfactory neuron loss.
As Leah Douglas recently noted in a Mother Jones piece, all 10 of the plaintiffs in the case are black. This isn’t surprising, because in North Carolina, “people of color are 1.5 times more likely to live near a hog CAFO than white people.”
If you play around with Google Earth, you can find several residences within a half-mile of the site. That’s not unusual—a recent analysis of satellite data by the Environmental Working Group found that around 160,000 North Carolinians, representing more than 60,000 households, live within a half-mile of a hog confinement or a manure pit.
The Bladen County case is the first of 26 lawsuits pending in North Carolina hog country—the next is due to begin trial this month. (Smithfield, meanwhile, has vowed to appeal last week’s court decision.) Will the legal onslaught force the industry to stop siting intensive high production so close to people’s homes? Iowa is the site of even more hog production than North Carolina, and people who live near facilities there have similar complaints.
If the federal court’s Bladen County decision withstands Smithfield’s appeal, “it could motivate the company to change its ways,” says Danielle Diamond, executive director of the Socially Responsible Agriculture Project. But she doesn’t anticipate broader changes in the industry, because “other courts are not required to follow this decision.” (The decision could, however, influence the 25 additional cases pending in the same federal district court that awarded the $50 million.)
Real change, Diamond says, won’t come until governments force the industry to clean up its act through tighter regulation. But “this industry in particular has incredible influence over all levels of government,” she says. North Carolina’s state legislature is notoriously cozy with Big Pork; and as the money-in-politics tracker Open Secrets notes, the meat lobby wields tremendous power in Washington.
Indeed, chatting with reporters last Monday, USDA chief Sonny Perdue aired his view on the North Carolina case: The ag secretary called the decision “despicable,” adding, “I feel certain that kind of award has to be overturned.”
Tom Philpott is the food and ag correspondent for Mother Jones. He can be reached at tphilpott@motherjones.com
Richard Wolffe May 12, 2018
Donald Trump’s personal lawyer Michael Cohen arrives at his hotel in New York City this week. Photograph: Brendan Mcdermid/Reuters
Michael Cohen, the most personal of the president’s personal attorneys, has cut an extraordinary figure in this totally abnormal administration.
You might be forgiven for thinking his fixing was confined to mysterious payments to porn actors and Playboy models, in exchange for their silence. These are mind-grabbing, if not body-grabbing, stories involving actual sex, movies about sex, a president and one of his major donors.
But unlike fixers of yore, Cohen has been unable to fix anything without requiring a good deal of cosmetic after-fixing.
This is not a good look for any self-respecting fixer, or for the large corporations that paid him millions for his insights into Trump’s inner thoughts. AT&T paid Cohen’s firm $600,000 last year, while Novartis paid $1.2m. Columbus Nova, an investment firm linked to the Russian oligarch Viktor Vekselberg, paid Cohen $500,000. Korea Aerospace Industries paid him a measly $150,000.
That’s a total of almost $2.5m – as far as we know – paid to the deliciously titled Essential Consultants, the company also used to pay hush money to a porn star and a model on behalf of Donald J Trump and a donor.
Most of the coverage of this giant wheelbarrow of cash has focused on the corporate giants who were so happily fleeced by the fixer, until the deals became public. AT&T now says the deal with Cohen was “a big mistake” and its head lobbyist is taking early retirement. Novartis blames its previous CEO for a relationship that involved all of one meeting with Cohen.
Some reporters claim these relationships and sums are normal in the influence-peddling business that thrives in the nation’s capital. Rest assured, they are not. Retainers of $100,000 a month are few and far between.
But the real mystery is not about the revenue: there are always suckers out there ready to believe the patter of a supposedly well-connected fixer. No, the unanswered questions are about where the money was going.
Most of the influence-peddlers have to support large teams and offices. They burn cash on glass-tabled conference rooms close to the White House, hugely inflated salaries for former congressmen, and steak dinners on Pennsylvania Avenue. That’s not true for Essential Consultants, whose staff amounted to one Michael Cohen. What was the fixer doing with all that money?
