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Posted by The Free Thought Project on Tuesday, January 30, 2018
We have a Nut Job Republican President and a Corrupt GOP Congress because 2008 Republican’s began a campaign of obstruction and racism against President Obama on Fox News, The Rush Limbaugh Show and Right-Wing Radio Shows Nationwide and hundreds of Conservative Newspapers. The Brainwashing job on the American People funded by the Billionaire Koch Brothers now has America standing by the front door to destruction and disaster.
John Hanno February 2, 2018
Believe Me!
If it were only that simple? trump’s campaign apparatus, his transition team and now his administration, have taken bold faced lying, deception, subterfuge, misrepresentation, prevarication, equivocation, exaggeration, fabrication, distortion, evasion, grand dissimulation and good old jive talking, to incredibly new heights.
trump de-classified and signed off on releasing an extremely partisan, diversionary, ass-covering “Memo,” concocted by his own White House staff and their water carrier on the House Intelligence Committee – devin nunes, over the alarmed objections of all the Democrats on the committee, the FBI and the Department of Justice.
“Former FBI Director James Comey torched Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee over the release of a memo alleging the Department of Justice abused a surveillance program on Friday, tweeting: “That’s it?” he asks. “Dishonest and misleading memo wrecked the House intel committee, destroyed trust with Intelligence Community, damaged relationship with FISA court, and inexcusably exposed classified investigation of an American citizen. For what?” Comey tweeted Friday.” “DOJ & FBI must keep doing their jobs,” he added.
Republican Sen. John McCain said: “In 2016, the Russian government engaged in an elaborate plot to interfere in an American election and undermine our democracy,” McCain said. “Russia employed the same tactics it has used to influence elections around the world, from France and Germany to Ukraine, Montenegro and beyond.”
“The latest attacks against the FBI and Department of Justice serve no American interests ― no party’s, no President’s, only Putin’s,” McCain added. “The American people deserve to know all the facts surrounding Russia’s ongoing efforts to subvert our democracy, which is why Special Counsel Mueller’s investigation must proceed unimpeded. Our nation’s elected officials, including the president, must stop looking at this investigation through the lens of politics and manufacturing political sideshows. If we continue to undermine our own rule of law, we are doing Putin’s job for him.”
This is not just politics as usual. Not only did trump-world spring this word turd on the American public, regardless of the security implications to our Intelligence Agencies, but they refused to release the rebuttal memo prepared by the Democrats on the committee that exposed this trump/nunes propaganda pamphlet for what it is, an attempt to obstruct the Russia/trump investigation and tarnish the reputations and credibility of Deputy Attorney General Rob Rosenstein and Special Counsel Robert Mueller.
Its becoming ever more obvious; the Russians have Donald Trump and his entire cast of traitors by the Kompromatical short hairs, and consequently, now also the Republi-cons in Congress, who’ve turned a blind eye to trumps maniacal and reckless schemes to barter his political survival for, and sacrifice of, America’s sovereignty and Democratic institutions.
They lie to their voters, to their donors, their own families, to Congress, to the Courts, lie to America, lie to the world, even lie to themselves and now lie to history.
From past experience, we know the amount of ones deception, rivals the level of their wrongdoing. We can only imagine the treasonous conspiracies and dastardly deeds propagated behind trumps gold plated closed doors. Hopefully Robert Mueller will eventually fill in the blanks, unless trump schemes of a means to fire him.
Republicans, conservatives, far right propagandists, complicit evangelical poohbahs, and especially the republic-cons in Congress, have fled the sanctity of the Grand Old Party and conjoined with the trump protectorate.
This transmogrification was on display during trumps confustication (SOTU) speech before the republi-con congressional supplicants.
We’re reminded of watching despotic militaristic assemblages like those in North Korea. Wretched smiling all around and thunderous, rehearsed clapping on cue, glorifying the latest Kim Jong-un whimsy.
But we’ve never witnessed an American president like trump actually applauding his own speechifying. And his back-drop of Vice President mike pence and Speaker paul ryan vigorously standing up, cheering and applauding trump, applauding his own telepromted best words. Trump was elated with himself. Kim Jong is surely jealous. Some folks just don’t get it. We don’t congratulate ourselves.
What we can’t forget: the folks at the FBI and DOJ are career government employees dedicated to the rule of law, serious about their oaths of office and loyal to the U.S. Constitution. Harvard Law Educated Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein joined the DOJ in 1990. From all accounts he’s conducted himself with integrity for the last 27 years. Harvard Law Educated FBI Director Christopher Wray joined the DOJ in 1997. Both of them, along with Ex-FBI Director Robert Mueller, highly respected by both Republicans and Democrats and fired FBI Director James Comey, respected and admired throughout the Bureau, along with highly regarded Assistant FBI Director Andrew McCabe, forced to retire by the trump cabal, and Attorney General Sally Quillian Yates, who trump fired, were all in trumps gun sites. Why? Because they were investigating the trump cabal’s corruption and evil deeds.
trump and the Republi-cons in congress couldn’t care less if America is deprived of their decades of expertise and devotion to duty, and couldn’t care less if their lives are thrown into chaos, just because trump is attempting to cover-up his crimes. (trump cries – You’re Fired!) These selfless patriots deserve better; America deserves better.
What President – what chief executive – would decide – “without a doubt – 100%”, to release a critical intelligence document, a day before even having read it. Does anyone even remotely believe Presidents Clinton or Obama would release any such document to the world before actually reading it?
Is trump the racist old white misogynist who, during locker-room conversations, routinely drops N bombs, C bombs and F bombs? Is he the crazy old uncle who ruins way too many family gatherings? Is he the dirty old man who creeps you out much too often? Is he the Luddite who’s too lazy to explore, or read, or feel compelled to increase his very limited knowledge of anything beyond his own self interests. Unless he can plunder it, or make money from it, its just not in his realm of thought.
From The Seattle Times: President Donald Trump said Thursday he “really didn’t care” about opening a portion of Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling but insisted it be included in tax legislation at the urging of others. Addressing fellow Republicans at the House and Senate Republican Member Conference in White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia, mentioned the wildlife refuge known as ANWR in Alaska’s northeast corner as he recounted accomplishments in the last year, including the tax bill passed by Congress in December.
