EPA transition leader says the agency is ‘an impending disaster for Trump’

Think Progress

EPA transition leader says the agency is ‘an impending disaster for Trump’

Gutting the EPA’s budget, science, and regulations is not enough for climate-denying conservatives.

Dr. Joe Romm, Founding Editor of Think Progress, May 22, 2017

“This is an impending disaster for the Trump administration.” That’s how Myron Ebell, the climate science denier who oversaw the transition team for President Donald Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency, described the state of the agency to a conservative conference, according to tapes obtained by Reuters.

Ebell’s concern is not the dramatic, unpopular cuts Trump will reportedly serve the EPA in his forthcoming budget, or how those cuts will be received by the American people and Congress. He thinks they don’t go far enough.

The actions taken thus far by the Trump administration to gut the EPA budget, to prevent EPA from relying on science in its decision-making, and to undo regulations aimed at protecting public health and a livable climate have already led to the agency’s own staff “openly mocking” Trump’s “callous” policies, as one retiree explained. But for conservatives like Ebell, the disaster is that the administration, and particularly EPA administrator Scott Pruitt, are doing far too little.

What has this wing of conservatives so upset they are attacking Pruitt, despite the fact that he rejects and misrepresents mainstream climate science and has already embarked on the most radical rollback of basic environmental protections since the EPA was created?

“Paris and the endangerment finding are the two big outstanding issues,” Ebell said at the conference. “It’s the first wave of things that are necessary to turn this country around.”

In Ebell’s eyes, the impending disaster is that the administration isn’t moving fast enough to kill the Paris climate deal and the 2009 EPA finding that carbon dioxide endangers public health and welfare.

The landmark Paris climate agreement is quite simply humanity’s last best hope of averting catastrophic climate change and the needless suffering of billions of people for decades to come. The Trump administration has waffled for months on whether to formally withdraw the U.S. from the unanimous 2015 deal between nearly 200 nations to reverse global CO2 emissions trends.

But even if Trump doesn’t formally pull out of the Paris agreement, the efforts already undertaken by Trump and Pruitt to gut domestic climate action would make it all but impossible to avert disaster.

And that’s where the endangerment finding comes in. In 2007, the Supreme Court ruled in the case Massachusetts v. EPA that greenhouse gases like CO2 are pollutants which EPA can regulate under the Clean Air Act — and that in fact, the EPA must regulate CO2 if a review of the science concludes that carbon pollution does endanger public health or welfare.

Now even back in 2009, scientific observations and analysis made it painfully obvious that CO2 was in fact a grave danger to humanity. Recent scientific assessments have only solidified the case that failing to curb CO2 emissions risks “severe, pervasive and irreversible impacts for people and ecosystems,” as the world’s leading scientists and governments concluded back in 2014.

And the science is even stronger today.

But many conservatives believe that if EPA doesn’t formally undo the agency’s 2009 endangerment finding, then its efforts to kill Obama’s CO2 regulations, such as the Clean Power Plan, will be ultimately overturned in the courts. The reality, however, is that what Trump and Pruitt are doing is not likely to be overturned by the Supreme Court, especially with Trump appointee Neil Gorsuch to break any tie votes.

Nonetheless, conservative media continues to publish articles like this Breitbart piece from April, “Environmental Groups Ask EPA to Rescind Obama’s ‘Endangerment Finding’.” Under the term “environmental groups,” however, Breitbart includes the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI), which is where Ebell serves as director of the Center for Energy and Environment.

To Ebell and CEI — source of the infamous “CO2: they call it pollution, we call it Life!” ad — any admission that CO2 is harmful to humans is apostasy.

So, since Pruitt hasn’t made any effort to undo the endangerment finding (yet), he is letting conservatives down and risking “impending disaster.”

Such is the Orwellian world we find ourselves in, where it’s a disaster we aren’t moving even faster toward disaster.

The place in America where (almost) no one drinks their tap water

Christian Science Monitor

The place in America where (almost) no one drinks their tap water

Local officials in eastern Kentucky’s Martin County insist the water is fine, despite repeated violations of EPA limits. But residents have been relying on bottled water for years.

Story Hinckly Staff writer

May 18, 2017 Inez and Tomahawk, Ky.—T.J. Fannin, sitting on his porch as the sun sets, speaks fondly of the 27 years he spent working in nearby coal mines. But despite the hard labor that fueled a coal boom and sent millions of dollars into Kentucky’s coffers, he says he and his neighbors lack a basic amenity: clean tap water.

“[O]n the TV you see someone go to the faucet and get a drink of water, and it just makes me mad cause, you know, we can’t do that,” says Mr. Fannin, who buys two or three 24-packs of bottled water a month for drinking and cooking. “There’s an odor to the water…. It’s just like stagnant water [that] comes out of the bottom of a pool.”

It’s no secret that the decline of coal has hit the mountain spine of Appalachia hard. But it’s less well known that an amenity of life most Americans take for granted isn’t a given, more than 50 years after Lyndon B. Johnson launched his “war on poverty” here in Martin County, Ky.

And what really gets Fannin’s goat, he says, is that residents here face far higher water bills than in nearby counties. This, despite frequent warnings that the local water has exceeded Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) limits for certain chemicals.

“We should have a top-notch water system, septic system, schools, roads,” given all the proceeds from coal mining over the years, says the former miner. “We got this 4-lane [highway] down here and that’s basically all we got.”

In a place where political distrust runs high and funds are scarce, little has been done to improve the county’s water quality or infrastructure, as reported by the Ohio Valley Resource’s Benny Becker in January.

Local officials argue that the water issue has been blown out of proportion by a handful of outspoken residents, whose activism sends the water district jumping through bureaucratic hoops instead of fixing a creaking system. For the rest of the community, relying solely on bottled water is seen as just a way of life, not a reason to protest.

Two students hanging out in the high school parking lot say their parents have always had a family rule against drinking from the tap. Becky, a grocery cashier in nearby Warfield, says she hasn’t consumed the county’s water since 1999. Neither a hardware-store owner nor a retired butcher can remember the last time they drank from the tap.

“There is a fundamental breakdown in the expectation of democracy in places like Appalachia,” says Alexander Gibson, director of Appalshop, a media organization in Whitesburg, Ky. “They have observed that a complaint to the government disappears like the morning fog.”

Exceeded EPA limits repeatedly since 2005

In the bowels of the Martin County Water District offices, Joe Hammond sits in front of an Excel sheet, a map of the county’s water lines taped on the wall above him.

Piles of paper teeter beside his elbows, while packs of bottled water are stacked next to the filing cabinets. He says the girls in the office drink that, not him. As far as he’s concerned, the local water is fine.

“I raised two fine young children with that water,” says Mr. Hammond, the supervisor of the water district.

But Lee Mueller, who was also born here, became concerned about the water when he moved back in the 1980s.

“I had written stories about it for years,” says Mr. Mueller, who served as the Lexington-Herald Leader’s eastern Kentucky bureau chief for three decades. He blames the water quality for his own cancer diagnosis. “I didn’t really get involved with water until we were getting notices of violation that were two months old from the water district that they were required by law to inform residents that they had exceeded contaminant levels for various cancer-causing agents.”

According to Kentucky Division of Water records, Martin County’s water system has exceeded EPA limits for certain chemicals in its drinking water multiple times every year since 2005. Martin County was out of compliance in eight of the last 10 tests for haloacetic acid (HAA5) limits and 6 of the last 10 tests for total trihalomethanes (TTHM) limits.

These chemicals – by-products of chlorine treatment intended to make the water palatable – aren’t considered as dangerous as the lead that laced Flint’s water in Michigan. But the notifications sent to residents by the water district warn that extended exposure increases the risk of cancer.

Gail Brion, an engineering professor at the University of Kentucky who previously worked for the EPA, says the agency sets conservative limits for HAA5s and TTHMs. But an ethical controversy arises, says Professor Brion, when the government gives you no choice but to pay for bottled water in order to avoid this health risk.

Funding and priorities

The highest elected official in Martin County, Judge Executive Kelly Callaham, can be found in his corner office in the county’s newest courthouse. When asked about his county’s water quality, Judge Callaham leans forward in his chair and waves one hand in the air.

“You could drink four gallons of our water every day for 70 years and you have a chance of getting cancer. Well, hell, if you eat hot dogs, read what’s in hot dogs. You could eat four hot dogs a day for 70 years and you probably wouldn’t last 70 years,” says Callaham. “ ‘Could cause cancer,’ and ‘will cause cancer’ is a whole different deal.”

Callaham blames the EPA-mandated notices and the local newspaper, the Mountain Citizen, for what he considers unnecessary hysteria.

Editor Gary Ball has published a steady stream of articles on the water issue, as well as Callaham’s alleged misuse of county finances, including the $10 million courthouse building. “The system has been mismanaged for years,” Mr. Ball says.

Kentucky began issuing a “severance” tax on coal companies in 1972 to assist economic development. According to state records obtained by the Monitor, out of $34.5 million in coal severance funds disbursed since 2001, Martin County spent $7.3 million – or about 21 percent – on sewer and water improvements.

Comparatively, state Senator Ray Jones – who represents five counties including Martin County – says his home of Pike County spent 70 to 75 percent of its severance tax funds on water and sewer infrastructure.

“A lot of it comes down to funding,” says Senator Jones, “but a lot of it comes down to priorities.”

Among other projects, Martin County spent about $3.3 million in coal severance funds on the new courthouse, and another $7 million to build the Inez Business Center. Local critics say these funds could have made a big dent in repairing Martin County’s water system, with estimates of total renovation running between $13 and $15 million.

Coal severance revenues have plummeted in recent years. In 2016, Martin County received only 12 percent of what it got in 2009. Today the revenues provide just enough to cover the bond payments on the new courthouse.

Callaham says he wouldn’t have built it if he knew the coal severance money was going to run out so quickly.

But Darren Sammons with the Kentucky Department of Local Government says, “[W]e have been advising local officials for years to expect lower coal severance revenues and to budget accordingly.”

A system built for 600, serving 3,500

Meanwhile, Hammond is left to address the water district’s manifold problems as best he can.

Martin County’s water system – including a treatment plant – was built in 1968 for 600 customers. It currently serves 3,500. This expansion of lines in eastern Kentucky’s rocky hills created an underground system susceptible to holes and line breaks – and therefore water loss.

The EPA estimates the average water loss in the US to be 15 percent per month, but Martin County has been under investigation by the Kentucky Public Service Commission (PSC) in recent years for water loss rates greater than 60 percent.

When there’s a problem, Martin County residents often call the local newspaper instead of the water district, circumventing Hammond.

The newspaper goes directly to the PSC, which responds to the paper’s complaints by issuing Hammond extensive paperwork, which he says diverts resources away from dealing with customers’ problems.

“I’m still working on things they have asked for” – back in June 2016, he says.

‘People are afraid to complain’

A Facebook group called Martin County Water Warriors, which has more than 1,000 members, regularly posts updates on water quality issues – everything from photos of corroded water heaters to updates about the next hearing on Martin County’s water (June 1 in Frankfort, Ky.).

Nina and Mickey McCoy, longtime environmental activists, say they have also tried to organize citizen meetings to demand action on the city’s water quality, but with little effect. Once, they ordered dozens of pizzas and not a single person showed up.

In a place where Big Coal holds so much sway, few are willing to publicly share their grievances.

“People are afraid to complain about the water,” says Mr. McCoy, because they fear losing their jobs or severance packages. “Or their third cousin might be fired. It runs deep.”

There’s also a pervasive feeling that speaking up won’t accomplish anything.

“The government just doesn’t seem to work on this level for the people,” says Dan Preece, a world history teacher at Sheldon Clark High School – who is willing to speak on the record only because he is tenured.

“When the kids see over time what does get spent here … you see a new courthouse built, but we can’t get the water fixed,” says Mr. Preece. “They don’t feel like they matter, like this is not a problem worth solving.”

But Jones, for one, is working on solving it.

“It needs to be a collaborative effort between local officials, local citizens, and state officials,” says Jones, who in February introduced legislation to give the PSC greater leverage over water districts. “It’s not going to be resolved overnight… but there needs to be a plan.”

Staff writer Christa Case Bryant contributed reporting.

CSM, In Pictures Water: a vital resource in crisis

http://www.csmonitor.com/Photo-Galleries/In-Pictures/Water-a-vital-resource-in-crisis#710033

An Open Letter to Rev. Franklin Graham from a “Small Church” Pastor

Trinity’s Portico

“A place where prophets, apostles and poets meet in the lessons for each Sunday of the church year”

An Open Letter to Rev. Franklin Graham from a “Small Church” Pastor

Dear Frank

Can I call you Frank? This is just pastor to pastor. Feel free to call me Peter. Anyway, I have to say I was flattered when I learned that your Decision America Tour took a detour off the beaten path to call upon us “small community churches.” We are nothing if not small. We seat 30-40 on a good Sunday. And we are a century old fixture of our small community. Most often we are overlooked and overshadowed by mega-churches and politically influential religious voices like your own. We don’t hold a candle to an auditorium filled with the music of a one hundred voice choir led by professional musicians. We probably will never be recognized in any nationally syndicated media. After all, we don’t do anything really “newsworthy.” We just preach the good news of Jesus Christ; love one another the best we can (which sometimes isn’t very well); feed the hungry that come to our doors; care for the sick; comfort the dying; and bury the dead. So thanks for thinking of us. Rest assured, we are ready to respond to your calls to prayer and action.

I have to say, though, that I was a little confused by your summons. Of all the things that worry me, loss of religious freedom for Christians in America isn’t one of them. I can’t say I have ever experienced anything in this country that could reasonably be called a restriction on my religious liberty, much less persecution. When you started talking about attacks on Christianity, I thought you might have been referring to the racially motivated slaying of pastors and lay people at Mother Emmanuel church in Charlotte some time back. Or I figured you were referring to the slaughter of Coptic Christians in Egypt this past Palm Sunday. That’s what I call persecution. But having to pay a judgment for refusing to bake a cake for a same sex couple in violation of the law against discrimination? This you call persecution?

There’s a letter in the Bible, written by the Apostle Peter (ever heard of him?). He’s an expert on persecution, having been on the receiving end of it more than once. He says you don’t get divine kudos from suffering the consequences of breaking the law-even if you are a Christian. Moreover, there is a Christian fellow named Paul (aka Saul) who wrote a letter to a church in Rome nearly two thousand years ago. He said that if your enemy is hungry you should feed him (that’s in the Bible too). So wouldn’t it have been the Christian way to have baked a cake for the same sex couple in your example, even if you deem them enemies (another assertion I don’t quite understand)? I’m confused.

But in any event, Frank, let’s get over this persecution complex. Stop with the drama already! You are not under attack just because you have to follow the rules like everyone else. Look, I understand the owners of this establishment you mention in your speech don’t approve of gay and lesbian people getting married. They don’t have to approve of them. But if they are going to do business in this country, they have to follow the law against discrimination-just like the rest of us. If you don’t like the rules, don’t join the game. It’s that simple. Furthermore, I don’t understand why baking a cake for people whose conduct you find personally offensive is such a big deal. Heck, Frank, if all of us small church pastors refused to bury everyone whose conduct we didn’t approve of, the country would be ten feet deep in corpses!

I am struggling, too, with your claim that Donald Trump is a champion (albeit an unlikely one) for religious freedom. What freedoms are we talking about here, Frank? The freedom to lie with impunity? The freedom to grab young girls by the genitals? The freedom to discriminate against people of color in the sale and rental of real estate? The freedom to refer to women as “dogs,” “fat pigs,” and “ugly”? The freedom to call your opponents “idiots,” “losers,” “liars” and “frauds”? The freedom to slander people with accusations of criminal conduct based on absolutely no evidence? By my count, the above violate at least four of the Ten Commandments (you will find those in the books of Exodus and Deuteronomy-both in the Bible). If Donald Trump is the champion of American Christianity, God save it from its enemies!

All kidding aside, you might be right about God putting Donald Trump in the White House-though your reasons for so believing are probably different from what I might conjecture. Still, how do you know that? Where did you get this info? I have to hand it to you, Frank, you sure do have the connections. As I am sure you know, God does not consult with us small church pastors on weighty issues of that kind. So it was kind of you to leak this classified intelligence to all of us who are evidently a good deal further away from the divine pipeline.

So let me see if I have this figured out correctly: God doesn’t give a flying fruitcake if we deprive twenty-million people, most of them poor, of access to health care. Nor is God particularly concerned about how men treat women in the workplace, how people of color are treated in the real estate market, how the hungry and homeless are cared for (or not), but God flips out if we bake a cake for a same sex couple to celebrate their wedding? I have to be honest with you, Frank. I’m just not seeing it. Not in the Bible, not in the realm of rational common sense.

Here’s the thing, Frank. At the last judgment, Jesus doesn’t ask anyone about who they voted for, how many times they have been divorced, what their sexual history or orientation is or for whom they did or did not bake wedding cakes. His sole concern is for how we treated the hungry, the thirsty, the naked, the imprisoned, those deemed “least” among us. No, I didn’t get that from any private chat with God. We small church pastors have to rely on the Bible for our intel. I got this stuff from the Gospel of Matthew, 25^th Chapter to be precise. As I said, that, too, is in the Bible. (It’s a great book, Frank. You should read it sometime.)

You know, Frank, I would like to think that we are brothers. I would like to believe that we are on the same side. I would like to believe that, beneath our differences, we worship the same God and follow the same Savior. But quite honestly, I don’t recognize the Jesus I learned from my parents, my Sunday School teachers, my pastors or my years of study and reflection on the Bible in your angry, fearful rhetoric. Yes, I will answer your call for prayer. But I will be praying for the real victims of persecution-the victims of racial discrimination, sexual violence and bullying.