You’d think it was to pay off all those pesky women, right? But you would be wrong, because there are several public statements identifying other sources of cash for the hush money.
Stormy Daniels speaks outside US federal court in Manhattan with her lawyer Michael Avenatti. Michael Cohen’s story about the $130,000 payment to her has evolved. Photograph: Eduardo Munoz Alvarez/AFP/Getty Images
According to the president’s less-competent lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, Trump himself paid Cohen a retainer to cover the $130,000 so generously handed over to Stormy Daniels just before the 2016 election for a relationship Trump says never existed.
Cohen also facilitated the payment of an astonishing $1.6m in hush money to another woman, Playboy model Shera Bechard – who had an abortion – supposedly on behalf of another man. But Elliott Broidy, now former deputy finance chairman of the Republican National Committee, apparently paid the money himself. So it’s still not clear how Cohen spent as much as $2.5m last year.
Now it’s true that his sideline business in taxi medallions has been more than a little distressed since Uber and Lyft burst on the scene. But Essential’s known revenues are trivial compared with the scale of Cohen’s taxi troubles. Cohen recently put up his $9m Park Avenue apartment as collateral, to back up reportedly as much as $12.8m of debt previously backed by his taxi medallions.
Donald Trump: Michael is a businessman. He has got a business. He also practices law … probably the big thing is his business
Who or what could Essential be paying? He does have one client with a remarkable ability to steer cash to his own enterprises, and we’re not talking about Sean Hannity of Fox News. Trump has managed to monetize his presidency thanks to foreign diplomats spending money at his hotel in Washington. He has monetized his Secret Service protection at his golf courses and in Trump Tower in Manhattan.
Until we see the accounts of Essential Consultants, we don’t know if any cash has been spent at Trump-related businesses.
One thing is for sure. We can’t rely on Cohen’s account of his own fixing. Earlier this year, he claimed he paid the Stormy Daniels hush money out of his own pocket, without Trump’s knowledge or involvement. He said he had dipped into his home equity line of credit to do so. By the time Rudy Giuliani started blabbing to Fox News, and Trump started tweeting about the hush money, it was clear none of that story stood up.
That does raise a few questions about the $1.6m paid in the affair somehow involving Broidy. For some unusual reason, Cohen used the same alias for Trump and Broidy in the hush payment contracts. Inventing names must be difficult or costly.
Broidy was not known as a big spender on illicit affairs, but he was a big spender on government officials, pleading guilty to $1m in bribes and illegal gifts to New York state officials and their families to win $250m of investment from them.
Who could have known, back in mid-2015, that Cohen was capable of anything less than the highest standards of public service when he threatened a Daily Beast reporter with untold pain – economic, legal and unspecified.
“So I’m warning you, tread very fucking lightly, because what I’m going to do to you is going to be fucking disgusting,” he told the reporter. “You understand me?”
Yes we do, Mr Cohen. We understand very clearly that you are not a traditional lawyer advising a traditional president. You are instead the kind of lawyer who has carved out a series of businesses – including real estate deals, a casino boat and multiple taxi medallions – with immigrants from the former Soviet Union. And we all know how much the Trump administration admires immigrants.
Perhaps the most memorable (and least lawyerly) business was El Caribe, a Brooklyn catering hall that has been a beloved location for Russian and Italian mob weddings and Christmas parties.
Until 2016, Cohen had a minority stake in an establishment owned by his uncle, Morty Levine, who according to a sworn FBI affidavit was a personal doctor and fixer to a Lucchese crime family. Fixing is what you might call a family business. After all, Cohen is a businessman above everything else. At least that’s what his biggest client called him, in his recent jaw-dropping interview with Fox & Friends.
“Let me just tell you that Michael is in business,” Trump explained. “He’s really a businessman. Fairly big businesses, as I understand it. I don’t know his business. But this doesn’t have to do with me. Michael is a businessman. He has got a business. He also practices law. I would say probably the big thing is his business. And they are looking into something having to do with his business. I have nothing to do with his business.”