Trump said he “never appreciated ANWR so much” but was told of its importance by others. “A friend of mine called up, who’s in that world and in that business, and said, ‘Is it true that you’re thinking about ANWR?’ I said, ‘Yeah, I think we’re going to get it, but you know.’ He said, ‘Are you kidding? That’s the biggest thing, by itself.’ He said, ‘Ronald Reagan and every president has wanted to get ANWR approved.” “I really didn’t care about it, and then when I heard that everybody wanted it — for 40 years, they’ve been trying to get it approved, and I said, ‘Make sure you don’t lose ANWR,’” Trump said.”
They should have said only Regan and a couple of other Republican presidents have wanted to get drilling in Alaska’s National Wildlife Refuge approved. All the others, for many decades, both Democrats and Republicans, including President Obama, have fought to preserve ANWR. But there’s surely nothing pristine, or precious, or regal, or untouchable or priceless in trump-world, only as it might relate to his self serving base needs and desires.
trumpism is all this and much more. There’s no limit to trump’s depravity, his deviancy from normal human decency, his avoidance of critical thinking. Trump is a diabolical megalomaniac, void of all empathy and reason. trump has defiled the conservative party, defiled our democratic institutions and defiled the Office of the Presidency.
The harder trump pushes against what’s right with America, the harder we must resist. But don’t expect the browbeaten Republi-cons in congress to cry uncle.
There hallucinations breed. The hitherto impeccable Mueller is conducting a partisan witch-hunt. Spearheaded by a “secret society” within its ranks, the FBI conspires against Trump. To cover their tracks, the conspirators destroyed damning text messages ― until the messages were found. Yet another conspirator, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein ― a Republican Trump appointee and Mueller’s superior ― “improperly” extended surveillance of a Trump campaign operative who, beyond dispute, had extensive contacts with Russian officials.
Unsatisfied with free-floating hysteria, congressional Republicans have now voted to release a memo, written by GOP congressional staffers and cherry-picked from classified information, that supposedly documents the FBI’s bias. Never mind that a senior official in Trump’s own Justice Department has said that releasing the memo would be “extraordinarily reckless.” Or that the FBI, headed by another Trump appointee, Christopher Wray, publicly stated that “we have grave concerns about material omissions of fact that fundamentally impact the memo’s accuracy.” Or that the memo is a transparent effort to derail the investigation ― including by providing a pretext for firing Rosenstein as a prelude to filing Mueller.
For Trump’s Republican acolytes, only one thing matters ― their leader wants to advance the specious storyline weaponized by this memo to protect himself from investigation, the rule of law be damned. Disdaining the anguished protests from the DOJ and FBI, Trump has authorized its release. And so the GOP propels us toward a constitutional crisis by enabling an American president to attack our system of justice.
This craven embrace of mendacity and autocracy is startling, yet, on reflection, not surprising. Nor is there any apparent limit. For the Republican thirst for political Kool-Aid did not begin with Trump.
His lies and self-absorption have eroded America’s communal sense of fact and probity, degrading our expectation of what a president should be. Yet, given numerous opportunities to choose country over party, reason over fantasy, the leaders of his party have remained supine, unable or unwilling to challenge the false narratives which animate a base whose devotion to Trump renders them impervious to his most egregious conduct.
Why? Long before Trump, ever more Republicans became addicted to fact-free narratives through which one right-wing cult or another mesmerized the party faithful. From this petri dish of unreason came Trump’s implacable army, propitiated by Republican officeholders who now cynically embrace his slanders against the FBI. The GOP has become a credulous coalition rooted in magical thinking and unreasoning resentment ― the perfect seedbed for a toxic Messiah who creates his own reality.
The Republican Party platform enshrines this religious extremism, excoriating “environmental extremists,” forbidding the EPA to regulate carbon dioxide, rejecting the Paris climate accord, and defunding the U.N. convention on climate change. It fuels a war on America’s public schools, through which radical evangelicals seek to undermine climate science. It embraces homeschooling. It insists that “man-made rights,” like reproductive rights and legal protection for gays and lesbians, are subordinate to “God-given rights” ― defined, of course, by theocrats.
By adopting the worldly grievances of Republican evangelicals, Trump, the self-confessed groper and libertine, has earned their unquestioning obeisance. Thus his embrace of the notional “war on Christmas,” exploiting evangelicals’ sense of persecution by a secular elite. But Trump also plays to the theological, in which unwavering support for Israel arouses evangelical extremists who believe in the End of Days ― a dismal prophecy which requires the slaughter of Jews in Israel as a precursor to Christ’s return.
This incongruous bond creates its own reality. A recent Quinnipiac poll showed that two thirds of Americans believe that Trump is not a good role model for children. But not Republicans ― 72 percent, no doubt including most evangelicals, assert that Trump is a superior role model for America’s youth. When it comes to repelling Mueller by peddling fake conspiracy theories, such credulity augurs a ready audience of true believers.
Quinnipiac: His incessant lies, divisiveness, attacks on the press, charges of fake news, and contempt for law – rather than hurting him – resonate with the majority of Republicans.
Equally indispensable to Trump’s survival is the cult of whiteness. This hardy perennial lodged within the GOP upon the passage of the civil rights laws of the 1960s ― a compound of racism and insecurity through which whites fear a rising tide of blacks, Hispanics and immigrants who threaten their jobs, safety, and social dominance. In 2016 this festering tribalism metastasized, cementing the party’s dependence on a white minority for whom anxiety transcends all.
Rapturously, white Republicans cheered a candidate who questioned the citizenship of our first black president; implied that millions of blacks and Hispanics were committing voter fraud; falsified the crime rate among African-Americans and undocumented immigrants; and promised mass deportations, a border wall and drastic cuts in legal immigration. Emboldened, he called for a Muslim registry at home and a ban on Muslims from abroad, asserting that thousands of Muslims in New Jersey had celebrated 9/11.
Transparently, these lies and distortions mainstreamed bigotry. But that was the point ― gaining Trump and his party a greater share of voters driven by racial animus. He succeeded. No evidence of obstruction or collusion with a foreign adversary can dispel the racial angst our president repeatedly roils to cement their allegiance.