I will answer your call to action. But I will be acting to establish health care as a right for all people; making the college campus and the workplace spaces where women and girls need not fear being called “pigs,” “dogs” or “ugly” nor will they need to fear rich, white celebrity males who feel entitled to grab them by the genitals. I will respond to your call for action by working for a society in which no one needs to worry about where she will sleep at night or where the next meal is coming from. You want prayer? You want action? You’ve got it.

Well, thanks again, Frank, for thinking about us small church folk. I appreciate your concern about our being persecuted and under attack. But don’t worry about us. We don’t have your money, your access to the halls of power or your seeming direct connection to the Almighty. But we have the scriptures, we have prayer, and we are learning every day what it means to love God with all our hearts, souls, minds and strength and to love our neighbors as ourselves. That’s all we need. You can keep your champion in the White House, thanks just the same.

Christ’s servant and yours,

Peter

Pastor Olsen (revolsen) Bogota, New Jersey

Pastor Olsen was ordained in 1982. He served as pastor of Our Saviour’s Lutheran Church in Teaneck, New Jersey from 1982 until 1987 when he resigned to pursue a law degree at Rutgers Law School in Newark, New Jersey. Following graduation in 1990, he began practicing law full time at the firm of Francis & Berry in Morristown, New Jersey. In 1994 Pastor Olsen accepted a call as assistant to the Pastor at Church of the Savior in Paramus, New Jersey where he served as a part time minister and supply preacher for churches throughout Bergen County. Pastor Olsen left the full time practice of law and his pastorate at Church of the Savior in October of 2008 to accept the call to serve as pastor of Trinity Evangelical Lutheran Church in Bogota.

Pastor Olsen is a graduate of Luther Seminary in St. Paul, Minnesota. He obtained his bachelor’s degree from Valparaiso University, Valparaiso Indiana. Pastor Olsen and his wife, Sesle, have three adult children, Sarah, Emily and Benjamin.

Pastor Olsen’s sermons are uploaded to Trinity’s Website on a weekly basis.

Is the Leader of the Free World Unraveling?

John Hanno May 16, 2017

The Donald, in his previous corporate life, was unaccustomed to having his thoughts, ideas and proclamations questioned. Yet he sought the job of President of the United States, the titular head of the free world, the most complex employment endeavor in the world (who knew) and a job that requires an extremely thick hide and the ability to graciously and deftly deflect the incessant arrows and criticism directed at him, his family and his political agenda. On his best day, a U.S. President can maybe move this plodding aircraft carrier of a nation 1/4 degree off course.

Its not like Trump hadn’t witnessed recent examples of President Bush’s and especially President Obama’s steadfast defensive maneuvers. Trump himself heaped endless condemnation on both Bush and especially on Obama. Obviously Mr. Trump is much better at tossing invective and spreading alternative facts, than catching criticism and accepting the truth.

The latest examples of Trumps alternative reality involves the firing of FBI Director James Comey. Trump said the “showboat and grandstander” was not doing a good job and wasn’t capable of rebuilding the reputation of the FBI. Then after he canned him, he fired a shot over the directors bow when he revealed that Trump may have recorded their conversation during the dinner/meeting and other meetings and conversations in the White House.

Then the following day, Trump entertained the Russian Foreign minister and ambassador and the Russian press in the White House, and during that meeting, is reported to have divulged highly classified, Code level intelligence to those Russians.

Now we learn from Director Comey that he made detailed memos of their White House meeting and other conversations, and claims Trump not only asked Comey to pledge allegiance to Trump, but asked him to end the investigation of Flynn and possible Trump collusion with the Russians.

The New York Times also reported that in a February meeting with Comey, “Trump condemned leaks of classified information to the media”, and said that Comey: “should consider putting reporters in prison for publishing classified information.”

This daily malfeasance and chaos boggles the rational mind. Why is Trump always bending over backwards praising Putin and Flynn? The common denominator here is the convoluted business dealings between Trump and his associates and Putin and the Russians. It’s obvious Trump believes Flynn can implicate Trump and the White House in Flynn’s collusion with the Russians.

Together with Trump firing former acting Attorney General Sally Yates, after she testified and suggested that former national security advisor Michael Flynn may have run afoul of criminal law before he got fired, and the reports that Director Comey told the Justice Department that he was stepping up the investigation into the Trump Russia Thing and needed more funds, its clear that Trump felt the criminal and impeachment vice closing in.

Trump claimed Mr. Comey asked to come to the White House; but that was proved a lie by James Clapper, former Director of National Intelligence, who met with Comey the day before the dinner and said the president invited Comey and that he felt uncomfortable but believed he couldn’t turn down the invite.

Trump paraded out his spokespeople to claim the reason for the Comey firing was his botched investigation into Hillary’s emails. Assistant press spokesperson Sarah Huckabee Sanders also stated that countless members of the FBI (although she admitted in the same sentence she doesn’t know that many) were happy that Comey was fired.

But Acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe, who testified before the Senate intelligence committee, refuted claims by the White House that FBI employees had lost faith in James Comey. McCabe stated: “I hold Director Comey in the absolute highest regard. I have the highest respect for his considerable abilities and his integrity,” He said Director Comey enjoyed “broad support within the FBI and still does to this day.” He added, “The majority, the vast majority of FBI employees enjoyed a deep, positive connection to Director Comey.”

McCabe also refuted another statement by Sanders in a White House briefing, after she said the Russia investigation was “probably one of the smallest things” on the FBI’s plate, when he said “We consider it to be a highly significant investigation.”

Then during an interview the following day, Trump admits he fired Director Comey because he believes the “Russian/Trump entanglement investigation, led by Director Comey, is just fake news and a campaign by the Democrats to undermine his election.”

But all Trump accomplished was to set himself up for a charge of obstruction of justice. It may be that he lies even to his spokespersons and staff because if he told them the whole truth, the entire ruse would come tumbling down.

Trump continued the subterfuge by claiming he hired a prestigious Washington D.C. law firm (The Best) to concoct a letter sent to Sen. Lindsey Graham stating that Trump has no investments in Russia, when he could have silenced all his critics by just producing his tax returns. His own sons claimed the Trump organization had enormous investments from investors and oligarchs in Russia.

Our parents and teachers repeatedly told us that lying is often tough to walk back from and that trying to cover-up a lie with more lies never ends well. But Trump always said he’s his own best advisor. I’m not sure he listens to or accepts council from anyone and that makes Trump his own worst enemy.

Trump tweeted: “James Comey better hope that there are no “tapes” of our conversations before he starts leaking to the press!” Considering the Donald’s “Nixonian” paranoia and vindictiveness, that threat was not only for Comey’s benefit, but for anyone who colluded with Trump or turned a blind eye to the Republi-con/Russian conspiracy, and who may be contemplating turning states evidence. These conspirators will stoop to any vile or ruthless conduct, even subverting American Democracy, in order to grab power. But Trump will not go down quietly. He may have his own Russianesk dossier to use as leverage against anyone abandoning this ship of fools.

Trump and the Republi-cons have played fast and loose with their own set of rules for the last decade. But is their fealty to tax cuts for the rich and powerful, destruction of our budding Obamacare system repair, and the elimination of regulations for their polluting benefactors, worth destroying our two-party political system?

Trump has no loyalty for anyone but himself and will throw anyone under the bus attempting to save himself. Every bizarre shoe that drops is another nail in the Republi-con’s coffin. Republican leaders in congress have to decide when to pull themselves off this Toxic Tarbaby. Historians relate this train wreck to Watergate. These Republican enablers should take note that 48 members of the Nixon administration went to jail for aiding and abetting. There’s a potential 10 year prison sentence for obstruction of justice.

And Trump’s unrelenting obsession with bashing the press and media reminds us of the worst despots in history. Thankfully, the media has taken off the kid gloves and undertaken the critical oversight our Republican controlled congress is shirking. And in spite of Trump’s protestations, our Supreme Court ruled in 1971 that the press has a right to publish classified information received from sources, as long as they don’t help those sources break the law.

Most experts believe that what’s taken place in Russia over the last 17 years, (since Putin’s been solidifying his rein of kleptocratic terror) can’t happen in America, because our democratic institutions, and especially the other two branches of government, the courts and Congress, are too formidable. But is the Republican controlled congress up to the task? What more has to happen before the Republi-cons in congress do their duty and save our democracy and our Constitution? Fortunately we still have career employees in the State Department and in the intelligence and justice departments who refuse to turn a blind eye to this treason, malfeasance and corruption. John Hanno

Washington Post

The only realistic way to stop Trump

By Eugene Robinson, Opinion Writer May 15, 2017

The appalling truth about the Trump administration can be found in something Maya Angelou once said to Oprah Winfrey: “My dear, when people show you who they are, why don’t you believe them? Why must you be shown 29 times before you can see who they really are?”

The chaos and dysfunction we have seen since Jan. 20 constitute, I fear, the new normal. Anyone holding out hope for some magical transition from lunacy into sanity will surely be disappointed. President Trump has shown the nation who he is.

There are leading Republicans, people whose integrity I respect, who have been telling me since the inauguration that the administration is on the cusp of settling down and that Trump is starting to appreciate the solemnity of his new role. One such person who is in regular contact with the president told me the administration had “finally hit the reset button” — just days before Trump rashly fired FBI Director James B. Comey in an act compared to Richard Nixon’s “Saturday Massacre.” Trump’s honorable well-wishers are in denial.

Other supporters, including most Republican members of Congress, are being dangerously cynical. With majorities in both chambers, they hope to use Trump to enact a far-right agenda of huge tax cuts for the wealthy, massive reductions in government aid for the poor and across-the-board deregulation. To get what they want, they are willing to pretend the emperor is wearing clothes.

Imagine the reaction had President Barack Obama fired Comey while the FBI was investigating Hillary Clinton. Articles of impeachment would have been drawn up within hours.

For Democrats and others who opposed Trump’s candidacy, there is no solace to be taken in the Trump campaign promises that sounded vaguely progressive. In early rallies, he flirted with the idea of universal medical care, which eventually morphed into a pledge of health insurance “for everybody.” But he threw his full support behind the House attempt to snatch insurance away from at least 24 million people and cut Medicaid by some $800 billion. His budget director recently mused that diabetics are to blame for their own preexisting condition.

The most significant single accomplishment of the administration — putting Neil Gorsuch on the Supreme Court — is not anything progressives are likely to celebrate. And Trump’s attorney general, Jeff Sessions, is trying to reverse the progress the Obama administration made on ending mass incarceration for nonviolent drug offenses.

Meanwhile, Trump promised an “America First” foreign policy of nonintervention. But he ordered a military strike in Syria, drawing us deeper into that bloody conflict, and has decided to send more troops to Afghanistan. Rather than emphasize human rights, he has had warm words of support for autocrats and strongmen such as Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who is scheduled to visit the White House on Tuesday. Trump’s bromance with Russian President Vladimir Putin smolders on.

There is no silver lining that I can discern. There is no realistic hope of sudden salvation.

Thinking some transgression or another will eventually prove to be a tipping point for Republicans is logical but not realistic. The see-no-evil GOP response to the Comey firing is instructive. Trump said during the campaign that he could “stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody” and not lose popular support. For House Republicans to impeach him, presumably there would have to be multiple victims.

There are those who entertain the fantasy that Trump will get bored or frustrated and eventually resign. But he’s already bored and frustrated with the drudgery of governing, and he has developed coping mechanisms — he stages campaign-style rallies, chews out his hapless staff, vents on Twitter. When he invited House members to the White House to celebrate that awful health-care bill, he interrupted his speech to say, “Hey, I’m president! Can you believe it, right?” He’s not going to voluntarily give that up.

If news reports are correct, he is mulling a substantial shake-up of his White House staff. But no communications team is going to look good while having to defend the crazy, indefensible things Trump regularly says. No chief of staff can institute orderly processes if Trump is going to ignore them and fly by the seat of his pants. Trump is used to running things a certain way. He’s not going to change.

We are where we are. Democrats need to flip one or both houses of Congress next year to slow this runaway train. It won’t stop itself.

Washington Post

Trump doesn’t embody what’s wrong with Washington. Pence does.

By Richard Cohen Opinion writer May 15, 2017

When history holds its trial to account for the Donald Trump presidency, Trump himself will be acquitted on grounds of madness. History will look at his behavior, his erratic and childish lying and his flamboyant ignorance of history itself and pronounce the man, like George III, a cuckoo for whom restraint, but not punishment, was necessary. Such will not be the case for Mike Pence, the toady vice president and the personification of much that has gone wrong in Washington.

On any given day, Pence will do his customary spot-on imitation of a bobblehead. Standing near Trump in the Oval Office, he will nod his head robotically as the president says one asinine thing after another and then, maybe along with others, he will be honored with a lie or a version of the truth so mangled by contradictions and fabrications that a day in the White House is like a week on LSD.

I pick on Pence because he is the most prominent and highest-ranked of President Trump’s lackeys. Like with all of them, Pence’s touching naivete and trust are routinely abused. He vouches for things that are not true — no talk of sanctions between Mike Flynn and the Russians, for instance, or more recently the reason James B. Comey was fired as FBI director. In both instances, the president either lied to him or failed to tell him the truth. The result was the same: The vice president appeared clueless.

I don’t feel an iota of sympathy for Pence. He was among a perfidious group of political opportunists who pushed Trump’s candidacy while having to know that he was intellectually, temperamentally and morally unfit for the presidency. They stuck with him as he mocked the disabled, belittled women, insulted Hispanics, libeled Mexicans and promiscuously promised the impossible and ridiculous — all that “Day One” nonsense like how the wall would be built and Mexico would pay for it.

I also have little sympathy for Sean Spicer, who plays the role of a bullied child. Trump routinely sends him out to lie to the American people, which he has done ever since his insistence that the inaugural crowd was bigger than the photos showed. He persists at his job even though Trump broadly hints that he will soon fire him. When Spicer is gone, he will be easily replaced. Washington is full of people who have no honor and no pride, either.

I think of Steven Mnuchin, the treasury secretary, and Wilbur Ross, at Commerce. What possessed them to back Trump for the GOP nomination? Didn’t they know the sort of man he is? Did they think a lower tax rate and fewer regulations are worth risking American democracy and our standing in the world? When they watched the bizarre way Trump sacked Comey, were they proud of their candidate?

The swamp that Trump kept mentioning in the campaign is not really one of tangled bureaucratic mangroves, but of moral indifference. Washington always had a touch of that — after all, its business is politics — but Trump and his people have collapsed the space between lies and truth. The president uses one and then the other — whatever works at the time.

The president cannot be trusted. He cannot be believed. He has denigrated the news media, not for its manifest imperfections but for its routine and obligatory search for the truth. He has turned on the judiciary for its fidelity to the law and, once, for the ethnic heritage of a judge. Trump corrupts just about everything he touches.

From most of the Republican Party comes not a whisper of rebuke. The congressional leadership is inert, cowed, scurrying to the White House for this or that ceremonial picture, like members of the erstwhile Politburo flanking Stalin atop Lenin’s mausoleum. They are appalled, but mute. They want to make the best of a bad situation, I know, and they fear the voters back home, but their complicity ought to be obvious even to them.

America is already worse off for Trump’s presidency. He was elected to make America great again, but his future is more like other nations’ sordid past. His own party has been sullenly complicit, showing how little esteem many politicians place in our most cherished values, not the least of them honesty and dignity. For all of them, an accounting is coming. When they are asked by history what they did during the Trump years, the worst of them will confess that they bobbled their heads like dumb dolls, while the best will merely say they kept their heads down.

New York Times Politics

Trump Revealed Highly Classified Intelligence to Russia, in Break With Ally, Officials Say

By Matthew Rosenberg and Eric Schmitt May 15, 2017

WASHINGTON — President Trump boasted about highly classified intelligence in a meeting with the Russian foreign minister and ambassador last week, providing details that could expose the source of the information and the manner in which it was collected, a current and a former American government official said Monday.

The intelligence disclosed by Mr. Trump in a meeting with Sergey V. Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, and Sergey I. Kislyak, the Russian ambassador to the United States, was about an Islamic State plot, according to the officials. A Middle Eastern ally that closely guards its own secrets provided the information, which was considered so sensitive that American officials did not share it widely within the United States government or pass it on to other allies.

Mr. Trump’s disclosure does not appear to have been illegal — the president has the power to declassify almost anything. But sharing the information without the express permission of the ally who provided it was a major breach of espionage etiquette, and could jeopardize a crucial intelligence-sharing relationship.

In fact, the ally has repeatedly warned American officials that it would cut off access to such sensitive information if it were shared too widely, the former official said. In this case, the fear is that Russia will be able to determine exactly how the information was collected and could disrupt the ally’s espionage efforts.

The Washington Post first reported Mr. Trump’s disclosure. White House officials denied that Mr. Trump shared sources and methods of intelligence gathering but did not address whether he talked about the Islamic State plot itself.

Beyond angering a partner and calling into question the ability of the United States to keep secrets, the episode threatened to overshadow Mr. Trump’s first trip abroad as president. He departs on Friday for Saudi Arabia, Israel, Italy and Belgium.

The revelation also opens Mr. Trump to criticism of a double standard. The president made Hillary Clinton’s mishandling of classified information through her private email server central to his campaign, leading chants of “lock her up” at rallies. But there was never any indication that Mrs. Clinton exposed sensitive information from an ally or gave it to an adversary.

It was also likely to intensify scrutiny about Mr. Trump’s dealings with Russian officials. He showed throughout his campaign, and at times during his presidency, an unusual willingness to praise President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia and has dismissed as “fake news” the conclusion of the American intelligence community that Russia interfered with the presidential election. He has also expressed frustration with the continuing Justice Department investigation into Russia’s meddling and whether any of the president’s associates aided Moscow’s effort.