This may be the most reasonable thing Trump has ever said on Fox News, even if it is the least believable. Go on, admit it. You wouldn’t want to have anything to do with Cohen’s business either.
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Martin Sheen’s unscripted take on corruption will stop you in your tracks.
Martin Sheen: The Real Cost of Corruption
Martin Sheen's unscripted take on corruption will stop you in your tracks.
Posted by Represent.Us on Saturday, May 5, 2018
David Smith in Washington, The Guardian May 11, 2018
When Donald Trump pulled out of the deal to curb Iran’s nuclear ambitions, hardline conservatives celebrated, European leaders winced and Barack Obama made a rare, lengthy public statement.
Trump’s decision was “misguided” and “a serious mistake”, Obama said, as his signature foreign policy achievement was tossed away.
It was just the latest example of Trump’s all-out assault on the Obama legacy. From climate change to criminal justice to international relations, rarely has one occupant of the Oval Office appeared so obsessed with taking a chainsaw to the work of another.
Tommy Vietor, a former national security council spokesman under Obama, told the Guardian: “The whole thing that animates and unites his policy views is antipathy towards Obama. It’s fucking pathetic. He’s a vindictive person so there is an element of this that is about sticking it to Obama. He knows, probably better than anyone, how to find all the Republican erogenous zones because he spent years whipping people into a frenzy and telling lies about Obama.”
From the start, it has been hard to imagine two men more different than Obama, 56, a mixed-race intellectual married to one woman for a quarter of a century, and Trump, 71, a white, thrice married businessman and reality TV star who has boasted about grabbing women’s private parts. One reads books voraciously; the other, it is said, barely reads at all. There were few reasons for their paths to ever cross except, perhaps, on a golf course, their one common passion.
But then came the 2011 White House Correspondents’ Association dinner. Trump, pushing a racially charged conspiracy theory questioning whether the president was born in America, was among the tuxedo-wearing guests. Obama mocked his nascent political ambitions without mercy. “Obviously, we all know about your credentials and breadth of experience,” he said, recalling an episode of Celebrity Apprentice in which the men’s cooking team fell short and Trump fired actor Gary Busey.
“And these are the kind of decisions that would keep me up at night,” the president continued to roars of laughter. “Well handled, sir. Well handled. Say what you will about Mr. Trump, he certainly would bring some change to the White House. Let’s see what we’ve got up there.”
The room erupted as Obama pointed to a Photo-shopped image of the then fantastical idea of a Trump White House, with three extra storeys, a giant “TRUMP” sign, a hotel, casino and golf course, a giant crystal chandelier, four gold columns and two women in swimwear drinking cocktails in the north lawn fountain.
Four years later, Adam Gopnik of the New Yorker magazine would recall: “Trump’s humiliation was as absolute, and as visible, as any I have ever seen: his head set in place, like a man in a pillory, he barely moved or altered his expression as wave after wave of laughter struck him … he sat perfectly still, chin tight, in locked, unmovable rage.”
Future historians may well ask: was this the moment that Trump resolved to storm the White House and tear down the Obama legacy?
For sure, from the day he formally launched his election campaign in June 2015, branding Mexican immigrants as criminals and rapists, he cast himself as the anti-Obama in style and substance. His act enraptured rightwing media and the Republican base, who saw Trump as a vessel into which they could pour their hopes and frustrations. David Litt, a former speechwriter for Obama, said this week: “It’s not only Trump who says, ‘If Obama is for it, I’m against it.’ This was the guiding philosophy for eight years of the Obama administration. Trump is a catalyst of the movement but he’s also a product of it.”
During his battle with Hillary Clinton, Trump duly promised to unravel Obama’s accomplishments. He described the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), a proposed free trade deal with Asia, as “a rape of our country”. He said he is “not a great believer in manmade climate change” and vowed to cancel the Paris agreement. He called the Iran nuclear accord a “disaster” and “the worst deal ever negotiated” and warned that it could lead to a “nuclear holocaust”.