Similarly, Trump exploits white paranoia’s armed cousin ― the GOP’s cult of gun worship. Since 1968, firearms have claimed the lives of more Americans than all the wars in our history. Yet every massacre of innocents spurs elected Republicans to parrot the NRA’s murderous myth ― that the only solution to gun violence is to arm every American with whatever weapon of war most arouses their fantasies.
Within the NRA, fantasies abound ― not least that well-armed citizens routinely protect Americans from an onslaught of predators. So who are these statistically modest menaces? In speeches, blogs and broadcasts, the NRA implies the answer ― minorities.
With unequaled ferocity, the NRA supports a president who promised to end the “eight-year assault on your Second Amendment freedoms.” It’s a very short distance from an imaginary government plot to disarm gun owners to one intended to disempower Trump.
Another Trump-bedazzled Republican cult is the Tea Party cum Freedom Caucus: white, male, middle-aged, religious, conservative and, like many cults, incoherent. With Trump, one leader crowed, its “values and principles” are finally empowered. Whatever they are.
The Tea Party’s stated concern is deficit reduction, but their real program is anger ― at immigration reform, gay marriage, the media, the social safety net and, especially, the federal government. Little wonder that the leader of the Freedom Caucus in the House is ready to attack the institutions of government so displeasing to Trump, proclaiming his shock at the conspiratorial FBI depicted in his colleagues’ bogus memo.
Far more calculating are Republican donors like the Koch brothers, bent on furthering their plutocratic cult of Ayn Rand, Paul Ryan’s intellectual wellspring.
In Rand’s Hobbesian America, only the creative selfishness of unfettered capitalists can rise above our collective mediocrity. This is libertarianism run amok, empowering wealthy donors who see government as their adversary ― unless it’s their tool. This ethos of Mammon suffuses Republican policies promoting unlimited campaign donations, deregulation and, most recently, Trump’s tax bill.
To further delude the base, Republicans resuscitated the hoary myth central to their donor-driven worldview: that tax cuts pay for themselves or, at least, offset much of their costs by stimulating economic growth. This GOP Tax Fairy has been thoroughly discredited by Republican economists and, more importantly, by economic history. No matter ― the legislation passed. Now the donors who finance Republican officeholders are bonded to the president who signed their dream bill into law.
As we are now seeing ever more clearly, the psychic glue that unites many of these groups is an instinctive authoritarianism. In 2016 a survey group of Republican primary voters was asked which traits are most important in raising children: independence or respect for elders; curiosity or good manners; self-reliance or obedience; being considerate or being well behaved.
Half the Republicans who chose the second ― or authoritarian ― answer supported Trump. Analyses by George Lakoff and Amanda Taub amplify these findings. Their essence is that Trump’s distinctive persona satisfies a craving for authority which is particularly strong among evangelicals, those who feel economically and socially threatened, and white Republicans of limited education.
These groups respond to promises of direct action to impose clear and simple solutions. Trump’s relentless demagoguery gives anxious Republicans the empowering sense that a patriarchal leader will repel their enemies ― a visceral connection intensified by the fear of terrorism. Thus his gratuitous attack on black athletes who protested during the national anthem, a ploy calculated to strike every emotional chord.
By instinct and design, Trump is profoundly authoritarian. He has succeeded in casting himself as the one-man-fits-all solution to the resentments roiling a party pre-conditioned to fantasy and myth. Thus his incessant lies, divisiveness, attacks on the press, charges of fake news, and contempt for law ― rather than hurting him ― resonate with the majority of Republicans who, according to polls, support “punishing biased or inaccurate news media, even if that means limiting the freedom of the press.”
For his followers, Trump is their mystical leader, a human Powerball ticket. It scarcely matters that he behaves less like an American president than a Russian asset. According to a December poll, only half of Republicans believe our intelligence community’s assessment that Russia interfered in our 2016 election, and a mere 10 percent believe what appears more and more obvious ― that the Trump campaign colluded with Russia.
Terrified of their wrath, Republican legislators and their propagandists at Fox News are rushing to help Trump bury the facts by attacking what he calls the “powerful forces in Washington trying to sabotage our movement.” Effectively, they are encouraging Trump to conceal his apparent obstruction of justice by further obstructing justice ― all to thwart investigation of the ties between America’s president and our leading foreign adversary.
Faced with a rogue president whose sole loyalty is to self, our constitutional defense is impeachment. There are ample grounds, not only in his unfitness for the presidency but his contempt for its obligations and constraints. But there is seemingly no limit to the devotion of his cult, no depths to which a critical mass of elected Republicans like Speaker Ryan won’t sink to serve their narcissistic Messiah. The honorable men who resist ― like Sens. Jeff Flake and Bob Corker ― have been driven to the margins of power.
The lesson is indelible: We will not escape Trump’s thrall until Americans reject the party that spawned him.
Richard North Patterson is the New York Times best-selling author of 22 novels, a former chairman of Common Cause, and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.
FILE–In this undated file photo provided by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, caribou from the Porcupine Caribou Herd migrate onto the coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in northeast Alaska. President Donald Trump says he didn’t really care about opening Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling but pushed the issue for inclusion in the tax bill passed in December at the urging of others. (U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service via AP, file)
By Dan Joling, Associated Press February 1, 2018
ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — President Donald Trump said Thursday he “really didn’t care” about opening a portion of Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling but insisted it be included in tax legislation at the urging of others.
Addressing fellow Republicans at the House and Senate Republican Member Conference in White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia, mentioned the wildlife refuge known as ANWR in Alaska’s northeast corner as he recounted accomplishments in the last year, including the tax bill passed by Congress in December.
Trump said he “never appreciated ANWR so much” but was told of its importance by others.
“A friend of mine called up, who’s in that world and in that business, and said, ‘Is it true that you’re thinking about ANWR?’ I said, ‘Yeah, I think we’re going to get it, but you know.’ He said, ‘Are you kidding? That’s the biggest thing, by itself.’ He said, ‘Ronald Reagan and every president has wanted to get ANWR approved.”
The comment had a major impact, Trump said.
“I really didn’t care about it, and then when I heard that everybody wanted it — for 40 years, they’ve been trying to get it approved, and I said, ‘Make sure you don’t lose ANWR,’” Trump said.
Oil in the refuge, Trump said, is one of the great potential fields anywhere in the world.
“That by itself is a big bill,” he said.