It was not clear whether Mr. Trump wittingly disclosed such highly classified information. He — and possibly other Americans in the room — may have not been aware of the sensitivity of what he was sharing. It was only after the meeting, when notes on the discussion were circulated among National Security Council officials, that it was flagged as too sensitive to be shared, even among many American officials, the former official said.

The Trump administration pushed back on the revelation, with high-ranking officials issuing carefully worded denials, insisting that the president did not discuss intelligence sources and methods or continuing military operations that were not public.

H.R. McMaster on Reports of Trump Sharing Classified Data With Russia

The national security adviser discussed reports that President Trump boasted about highly classified intelligence in a meeting with the Russian foreign minister and ambassador.

“I was in the room — it didn’t happen,” Lt. Gen. H. R. McMaster, Mr. Trump’s national security adviser, said in an appearance outside the West Wing, which was sent into chaos on Monday afternoon by reports that the president had disclosed extremely sensitive information about an Islamic State plot.

“At no time — at no time — were intelligence sources or methods discussed, and the president did not disclose any military operations that were not already publicly known,” General McMaster said.

He said his account and those of others who were present for the meeting should outweigh those of unnamed officials who have said the president jeopardized national security.

Secretary of State Rex W. Tillerson echoed General McMaster’s denial that sources or methods were discussed, though he did say that Mr. Trump talked about the “the nature of specific threats” in the meeting.

But according to the officials, Mr. Trump discussed the contents of the intelligence, not the sources and methods used to collect it. The concern is that knowledge of the information about the Islamic State plot could allow the Russians to figure out those details.

In fact, the current official said that Mr. Trump shared granular details of the intelligence with the Russians. Among the details the president shared was the city in Syria where the ally picked up information about the plot, though Mr. Trump is not believed to have disclosed that the intelligence came from a Middle Eastern ally or precisely how it was gathered.

General McMaster did not address that in naming the city, in Islamic State-controlled territory, Mr. Trump gave Russia an important clue about the source of the information.

Like the United States, Russia is also fighting in Syria, where it has stationed troops and aircraft. The two countries share some information, but the cooperation is extremely limited, and each has widely divergent goals in the civil war there.

Russia’s primary focus has been propping up the government of the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad, not directly battling the Islamic State. The United States, in contrast, views the Islamic State as the primary threat, and is aiding rebels who are fighting both the Islamic State and the Syrian government.

Before The Post’s article was published, its impending publication set off a mild panic among White House staff members, with the press secretary, Sean Spicer; the deputy press secretary, Sarah Huckabee Sanders; and the communications director, Mike Dubke, summoned to the Oval Office in the middle of the afternoon.

Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law and one of his advisers, signaled to people outside the White House that he was not closely involved. But internally, Mr. Kushner lashed out at Mr. Spicer, who has been the target of his ire over bad publicity for the president since Mr. Trump fired the F.B.I. director, James B. Comey, last week.

Once public, the revelation immediately reverberated around Washington, and General McMaster found himself briefly cornered by reporters at the White House.

“This is the last place in the world I wanted to be,” he said before walking off without answering any questions.

The news coming on the heels of Mr. Comey’s firing prompted concern about the White House, even from within the Republican Party.

“The White House has got to do something soon to bring itself under control and in order,” Senator Bob Corker, Republican of Tennessee and the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, told reporters at the Capitol, adding, “It’s got to happen.”

The Central Intelligence Agency declined to comment. But members of Congress, including some Republicans, were quick to criticize the president for the intelligence breach.

“To compromise a source is something that you just don’t do, and that’s why we keep the information that we get from intelligence sources so close as to prevent that from happening,” Mr. Corker said, adding that he did not know independently if Mr. Trump had revealed sensitive information to the Russians.

Senator Mark Warner, Democrat of Virginia and the vice chairman of the Intelligence Committee, said on Twitter: “If true, this is a slap in the face to the intel community. Risking sources & methods is inexcusable, particularly with the Russians.”

Democrats demanded more information. “The president owes the intelligence community, the American people and Congress a full explanation,” said the Senate Democratic leader, Chuck Schumer of New York.

Doug Andres, a spokesman for the House speaker, Paul D. Ryan, said that Mr. Ryan “hopes for a full explanation of the facts from the administration.”

“We have no way to know what was said, but protecting our nation’s secrets is paramount,” Mr. Andres said.

Senator Jack Reed of Rhode Island, the ranking Democrat on the Armed Services Committee, was sharply critical of Mr. Trump.

“President Trump’s recklessness with sensitive information is deeply disturbing and clearly problematic,” Mr. Reed said in a statement. “The president of the United States has the power to share classified information with whomever they wish, but the American people expect the president to use that power wisely. I don’t believe the president intentionally meant to reveal highly secretive information to the Russians.”

New York Times The Opinion Pages

When the World Is Led by a Child

David Brooks Op-Ed Columnist May 15, 2017

At certain times Donald Trump has seemed like a budding authoritarian, a corrupt Nixon, a rabble-rousing populist or a big business corporatist.

But as Trump has settled into his White House role, he has given a series of long interviews, and when you study the transcripts it becomes clear that fundamentally he is none of these things.

At base, Trump is an infantalist. There are three tasks that most mature adults have sort of figured out by the time they hit 25. Trump has mastered none of them. Immaturity is becoming the dominant note of his presidency, lack of self-control his leitmotif.

First, most adults have learned to sit still. But mentally, Trump is still a 7-year-old boy who is bouncing around the classroom. Trump’s answers in these interviews are not very long — 200 words at the high end — but he will typically flit through four or five topics before ending up with how unfair the press is to him.

His inability to focus his attention makes it hard for him to learn and master facts. He is ill informed about his own policies and tramples his own talking points. It makes it hard to control his mouth. On an impulse, he will promise a tax reform when his staff has done little of the actual work.

Second, most people of drinking age have achieved some accurate sense of themselves, some internal criteria to measure their own merits and demerits. But Trump seems to need perpetual outside approval to stabilize his sense of self, so he is perpetually desperate for approval, telling heroic fabulist tales about himself.

“In a short period of time I understood everything there was to know about health care,” he told Time. “A lot of the people have said that, some people said it was the single best speech ever made in that chamber,” he told The Associated Press, referring to his joint session speech.

By Trump’s own account, he knows more about aircraft carrier technology than the Navy. According to his interview with The Economist, he invented the phrase “priming the pump” (even though it was famous by 1933). Trump is not only trying to deceive others. His falsehoods are attempts to build a world in which he can feel good for an instant and comfortably deceive himself.

He is thus the all-time record-holder of the Dunning-Kruger effect, the phenomenon in which the incompetent person is too incompetent to understand his own incompetence. Trump thought he’d be celebrated for firing James Comey. He thought his press coverage would grow wildly positive once he won the nomination. He is perpetually surprised because reality does not comport with his fantasies.

Third, by adulthood most people can perceive how others are thinking. For example, they learn subtle arts such as false modesty so they won’t be perceived as obnoxious.

But Trump seems to have not yet developed a theory of mind. Other people are black boxes that supply either affirmation or disapproval. As a result, he is weirdly transparent. He wants people to love him, so he is constantly telling interviewers that he is widely loved. In Trump’s telling, every meeting was scheduled for 15 minutes but his guests stayed two hours because they liked him so much.

Which brings us to the reports that Trump betrayed an intelligence source and leaked secrets to his Russian visitors. From all we know so far, Trump didn’t do it because he is a Russian agent, or for any malevolent intent. He did it because he is sloppy, because he lacks all impulse control, and above all because he is a 7-year-old boy desperate for the approval of those he admires.

The Russian leak story reveals one other thing, the dangerousness of a hollow man.

Our institutions depend on people who have enough engraved character traits to fulfill their assigned duties. But there is perpetually less to Trump than it appears. When we analyze a president’s utterances we tend to assume that there is some substantive process behind the words, that it’s part of some strategic intent.

But Trump’s statements don’t necessarily come from anywhere, lead anywhere or have a permanent reality beyond his wish to be liked at any given instant.

We’ve got this perverse situation in which the vast analytic powers of the entire world are being spent trying to understand a guy whose thoughts are often just six fireflies beeping randomly in a jar.

“We badly want to understand Trump, to grasp him,” David Roberts writes in Vox. “It might give us some sense of control, or at least an ability to predict what he will do next. But what if there’s nothing to understand? What if there is no there there?”

And out of that void comes a carelessness that quite possibly betrayed an intelligence source, and endangered a country.

We May Be Witnessing the Unraveling of Donald Trump’s Presidency

In his paranoia about his legitimacy as president, Trump is pushing us to the brink of a constitutional crisis.

By Joan Walsh May 14, 2017

Donald Trump began his presidency in a troubling crisis of legitimacy, given charges that Russia meddled in the election to help him defeat Hillary Clinton, and that Clinton won the popular vote nonetheless. This crisis is now devouring him.

From the moment he and his staff began haranguing the media for accurately reporting the size of his inaugural turnout, compared with Obama’s much larger crowds, we have been watching Trump spiral into paranoia. With the firing of FBI Director James Comey, we may be witnessing Trump’s presidency unraveling.

Trump’s cover story for Comey’s dismissal—that brand-new deputy attorney general Rod Rosenstein wanted him gone, ironically due to his handling of the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s e-mail practices last year—has completely come undone in 24 hours. On Wednesday, The New York Times reported that Comey told congressional leaders that days before his firing he’d submitted to Rosenstein a request for resources to expand the Russia probe. By Thursday morning, a half-dozen major news outlets produced deeply reported pieces, some based on as many as 30 sources, revealing that Trump has been seething over Comey’s handling of the investigation into alleged collusion between Trump’s campaign and Russian government officials—and that his anger hardened into a plan to fire him last week. The Washington Post reported that Rosenstein threatened to resign, angry at being falsely depicted as the person behind Comey’s firing. (The Justice Department is denying that report.)

It seems that on May 3, Comey committed his unforgivable sin while testifying before the Senate Intelligence Committee. Trump signaled his anxiety with a tweetstorm the day before. “The Russia-Trump collusion story is a total hoax, when will this taxpayer funded charade end?” one tweet read. Comey sealed his fate when he acknowledged his actions might have played a role in Trump’s victory over Hillary Clinton. It made him “mildly nauseous,” he said, to think he tipped the race to the Republican. Comey himself was confirming Trump’s darkest fear, the font of his angsty, crazy late-night and early-morning tweets: that he hadn’t won the presidency legitimately.

Trump’s biggest mistake in this whole fiasco may have been including this farcical claim in his very short letter of dismissal to Comey: “I greatly appreciate you informing me, on three separate occasions, that I am not under investigation.” If the firing had nothing to do with the very real investigation into Trump’s campaign ties with Russian officials, why would Trump mention it? And if it does have something to do with the Russia-Trump investigation—which far from denying, Comey had publicly confirmed—then Trump is obstructing justice.

If there’s any remaining doubt that his personal legitimacy crisis is driving his crazy behavior, Trump is dispelling it by choosing today to sign an executive order establishing a commission to investigate (false) charges of voter fraud, headed by ace voter-suppressor Kris Kobach. Trump seems so comfortable with the rule-breaking and corruption he mastered in the private sector, he doesn’t completely understand that he might want to shield his personal motivations more artfully. He’s claimed Clinton built her popular-vote margin with illegal voters; now that he’s dispatched with Comey, he’ll use Kobach to slay his other legitimacy phantom.

The big issue is what happens now. So far, influential GOP Senate leaders continue to oppose the appointment of a special prosecutor. Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell came out Wednesday morning and humiliated himself spouting Trump talking points, while Intelligence Committee Chair Richard Burr insisted his committee can continue with its bipartisan investigation. Meanwhile, Senate Democrats seem divided on their next moves. Minority leader Chuck Schumer seemed to threaten to stop all Senate work until a special prosecutor was appointed, but his caucus didn’t go along. “There’s a lot of business we’ve got to be doing right now that is unrelated to this, and I don’t think we should have an overall rule about not doing business,” Senator Tim Kaine of Virginia told The Atlantic, adding: “We can chew gum and walk at the same time.”

By the end of Wednesday Schumer seemed to retreat, stating on the Senate floor: “There are many questions to be answered and many actions that should be taken. We will be pursuing several things in the coming days, and we’ll have more to say about those next steps in the days ahead,” he said in remarks delivered on the Senate floor. Right now, it might take more resistance to strengthen Democrats’ spines. Trump has a legitimacy crisis that may be morphing into a constitutional crisis. We need leaders from both parties to confront it squarely.

USA Today

Analysis: Donald Trump has biggest credibility gap of any president since Nixon

Susan Page, USA TODAY May 14, 2017

President Trump drew the biggest Inaugural crowd in history — except he didn’t. President Obama wiretapped Trump Tower during the campaign — except there’s no evidence that he did. Trump fired FBI director James Comey because the deputy attorney general concluded he had mishandled the Hillary Clinton email investigation — except now the president says it was his decision alone and cites the Russia investigation as one of the reasons.

On issues big and small, substantive and cosmetic, the Trump White House has failed to give accurate accounts of what happened until photographs, records, reporting and, in some cases, the president’s own words provide a new version of the facts. Even when confronted with evidence, the president and his spokespeople don’t always acknowledge the need to correct a falsehood.

This doesn’t seem to bother Trump.

“It is not possible for my surrogates to stand at podium with perfect accuracy!” he tweeted Friday with apparent good cheer, then mused about canceling the daily press briefing. Later, press secretary Sean Spicer didn’t make it clear whether the president was serious or joking about upending a fixture of White House operations since the Harding administration, and he wouldn’t expand on a separate tweet from Trump suggesting that he might have recorded his conversation with Comey.

Concerned or not, Trump now faces the biggest credibility gap of any president since at least Richard Nixon during Watergate (a scandal that forced his resignation) or Lyndon Johnson during the Vietnam War (a spiraling controversy that prompted him not to seek a second full term). For LBJ, it was the disparity between the official version of the war’s course and the reporting from the front lines that added the phrase “credibility gap” to the political lexicon.

“I wrote a book about what goes into making great presidential leadership, and one of the elements I said was credibility, was trust,” said presidential historian Robert Dallek, author of Hail to the Chief: The Making and Unmaking of American Presidents as well as biographies of Franklin Roosevelt, John Kennedy, Nixon and Johnson. “When presidents lose the trust of the public, I think it’s very difficult if not impossible for them to govern this country.”

On Trump, Dallek warned, “His credibility is very shaky.”

New York Times Sunday Review Editorial

The Republican’s Guide to Presidential Behavior

By The Editorial Board May 13, 2017

It wasn’t so long ago that Republicans in Congress cared about how a president comported himself in office. They cared a lot! The president is, after all, commander in chief of the armed forces, steward of the most powerful nation on earth, role model for America’s children — and he should act at all times with the dignity his station demands. It’s not O.K. to behave in a manner that demeans the office and embarrasses the country. Shirt sleeves in the Oval Office? Disrespectful. Shoes on the Resolute desk? Even worse. Lying? Despicable, if not impeachable.

Now seems like a good moment to update the standards. What do Paul Ryan, Mitch McConnell and other Republican leaders think a president may say or do and still deserve their enthusiastic support? We offer this handy reference list in hopes of protecting them from charges of hypocrisy in the future. They can consult it should they ever feel tempted to insist on different standards for another president. So, herewith, the Congressional Republican’s Guide to Presidential Behavior.

If you are the president, you may freely:

attack private citizens on Twitter
delegitimize federal judges who rule against you
refuse to take responsibility for military actions gone awry
fire the F.B.I. chief in the middle of his expanding investigation into your campaign and your associates
accuse a former president, without evidence, of an impeachable offense
employ top aides with financial and other connections to a hostile foreign power
blame the judiciary, in advance, for any terror attacks
call the media “the enemy of the American people”
demand personal loyalty from the F.B.I. director
threaten the former F.B.I. director
accept foreign payments to your businesses, in possible violation of the Constitution
occupy the White House with the help of a hostile foreign power
intimidate congressional witnesses
allow White House staff members to use their personal email for government business
neglect to fill thousands of crucial federal government positions for months
claim, without evidence, that millions of people voted illegally
fail to fire high-ranking members of your national security team for weeks, even after knowing they lied to your vice president and exposed themselves to blackmail
refuse to release tax returns
hide the White House visitors’ list from the public
vacation at one of your private residences nearly every weekend
use an unsecured personal cellphone
criticize specific businesses for dropping your family members’ products
review and discuss highly sensitive intelligence in a restaurant, and allow the Army officer carrying the “nuclear football” to be photographed and identified by name
obstruct justice
hire relatives for key White House posts, and let them meet with foreign officials and engage in business at the same time
promote family businesses on federal government websites
tweet, tweet, tweet
collude with members of Congress to try to shut down investigations of you and your associates
threaten military conflict with other nations in the middle of news interviews
compare the U.S. intelligence community to Nazis
display complete ignorance about international relations, your own administration’s policies, American history and the basic structure of our system of government
skip daily intelligence briefings
repeat untruths
lie

If you’re a Republican legislator, stick this list on the fridge and give it a quick read the next time you get upset at a president.

If you think we have left something out, please leave a comment with this article, or on our (N.Y.T) Facebook page. We’ll update the Congressional Republican’s Guide with some of your suggestions in a follow-up article.

What Would You Say If Anyone Else Behaved This Way?

The president might just be losing it.

By Charles P. Pierce May 11, 2017

The highlight of the now daily arse-showing at the White House Thursday morning probably was the president*’s disquisition on economics in which he invited The Economist to join him in an impromptu séance after which the bloody-toothed shade of John Maynard Keynes arose from the grave and stalked Pennsylvania Avenue, howling for gin and a good lawyer. To wit:

“Have you heard that expression used before? Because I haven’t heard it. I mean, I just… I came up with it a couple of days ago and I thought it was good. It’s what you have to do.”