John Hudak, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution think-tank in Washington, said: “The president ideologically disagrees with much of what President Obama accomplished but it’s important to remember these were campaign promises. It’s not out of nowhere. It’s what his voters wanted. Very little of what the president is doing is shocking, considering his campaign rhetoric.”
Soon after the stunning election outcome, Obama hosted Trump at the White House for about an hour and a half. Trump seemed surprised and a little impressed by the welcome, Obama appeared to be walking on eggshells.
But extraordinarily, since inauguration day, the men have not spoken. Hudak described this as “odd”, noting a past example: the first person Obama called after the killing of Osama Bin Laden was George W Bush.
“But it’s important to remember President Trump doesn’t like to hear ideas that he does not believe. If he called President Obama and said, ‘Can you talk me through this Iran deal?’ he would hear things that wouldn’t fit with that mindset. He could call Bill Clinton or George Bush, but why waste their time?”
At the recent funeral of former first lady Barbara Bush, the Bushes, Clintons and Obamas were joined by the first lady, Melania Trump, but the current president was conspicuously absent.
In the meantime, Trump is working through his Obama checklist at a rapid clip. He made good on his promises to withdraw from the TPP, Paris and Iran agreements. He partially reversed what he called a “terrible and misguided deal” with Cuba, reinstating some travel and commercial restrictions. He ordered the Pentagon to reverse an Obama-era policy that allowed transgender people to serve in the military.
Trump has also struck a radically different tone from the 44th president, expressing admiration for strongmen, confounding America’s longstanding allies and apparently viewing international relations through the prism of personal chemistry. The steady hand of “no drama Obama” has been replaced by chaos, unpredictability and Twitter diplomacy.
Domestically, his tone on abortion rights, gun control and race relations represents another 180-degree turn. He announced plans to scrap Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (Daca), a program created under Obama to allow people brought to the US illegally as children the temporary right to live in America. He has rolled back hundreds of government regulations in areas such as immigration, net neutrality and clean air and water.
Some reversals have gained less public attention but could have more lasting consequences. Whereas the Obama administration directed federal prosecutors to be less aggressive in charging non-violent drug offenders, Trump’s attorney general, Jeff Sessions, has reverted to a hard-line stance, raising the prospect of a resurgence in mass incarceration just as the prison population had begun to dip.
Lanhee Chen, a research fellow at the Hoover Institution in Stanford, California, said: “It’s not unusual for a president to want to do things differently from his predecessor. I will say the scope and ambition of Trump’s effort to do that is breathtaking. Whether it’s breathtakingly good or breathtakingly bad depends on your point of view.”
But there have been setbacks in the anti-Obama crusade. Trump was unable to steer Republicans to agree on a replacement for the Affordable Care Act, the flagship of Obama’s domestic program, though critics argue they have since done their best to sabotage it through a sweeping tax reform and other measures.
Some believe the effort failed because Trump has little grasp of or interest in policy details. Bob Shrum, a Democratic strategist, said: “His only guiding principle seems to be to undo what Obama did. His driving motivation seems to be his animosity towards Obama. We know he has no deep convictions of his own so Obama became his negative reference point.”
Trump Lies on the Iran Nuclear Deal..
Trump averaged one false claim every 83 seconds of his speech on the Iran deal.
Trump Lies on the Iran Nuclear Deal
Trump Lies on the Iran Nuclear Deal.. Trump averaged one false claim every 83 seconds of his speech on the Iran deal.
Posted by Hands OFF Syria on Wednesday, May 9, 2018
U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders Video:
May 11, 2018. This is insane. In the United States of America as many as 20% of people incarcerated are behind bars for the crime of being poor.
Shaun King explain why.
This is insane. In the United States of America as many as 20% of people incarcerated are behind bars for the crime of being poor. Shaun King explain why.Video: U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders
Posted by The People For Bernie Sanders on Friday, May 11, 2018
Philadelphia’s District Attorney just showed America how to end mass incarceration.