Most Alaska elected officials supported drilling in the refuge, home to polar bears, muskoxen, wolves and grizzlies.
But drilling is strongly opposed by environmental groups and Gwich’in Natives in Alaska and Canada who depend on the Porcupine Caribou Herd for their subsistence lifestyle.
The 200,000-animal herd migrates 200 miles (320 kilometers) annually from Canada’s Yukon Territory to the refuge, where females give birth to calves on the coastal plain, a strip of flat tundra between the mountains and Arctic Ocean.
The director of the Alaska Wilderness League in a statement condemned Trump’s comments.
“It’s clear from President Trump’s remarks that jamming Arctic Refuge drilling in the tax bill was always about politics and not a thoughtful energy policy,” said Adam Kolton.
He called it a retreat from the GOP great conservation legacy stretching back to Theodore Roosevelt and Dwight Eisenhower. Millions of Americans do not want to see the country squeeze every drop of oil out of national parks and refuges just to increase exports, he said.
By Michael Tomasky February 1, 2018
Liberals like to scoff at Joe Manchin, but after yesterday I think it’s pretty obvious that a lot of them can learn something from the West Virginia senator. He knows how to hit back.
Vice President Mike Pence was in Lewisburg, West Virginia, Wednesday where he gave a speech that tore into Manchin. Pence attacked Manchin’s vote against the tax bill and then continued: “But it’s not just the tax cut. Senator Joe Manchin has voted no time and again on the policies that West Virginia needs. When the time came to repeal and replace the disaster of Obamacare, Joe voted no. When we empowered West Virginia to defund Planned Parenthood, Joe voted no.”
As you know, Donald Trump is popular in Manchin’s state. Gallup found this week that it’s his best state, at 61 percent approval. And Manchin is up for reelection this year (hence Pence’s tirade).
Under such circumstances, a lot of Democratic politicians would go hide. They’d start explaining defensively: Oh but I like the president. Oh but I voted for Gorsuch. Oh this, oh that.
Manchin, famous for that ad where he shot the cap-and-trade bill, apologized for nothing. He took square aim at Pence and tweeted: “The VP’s comments are exactly why Washington Sucks.” Far from giving any ground, he went on the attack in a second tweet: “I am shocked that after the @VP worked for almost a year in a divisive & partisan way to take healthcare away from almost 200k WVians, bankrupt our hospitals & push tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans & huge corporations that he would come to #WV & continue partisan attacks.”
Manchin, of course, has taken some pro-Trump votes. In a state like that, he has to. He also was the only Democrat to applaud Trump’s State of the Union address at certain points. But what’s smart and tough about his reply is that he’s saying to Pence (and inferentially to Trump): No. You guys are hurting the people of my state.
Nearly 200,000 people are losing their health care, in a state with high rates of uninsured people and a raging drug crisis and all kinds of bleak health care indicia. West Virginia—my home state, as some of you know—also ranks 49th in the number of millionaires, so it’s not as if that tax bill is exactly tailored to the needs of the state.
And don’t think that Manchin hasn’t taken some tough votes that by West Virginia standards took guts. On Planned Parenthood, back in 2015, after that infamous (but very heavily edited) video came out with the PPFA person speaking cavalierly about fetal organs, Manchin did indeed vote to cut the group’s funding. But then, an investigation ensued, and it turned out that Planned Parenthood wasn’t engaged in any of those kinds of activities. So in March 2017, Manchin voted against a Republican defunding bill.
That’s not an easy vote in West Virginia. Manchin press aide Jonathan Kott defended his boss’ position this way last May to Axios: “‘The senator will vote to fund Planned Parenthood because the investigations showed no evidence that the organization was selling or profiting from fetal organs. His support for PP is also contingent on the Hyde Amendment being law, to ensure public funds don’t go to abortions.’ Kott also points out that the only Planned Parenthood clinic in West Virginia doesn’t perform abortions.”
That’s admirably fact-based. It’s going to open Manchin up to some ugly 30-second ads this fall, probably. Manchin may not be pro-choice advocates’ favorite Democrat (and he wouldn’t want to be), but liberals ought to ask themselves if any of the West Virginia Republicans vying to run against Manchin would be that bold.
But now let’s get to the heart of the matter to me, which is the opioid crisis. It’s killing the state. Read this heartbreaking report about the town of Kermit, sometimes called the ground zero of the opioid crisis, from the excellent web site 100 Days in Appalachia, which has been vividly chronicling life in the region since the election. It’s merely one of hundreds of stories.
Did Pence take time out from his diatribe against Manchin to address the crisis? Oh, he mentioned it, once. Boilerplate; the usual fulsome and cloying praise of Trump that we’ve come to associate with the vice president. But he said nothing of substance—you might call his line substance abuse.
He was following up on Dear Leader’s shocking discussion of the crisis in his State of the Union address Tuesday night. “In 2016, we lost 64,000 Americans to drug overdoses: 174 deaths per day. Seven per hour,” Trump said. Good start. But then what did he pivot to? Not treatment. “We must get much tougher on drug dealers and pushers if we are going to succeed in stopping this scourge,” he said.
This is so idiotic as to be offensive. If you get rid of one drug dealer, three others fight to take his place. Anybody knows this at this point. Trump mentioned treatment afterward, but in a pro forma sort of way. The Republicans won’t do anything real about this crisis because doing something real about it takes money, and they won’t spend money; it might even require a tax, and we all know they will never do that.
My family has known Joe’s for a long time. My father was a prominent attorney who was involved in Democratic politics. Joe’s uncle, A. James, was the flamboyant secretary of state forever when I was kid, with his floral ties and wide-brimmed fedoras and his erudite 19th-century vocabulary (he once called a man who had sullied the state’s good name a “scurrilous jackanapes”). So yes, I have a soft spot for him.
After this exchange with Pence, you should too. More liberal Democrats, Democrats who are far better positioned to be Trump critics, can learn a thing or two from how he handled this.