He just came up with it the other day. Jesus. Now I know why Kissinger was sliming around the Oval on Tuesday. He was probably teaching the president* the secret to talking to the portraits in the hall. Because, by all accounts in the nation’s leading newspapers, the president* may be going, in the immortal phrase of the late George V. Higgins, as soft as church music.

Here’s The New York Times: In the weeks that followed, he grew angrier and began talking about firing Mr. Comey. After stewing last weekend while watching Sunday talk shows at his New Jersey golf resort, Mr. Trump decided it was time. There was “something wrong with” Mr. Comey, he told aides.

And, from a massive tick-tock in The Washington Post: Trump was angry that Comey would not support his baseless claim that President Barack Obama had his campaign offices wiretapped. Trump was frustrated when Comey revealed in Senate testimony the breadth of the counterintelligence investigation into Russia’s effort to sway the 2016 U.S. presidential election. And he fumed that Comey was giving too much attention to the Russia probe and not enough to investigating leaks to journalists.

And, finally, from Tiger Beat On The Potomac: He had grown enraged by the Russia investigation, two advisers said, frustrated by his inability to control the mushrooming narrative around Russia. He repeatedly asked aides why the Russia investigation wouldn’t disappear and demanded they speak out for him. He would sometimes scream at television clips about the probe, one adviser said.

Oh, that terrible moment when you look around and the nation’s elite political press is fitting you for a straitjacket, and all the scapegoats have been stolen. It took the Vietnam War to destroy Lyndon Johnson. It took Watergate to make Nixon this batty. The current president* has been driven off the rails by a couple of tough episodes of Morning Joe. And there still hasn’t been an actual crisis confronting him that he didn’t create for himself. I am not reassured by this.

But just because he’s barking mad doesn’t mean he still can’t do considerable damage, especially since the Republican Party, and especially its congressional majorities, remain invertebrate. The president* has made a point of assaulting every democratic institution that (theoretically, at least) could check his power.

On Thursday, it seems, he’s planning to delegitimize democracy itself. From CNN: An action that Trump has discussed since the beginning of his administration, it will be spearheaded by Vice President Mike Pence and controversial Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach…Kobach, who helped on the Trump transition team, is a lightning rod for critics who have accused him of extreme racism and having ties to white nationalists. Kobach is almost single-handedly responsible for some of the nation’s strictest immigration laws in at least a half-dozen states — he not only writes the laws, but advocates for them and battles on their behalf in court. He is often cited as the chief architect of what Arizona’s SB 1070, which was passed in 2010 and led to protests and state boycotts for encouraging the profiling of Latinos and other minorities. The Arizona law requires police to determine a person’s immigration status when there is “reasonable suspicion” that they are not legally in the US; it was partially upheld by the Supreme Court, but had other sections struck down by the court in 2011.

It kills him, it absolutely rips out his liver, that he lost the popular vote to Hillary Rodham Clinton. Whenever CNN goes to a commercial every night, he climbs down off the ceiling and stews endlessly about how that could happen. Of course, it couldn’t have, not legimately, anyway.

And now we have a national commission dedicated to validating the president*’s megalomania, and it’s being handed over to one of the franchise’s primary arsonists, a guy who only this week got his thumbs screwed by a federal court.

From The Kansas City Star:

U.S. District Judge Julie Robinson on Wednesday upheld an earlier order from a federal magistrate judge requiring Kobach to hand over the documents to the American Civil Liberties Union as part of an ongoing voting rights lawsuit against his office. Robinson, who is based in Kansas City, Kan., was appointed by President George W. Bush. Kobach met with Trump in November and was photographed carrying a document labeled as a strategic plan for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. The photograph revealed a reference to voting rolls. The ACLU has sought access to the documents, contending that if Kobach lobbied Trump on changes to federal voting law, it would be relevant to the case.

So the executive order is the culmination of an ongoing bag job that began at the same time that Camp Runamuck opened its gates in January. However, it has its basis in the fragile psyche of a very dangerous man who raves at his television set when there is no other audience available and who would howl at the wind if it disturbed his hair.

This is King Lear with a nuclear strike force.

Update (12:26 p.m.): Yeah, this is normal. From Time:

“CNN in the morning, Chris Cuomo, he’s sitting there like a chained lunatic. He’s like a boiler ready to explode, the level of hatred. And the entire, you know the entire CNN platform is that way. This Don Lemon who’s perhaps the dumbest person in broadcasting, Don Lemon at night it’s like – sometimes they’ll have a guest who by mistake will say something good. And they’ll start screaming, we’re going to commercial. They cut him off. Remember?”

Ladies and gentlemen, the President of the United States. And over 80 percent of Republican voters in an otherwise catastrophic poll still love the guy.

Mother Jones

Now It’s About Much More Than Trump and Russia

It’s about which will prevail: truth—or power.

By Monika Bauerlein and Clara Jeffery

For a while there, it almost seemed as if President Donald Trump’s determined efforts to redirect attention from the Russia scandal were starting to work. The White House had pushed back against every attempt to investigate, and congressional Republicans, from the soap-opera-worthy antics of the House’s Devin Nunes to the slow-walking of the Senate’s Richard Burr, were going along. Democrats had their hair on fire about health care, and a big tax-cut slowdown was looming.

And then Trump fired the FBI director—and made it plain for everyone that the Russia story really does represent a serious threat to American democracy. Because now it’s no longer just about how exactly the Kremlin interfered in the 2016 election, or whether Trump or his associates merely winked and nodded or actively colluded. It’s about whether the public’s right to know the truth is stronger than a powerful man’s burning desire to keep it hidden.

For many decades, from Teapot Dome to Watergate to Lewinskygate, the answer to that question has been, ultimately: yes. Yes, the people deserve to know; yes, political advantage must yield to the search for truth. It is essential that the answer, this time, be the same. As Dan Rather—a man who has watched many administrations try to lie to the public—put it, the alternative is “Armageddon for our form of government.”

To be clear: We can’t, and shouldn’t, assume that where there’s smoke, there’s fire. But at this point, that doesn’t matter. What Trump or any of his associates did in 2016 may or may not have been a scandal, but blocking the public from finding out most definitely is. Trump may turn out to have overreached with the Comey firing, prompting the kind of independent inquiry he was so desperate to avoid. But it’s evident that Republicans on Capitol Hill—terrified of what such a probe would do to their agenda and their electoral prospects—will do everything they can to avoid going there.

That means it’s up to the public—all of us—to make sure truth prevails over power. There are many ways of doing that, from showing up at town halls to calmly reasoning with friends or relatives. For us, as journalists, the call to action is an especially urgent one: We need to deploy every skill we’ve learned, from shoe-leather reporting to data dives. We need to go deep, stick with the story no matter where it leads, and resist getting tangled in conventional wisdom or distracted by sideshows.

Mother Jones was born out of a similar moment, in the post-Watergate years when it became clear that the public needed independent watchdogs. Going after what powerful people want hidden is what we exist to do. We did it in 2012, when David Corn revealed the story of Mitt Romney’s 47 percent remarks; we did it last year, when Shane Bauer reported on his time as a guard inside a private prison. We are scrupulous in our fact-checking, and in protecting our sources, too. (Whistleblowers take note: You can send us secure messages on Signal at (202) 809-1049, or email us at scoop@motherjones.com.)

And so, right now, we’re going to double down. We are launching a new project to investigate the Trump-Russia question, and we hope you’ll be part of it. We’re looking to sign up 1,000 new sustaining donors with a tax-deductable donation of $15 a month to help make it happen. (We’d be grateful for one-time gifts, too.) There’s even a matching gift (and details below) to boost your impact.

Why, you might ask, the extra push on an issue that many others are now covering? Because the past year has shown that even when lots of journalists are on the same beat—back then, it was the presidential campaign—the news ecosystem is not necessarily built to expose the most challenging stories. Here’s an example: In October, Corn was the first and only reporter to break the explosive news that a former British counterintelligence officer had assembled memos containing allegations that Moscow had tried to co-opt and compromise Trump, and that the FBI was interested in this material.

We now know those Russia memos are at the heart of the biggest scandal yet for an administration that, scandal-wise, has set a high bar. Yet it wasn’t until January that others were willing to touch the story. The New York Times‘ public editor, Liz Spayd, wrote a column about how the Times had known about the memos before the election and had even drafted a piece about them—but then killed it. In retrospect, she said, MoJo‘s approach presented a “model” for other newsrooms.

Trump was able to fend off the Russia story for much of the campaign because he exploited Washington’s—and political journalism’s—tendency to coalesce around a he-said-she-said storyline. In this sense, his attacks on media worked: He was able to characterize a genuine scandal as partisan mudslinging, and suggest that to pursue it was to carry water for Hillary Clinton. The Obama administration, as we now know, feared being painted with that brush. So did James Comey. So did many in the press.

This story will move forward only if journalists expose what politicians are hiding.

Journalists’ tendency to recoil in the face of such attacks has waned a bit with Trump ratcheting up his “enemy of the people” venom. But it’s also becoming clearer than ever that the story of foreign influence and corruption has barely begun to be told. Take the not-so-subtle signals from the few people on Capitol Hill who have access to top-secret intelligence briefings. Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), who happens to be the son of an investigative reporter, recently told MoJo, “There is a big gap between what the public had a right to know and what came out. And that continues to be true to this day.” Wyden’s California colleague, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, says that if the public had known what she knew about Trump and Russia, the election would have turned out differently: “I deeply do believe that.”

Feinstein and Wyden can’t disclose the intelligence they’ve seen. And the White House and its allies are evidently determined to make sure no one else does either. That means this story will move forward only if journalists expose what politicians are hiding—and journalists can only do that when they have the time, and space, to go deep. (We went into why the current media business model is weighted against this sort of reporting here.)

This story is about identifying the most vulnerable spots in our democracy and how they can be exploited by forces both foreign and domestic. (Here’s a non-Russia example on the corruption beat: Our colleagues Russ Choma and Andy Kroll were the first to report on a Chinese American businesswoman who paid $15.8 million for a penthouse in Trump’s Park Avenue building. She makes her living connecting people with the “princelings” of the Chinese political elite and has ties to a Chinese military intelligence front group. Why is someone connected to a foreign spy service putting nearly $16 million into the president’s pocket?)

In addition to digging into conflicts like these, we’re aiming to help you sift through the chaos of the daily headlines. We’ve put together a constantly updated Russia-Trump timeline, and we’re launching a newsletter, The Russia Connection, that will deliver the most important stories on this beat—not froth, fluff, or speculation—once a week. We’re thrilled to announce that it’s being put together by Bill Buzenberg, the former news director of National Public Radio and former head of the Center for Public Integrity. You can sign up for it here.

It will take more than $500,000 to fund this project, which will include reporters, fact-checkers, editors, researchers, multimedia work, and legal review. The Glaser Progress Foundation has donated $200,000 to kick-start things, and when we raise the rest of the funds, it’ll pitch in another $50,000. That’s where readers like you come in—for every new donor at the $15-a-month level, the foundation will donate $50 until we hit 1,000 donors or $50,000 in matching funds. (And that’s a genuine commitment, on paper—not a gimmick like some of the “QUADRUPLE MATCH!!!” offers that clog your mailbox.)

This kind of reporting is going to take time and persistence. It’s going to require going down a lot of rabbit holes and spending quality time with stacks of documents—day after day, month after month. So please help send us down those rabbit holes. Join us as a sustaining donor with a tax-deductable monthly gift. (If you’re not ready to pitch in monthly, we’d be grateful for a one-time donation too!)

This story may not be in the headlines every day like it was this week, but it won’t get any less important. “When we look back at Watergate, we remember the end of the Nixon presidency,” as Dan Rather puts it. “It came with an avalanche, but for most of the time my fellow reporters and I were chasing down the story as it rumbled along with a low-grade intensity. We never were quite sure how much we would find out about what really happened. In the end, the truth emerged into the light.”

Republican Congressman Clarifies That the Constitution Is Different Under Trump

Glad we cleared that up.

By Charles P. Pierce May 11, 2017

In case you’re wondering why no Republican has stood up to be counted, you should know that installing a vulgar talking yam in the White House has changed the job description of Being A Congressman. Isn’t that right, Barry Loudermilk?

GOP congressman says Trump should ignore court on ban like Jackson, says its “not true” there’s 3 equal branches. https://t.co/ctUg1XL2Vv

— andrew kaczynski 🤔 (@KFILE) March 20, 2017

Luckily, the House veterans are there to set rookies like Loudermilk straight.

MacArthur: “We don’t oversee the executive…. Congress is not the board of directors of the White House.”

— Igor Bobic (@igorbobic) May 11, 2017

That’s Tom MacArthur, the New Jersey representative and the primary architect of the most recent iteration of the Republican healthcare farce, and someone who had a rather bad night back home on Wednesday evening.

This is so confusing. If only there were some pieces of 18th century parchment available to clear up the muddle. And if only someone who was around when it was written had thought to explain it further:

But the great security against a gradual concentration of the several powers in the same department, consists in giving to those who administer each department the necessary constitutional means and personal motives to resist encroachments of the others. The provision for defense must in this, as in all other cases, be made commensurate to the danger of attack. Ambition must be made to counteract ambition. The interest of the man must be connected with the constitutional rights of the place. It may be a reflection on human nature, that such devices should be necessary to control the abuses of government. But what is government itself, but the greatest of all reflections on human nature? If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary.

We are currently being governed by the members of a terrified cult.

Associated Press

Trump lawyers push back against Russia ties in letter

Ken Thomas and Darlene Superville, Associated Press May 14, 2017

WASHINGTON (AP) — Lawyers for President Donald Trump said Friday that a review of his last 10 years of tax returns did not reflect “any income of any type from Russian sources,” but the letter included exceptions related to previously cited income generated from a beauty pageant and sale of a Florida estate.

The letter represented the latest attempt by the president to tamp down concerns about any Russian ties amid an ongoing investigation of his campaign’s associates and Russia’s meddling in the 2016 election.

The attorneys did not release copies of Trump’s tax returns, so The Associated Press cannot independently verify their conclusions. Their review also notably takes into account only Trump’s returns from the past 10 years, leaving open questions about whether there were financial dealings with Russia in earlier years.

Trump has refused to release his income tax records, despite pressure from Democrats, breaking with a practice set by his predecessors. The president has said he would release his returns when the Internal Revenue Service completes an audit. The tax returns, the attorneys say, largely reflect income and interest paid by the web of corporate entities that made up The Trump Organization prior to Trump taking office.

In a letter released to the AP and dated March 8, the attorneys said there is no equity investment by Russians in entities controlled by Trump or debt owed by Trump to Russian lenders. But it did reflect some exceptions, including income from the 2013 Miss Universe pageant that was held in Moscow and a property sold to a Russian billionaire in 2008 for $95 million.

The White House said Trump asked his lawyers for the letter to outline information on any ties Trump might have to Russia. The letter was then provided to Sen. Lindsey Graham. Graham leads one of the congressional committees investigating Russia’s interference in last year’s election.

The letter came amid an active FBI probe into the Trump 2016 campaign’s possible ties to Russia’s election meddling and days after Trump’s stunning firing of FBI Director James Comey.

“I have no investments in Russia, none whatsoever,” Trump said Thursday in an interview with NBC News. “I don’t have property in Russia. A lot of people thought I owned office buildings in Moscow. I don’t have property in Russia.”

The president said he “had dealings over the years,” including the Miss Universe pageant and the sale of a home to “a very wealthy Russian.” ”I had it in Moscow long time ago, but other than that I have nothing to do with Russia,” he said, referring to the pageant.

The unnamed Russian billionaire cited by the Trump company’s lawyers is Dmitry Rybolovlev, whose financial empire springs from his companies’ production of potash, often used for fertilizer.

Trump had purchased the 62,000 square-foot estate for $41.35 million in 2004 and he sold the mansion to Rybolovlev in July 2008 for $95 million. The deal was widely reported at the time, including by The Associated Press.

When Trump was pressed during a campaign conference last year about his ties to Russia, he said: “You know the closest I came to Russia, I bought a house a number of years ago in Palm Beach,” adding that “I sold it to a Russian for $100 million.”

The letter, written by attorneys Sheri Dillon and William Nelson from the law firm of Morgan, Lewis & Bockius LLP, simultaneously leaves open the possibility of other Russian ties while attempting to dismiss them.

The letter doesn’t vouch for any of Trump’s personal federal tax returns that predate the past decade. The attorneys also write that over the last 10 years, it is likely that the Trump Organization sold or rented condos, or other products, that “could have produced income attributable to Russian sources.”

“With respect to this last exception, the amounts are immaterial,” the attorney wrote.

Associated Press writers Chad Day and Stephen Braun contributed to this report.

ABC News

Donald Trump’s tax law firm has ‘deep’ ties to Russia

By Pete Madden and Matthew Mosk May 12, 2017

The lawyers who wrote a letter saying President Trump had no significant business ties to Russia work for a law firm that has extensive ties to Russia and received a “Russia Law Firm of the Year” award in 2016.

Sheri Dillon and William Nelson, tax partners at the law firm Morgan, Lewis & Bockius, which has served as tax counsel to Trump and the Trump Organization since 2005, wrote a letter in March released by the White House on Friday stating that a review of the last 10 years of Trump’s tax returns “do not reflect” ties to Russia “with a few exceptions.”

In 2016, however, Chambers & Partners, a London-based legal research publication, named the firm “Russia Law Firm of the Year” at its annual awards dinner. The firm celebrated the “prestigious honor” in a press release on its website, noting that the award is “the latest honor for the high-profile work performed by the lawyers in Morgan Lewis’ Moscow office.”