We thank our friend and ally the letter K for this very informative video. The District Attorney of Philadelphia is trying a new and innovative method in regards to mass incarceration. Shorter sentences for minor offenses which target low income, and certain ethnic groups. The results is a savings of $60,000 year per prisoner, this savings is more than the average teacher, fireman, or police officer makes in the city of Philadelphia a year. It is also an incentive to the person incarcerated to turn their lives around, and become an active participating member of society.”
Philadelphia's District Attorney just showed America how to end mass incarceration.
Philadelphia's District Attorney just showed America how to end mass incarceration.
Posted by Washington Press on Tuesday, March 20, 2018
Lorraine Chow May 3, 2018
A well operated by Anadarko Minerals Inc. spilled a “substantial” amount of oil in the central region of the Fort Peck Reservation in northeast Montana, according to local media.
An estimated 600 barrels of oil and 90,000 barrels of brine (production water) leaked from the well, the Glasgow Courier reported, citing officials with the reservation’s Office of Environmental Protection and the Bureau of Land Management.
The spill was first discovered by a farmer doing a flyover in the area. The farmer immediately notified Valley County authorities about the incident.
According to a press release received by MTN News, the spill was reported to the reservation’s Office of Environmental Protection on April 27. The exact date that the leak occurred is not yet clear. The well was shut in late December.
Fort Peck Reservation, which lies north of the Missouri River, is home to members of the Sioux and Assiniboine nations. Members adamantly oppose the proposed Keystone XL (KXL) pipeline and its potential to endanger their water supply.
The press release states that the spill further reinforces tribal officials’ opposition to the KXL and pipeline development on or near the reservation.
Oil and brine from the leak has now traveled roughly 200 yards downhill to a stock pond used by tribal entities to water livestock. The extent of the pond’s contamination is not yet determined, the press release continued. According to initial assessments, about three to six inches of oil currently sit on top of the water.
Jestin Dupree, a Fort Peck Tribal council member, detailed in a Facebook post Wednesday: “In order to get this pond cleaned up there are certain levels of contamination that are allowable but we are looking at the possibility of draining the pond for a proper clean up and the Tribal Chairman felt the same way. In some places in this pond the water is about 13 feet deep.”
“THIS IS CONSIDERED A LARGE SPILL as there are 100,000 gallons of salt water, 27,000-30,000 gallons of oil which equates to 600 barrels of oil,” he added.
According to MTN News, Anadarko has developed a clean up plan with oversight from tribal officials, the Bureau of Indian Affairs, the Bureau of Land Management and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
Dupree noted on Facebook that by Friday the oil company will have a dollar amount for the cost of clean up.
Floyd Azure, chairman of the Fort Peck Tribes, was quoted by MTN News as saying that the incident is further indication of the detrimental effects oil production on the environment and is yet another threat to the reservation’s water quality.
After their initial report was published, the Glasgow Courier posted on their Facebook page: “Fort Peck Tribes have asked that people avoid the area of the oil spill so as not to impede clean up efforts.”
EcoWatch has contacted the reservation and will update with any new information.
Glasgow Courier: A “substantial” oil spill occurred approximately 5 miles west of the Frazer/Richland Road, Lustre Grain East Road Junction.
The spill was discovered last Thursday, according to the Fort Peck Disaster Emergency Service Coordinator. Clean-up is ongoing and the cause is being investigated.
Clean up and assessment are being handled by the Fort Peck Tribes and EPA. More information will be in May 9 Glasgow Courier.
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The U.S. can tap into a huge source of renewable energy that few people are talking about: geothermal. This technology has already transformed Iceland.
We Can SolveThis: America Forges Ahead
The U.S. can tap into a huge source of renewable energy that few people are talking about: geothermal. This technology has already transformed Iceland. #WeCanSolveThis #YEARSproject
Posted by DeSmogBlog on Friday, May 11, 2018