Rebecca Nagle February 1, 2018
TAR CREEK, OKLAHOMA (CREDIT: REBECCA JIM)
TAHLEQUAH, OKLAHOMA — When I was nine years old, the top 12 inches of dirt in my yard were excavated and hauled off by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
My family’s 1990s lead-contaminated topsoil on the north side of Joplin, Missouri was a small piece of one of the worst man-made environmental disasters in the United States. As a recent POLITICO investigation detailed, decades of mining lead, zinc, and other heavy metals contaminated the ground, air, and waterways of northeastern Oklahoma and parts of Kansas and Missouri so badly that local rivers run bright orange and residents have lead poisoning at three times higher the rate found in Flint, Michigan. Despite 34 years and over $300 million spent on cleanup, the massive Tar Creek Superfund site is far from restored.
In December, EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt, former attorney general of Oklahoma, announced a list of 21 Superfund sites — places that have been contaminated by hazardous waste — in need of expedited cleanup. Pruitt has called the decades-long remediation of sites like Tar Creek “unacceptable” and has repeatedly vowed to make Superfund site cleanup a priority. President Donald Trump’s budget, however, would have slashed the Superfund cleanup program by about 25 percent.
“We [Tar Creek] have always been on the list. What being on a new list means, I don’t have a clue,” said Rebecca Jim, director of LEAD Agency (Local Environmental Action Demanded), a citizens advocacy group in Miami, Oklahoma that is focused on the clean up efforts. “[Pruitt] might be paying more attention, but he is also telling Congress to cut money for Superfund and the EPA. How are they going to do more with less?”
Jim first became an advocate for her toxic community while she was working as an Indian counselor in Miami public schools and started noticing something in her students.
“Kids in Miami were different. Many of them had more difficulty settling down, paying attention, and staying on task. A lot of kids would drop out and give up,” she said.
A year into her new job, the local stream, Tar Creek, turned bright orange and all the fish died. The year after that, the EPA came.
TAR CREEK, OKLAHOMA (CREDIT: REBECCA JIM)
“We have a lot of people with kidney disease. We have a lot of people with cardiovascular disease. We have children that are being exposed before they are even born. I have former students that are dead already,” Jim said. “It’s robbery. It was all preventable. This shouldn’t have happened. And now their children will die as well if we don’t finish [the cleanup].”
In 1993, the University of Oklahoma found 34 percent of children in the Quapaw Tribe had lead blood levels above the federal safety limit, while the national average for elevated lead blood levels is just 3 percent.
The injustice of Native residents in Northwest Oklahoma living in a poisonous environment with disastrous health consequences started over 150 years ago. In the mid-1800s, the Quapaw tribe was removed from their homeland in present-day Arkansas and relocated to a small stretch of land in Indian Territory (present-day Oklahoma). At the time, the government “thought the land was worthless until all of a sudden they discovered all these minerals,” Tim Kent, the Environmental Director for the Quapaw Tribe, told ThinkProgress.
The Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) had tribal members declared incompetent, so mining companies could lease their land. Quapaw citizens were appointed White “guardians” to ostensibly manage the royalties collected from mining. Only one-sixth of Quapaw landowners ever saw any of the money. The tribe is currently settling a lawsuit with BIA over the mismanaged funds.
The mining companies that profited greatly from illegally leased land produced half of the lead and zinc for bullets in both World Wars. But after the local mining industry ground to a halt in the 1960s, generations of residents now live with what was left behind. Ottawa County, in northeast Oklahoma, is dotted with man-made mountains built from toxic mine tailings that locals call “chat piles” — some are more than 13 stories tall. People used the chat to build roads, fill in driveways, and even line playgrounds.
Residents now know that dust from the chat contains high levels of lead, zinc, and other toxic heavy metals. When it rains, water flows through the chat piles and a maze of underground tunnels, until local streams are so polluted they turn an eerie orange. Mining left the ground so unstable that cave-ins have been known to swallow entire houses, the largest one eating nine.
After cleanup lagged for decades, the EPA contracted with the Quapaw Tribe in 2014 to remediate a historical site on tribal land. The Quapaw then asked if they could take charge of the entire cleanup effort themselves.
“The EPA was reluctant at first to turn it over because it had never been done before. We are the first Native American tribe to head up a cleanup effort,” Kent said. “We had the most at stake, so why shouldn’t we do it?”
While the EPA hesitated to turn the cleanup over to the Quapaw Tribe, Kent believes the pace of the cleanup has improved since they were awarded the contract. Their role has now been cited as a best practice in giving local institutions control with federal oversight. “Tar Creek cleanup is an excellent example of how the program should work,” Albert Kelly, senior adviser to the EPA administrator said. “State and local partners, Tribal partners, and EPA — all working together year-after-year to address historical pollution at this mega-site. It’s cooperative federalism working at its best.”
“We’ve removed two million tons of waste. There’s about 50 million more to move,” Kent said.
While the partnership between the tribe and the EPA is a step in the right direction, the main determining factor in how much longer residents in Ottawa County are going to live with toxic heavy metals in their air, ground and water, is funding. At the current rate of funding, Tar Creek is looking at several more decades of clean up. With Trump’s substantial cuts to the EPA budget, and the Superfund program in particular, the effort could take even longer. Oklahoma’s own environmental budget has also undergone significant cuts in the past few years, reinforcing the need for federal money to fund the cleanup.
“If [the EPA] wanted to fix it they would put more money in it and fix it all at once. They wouldn’t budget to do 100 acres at a time when there are 26,000 acres that need to be done,” Jim said.
Rebecca Jim left her Oklahoma home early last week to fly to Washington, D.C. for a meeting with Pruitt and Kelly. Pruitt’s appointment of Kelly last year garnered widespread criticism after a report by the Intercept found that he has no background in science or environmental issues. The Oklahoma banker-turned-environmental-regulator was actually fined $125,000 by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) and banned from banking for life. While a banker, Kelly’s family business loaned Pruitt, then a state senator, money to buy a five-car garage home and a share in a minor league baseball team. Kelly also donated to Pruitt’s campaigns on multiple occasions.
The Superfund Task Force led by Kelly released a set of recommendations last year, all of which were immediately adopted by Pruitt. In response to a lawsuit asking for more information on the task force, the agency said it had no documentation, minutes, or written standards for choosing its members. Earlier this month, Kelly declined to testify at a congressional hearing about Superfund site clean up efforts. The EPA did not return ThinkProgress’ request for comment.
Leaders from Superfund sites across the United States were brought together for the EPA meeting by Lois Gibbs, whose advocacy over hazardous waste next to her home in Love Canal in upstate New York started the Superfund program.