According to the firm’s website, its Moscow office includes more than 40 lawyers and staff who are “well known in the Russian market, and have a deep familiarity with the local legislation, practices, and key players.” The firm boasts of being “particularly adept” at advising clients on “sanction matters.”

Following the release of the letter, Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn) noted the firm’s connection to Russia, calling it “unreal.”

Asked if there could be other business ties between Trump and Russian partners, Sheri Dillon told ABC News that “the letter speaks for itself.”

As for the firm’s presence in Russia, a firm spokesperson said that no lawyers from Morgan Lewis have handling any business dealings for Mr. Trump in Russia.

Dillon has never been to Russia and does no work there, the spokesperson said.

Jack Blum, a Washington tax lawyer who is an expert on white-collar financial crime and international tax evasion, called the Dillon letter “meaningless.”

Blum told ABC News that real estate projects, in particular, can be structured with partners and subsidiaries so that it would be easy to shield the identity of all involved. Trump’s tax returns would not show where all the money came from to finance these projects, he said.

“There’s no substance to it. The letter is just another puff of smoke,” Blum said. “It has no meaning at all. It’s just another way to not answer the question.”

Trump asked ex-FBI Director James Comey for loyalty at a recent dinner, sources say

By Pierre Thomas, Jack Date and Geneva Sands May 12, 2017

President Trump asked former FBI Director James Comey more than once about whether he could be loyal over the course of a dinner meeting, according to sources familiar with the meeting.

Comey, who was fired from his high-ranking position Tuesday evening, only promised that he could be honest, the sources told ABC News.

The now-former director’s dramatic firing earlier this week has led to days of controversy and criticism about the future of the bureau and the ongoing investigation into possible collusion between the White House and Russia during the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign.

The New York Times first reported on the dinner, saying that seven days after Trump was sworn in as president Jan. 20, Comey was summoned to the “White House for a one-on-one dinner with the new commander in chief.”

In his letter announcing Comey’s termination, Trump wrote that that he “greatly appreciated” Comey’s informing him on “three separate occasions, that I am not under investigation.”

White House Deputy Press Secretary Sarah Sanders reiterated Thursday the president’s claim in his letter to Comey, despite denials from associates of the former FBI director, that he was reassured by Comey that he was not under investigation.

“I have heard that directly from him that information was relayed directly to him from director Comey,” Sanders said during the press briefing, noting that she got her information directly from the president.

In contradiction with the president, former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper said today on MSNBC that he couldn’t say whether there was collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russians.

“I don’t know if there was collusion,” Clapper said. “I don’t know if there was evidence of collusion, nor should I have.”

ABC News’ Jonathan Karl, Jordyn Phelps and Alex Mallin contributed to this story.

ABC News

Trump lawyers detail his ‘immaterial’ earnings from Russian source

By Jordyn Phelps and Ryan Struyk May 12, 2017,

President Trump’s tax returns for the past decade show little income from Russian sources and no debt owed to Russian lenders, his lawyers said.

“With a few exceptions — as detailed below — your tax returns do not reflect (1) any income of any type from Russian sources, (2) any debt owed by you or TTO [The Trump Organization] to Russian lenders or any interest paid by you or TTO to Russian lenders, (3) any equity investments by Russian persons or entities in entities controlled by you or TTO, or (4) any equity or debt investments by you or TTO in Russian entities,” the lawyers said in a letter they sent to Trump in March but released today.

The letter, dated March 8, says that Trump earned $12.2 million through the Miss Universe pageant, which was hosted in Moscow in 2013. A “substantial portion” of that was attributable to the Moscow event, it said.

Trump Properties LLC sold property in Florida to a Russian billionaire for $95 million, the lawyers added.

“Over the years, it is likely that TTO or third-party entities engaged in ordinary course sales of goods or services to Russians or Russian entities, such as sales / rentals / fees for condominiums, hotel rooms, rounds of golf, books or Trump-licensed products (e.g., ties, mattresses, wines, etc.) that could have produced income attributable to Russian sources,” according to the letter.

“The amounts are immaterial,” it added.

Bucking the tradition of presidents for decades, Trump has not released his full tax returns to the public.

In comments similar to what’s reflected in his lawyers’ letter, Trump told NBC Thursday, “I have no investments in Russia, none whatsoever. I have had dealings over the years where I sold a house to a very wealthy Russian many years ago. I had the Miss Universe pageant, which I owned for quite a while. I had it in Moscow a long time ago. But other than that, I have nothing to do with Russia.”

Huffington Post

Don’t Take Anything Trump’s Lawyers Say About His Tax Returns Seriously

Paul Blumenthal May 12, 2017

President Donald Trump’s tax lawyers issued a statement on Friday that the White House wants you to take seriously: The president has not received income or taken on any debt or equity from Russian sources over the past 10 years, “with a few exceptions.”

This is not how you construct a credible statement about someone’s finances, let alone a sitting president of the United States.

“With few exceptions” is such an obvious out that it can barely even be called a loophole ― it simply and openly invalidates the denial that precedes it.

Trump has a history of emphatically denying that he has any monetary connection to Russia. In January, he tweeted: “NOTHING TO DO WITH RUSSIA – NO DEALS, NO LOANS, NO NOTHING!” His lawyers’ new admission of the “few exceptions” indicates this blanket denial was false. The letter written by Sherri Dillon and Willie Nelson, Trump’s tax lawyers at Morgan, Lewis & Bockius, is dated March 8.

According to Dillon and Nelson, those exceptions include Russian fertilizer kingpin Dmitry Rybolovlev purchasing a South Florida mansion for $95 million in 2008; the 2013 Miss Universe contest held in Moscow, which earned $12.2 million in income; and “ordinary course sales of goods or services to Russians.” No documentary evidence was provided to prove that these are Trump’s only sources of income from Russians.

“Russians make up a pretty disproportionate cross-section of a lot of our assets,” Donald Trump Jr. said at a Russian real estate conference in 2008. “We see a lot of money pouring in from Russia.” And a sports writer recently reported that Eric Trump, another son of the president, said in 2014 that the family had access to $100 million from Russian banks. “Well, we don’t rely on American banks,” Eric Trump said at the time, according to the writer. “We have all the funding we need out of Russia.” (Eric Trump denied the quote.)

The incidental “sales of goods or services to Russians” was no small sum. Russians spent nearly $100 million to purchase condos in seven buildings licensing the Trump name in South Florida, according to Reuters. Trump received a commission on all sales in the buildings, likely somewhere between 1 percent and 4 percent. This would mean Trump received between $1 million and $4 million in income from Russian purchasers.

This is a bizarre attempt to substitute a prepared communication for public disclosure, which is insufficient for both urgent investigation and repairing the public trust. John Wonderlich, executive director of the Sunlight Foundation

Trump also had a long-standing financing and business relationship with a company called Bayrock. Bayrock provided the financing to build Trump Soho, which the company owned and Trump lent his name to through a licensing deal. Bayrock was founded by Tevfik Arif, a former Soviet official who was born in Kazakhstan, and Tamir Sapir, a Georgian fertilizer and oil magnate. Felix Sater ― a mob-linked double felon who stabed a man in the face with a broken margarita glass and was convicted for his role in a $40 million pump-and-dump stock fraud ― was a Bayrock executive.

Bayrock attempted to build Trump-branded buildings in Arizona and Florida and had offices for a time in Trump Tower. Sater was given a Trump Organization business card, which called him a “senior advisor to Donald Trump.” Sater traveled to Russia with Trump’s children looking for investment properties. Despite these numerous connections, Trump said in 2013 that if Sater “were sitting in the room right now, I wouldn’t know what he looked like.”

It’s unclear where Bayrock got the money to finance Trump Soho, because the funding trail ends with an Icelandic company called FL Group. Iceland was a common destination for laundered Russian money prior to the financial crisis, when the FL Group financed Bayrock. Allen Garten, a Trump Organization lawyer, told the Financial Times last year that he “had no reason to question” where Bayrock got its money.

Additionally, HuffPost reported a previously unknown connection between Donald Trump Jr. and Sater through a company called Global Habitat Solutions. GHS, founded by Sater, acted as a marketing tool for a twice-defunct Trump Jr. venture called Titan Atlas, which sold building materials.

Of course, the president could provide evidence for his claims by releasing his personal tax returns and the returns for his family business, but he has refused to do so. Without producing his full tax returns, the only thing we have to reply on to substantiate Trump’s denials is Trump’s word.

And Trump has an almost unimaginable track record of telling falsehoods. The same goes for those speaking on his behalf. Without documentation for his and his lawyers’ claims, statements about where Trump’s income comes from and who his family does business with cannot be taken seriously.

Trump’s lawyers are simply doing their job: to do what their client demands, whether it is to protect him from negative publicity or from any potential legal liability. Dillon and Nelson have no duty to the American people and no obligation to the public trust to tell the truth about the president’s finances.

“This is a bizarre attempt to substitute a prepared communication for public disclosure, which is insufficient for both urgent investigation and repairing the public trust,” John Wonderlich, executive director of the pro-transparency Sunlight Foundation, told HuffPost.

“Trump also paid lawyers to vouch for his divestment and ethics plans, which were clearly insufficient,” he said.

Washington Post Opinion

Trump’s ‘tapes’ tweet is too much. Hasn’t the GOP had enough?

By Jennifer Rubin May 12, 2017

Since President Trump fired FBI Director James Comey on May 9, the explanations for the dismissal have been getting murkier. Now Trump has tweeted a threat to cancel press briefings and a suggestion about “tapes” of his private conversations with Comey.

President Trump tweeted this morning, “James Comey better hope that there are no ‘tapes’ of our conversations before he starts leaking to the press!” One doesn’t know if this is a threat or another bit of bluster. Congress should immediately issue a subpoena for all tapes of presidential conversations, just to be on the safe side. The sheer bizarreness of his tweet will, for those not immune to Trump’s lunacy, reintroduce questions about his mental stability. One wonders when, if ever, Republicans will declare they’ve had enough.

The Weekly Standard’s Bill Kristol remarks to me, “I think there is movement among Hill Republicans, for now mostly in private and behind the scenes. And then, I think (and history suggests), the dam will break suddenly.” One hopes that is right, but outwardly, the Republicans by and large continue to support Trump and defend his nonsense.

The 2016 election demonstrated that the party once united by political thought (e.g., smaller government, objective truth, respect for tradition, the rule of law) and respect for civic virtue would accept a thoughtless, entirely unscrupulous leader for the sake of holding power. (“Sure, he’s totally ignorant about the world, but we’ll get the Supreme Court.” “Well, he’s obviously lying about a bunch of issues, but he’ll sign whatever the House gives him.“) En masse, most Republicans — including those at some premier publications (which are now unreadable to all but the Trump cultists) — declared willingness to defend ignorance, bigotry, dishonesty and ineptitude on the chance that they’d get a top marginal tax rate of 28 percent. The calculation, to those not driven by partisan zeal, seems shockingly small-minded and tribalistic. (At least Hillary Clinton’s not there to raise taxes!) One marvels at other trades they’d make. (Lose an independent judiciary for sake of a meaningless and offensive travel ban?)

Republican Party identification has begun requiring intellectual vacuity. One has to be free from shame to agree that it’s no big deal when Trump confesses he fired former FBI director James B. Comey because he decided Russian interference in the election was “just a made-up story.” A slew of FBI agents is now investigating the “made-up story,” the entire intelligence community verifies it and members of both parties acknowledge that it occurred. To go along with such utterances means condoning Trump’s inability to accept reality (Russia did, in fact, meddle) and refusing to concede that pressuring and then firing the FBI director must be impeachable, if not criminal, conduct. This mind-set forces Trump defenders to say daft things such as: Trump has the right to fire Comey, so what’s the problem? Democrats didn’t like Comey, anyway. It doesn’t matter that he gave a pretextual answer for the firing.

Our incredulity does not concern Trump’s buffoonish performances. We’re not surprised in the least that the president thinks he’s entitled to shut down an investigation if he doesn’t like the way his political opponents are utilizing evidence to attack him. We expected nothing less and warned fellow Republicans that this was what they were buying into.

No, we remain incredulous that so many seemingly mature conservatives are going along with this, even now when his political utility to the party is so slight. (It’s not as though he’s capable of delivering on campaign promises or leading the party to victories in 2018.) We’re not talking about Sean Hannity or Tucker Carlson, but, in this context, House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), the majority of 2016 presidential candidates, right-wing think tankers, too many right-leaning pundits, etc. Have they truly lost their intellectual bearings, or are they so cynical as to conclude that sticking with the “tribe” is better than simple truth-telling?

We’re hoping that the dam breaks quickly, before more harm comes to the republic. The GOP, however, may be irreparably broken.

Daily Beast

White House Staff React in Real-Time as Trump Tweets: ‘Jesus’

Flacking for a man who can change his mind at any moment is proving to be a tactical minefield for the White House press office.

By Lachlan Markay and Asawin Suebsaeng May 12, 2017

It was 7:51 a.m. eastern time on a Friday, and the president was angrily tweetstorming again.

This time, it was about “Fake News,” “the Russians,” China and Beef, , James Comey and “tapes,” and his sometimes hapless White House staff.

“As a very active President with lots of things happening, it is not possible for my surrogates to stand at podium with perfect accuracy!” @realDonaldTrump posted. “Maybe the best thing to do would be to cancel all future ‘press briefings’ and hand out written responses for the sake of accuracy???”

Senior administration officials have grown accustomed to learning about their boss’s whims in unorthodox ways but it doesn’t mean they like it or are prepared for the sudden swings of emotion. For instance, one official was having a conversation with a Daily Beast reporter on Friday morning when the reporter interrupted the official to inform them that Trump was on Twitter again.

After a brief pause to check Twitter, the senior Trump aide informed of the unfolding rant, responded, “Jesus.”

The morning’s tirade was the latest in a series of migraine-inducing actions endured by the president’s press team this week, who have faced the wrath of the president’s anger over their handling of Trump’s botched and bungled firing of FBI director James Comey.

Multiple White House sources confirmed to The Daily Beast earlier reports that the president was “furious” in the aftermath—causing aides to spend the rest of the week drawing as little attention to themselves as possible.

“People are keeping their heads down,” another official said, describing the White House comms shop as dispirited and fearful of Trump’s ire.

White House sources told The Daily Beast this week that Trump was not accepting excuses from staffers that they were kept in the dark and therefore didn’t have sufficient time on Tuesday to come up with a coherent strategy and messaging.

Officials spoke to The Daily Beast on the condition of anonymity so as to speak freely. The White House press shop did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

At Friday’s White House press briefing, Sean Spicer explained that he and his staff do their best to gather relevant information from the president before briefing the press, but that Trump is occasionally unavailable and some information isn’t readily attainable.

An exasperated White House staffer on Friday described a different dynamic, saying the West Wing often struggles to keep up with Trump’s kinetic and unilateral public messaging operation and tweets and interviews that often diverge from the official White House line on the day’s events.

The resulting tension between Trump’s statements and those of the press office charged with maintaining his public image have some frustrated at their apparent inability to nail down a coherent narrative on issues as weighty as the FBI’s investigation into alleged 2016 election-meddling.

“It’s not that we don’t know what the president wants to say, it’s that the president doesn’t know what the president wants to say,” the staffer said.

When deputy press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders told reporters on Wednesday that the president canned Comey, on the advice of Justice Department leadership, she was dutifully advancing the administration’s initial narrative on the move.

“They had come to him to express their concerns,” she said of the president’s Monday meeting with Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein.

“So it’s the White House’s assertion that Rod Rosenstein decided on his own, after being confirmed, to review Comey’s performance?” a reporter asked. Sanders was resolute: “Absolutely.”

Vice President Mike Pence relayed the same timeline seven times on Wednesday as well.

Then on Thursday, Trump publicly contradicted all of them.

“Regardless of recommendation, I was going to fire Comey,” he told NBC’s Lester Holt in an interview excerpted before Thursday’s White House press briefing.

Sanders was forced to walk back her claims the day before. “I went off of the information that I had when I answered your question,” she admitted. “I’ve since had the conversation with him, right before I walked on today, and he laid it out very clearly. He had already made that decision.”

“It’s tough,” the White House staffer said of Sanders’s Trump-induced walk-back. “You say what you’re supposed to say, and then you have to go out and basically apologize for it.”

By Friday, Sanders was no longer at the briefing room lectern, and Spicer was back at the job. Another White House staffer said Spicer essentially had to return to deliver the briefing as a matter of survival, due to being on thinner ice with the president as a result of Tuesday’s mess.

Trump undercutting—or needlessly complicating life for—his top political surrogates and spokespeople dates back to the 2016 campaign trail, when senior campaign staff were in a constant state of cleaning up after the Republican presidential nominee.

“When POTUS tweetstorms, it is often all-hands [on deck]” for White House staffers, a senior Trump aide said.

One former top Trump campaign surrogate described to The Daily Beast that “the scariest five minutes” of their life was the period of time right before they went on live TV when they weren’t checking their smartphone, since there was always the possibility that they would be asked on-air about something Trump had just tweeted or said that campaign staff hadn’t had time to invent a defense for yet.

“There were times on the trail when the initial comms strategy was just to be, just, flabbergasted at Twitter, then play clean up,” the surrogate recounted.

In the White House, Trump’s press secretary and his communications team have plenty of cleaning up to do—and have to deal with a president who is never shy about reminding senior staff about their job insecurity.

“He made it clear and known that Sean [Spicer] had failed him,” one person who spoke with Trump about this told The Daily Beast. “It was clear.”

Still, Spicer can’t do much more than put on a happy face and continue to try to appease his boss.

“It’s good to be back with you. Apparently I was missed,” Spicer said, smiling, at the top of the White House press briefing on Friday early afternoon.