“We settled down at the table across from the people who can make our lives, our land, our water safer, at Tar Creek, and at other damaged places around the country. We went to speak for every single American who one day wakes up to find they too are living near a superfund site,” Jim told ThinkProgress in an email.
Pruitt and Kelly politely listened to the group of citizen advocates from toxic communities, including a mother who had lost her son, but neither offered concrete solutions or promises for moving forward, Jim said. While the current administration is slashing funds for cleaning up toxic sites, they are also slashing regulations and oversight that prevent the creation of future sites. Mining ended at Tar Creek over 40 years ago. More than 30 years of clean up later, it is likely that local residents will continue live with the consequences for decades to come.
“Back in the early 1980s after Tar Creek had turned orange, everybody here thought the new EPA would do something and do it fast,” Jim said. “We’re still waiting.”
Rebecca Nagle is a Citizen of Cherokee Nation and a two spirit (queer) woman. She is currently a writer and organizer living in Baltimore, MD.
By Charles P. Pierce February 1, 2018
Getty Images
(Permanent Musical Accompaniment To This Post)
Being our semi-regular weekly survey of what’s goin’ down in the several states where, as we know, the real work of governmentin’ gets done and where the sun is rising over that little Minnesota town.
Now that the holidays are far, far behind us, it’s time for the shenanigans and the chicanery to really get rolling in the lands beyond the Beltway. State legislatures are back in action, and that means laughs for all. Anyway, we begin in Wisconsin, where the deal to bring the Foxconn plant to Racine Count is beginning to look like a poke that sleeps at least a dozen pigs. For example, Foxconn is a very thirsty corporation. From The Chicago Tribune:
“Foxconn Technology Group is seeking an air emissions permit and the right to tap 7 million gallons of water a day from Lake Michigan, an early glimpse at the regulatory requirements the company faces in Wisconsin. The city of Racine asked the state Department of Natural Resources for permission Monday to divert water from the lake primarily to serve the planned display panel factory and campus, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported.”
This has some local people wondering (again) how big a bag of magic beans was purchased from Foxconn by Scott Walker, the goggle-eyed homunculus hired by Koch Industries to manage this Midwest subsidiary. After all, there can’t have been too many places where the company could draw seven million gallons of fresh water per day. He wasn’t bidding against, for example, Utah. Plus, Foxconn still faces the hurdle of passing whatever state environmental regulations Walker and his pet legislature accidentally have left in place.
“Foxconn must acquire permits for air, wastewater and storm water. State legislation that gave Foxconn $3 billion in incentives also exempted the company from other environmental requirements, such as disturbing wetlands and building in stream beds. The filing indicates that Foxconn will begin with the construction and assembly of flat-panel displays, such as televisions. Then it will continue with a fabrication plant and glass manufacturing plant. Company officials hope to have the flat-panel plant operational by next January. Foxconn said the plant will emit nitrogen oxides and volatile organic compounds, which contribute to ozone pollution. Ozone exposure can reduce lung function, cause aggravated asthma and other [lung] diseases.”
The usual corporate pinky-swearing is underway.
“The company said it will use environmentally friendly design features at the Mount Pleasant location and will work to reduce carbon emissions.”
My guess is that the latter “work” will fail and that Foxconn will feel sad about that for approximately 11 seconds.
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We keep going north to Alaska—we go north, the rush is on—and we find ourselves in Wasilla. We look around for rampaging Palins and, finding none, we discover that the invaluable Mudflats blog has discovered another specimen of local fauna who’s worth looking at:
“Senator David Wilson (R-Wasilla) was outed on the AK Landmine for committing a weird and distasteful display of vulgarity and all-around inappropriate creepiness to a well-respected high-level staffer. We’ll call her Ann Smith [not her name]. The bottom line is that Wilson was trying to get a listen to a House Majority meeting happening behind closed doors. Ann Smith stood in front of the door and told the Senator nuh-uh. Because she was doing her job. Wilson, not to be dissuaded, got in her face, and alluded to the fact he was going to record the meeting on his phone, and acted like he was going to take a picture up her skirt. He held his arm down, with the phone camera pointed where it shouldn’t have been, and got about a foot away from her at the hem level of her skirt.”
All together now, class. “Ooh, ick!” Not only that, but Wilson got himself filmed being skeevy by some local television crews. Undaunted by his previous stupidity, Wilson called a press conference and…well, you know what’s coming by now.
“It was basically David Wilson, all alone just puttin’ himself out there in front of the cameras, denying the whole thing ever happened, calling the victim a liar, the media sitting in the room fake news, and demanding the resignation of Smith’s boss. It was like Trump-lite holding a press conference without a handler. Things were said that shouldn’t have been said, and the whole thing was a slow-motion train wreck… Come on, people. I mean, who are you going to believe, the guy inviting every media outlet to come watch him say, “LIAR!” or the multiple witnesses/reporters on the scene, and the security tape from the Capitol police…”
“Those of us at Wilson’s press availability were a bit gob-smacked that Wilson was delusional/foolish enough to deny repeatedly that the incident had occurred when it was ON TAPE. And we wondered if there would be any repercussions for his rambling accusations, victim blaming, and calling everyone “fake news.””
It’s on tape, dude. How many Wasilla politicians act stupidly on TV? All of them, Katie.
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Let us shake the mud of Wasilla off our shoes and go as fast as we can to Kentucky, where a local assistant police chief had become quite skilled at saying the quiet parts out loud. Really loud. From ABC News:
“The Facebook messages of concern, which accompanied the letter O’Connell sent to Evans, occurred from September to October 2016, O’Connell said. In the Facebook messages, Shaw and the recruit discussed a scenario for the recruit’s training in which he had to write a paper on the “right thing to do” if he were to come across three juveniles who were smoking marijuana, O’Connell wrote. The recruit appears to have come to Shaw for advice, telling him, “I’m so confused about this paper,” in the message, dated Oct. 5, 2016. “F— the right thing,” Shaw allegedly wrote. “If black shoot them.” Shaw allegedly made other “racially threatening statements,” which included instructions on “how to handle the juveniles’ parents,” according to the letter. “…if mom is hot then f— her,” Shaw allegedly wrote. “…if dad is hot then handcuff him and make him s— my d—.” Shaw allegedly continued, “Unless daddy is black…Then shoot him…”
As The Louisville Courier-Journal reports, Shaw and his lawyer don’t understand why people don’t have a sense of humor about this stuff anymore.
“In the messages he said he’s going to change the name of his dog, Tiger, because it’s a n—– name and joked about a photo of graffiti that shows the Bugs Bunny character Elmer Fudd standing in front of a sign that says “Negro Season.” Shaw’s lawyer said he was just “playing.””
And they fired him. Can you believe it? And this wasn’t even About Race because nothing ever is About Race.
From there, we scoot on up to Pennsylvania, where some serious lawlessness has broken out. You may recall that, the other day, a state court threw out Pennsylvania’s egregiously gerrymandered electoral map and demanded the legislature draw one up that didn’t quite so closely resemble Frank Luntz’s conception of Disney World. You might believe that’s the end of it, but you have reckoned without the thoroughgoing contempt that modern Republicans have for the law, from the legislative chambers in Harrisburg all the way up to the chambers of the United States Supreme Court. As to the first, from The Philadelphia Inquirer:
“Last week, the state high court ruled that Pennsylvania’s congressional map was the product of unconstitutional gerrymandering and ordered the General Assembly to submit files “that contain the current boundaries of all Pennsylvania municipalities and precincts” by noon Wednesday. In a letter to the court, Scarnati’s lawyers said he would not do so, repeating an argument they have made in the petition to the U.S. Supreme Court: The state court is overstepping its authority. “In light of the unconstitutionality of the Court’s Orders and the Court’s plain intent to usurp the General Assembly’s constitutionally delegated role of drafting Pennsylvania’s congressional districting plan, Sen. Scarnati will not be turning over any data identified in the Court’s Orders,” the lawyers wrote. While Scarnati’s lawyers said in a footnote that the senator does not actually have the requested data, the refusal signals that Scarnati will not comply with any future requests that could help the court draw its own map, said Drew Crompton, Senate Republicans’ top lawyer.”
Now, if you’re some poor sap who’s fighting, say, a water rights case, and the court tells you to turn over some data, and you refuse, you go to jail until you do. Unfortunately for us all, Scarnati may be acting in this lawless fashion because he has some lawless high-level back-up he can count on. From the L.A. Times:
“Last week Pennsylvania’s high court struck down the state’s election districts on the grounds they were drawn to give the GOP a 13-5 majority of its seats in the House of Representatives. Unlike other recent rulings, the state justices said they based their ruling solely on the state’s constitution. Usually, the U.S. Supreme Court has no grounds for reviewing a state court ruling that is based on state law.”
“Usually” is not a word that has much meaning in our current political moment.
“The Pennsylvania decision, if it stands, could be significant in November when Democrats hope for big gains in Congress. The state justices ordered a new election map to be drawn in the month ahead, and legal experts predicted it could shift two or three seats toward the Democrats. Late last week, the leaders of Pennsylvania’s legislature filed an emergency appeal with Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. seeking an order by Jan. 31 that would block the Pennsylvania ruling. They said it conflicted with a provision in the U.S. Constitution that says members of the House will be elected under rules “prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof.” As precedent, their lawyers cited the Bush vs. Gore ruling in 2000 in which the justices overruled the Florida Supreme Court and ended a manual recount of thousands of paper card ballots. Alito, who reviews emergency appeals from Pennsylvania and two other states, could have denied the appeal if he thought it had no chance of being granted. But late in the day Monday, he asked for a response by Feb. 4 from the League of Women Voters. His action suggests that he believes there is some prospect that a majority of his colleagues may grant the appeal.”
Ah, The Great Malignancy rears its head again, despite the fact that, in 2000, the Supreme Court made clear that Bush v. Gore applied only to the process of making George W. Bush the president of the United States and that it had no precedential value. As Scott Lemieux points out, the sudden reappearance of Zombie Rehnquist on the scene is extremely ominous.
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And we conclude, as is our wont, in the great state of Oklahoma, where Blog Official Saloon Pianist Friedman Of The Plains brings us the saga of yet another innovation of the 19th century that has found a home among the Sooners. From The Oklahoma Policy Institute:
“Heartbreaking stories of Oklahomans incarcerated for failure to pay their court costs have appeared everywhere from Oklahoma Watch to the New York Times, but we haven’t had a great understanding of just how many defendants are affected. A new OK Policy analysis of court records in five counties* shows that the number of people who are affected is staggering: In one county, as many as two in three criminal cases result in an arrest warrant for failure to pay at some point. It’s yet more evidence that the excessive fines and fees imposed on criminal defendants are creating enormous hardship for the people who can least afford it.”
And why is this occurring? Because god forbid anyone propose that Oklahomans tax themselves—or their energy industries—to pay for little things like the upkeep of local judiciaries.
“Courts and law enforcement agencies are ever more reliant on the money they collect due to declines in state funding. They devote a great deal of resources to pursuing, arresting, incarcerating, and adjudicating people who have failed to pay the outlandish sums that are demanded of them. The available evidence suggests that this is a losing financial proposition for the agencies involved, who end up spending more trying to collect debt than they gain in revenue.”
If you choose not to help fund your courts, you don’t live in a self-governing republic any more.
By Mark Joseph Stern January 31, 2018
Pennsylvania‘s current Republican gerrymander. Stephen Wolf/DailyKos
Pennsylvania Senate President pro tempore Joseph Scarnati announced on Wednesday that he will not comply with a state supreme court order to redraw Pennsylvania’s congressional lines. His open defiance of a court order raises the serious possibility that he may be held in contempt for brazenly violating the law.
The Pennsylvania Supreme Court struck down the state’s congressional map on Jan. 22, ruling that the egregiously partisan gerrymander ran afoul of the state constitution. It directed the GOP-controlled legislature to devise a new, nonpartisan map for the Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf’s approval, and noted that it would commission its own map if the elected branches could not come to an agreement. On Jan. 26, the court issued another order requesting data from the legislature “in anticipation of the possible eventuality that the General Assembly and the Governor do not enact a remedial congressional districting plan.” The court asked for “the current boundaries of all Pennsylvania municipalities and precincts” to help it draw a neutral map. It also noted that, if the legislature proposes its own map, it should include several reports proving that the new districts are fair and compact.