Occupy Democrats

U.S. Attorney Fired By Trump Just Broke His Silence On Comey’s Firing

By Benjamin Locke May 10, 2017

Since Preet Bharara was fired by Attorney General Jeff Sessions in March, after eight years doing an outstanding job as the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, despite having been praised by Trump previously, he hasn’t been heard from very often.

His name came up yesterday when U.S. Senate Minority leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) mentioned that Bharara was one of those fired as they were looking into Trump and his campaign’s links to Russia.

In the wake of the sudden firing of the FBI Director, Bharara has broken his silence in several pointed tweets:

Trump had good reason to fear a prosecutor known as a “crusader” who had shown his interest was in the public good and the truth, not in playing dirty politics.

Now on the faculty of the New York University School of Law, he was fired by Sessions after he refused to resign along with other U.S. Attorneys.

It was not long after Bharara had opened an investigation into links between Russia interference and the Trump campaign in the 2016 election.

Making him more dangerous to Trump, Bharara has a history of being fearless in going after both Democrats and Republicans who are guilty of public corruption. Under his leadership, his office also shown international reach, including taking down Russian mobsters involved in a $230 million money laundering scheme in 2013.

Bharara had also gone after Russians involved in terrorism and narcotics trafficking. He was even banned by the Russian government from entering their country over trumped up claims of human rights violations.

His banning was actually retribution in 2012 after Congress passed, and President Obama signed, legislation after the suspicious death of a Russian lawyer in prison who had been investigating corruption.

If there is one thing Bharara understands, it is how corrupt officials try to hide their nefarious actions by creating a pretext that going after an enemy is actually about something else – such as Trump claiming he fired Comey over his handling of Hillary Clinton’s emails, months after it happened, and after he praised Comey for his actions at the time.

So here is one final tweet from Bharara, to make it clear he is still a lawyer ready to prove his case, that despite pretext, the truth is still out there:

EcoWatch

Noam Chomsky: The GOP Is Still the Most Dangerous Organization in Human History

Lorraine Chow May 13, 2017

In a new interview with BBC Newsnight, Professor Noam Chomsky repeated his previous claim that the Republican Party is the most dangerous organization “in human history,” especially in their refusal to fight climate change or even denying that the global phenomenon is real.

Although Chomsky noted it was an “outrageous statement” to make, when host Evan Davis asked him if the U.S. political party is worse than North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and the Islamic State, the political thinker replied: “Is ISIS dedicated to trying to destroy the prospects for organized human existence?”

“It doesn’t matter whether they genuinely [believe in climate change] or not … if the consequence of that is, ‘Let’s use more fossil fuels, let’s refuse to subsidize developing countries, let’s eliminate regulations that reduce greenhouse gas emissions.’ If that’s the consequence, that’s extremely dangerous,” he continued.

“Unless you’re living under a rock, you have to recognize the seriousness of this threat.”

Earlier in the interview, Chomsky shared his thoughts about President Donald Trump’s anti-climate agenda but pointed out he was more concerned about the GOP as a whole:

I think the main damage [Trump will] do is to the world, and it’s already happening. The most significant aspect of the Trump election—and it’s not just Trump, it’s the whole Republican Party—is their departing from the rest of the world on climate change.

We have this astonishing spectacle of the United States alone in the world not only refusing to participate in efforts to deal with climate change but dedicated to undermining them. It’s not just Trump, every single Republican leader is the same.

It goes down to the local levels. Take a look at the primaries. In the Republican primaries, every single candidate either denied that climate change is happening. Or, when you get to the so-called moderates like Jeb Bush and [John] Kasich, they said, ‘Well, maybe it’s happening but we shouldn’t do anything about it.’ That’s 100 percent refusal.

Watch the full interview here: https://youtu.be/edicDsSwYpk

Trump administration rejects ban on harmful insecticide, dozens of farmworkers get sick

ThinkProgress

Trump administration rejects ban on harmful insecticide, dozens of farmworkers get sick

Chlorpyrifos is linked to neurotoxic symptoms like nausea, dizziness, and confusion.

By Esther Yu Hsi Lee, Immigration Reporter at ThinkProgress. May 15, 2017

More than 50 farmworkers in California became sick from pesticide drift, Kern Golden Empire reported, one month after a controversial pesticide was deemed safe to use by the Trump administration.

On May 5, workers harvesting cabbage on a farm near Bakersfield were exposed to a “pesticide odor” from mandarin orchards in the west sprayed with Vulcan, an organophosphate-based chemical. The active ingredient in Vulcan is chlorpyrifos, a chemical linked to human health problems manufactured by Dow AgroSciences, a division of Dow Chemical. Chlorpyrifos was slated to be banned by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency under the Obama administration.

Approximately 12 people with symptoms of vomiting and nausea were decontaminated, but 11 of those 12 refused any further treatment, according to an incident log on the Kern County Fire Department webpage. One person was taken to the hospital while more than half of the farm-workers left before medical personnel arrived on scene. The Kern County Fire Department, Kern County Environmental Health and Hazmat responded to the area for a mass decontamination.

“I’m not pointing fingers or saying it was done incorrectly. It was just an unfortunate thing the way it was drifted,” Efron Zavalza, Supervisor and Food Safety Specialist at Dan Andrews Farms where the incident occurred, told the publication. “The wind came and pushed everything east and you know we were caught in the path.”

“Anybody that was exposed, that was here today, we encourage them to seek medical attention immediately. Don’t wait. Particularly if you’re suffering from any symptoms. Whether it’s nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, seek medical attention immediately,” Michelle Corson, Public Relations Officer, Kern County Public Health, said.

Chlorpyrifos — a widely-used organophosphate insecticide in use for over 50 years — is used on a variety of crops like oranges, apples, cherries, grapes, and broccoli. It can cause neurotoxic symptoms in humans like nausea, dizziness, and confusion. When exposed to high dosages, humans can suffer from respiratory paralysis or death. A study by researchers at Columbia University found that exposure was linked to brain function and lower IQ among children. For years, environmental groups have pressured the EPA to look into the correlation between pesticide usage and problems that could affect workers on an organic and cellular level.

Also at ThinkProgress: Dow Chemical gave $1 million to Trump’s inauguration, now wants pesticide risk study buried.

During the Obama administration, EPA scientists recommended taking chlorpyrifos off the market. Despite the scientific evidence, new EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt rejected the ban on chlorpyrifos on the grounds that the agency needs to “provide regulatory certainty” for the thousands of U.S. farms that rely on chlorpyrifos. Dow Chemical donated $ 1 million to fund Presdient Donald Trump’s inauguration ceremony. In a letter to the Trump administration sent in April, Dow Chemical asked the administration to “set aside” and ignore research showing that the pesticide could be harmful to endangered species.

U.S. judge finds that Aetna deceived the public about its reasons for quitting Obamacare

LA Times

U.S. judge finds that Aetna deceived the public about its reasons for quitting Obamacare

Michael Hiltzik, Contact Reporter May 12, 2017

Aetna claimed this summer that it was pulling out of all but four of the 15 states where it was providing Obamacare individual insurance because of a business decision — it was simply losing too much money on the Obamacare exchanges.

Now a federal judge has ruled that that was a rank falsehood. In fact, says Judge John D. Bates, Aetna made its decision at least partially in response to a federal antitrust lawsuit blocking its proposed $34-billion merger with Humana. Aetna threatened federal officials with the pullout before the lawsuit was filed, and followed through on its threat once it was filed. Bates made the observations in the course of a ruling he issued on Monday blocking the merger.

Aetna executives had moved heaven and earth to conceal their decision-making process from the court, in part by discussing the matter on the phone rather than in emails, and by shielding what did get put in writing with the cloak of attorney-client privilege, a practice Bates found came close to “malfeasance.”

Aetna tried to leverage its participation in the exchanges for favorable treatment from DOJ regarding the proposed merger. — U.S. District Judge John D. Bates

The judge’s conclusions about Aetna’s real reasons for pulling out of Obamacare — as opposed to the rationalization the company made in public — are crucial for the debate over the fate of the Affordable Care Act. That’s because the company’s withdrawal has been exploited by Republicans to justify repealing the act. Just last week, House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) cited Aetna’s action on the “Charlie Rose” show, saying that it proved how shaky the exchanges were.

Bates found that this rationalization was largely untrue. In fact, he noted, Aetna pulled out of some states and counties that were actually profitable to make a point in its lawsuit defense — and then misled the public about its motivations. Bates’ analysis relies in part on a “smoking gun” letter to the Justice Department in which Chief Executive Mark Bertolini explicitly ties Aetna’s participation in Obamacare to the DOJ’s actions on the merger, which we reported in August. But it goes much further.

Among the locations where Aetna withdrew were 17 counties in three states where the Department of Justice asserted that the merger would produce unlawfully low levels of competition on the individual exchanges. By pulling out, Aetna could say that it wasn’t competing in those counties’ exchanges anyway, rendering the government’s point moot: “The evidence provides persuasive support for the conclusion that Aetna withdrew from the on-exchange markets in the 17 complaint counties to improve its litigation position,” Bates wrote. “The Court does not credit the minimal efforts of Aetna executives to claim otherwise.”

Indeed, he wrote, Aetna’s decision to pull out of the exchange business in Florida was “so far outside of normal business practice” that it perplexed the company’s top executive in Florida, who was not in the decision loop.

“I just can’t make sense out of the Florida decision],” the executive, Christopher Ciano, wrote to Jonathan Mayhew, the head of Aetna’s national exchange business. “Based on the latest run rate data . . . we are making money from the on-exchange business. Was Florida’s performance ever debated?” Mayhew told him to discuss the matter by phone, not email, “to avoid leaving a paper trail,” Bates found. As it happens, Bates found reason to believe that Aetna soon will be selling exchange plans in Florida again.

As for Aetna’s claimed rationale for withdrawing from all but four states, Bates accepted that the company could credibly call it a “business decision,” since the overall exchange business was losing money; he just didn’t buy that that was its sole reason. He observed that the failings in the marketplace existed before Aetna decided to withdraw, but that as late as July 19, the company was still planning to expand its footprint to as many as 20 states. In April, top executives had told investors that Aetna had a “solid cost structure” in Florida and Georgia, two states it dropped.

While the Department of Justice was conducting its investigation of the merger plans but before the DOJ lawsuit was filed, “Aetna tried to leverage its participation in the exchanges for favorable treatment from DOJ regarding the proposed merger,” Bates observed. During a May 11 deposition of Bertolini, an Aetna lawyer said that if the company “was not ‘happy’ with the results of an upcoming meeting regarding the merger, ‘we’re just going to pull out of all the exchanges.’”

Not such a veiled threat? Aetna’s Mark Bertolini tells the DOJ what will happen if it blocks the Humana merger. After the DOJ sued to kill the deal, Aetna cut back even more.

In private talks with the DOJ, Aetna executives continually linked the two issues, even while they were telling Wall Street that the merger was “a separate conversation” from the exchange business. Bertolini seemed almost to take the DOJ’s hostility to the merger personally: “Our feeling was that we were doing good things for the administration and the administration is suing us,” he said in a deposition.

Bates found “persuasive evidence that when Aetna later withdrew from the 17 counties, it did not do so for business reasons, but instead to follow through on the threat that it made earlier.”

The threat certainly was effective in terms of its impact on the Affordable Care Act, since Aetna’s withdrawal has become part of the Republican brief against the law. That it says so much more about Aetna executives’ honesty and integrity probably won’t get cited much by GOP functionaries trying to repeal the law. Aetna is at least partially responsible for placing the health coverage of more than 20 million Americans in jeopardy; that it did so at least partially to promote a merger that would bring few benefits, if any, to its customers is an additional black mark.

If there’s a saving grace in this episode, it’s that the company’s goal to protect the merger hasn’t worked, so far. The DOJ brought suit, and Bates has now thrown a wrench into the plan. Aetna has said it’s considering an appeal, but the merger is plainly in trouble, as it should be.

Trump takes aim at monuments with oil riches

The Salt Lake Tribune

Trump takes aim at monuments with oil riches

By JENNIFER DLOUHY Bloomberg News May 10, 2017

Bears Ears National Monument in Utah boasts stretches of red-and-yellow sandstone so brilliant they appear to be ablaze and rock structures so precarious they appear to defy gravity.

The rugged terrain south of the Colorado River also has reserves of oil and natural gas that are currently off limits to new leasing — restrictions that may end as the Trump administration reviews 27 large-scale monuments his predecessors set aside for protection.

Industry groups and Republican lawmakers have praised President Donald Trump’s order to review those monument designations, calling it a welcome reconsideration of federal overreach.

Yet, environmental groups are concerned Trump will scrap or scale back those designations, and the net result will be a boost to the fortunes of oil drillers and mining companies.

“Oil and gas is definitely a factor — particularly given that with Trump it’s been something he’s talked about consistently,” said Tim Donaghy, a research specialist with Greenpeace. “They’re going to try to knock down as many barriers as possible to expanded oil and gas drilling.”

Under the 1906 Antiquities Act, presidents can set aside land to protect historic landmarks, structures or other objects of historic or scientific interest.

Most recent monument proclamations have barred new mining claims and oil, gas and mineral leases, but typically protect existing rights, according to an assessment by the Congressional Research Service. Unlike national parks, which must be established by Congress, each monument has its own rules for how the land can be used.

Presidents of both parties have used the law to designate increasingly large parcels of land, raising the hackles of Republican lawmakers worried the protections will constrain energy development and animal grazing on the sites.

Former President Barack Obama issued protections for a record amount of Western land — much of it also rich in oil or minerals.

Republicans objected to what they have termed a “land grab,” and Trump made reconsidering those designations an initial priority. Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke is traveling through Utah this week to see the sites, complete with a hike to Bears Ears’ “House on Fire” ruins.

More than 90 percent — or 1.34 million acres — of the Bears Ears national monument overlaps with potential reserves of oil, gas and coal, according to an analysis of U.S. government data by Greenpeace that was reviewed and checked by Bloomberg. The area also contains significant uranium resources, according to the Center for American Progress.

Those fossil fuels could lurk under some 2.7 million acres of five monuments, including Bears Ears, that are now under review, spanning an area bigger than Yellowstone National Park, according to Greenpeace’s analysis.

The energy resources were illustrated by U.S. Energy Information Administration maps of dense oil and gas formations known to contain the fossil fuels and sedimentary basins likely to. The analysis also drew on U.S. Geological Survey data that shows recoverable coal.

Rep. Rob Bishop, a Republican from Utah who heads the House Natural Resources Committee, has focused his ire on Bears Ears, the remote, stretch of desert designated by Obama just a month before he left office.

Although environmentalists and some indigenous groups backed giving Bears Ears monument status, Bishop said out-of-state support drowned out local voices of opposition.

“They’re trying to make this monument to protect it from being raped by oil and gas development, which is so ludicrous,” Bishop said in an April interview.

Bishop has argued in favor of a similar, slightly smaller package of land protections, worked out with local officials. The set aside, which would need congressional approval, would allow recreation and grazing on some territory and tribal protections in another.

Oil and mineral leasing would be banned in the protected zone but encouraged in other areas in the state.

EcoWatch

Trump Order Could Open Up Area Larger Than Yellowstone to Drilling

May 10, 2017. An investigation by Greenpeace, published Wednesday by Bloomberg, has revealed that more than 2.7 million acres of iconic U.S. land could be at risk from fossil fuel exploration following Donald Trump’s decision to review the protection on dozens of national monuments.

By overlaying government maps of oil, gas and coal deposits with the boundaries of the 27 national monuments on Trump’s list, Greenpeace’s investigation shows for the first time the full extent of the land potentially at risk from fossil fuel exploration.

Last month, Trump issued an executive order requiring the Department of Interior to review all large monuments designated by U.S. presidents under the Antiquities Act since 1996, suggesting they may pose a barrier to energy independence.

“These are the spectacular landscapes whose rugged contours and breathtaking views have defined America’s history and identity for centuries,” Greenpeace USA spokesperson Travis Nichols said.

“They are the common heritage of everyone in our country and must be preserved for future generation. Yet instead of protecting them, Trump wants to carve up these beautiful lands into corporate giveaways for the oil and gas industry. This out-of-touch billionaire may be about to hand over America’s national treasures to the same industry that’s already putting them at risk by fueling more climate change. ”

The analysis shows that a swath of protected land larger than Yellowstone national park could be opened up to drilling—with six national monuments affected by the executive order sitting above fossil fuel reserves. These include some of the most iconic lands in the U.S.—from the spectacular rock formations of Utah’s Grand Staircase-Escalante to Carrizo Plain, the last remnant of a vast grassland that once stretched across California.

The analysis also reveals that, in some cases, the area of potential interest to fossil fuel prospectors covers the vast majority of the monuments. Around 90 percent of Bears Ears, 100 percent of Canyons of the Ancients, 42 percent of Grand Staircase; and 98 percent of San Gabriel Mountains sit above potential deposits of oil, gas and coal.

The research is published as Interior Sec. Ryan Zinke is visiting two of the national monuments on Trump’s list, Bears Ears and the Grand Staircase-Escalante, both of them in Utah, as part of the review.

Sec. Zinke has 120 days from the signing of the order to report back on whether monuments should be rescinded or resized, although he will report back on Bears Ears within 45 days.

Months before President Obama designated Bears Ears as a national monument last December, the Utah Division of Oil, Gas and Mining approved drilling applications by one of the U.S.’ largest independent oil companies on land that is now within the monument boundaries.

Since President Clinton created it in 1996, Grand Staircase-Escalante national monument in Utah has been fiercely opposed by Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch, who has personally lobbied Trump and Zinke to scrap it. One of the reasons behind the desire amongst Utah Republicans to do away with Grand Staircase is the coal seam that runs through the monument.

Carrizo Plain, a remote area of California grassland famous for it’s spectacular springtime wildflowers, was declared a monument by President Clinton in 2001. The Bureau of Land Management’s 2010 resource management plan estimated that there were 45 oil wells within the monuments boundary—including 15 producing wells—that pre-date its designation. The monument is also surrounded by a number of large oil fields, including California’s largest, which lies just a few miles away.

In the Upper Missouri River Breaks National Monument, Montana, plans to expand existing oil and gas operations within the protected area’s boundaries were at the center of a legal battle between conservation groups and the Bureau of Land Management.

“People in this country who cannot afford the membership fee at Mar-a-Lago want unpolluted access to the public lands they love as citizens and own as taxpayers,” Nichols said. “People must resist the latest in a trend of senseless rollbacks by the Trump White House and demand the Interior Department protect the land and water for people in their states and across the country. Trump is on the verge of jeopardizing true national treasures, but the people who live, worship, work, play and rely on these public lands and waters will ensure that he will not succeed.”

The EPA isn’t focused on environmental protection. So does it need a new name?

CNN Politics

The EPA isn’t focused on environmental protection. So does it need a new name?

By John D. Sutter, CNN May 9, 2017

John D. Sutter is a columnist for CNN who focuses on climate change and social justice.

The US Environmental Protection Agency’s mission in the era of President Donald Trump seems to have very little to do with, well, protecting the environment.

Consider a few of the most recent news items:

EPA head Scott Pruitt recently dismissed half of the members from an important science advisory board; an EPA spokesperson told CNN the agency wants scientists from various backgrounds, including those from industry.
The EPA has removed many references to “climate change” on its website, replacing real, science-based information with a note saying the site is “being updated.”
And the Trump administration has called for a 31% cut to the EPA’s budget.

Also consider the rhetoric and history of EPA administrator Scott Pruitt, who let a fossil fuel company essentially write a letter he sent to the EPA when he was Oklahoma attorney general, according to emails released through a public records request. (Pruitt did not comment at the time and an EPA spokesman said the agency would not be commenting).

Pruitt has repeatedly made a mockery of the role of fossil fuels and carbon dioxide pollution in causing global warming, and before he took the helm at EPA, he sued the agency repeatedly in an effort to combat environmental regulations.

“The war on coal is over; the war on fossil fuel is over, ” Pruitt said outside a power plant in April. Never mind that coal and fossil fuels contribute to global warming, which is expected to raise sea levels, worsen droughts, contribute to crop failure and threaten our very existence.

Yeah, none of this looks good. “They are not just isolated acts,” said David Doniger, director and senior attorney of the climate and clean air program at the Natural Resources Defense Council, or NRDC, an environmental group. “On any one thing, (Pruitt) might have deserved … the benefit of the doubt. But there are so many of these things that there is no doubt where this is headed.”

Rename the EPA?

Given that, it seems reasonable to ask a provocative question: Is the Environmental Protection Agency still worthy of its name? Maybe, given the sweeping changes in the agency’s apparent focus, the EPA needs a new and more-accurate acronym. I realize that’s an unlikely if not impossible request.

Yes, I would rather see the Environmental Protection Agency simply live up to its mandate. And no, I wouldn’t want the name change to reflect poorly on the EPA as an enduring institution or on its many smart, hardworking scientists and policy experts.

But there is risk in doing nothing.

Namely: We move further into “1984” territory. That George Orwell novel, which is a best seller again these days, highlights the absurdity of government bodies whose names belie their actual purposes.

The fictional Ministry of Truth promotes propaganda, for example. The Ministry of Plenty, oversees rationing programs. The Ministry of Peace, is actually waging war. By continuing to call the EPA the Environmental Protection Agency, we risk further sapping those words of their meaning. We might enter a world not only of “alternative facts” but alternative reality.

‘It was bold’

These shifts are especially troubling when you know the history of the EPA — and its name.

Republican President Richard Nixon chose the name for the Environmental Protection Agency in 1970, the year of its creation, according to Richard “Pete” Andrews, an emeritus professor of public policy at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. I called up Andrews because he is an expert on the history of the EPA and author of “Managing the Environment, Managing Ourselves: A History of American Environmental Policy.”

The agency came into existence, Andrews told me, essentially because of a “nonpartisan outcry” demanding protection for the environment. “Silent Spring “ had highlighted the horrors of DDT and other chemicals in the environment; a river in Ohio caught on fire; Lake Erie was feared “dead.” Something had to be done.

That something, in part, was the EPA. “It was bold,” Andrews said of the agency and its name. Inherent in its creation was a desire to set minimum federal environmental protections so that “if you travel from one state to another you’re not going to endanger your health by breathing the air.”

Pruitt misrepresents this history, Andrews told me, by insisting that the original mandate of environmental law was to give states the power to police themselves. (Pruitt, meanwhile, says he wants to “restore the EPA’s essential mission of keeping our air and our water clean and safe.” Let’s assume that’s true. It still wouldn’t be enough in 2017, when climate change is an overarching concern.)

The EPA was cobbled together from other agencies — a clearing house, so to speak, for environmental monitoring, education and regulation. It gained authority through landmark laws, including the Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act. And it showed that the public could drive action.

“Nixon was seeing a mob coming at him — and jumping in front of it and calling it a parade,” Andrews said, referring to the first Earth Day demonstrations, which also occurred in 1970. “He had no prior background in this. But he saw this was a big issue and so he seized it.” If only the same could happen with Trump and Pruitt.

‘Department of Catastrophic Myopia …’

Out of curiosity, I asked Twitter and my newsletter subscribers to suggest a few (more accurate?) names for the Trump-and-Pruitt-era Environmental Protection Agency.

Among the most interesting: the Exxon Protection Agency; the Coal and Oil Management Agency, or COMA; the Environmental Destruction Agency; Enrich Pruitt’s Allies; and the Department of Catastrophic Myopia Fueled by Anti-Scientific Foolishness, or DCMFASF for short.

I don’t particularly want to see the EPA renamed DCMFASF. I’d like to see Trump learn from the public the way Nixon did. I’d like to believe the agency can return to its mission of protecting public health and the environment at a time when climate change policy, especially, is critical to the very future of humanity.

I bet Trump saw footage of the thousands of protestors who gathered at the People’s Climate March in Washington DC recently, demanding an end to the fossil fuel era.

And I hope he and Pruitt are aware of the history of EPA overhauls. Doniger, the director and senior attorney from NRDC, told me this moment feels chillingly similar to the start of President Ronald Reagan’s administration. Reagan appointed Anne Gorsuch –mother of Trump’s Supreme Court justice pick, — as his first administrator of the EPA.

“She cut the budget and dismantled the laws, fired the scientists — or at least ignored them, etc.,” Doniger said. “What happened with Gorsuch is that she got about two years into this mission of destroying the agency and there was a broad rebellion that manifested in the media and in public opinion and in the Democratically-controlled Congress,” he continued. After “a number of scandals, Reagan sacked her,” Doniger said. (Her obituary in the Washington Post says she “resigned under fire. “)

This history shows that the public — and the courts — still matter. The very creation of the EPA, remember, emerged from public outcry. Yes, things can change. But if they don’t, the EPA’s name should.

I Am Proud to Be a Chicagoan

Natural Resources Defense Council

I Am Proud to Be a Chicagoan

By Henry Henderson May 7, 2017

In this moment where the Trump administration seems adamant about abdicating their responsibilities to protect the nation and the world against the ravages of climate change, state and local action has become all the more essential.

And in this moment, I am proud to be a Chicagoan.

The city has been a clean energy leader for a long time. From its early development of a Climate Action Plan, through the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Energy Star Partner Award—the first given to a municipal government—for the incredible energy efficiency gains made through the Retrofit Chicago program. I am proud to say Natural Resources Defense Council NRDC has been a partner in Retrofit Chicago’s commercial building initiative for years, helping to transform massive buildings that make up the Loop’s glittering skyline into a carbon crunching tool to take on climate change. And Chicago was one of the first municipal governments to join the City Energy Project—which helped to develop a bevy of key energy efficiency policies to help ensure the Windy City continues to shrink its carbon footprint.

But a new website shows a different facet of Chicago’s leadership: ClimateChangeIsReal.org.

That site ensures that the climate data that the Trump Administration scrubbed from the EPA website remains available to the public and scientists around the world. As a seeming war on science moves forward in Washington, DC, Chicago ensures that decades of essential data can continue to inform the researchers seeking to understand and find solutions to climate change. Coming on the heels of Illinois’ groundbreaking and powerful Future Energy Jobs Act, this region brings a new level of meaning to the “think globally, act locally” mantra.

Henry Henderson is director of the Midwest program at Natural Resources Defense Council.

EcoWatch

EPA Fires Scientists

By Climate Nexus

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) cleaned house on its scientific review board last week, dismissing at least five scientists on its 18-member Board of Scientific Counselors.

The scientists, including professors of natural resource sociology, told multiple outlets they were surprised to receive notices that they would not be asked to renew their tenure on the board, especially after being assured in January that they would retain their positions through the new administration.

A spokesperson for EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt told the New York Times that the agency was considering filling the vacancies with representatives from industry the EPA regulates, in order to include members who “understand the impact of regulations on the regulated community.”

Concerned current board members told the Times that the dismissals could be seen as a “test balloon” for further political moves against science.

Robert Richardson, an ecological economist at Michigan State University and one of those dismissed, said, the cuts “just came out of nowhere.”

“The role that science has played in the agency in the past, this step is a significant step in a different direction,” he said. “Anecdotally, based on what we know about the administrator, I think it will be science that will appear to be friendlier to industry, the fossil fuel industry, the chemical industry, and I think it will be science that marginalizes climate change science.”

Ken Kimmell, president of the Union of Concerned Scientists, said that the dismal of the scientists “is completely part of a multifaceted effort to get science out of the way of a deregulation agenda.”

What seems to be premature removals of members of this Board of Science Counselors when the board has come out in favor of the EPA strengthening its climate science, plus the severe cuts to research and development—you have to see all these things as interconnected.”

For a deeper dive: New York Times, Washington Post, Science, Greenwire, Politico Pro

EcoWatch

Elevated Cancer Rates Linked to Environmental Quality

By Lorraine Chow

With the Trump administration slashing environmental regulations and House Republicans passing their controversial health care bill last week, this new study might put you on edge. Researchers have found a link between environmental quality and cancer incidence across the U.S.

“Our study is the first we are aware of to address the impact of cumulative environmental exposures on cancer incidence,” said Dr. Jyotsna Jagai of the University of Illinois, who led the research team.

For the study, the researchers cross-referenced the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) program’s state cancer profiles with the Environmental Quality Index (EQI) and determined that the average cancer rate in roughly 2,700 counties was about 451 people in every 100,000 between 2006 and 2010.

But in counties with poor environmental quality, the researchers found a 10 percent higher incidence of cancer cases—or an average of 39 more cases per 100,000 people. The higher numbers were seen in both males and females, especially prostate and breast cancer.

The authors noted that prior studies on the environment’s effect on cancer usually focus on specific environmental factors, such as air, water, land quality, sociodemographic environment and built environment.

However, the current study examines how cancer development is dependent on the totality of exposures we face, including social stressors.

“This work helps support the idea that all of the exposures we experience affect our health, and underscores the potential for social and environmental improvements to positively impact health outcomes,” Dr. Jagai said.

“Therefore, we must consider the overall environment that one is exposed to in order to understand the potential risk for cancer development.”

The experts warned that recent legislative proposals could jeopardize research on the links between cancer and the environment. This includes measures attempting to dismantle the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and efforts to nullify the federal collection of geospatial data, or the Local Zoning Decisions Protection Act of 2017.

“H.R.861, which was introduced on February 3, 2017, to ‘terminate the Environmental Protection agency’—the source of the environmental data used in the study by Jagai [and colleagues]—will have severe repercussions on the scientific community’s ability to produce this type of valuable research,” Scarlett Lin Gomez, PhD, MPH, research scientist from the Cancer Prevention Institute of California, and colleagues wrote in a related editorial.

U.S. Steel Chemical Spill Exceeds Allowable Limit by 584 Times

By Lorraine Chow

A U.S. Steel plant in Portage, Indiana spilled nearly 300 pounds of a cancer-causing chemical into Burns Waterway last month, documents from the Indiana Department of Environmental Management (IDEM) revealed.

The release of hexavalent chromium was 584 times the daily maximum limit allowed under state law, the Times of Northwest Indiana reported, citing the documents. The plant is permitted to release only a maximum of 0.51 pounds daily.

The toxic industrial byproduct was made infamous by the environmental activist and 2000 movie of the same name, “Erin Brockovich. ”

The leak occurred between April 11 and April 12 and forced the closure of several Lake Michigan beaches and Indiana American Water’s intake in Ogden Dunes. Burns Waterway is a tributary that flows into Lake Michigan, a drinking water source for nearby Lake, Porter and LaPorte counties.

Following the spill, U.S. Steel has committed to sampling and monitoring lake water on a weekly basis to ensure it is safe through the swimming season, a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) spokesperson said. The discharge was reportedly caused by a pipe failure.

Sam Henderson, a staff attorney for the Hoosier Environmental Council, denounced the spill.

“If U.S. Steel had set up its system responsibly, it wouldn’t have been possible for a single mechanical failure to dump nearly 300 pounds of hexavalent chrome into Lake Michigan,” Henderson told the Times of Northwest Indiana.

“Spills like this show that U.S. Steel isn’t taking that responsibility seriously. Industry needs to step up.”

The chemical spill highlights concerns over the Trump’s administration’s proposed cuts to abolish the Integrated Risk Information System, the EPA office working on hexavalent chromium standards in drinking water. The cuts would also affect funding for scientific reviews of toxic chemicals and decrease the EPA’s enforcement of environmental laws.

Henderson noted that IDEM’s budget “has been slashed to the bone, and we see the consequences of that in accidents like these.” IDEM is Indiana’s agency charged with protecting the state’s environment and human health.

“Now we face the risk that EPA will be severely cut back as well,” Henderson said. “If those cuts go through, nobody will be minding the store. And if nobody’s minding the store, it’s inevitable that spills like this will become more common.”

Cindy Skrukrud, clean water program director for Sierra Club Illinois, added that U.S. Steel’s spill “illustrates the need we have for a robust EPA to prevent and respond to situations like this.”

“We cannot bear cuts to the EPA staff and to its programs that protect the Great Lakes from pollution and cleanup legacy contamination sites. We are all depending on the EPA as we seek answers to the remaining questions about the impacts of the spill on the aquatic life in Burns Waterway,” Skrukrud continued. “As potential penalties are considered, they should include funding for restoration projects in and near the impacted areal.”

U.S. Steel said last month it takes all incidents “very seriously” and are “fully committed to researching and taking corrective actions to prevent a future occurrence.”

The beaches and water intake reopened on April 17 after EPA water samples detected no levels of hexavalent chromium.

However, last month the National Park Service staff said they were concerned about the long-term potential impacts to beach users’ health, wildlife and other park resources.

“Lake currents and waves have the ability to move this hazardous material onto park beaches at a later date,” the park service said in a news release.

Officials said that periodic beach patrols will be looking for evidence of fish kills or other environmental damage.

Environmental Defense Fund

5 Life-Saving Environmental Rules Industry Just Ask Trump to Attack

By Keith Gaby

The Trump administration has already cancelled or sought to undermine 23 rules that protect our health and environment—including limits on toxic waste coal companies dump in rivers and regulations promoting more fuel-efficient cars.

But the administration is hungry for more, so it’s asked companies, trade associations and lobbyists to suggest other rules they’d like the president to roll back.

Part of this wish-list process is being done in public and some, of course, is happening in private meetings. Rules from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), which has a whole “wish list” docket of its own, seem to be a particular target.

Here are five of the most brazen industry wishes submitted so far:

Coal tar: Trade association wants to end health studies.

The Pavement Coatings and Technology Council—a trade association for the paving industry—doesn’t want research into the health dangers of the black top on which your children play foursquare.

It also doesn’t want the government to study the impact of coal tar on “freshwater sediment contamination, indoor air quality, ambient air quality and effects on aquatic species.”

Leaky oil and gas drill sites: Trade groups don’t want to fix them.

Trade associations representing the oil and gas industry, including The Independent Petroleum Association of America, have filed comments attacking Clean Air Act standards requiring energy producers to take cost-effective steps to reduce methane and other air pollution.

Roofing fumes: Companies want no restrictions.

The National Roofing Contractors Association, a trade group representing roofing companies, doesn’t want smog-forming chemicals restricted, saying such regulations “have been burdensome to our members.”

Cancer-causing lubricants: Manufacturers say they should still be used.

No, not that kind of lubricant. The Independent Lubricant Manufacturers Association complained that the newly established chemical safety law may require its members to find replacement products for materials known to cause cancer in humans.

Toxic pesticide: Chemical manufacturer wants ban removed.

Don’t try to pronounce chlorpyrifos, just know this pesticide hurts kids’ health. That’s what the EPA had concluded last year, and proposed banning it after years of research showing that it causes developmental problems in children and that there are alternatives.

That is, until Pruitt came along, and under pressure from the manufacturer, ignored his own scientists and rejected the proposed ban, saying it needs more study.

Why This Wish List Should Be Taken Seriously

The Trump administration seems to view all health and environmental safeguards as potentially suspicious. That’s in spite of strong data showing that environmental rules actually help the economy—by preventing illness, missed school days, worker absence, productivity problems and early death.

President Trump, who encountered these safeguards as impediments to building hotels faster and cheaper, promised to rid the government of 75 percent of rules that get in industry’s way.

With an EPA administrator more eager to please his boss than to protect Americans’ health, it’s now our job to fight back and protect our kids.