Through a letter from his lawyers, Scarnati flatly declared that he “will not be turning over any data identified in the Court’s Orders.” He pointed out that GOP legislators have already appealed the Pennsylvania Supreme Court’s ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Scarnati explained that he is so certain of SCOTUS intervention that he has decided to reject the state supreme court’s order.
There are two problems with this strategy. First, Republicans’ appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court will probably fail. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court’s decision was rooted entirely in state law, which should insulate it from SCOTUS review. But even if SCOTUS chose to intervene, Republicans would likely lose. As ThinkProgress’ Ian Millhiser has explained, their radical theory would bar any court, state or federal, from placing constitutional limitations on congressional redistricting. Pennsylvania Republicans are essentially asking the U.S. Supreme Court to strip the judiciary of its authority to regulate any form of gerrymandering. That’s quite the long shot, unless SCOTUS is keen to overturn Marbury v. Madison.
Second, even if the Pennsylvania Supreme Court’s orders were of dubious constitutionality, Scarnati would be obligated to follow them until a higher court steps in. Lawmakers hold no special power to defy court orders with which they disagree as they await a higher court’s ruling. If they believe a court has misinterpreted the law, they may appeal its decision.
Scarnati has done exactly that. In the meantime, he must comply with his own state supreme court’s demands.
By failing to do so, Scarnati has put himself at real risk of contempt of court. It is remarkable—though not entirely surprising—to see a state legislator risk jail time in order to defend a flagrantly partisan gerrymander. Under the current map, Republicans have seized 13 out of Pennsylvania’s 18 congressional districts; a fairer map should hand Democrats at least three more seats. That might be enough for Democrats to win control of the House of Representatives in 2018. The stakes are sky high—but no political squabble can justify Scarnati’s decision to break the law.
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By Chris Mooney, Steven Mufson January 31, 2018
Filipinos ride energy efficient electric tricycles during a test drive in Taguig city, south of Manila, Philippines, 12 January 2018. The Department of Energy (DOE) donated 200 units of energy efficient electric tricycles to the affected residents of war-torn Marawi as part of its efforts to help rebuild the city. Photo by FRANCIS R. MALASIG/EPA-EFE/REX/Shutterstock (Malasig/Epa-Efe/Rex/Shutterstock/Malasig/Epa-Efe/Rex/Shutterstock)
The Trump administration is poised to ask Congress for deep budget cuts to the Energy Department’s renewable energy and energy efficiency programs, slashing them by 72 percent overall in fiscal 2019, according to draft budget documents obtained by The Washington Post.
Many of the sharp cuts would likely be restored by Congress, but President Trump’s budget due out in February will mark a starting point for negotiations and offer a statement of intent and policy priorities.
The document underscores the administration’s continued focus on the exploitation of fossil fuel resources — or as Trump put it in his State of the Union address, “beautiful clean coal” — over newer renewable technologies seen as a central solution to the problem of climate change.
The Energy Department had asked the White House for more modest spending reductions for the renewable and efficiency programs, but people familiar with the process, who asked for anonymity to share unfinished budget information, said that the Office of Management and Budget insisted on the deeper cuts.
The cuts would also be deeper than those the Trump administration sought for the current fiscal year, but was unable to implement because of the budget impasse in Congress. The federal government has been operating on a series of continuing resolutions that have maintained existing spending. The current continuing resolution expires Feb. 8.
President Trump applauded his administration’s energy policy at a rally in Pensacola, Fla. on Dec. 8. (The Washington Post)
Spending for the Energy Department’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy is set at a $2.04 billion level for the current fiscal year, which ends Oct. 1. Last year the administration asked for just $636.1 million, a decline of over two-thirds, though Congress did not implement the request. For 2019, the administration’s draft proposal would lower that request even further to $575.5 million.
The document also suggests substantial staff cuts, down from 680 in the enacted 2017 budget to 450 in 2019.
“It shows that we’ve made no inroads in terms of convincing the administration of our value, and if anything, our value based on these numbers has dropped,” said one EERE employee, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the internal budget information.
The Energy Department did not respond to requests for comment on Wednesday. The White House said in a statement: “We don’t comment on any leaked or pre-decisional documents prior to the release of the official budget.”
It is unclear whether the document represents a final budget proposal or will be subject to last-minute negotiation and revision. The federal budget is due out in February.
One source familiar with the negotiating process, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to freely describe what the person had learned, said that the budget request had been lowered after negotiations with the Office of Management and Budget, and may have been lowered further because of a desire to channel more funding toward nuclear energy, a favored subject for Energy Secretary Rick Perry.
The funding requests represent a double whammy for renewable energy after the administration last week imposed tariffs on imported solar panels.
The tariff action e is likely to decrease the installation volumes of solar energy in coming years, according to industry analysts.
The Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy is perhaps best known for the solar “SunShot” program, which strives to drive down the price of solar energy.
The large bulk of its funding is deployed on research, most frequently at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden, Co. The vast majority of the laboratory’s $293 million budget in 2017 came from EERE.
But it’s far from clear the cuts would become a reality.
“”The president suggests a budget, but, under the Constitution, Congress passes appropriations bills,” Sen. Lamar Alexander (R — Tenn.), an influential appropriator on energy issues, said in a statement.
The draft document says the administration will once again ask Congress to abolish the weatherization program, which has trained thousands of workers and helped reduce utility bills for thousands of homeowners. The budget proposal would also eliminate state energy grants.
The budget would ax research in fuel efficient vehicles by 82 percent, bio-energy technologies by 82 percent, advanced manufacturing by 75 percent and solar energy technology by 78 percent.
The proposal would cut funds for electric car technologies and fuel efficient vehicles — at $307 million currently the biggest of the program areas — to $ 56 million in 2019.
Money for bio-energy technologies have gone to research renewable fuels from nonfood sources.
The plan would also chop spending on more efficient building technologies and research into geothermal, hydro and wind power.
The renewable and efficiency programs represent about seven percent of the Energy Department’s overall budget. The majority of the department’s budget goes to maintaining the nation’s nuclear weapons stockpile and cleaning up sites contaminated by federal nuclear programs.
Chris Mooney reports on science and the environment.
Steven Mufson covers energy and other financial matters. Since joining The Post, he has covered the White House, China, economic policy and diplomacy.