Keith Gaby is senior communications director for climate, health and political affairs at Environmental Defense Fund

DeSmog Blog

690,000 Contiguous Acres in Alaska May Soon Be Open to Fracking

By Steve Horn

Hydraulic fracturing’s horizontal drilling technique has enabled industry to tap otherwise difficult-to-access oil and gas in shale basins throughout the U.S. and increasingly throughout the world. And now fracking, as it’s known, could soon arrive at a new frontier: Alaska.

As Bloomberg reported in March, Paul Basinski, a pioneer of fracking in Texas’ prolific Eagle Ford Shale, has led the push to explore fracking’s potential there, in what’s been dubbed “Project Icewine.” His company, Burgundy Xploration, is working on fracking in Alaska’s North Slope territory alongside the Australia-based company 88 Energy (formerly Tangiers Petroleum).

“The land sits over three underground bands of shale, from 3,000 to 20,000 feet below ground, that are the source rocks for the huge conventional oilfields to the north,” wrote Bloomberg. “The companies’ first well, Icewine 1, confirmed the presence of petroleum in the shale and found a geology that should be conducive to fracking.”

Why the name “Project Icewine”? “Everything we do is about wine,” Basinski told Alaska Public Radio. “That’s why it’s called Icewine. Because it’s cold up here, and I like German ice wine.”

Geographical Terrain

A report by DJ Carmichael, an Australian stockbroker firm, notes that the Project Icewine oilfield is located in close proximity to the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System, which flows from northern to southern Alaska and is co-owned by BP, ConocoPhillips, Exxon Mobil and Chevron.

Drone footage, taken in 2016 by a company owned by Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski’s campaign manager, Steve Wackowski, shows a fracking test well being drilled for Icewine 1.

According to an Austrian Securities Exchange filing, in April of this year, 88 Energy and Burgundy Xploration began pre-drilling procedures for Icewine 2, a second fracking test well. In the filing, which also noted receipt of a Permit to Drill from the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission, 88 Energy said it expects to begin “stimulation and production testing” in June or July.

When all is said and done, the two companies may soon have a plot of land 690,000 contiguous acres in size, according to the Securities Exchange filing. A May 3 Securities Exchange filing noted that 88 Energy is still on schedule for Icewine 2.

Tax Subsidies

In a February 2016 research note, the Australian investment company Patersons Securities Limited noted that the 88 Energy-Burgundy Xploration joint venture is the beneficiary of a tax subsidy system put in place by the Alaska Legislature.

“In an effort to encourage exploration activity in order to ultimately promote an increase in oil production in Alaska and maintain the financial viability of the [Trans-Alaska Pipeline System], the State Legislature passed the More Alaska Production Act in April 2013,” reads the research note. “The Act effectively eliminated the progressive production tax on oil production and replaced it with a flat rate of 35 percent. In addition, companies like 88E operating above 68 degrees North latitude would qualify for a combined cash rebate on exploration of 85 percent for all qualified expenditure until 31 December 2015, reducing to 75 percent for the period ending 30 June 2016, and 35 percent thereafter.”

The More Alaska Production Act was so controversial that it came up for a referendum during the 2014 election cycle. This effort to overturn the law was defeated 52.7 percent to 47.3 percent after industry power players such as ExxonMobil, ConocoPhillips, and BP spent roughly $13 million on an advertising blitz to fend off the ballot initiative.

In its 2013 annual report filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, ConocoPhillips said the legislation has helped the company’s corporate bottom line.

“Following the April 2013 enactment of revised oil tax legislation, MAPA [More Alaska Production Act], we have increased our exploration and development investments and activities on the North Slope by adding rigs and progressing new development opportunities,” wrote the company. “We will continue to work with co-owners to identify additional opportunities to increase our investments in Alaska.”

Oil and Money

Fracking is a capital-intensive procedure, made all the more so given northern Alaska’s isolated geographical location and its Arctic drilling terrain.

Perhaps in a nod to this, the GOP-dominated Alaska Legislature attempted to offer $430 million worth of tax subsidies for the oil and gas industry in the fiscal year 2017 budget. That was vetoed by Alaska Gov. Bill Walker, an Independent, meaning the industry only got its statutory limit of $30 million in subsidies.

Patrick Galvin, chief commercial officer for Great Bear Petroleum, formerly served as petroleum land manager for the Alaska Department of Natural Resources and commissioner for the Alaska Department of Revenue. When Walker vetoed the $430 million proposed subsidy, Galvin publicly criticized him.

“What seems to have developed in this particular moment is the governor having to kind of take hostages in order to get the legislature to act on what he wants them to act on with regard to a fiscal plan,” Galvin told Alaska Public Radio. “It has an impact down the chain for all of the business that company wanted to do and they were expecting to get these payments and now they’re basically stuck waiting to see when the state will ultimately pay its bill.”

Galvin’s company also drilled fracking test wells earlier in the decade but has yet to commercialize the technique. Great Bear previously estimated it could frack 200,000 barrels of crude per day by 2020 and 600,000 barrels per day by 2056, though it appears a long way from reaching those aspirations.

Another tax subsidy fight in Alaska is currently underway over the proposed Alaska House Bill 111, which passed 21-19 in the Democratic-controlled House and awaits a Republican-controlled Senate vote. The state bill—opposed by Conoco Phillips, BP, Great Bear Petroleum and the Alaska Oil and Gas Association—would essentially undo the tax subsidy in place under the More Alaska Production Act, while also forcing the oil and gas industry to pay more taxes to fill the state’s coffers.

In the end, tapping Alaska’s shale resources via fracking, not unlike the attempts to drill for its Arctic oil, may come down to a simple issue of money. Whether enough cash will flow to the 49th state to make fracking a commercial-scale endeavor remains to be seen.

Reposted with permission from our media associate DeSmogBlog.

Chicago Mayor Recoups Climate Change Data Deleted from EPA Website

By Cassie Kelly May 7, 2017

Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel has his own ideas about the Trump administration taking down important climate data from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency website.

This weekend, Emanuel posted the scrubbed data on the City of Chicago’s official website to preserve the “decades of research [the agency] has done to advance the fight against climate change. ” Emanuel said he plans to develop the site further in the coming weeks.

“While this information may not be readily available on the agency’s webpage right now, here in Chicago we know climate change is real and we will continue to take action to fight it,” Mayor Emanuel said.

The new page highlights NOAA records on global warming, basic information on what climate change is, the impact that it will have on things like farming and human health, and what citizens can do to reduce their emissions. It even has a section linking to the president’s Climate Action Plan, which as of right now, doesn’t lead anywhere but a blank page that says “stay tuned.”

The Trump Administration has shown it is not making climate action a priority and is leaning toward withdrawing from the Paris climate agreement.

“The Trump administration can attempt to erase decades of work from scientists and federal employees on the reality of climate change, but burying your head in the sand doesn’t erase the problem,” Emanuel said.

Fracking’s Dark Secret

Dr. David Suzuki May 7, 2017

We’ve long known extracting oil and gas comes with negative consequences, and rapid expansion of hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, increases the problems and adds new ones—excessive water use and contamination, earthquakes, destruction of habitat and agricultural lands and methane emissions among them.

As fossil fuel reserves become depleted, thanks to our voracious and wasteful habits, extraction becomes more extreme and difficult. Oil sands mining, deep sea drilling and fracking are employed because easily accessible supplies are becoming increasingly scarce. The costs and consequences are even higher than with conventional sources and methods.

Fracking involves drilling deep into the Earth, and injecting a high-pressure stream of water, sand and chemicals to break apart shale and release gas or oil. In British Columbia, politicians tout liquefied natural gas as an economic panacea, a product we can export around the world to create jobs and prosperity at home. More than 80 percent of BC’s natural gas is fracked, and as fracking increases, the percentage rises.

Of the many problems with the industry, methane emissions from fracked and conventional operations are among the most serious. Methane is at least 84 times more potent than carbon dioxide as a heat-trapping gas over the short term. Researchers estimate it’s responsible for 25 percent of already observed climatic changes. One difference between methane and CO2: Methane remains in the atmosphere for a shorter time—around a decade, compared to many decades or centuries for CO2.

Methane’s relatively short lifespan means reducing the amount entering the atmosphere will have major and rapid results. Cutting methane emissions from the oil and gas sector is one of the cheapest, most effective ways to address climate change. The technology to do so already exists. It’s absurd that the industry is leaking the very resource it wants to sell.

Methane comes from a number of sources, including animal agriculture and natural emissions. Global warming itself means methane once trapped in frozen ground or ice is escaping into the air.

The oil and gas industry is one of the major emitters. A field study by the David Suzuki Foundation and St. Francis Xavier University found methane pollution from BC’s oil and gas industry is at least 2.5 times higher than BC government estimates.

In 2015 and 2016, foundation researchers joined St. Francis Xavier University’s Flux Lab under the supervision of David Risk, an expert in measurement, detection and repair of fugitive emissions. Using gas-detection instruments mounted on a “sniffer truck,” they traveled more than 8,000 kilometers in northeastern BC. They found methane emissions from BC’s Montney region alone are greater than what the provincial government has estimated for the entire industry! (Montney represents about 55 percent of BC’s oil and gas production). David Suzuki Foundation senior scientist John Werring followed up on and corroborated that research by measuring point-source methane emissions from more than 170 oil and gas sites.

The research, available in the journal Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics, found Montney operations leak and intentionally release more than 111,800 tonnes of methane into the air annually—equivalent to burning more than 4.5 million tonnes of coal or putting more than two million cars on the road. Half of all well and processing sites in the region are releasing methane.

This research shows that the oil and gas sector is the largest source of climate pollution in BC, surpassing commercial transportation—and it contradicts claims that natural gas or LNG is a clean fuel or that it’s useful to help us transition from other fossil fuels.

Given these results and other studies—including one in Alberta that found the amount of methane leaking from Alberta operations in one year could heat 200,000 homes—it’s time for all levels of government to get industrial methane emissions under control.

Beyond existing commitments to reduce methane emissions by 45 percent, governments must work to eliminate them from this sector by 2030, with strong regulations, monitoring and oversight. We need better leak detection and repair, improved reporting and enforcement and methods to capture emissions rather than burning them.

Climate change is a serious issue, and methane emissions are a significant contributor. Getting them under control is a quick, cost-effective way to help address the problem. What’s stopping us?

Wind Industry Just Chalked Up Strongest First Quarter in 8 years

American Wind Energy Association May 7, 2017

America’s wind power workforce installed 908 utility-scale turbines in the first quarter of 2017, totaling 2,000 megawatts (MW) of capacity. This is the wind industry’s strongest start in eight years, according to a new report released Tuesday by the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA).

“We switched on more megawatts in the first quarter than in the first three quarters of last year combined,” said Tom Kiernan, CEO of AWEA, in releasing the U.S. Wind Industry First Quarter 2017 Market Report. “Each new modern wind turbine supports 44 years of full-time employment over its lifespan, so the turbines we installed in just these three months represent nearly 40,000 job years for American workers.”

The early burst of activity reflects how 500 factories in America’s wind power supply chain and more than 100,000 wind workers are putting stable, multi-year federal policy to work. The industry is now in year three of a five-year phase-down of the Production Tax Credit, and Navigant Consulting recently forecast a strong 2017 for wind power, similar to 2015 and 2016.

New wind turbine installations in the first quarter spanned the U.S. from Rhode Island and North Carolina to Oregon and Hawaii. Great Plains states Texas (724 MW) and Kansas (481 MW) led the pack.

Texas continues as the overall national leader for wind power capacity, with 21,000 MW installed, enough to power more than five million average homes. North Carolina became the 41st state to harness wind power, bringing online the first wind farm to be built in the Southeast in 12 years.

Horace Pritchard, one of nearly 60 landowners associated with the North Carolina project, explained what it means to him and his neighbors: “Farms have been growing corn, soybeans and wheat for a long time here, and the wind farm revenue means a lot of families are protected from pricing swings, floods or droughts going forward. We’re just adding another locally-grown crop to our fields, with very little ground taken out of production, and the improved roads really help with access. So it’s a great fit here.”

Expanding wind farms continue to benefit rural America, since more than 99 percent of wind farms are built in rural communities. According to AWEA’s recently released 2016 Annual Report, wind now pays more than $245 million per year in land-lease payments to local landowners, many of them farmers and ranchers.

Along with rural benefits, American wind manufacturing facilities remain busy in the first quarter as projects continue to be built. With 4,466 MW in new construction and advanced development announcements recorded in the first quarter, the near-term pipeline has reached 20,977 MW of wind capacity. That’s about as much as the entire Texas wind fleet’s existing capacity.

Demand remained strong in the first quarter. There were 1,781 MW signed in long-term contracts for wind energy, the most in a first quarter since 2013. Utilities and Fortune 500 brands frequently use these long-term contracts, called Power Purchase Agreements (PPAs), to purchase wind energy. Home Depot and Intuit, maker of TurboTax, both signed up for wind power this quarter, joining a host of Fortune 500 companies like GM, Walmart, and Microsoft that are buying wind energy for its low, stable cost.

In addition to leading brands, low-cost wind power reliably supplies a growing number of cities, universities, and other organizations—including the Department of Defense. This quarter, a Texas wind farm came online to supply a PPA with the U.S. Army. Powering a military facility demonstrates that wind power is ready to reliably serve our most vital electricity needs, boosting American energy security in more ways than one.

What the last Nuremberg prosecutor alive wants the world to know

CBS News 60 Minutes

What the last Nuremberg prosecutor alive wants the world to know

Correspondent Lesley Stahl, May 7, 2017

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/what-the-last-nuremberg-prosecutor-alive-wants-the-world-to-know/

At 97, Ben Ferencz is the last Nuremberg prosecutor alive and he has a far-reaching message for today’s world

Twenty-two SS officers responsible for the deaths of 1M+ people would never have been brought to justice were it not for Ben Ferencz.

The officers were part of units called Einsatzgruppen, or action groups. Their job was to follow the German army as it invaded the Soviet Union in 1941 and kill Communists, Gypsies and Jews.
Ferencz believes “war makes murderers out of otherwise decent people” and has spent his life working to deter war and war crimes.

CBS News

It is not often you get the chance to meet a man who holds a place in history like Ben Ferencz. He’s 97 years old, barely 5 feet tall, and he served as prosecutor of what’s been called the biggest murder trial ever. The courtroom was Nuremberg; the crime, genocide; the defendants, a group of German SS officers accused of committing the largest number of Nazi killings outside the concentration camps — more than a million men, women, and children shot down in their own towns and villages in cold blood.

Ferencz is the last Nuremberg prosecutor alive today. But he isn’t content just to be part of 20th century history — he believes he has something important to offer the world right now.

27-year-old Ben Ferencz became the chief prosecutor of 22 Einsatzgruppen commanders at Nuremberg.

“If it’s naive to want peace instead of war, let ’em make sure they say I’m naive. Because I want peace instead of war.”

Lesley Stahl: You know, you– have seen the ugliest side of humanity.

Benjamin Ferencz: Yes.

Lesley Stahl: You’ve really seen evil. And look at you. You’re the sunniest man I’ve ever met. The most optimistic.

Benjamin Ferencz: You oughta get some more friends.

Watching Ben Ferencz during his daily swim, his gym workout and his morning push-up regimen is to realize he isn’t just the sunniest man we’ve ever met — he may also be the fittest. And that’s just the beginning.

Ferencz made his opening statement in the Nuremberg courtroom 70 years ago. Ben Ferencz in court: “The charges we have brought accuse the defendants of having committed crimes against humanity.”

The Nuremberg trials after World War II were historic — the first international war crimes tribunals ever held. Hitler’s top lieutenants were prosecuted first. Then a series of subsequent trials were mounted against other Nazi leaders, including 22 SS officers responsible for killing more than a million people — not in concentration camps — but in towns and villages across Eastern Europe. They would never have been brought to justice were it not for Ben Ferencz.

Lesley Stahl: You look so young.

Benjamin Ferencz: I was so young. I was 27 years old.

Lesley Stahl: Had you prosecuted trials before?

Benjamin Ferencz: Never in my life. I don’t—

Lesley Stahl: Come on.

Benjamin Ferencz: –recall if I’d ever been in a courtroom actually.

Ferencz had immigrated to the U.S. as a baby, the son of poor Jewish parents from a small town in Romania. He grew up in a tough New York City neighborhood where his father found work as a janitor.

Benjamin Ferencz: When I was taken to school at the age of seven, I couldn’t speak English– spoke Yiddish at home. And I was very small. And so they wouldn’t let me in.

Lesley Stahl: So you didn’t speak English ’til you were eight?

Benjamin Ferencz: That’s correct.

Lesley Stahl: Could you read?

Benjamin Ferencz: No, on the contrary. The silent movies always had writing on it. And I would ask my father, “Wazukas,” in Yiddish, “What does it say? What does it say?” He couldn’t read it, either.

But Ferencz learned quickly. He became the first in his family to go to college, then got a scholarship to Harvard Law School. But during his first semester, the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, and he, like many classmates, raced to enlist. He wanted to be a pilot, but the Army Air Corps wouldn’t take him.

Benjamin Ferencz: They said, “No, you’re too short. Your legs won’t reach the pedals.” The Marines, they just looked at me and said, “Forget it, kid.”

So he finished at Harvard then enlisted as a private in the Army. Part of an artillery battalion, he landed on the beach at Normandy and fought in the Battle of the Bulge. Toward the end of the war, because of his legal training, he was transferred to a brand new unit in General Patton’s Third Army, created to investigate war crimes. As U.S. forces liberated concentration camps, his job was to rush in and gather evidence. Ferencz told us he is still haunted by the things he saw. And the stories he heard in those camps.

Benjamin Ferencz: A father who, his son told me the story. The father had died just as we were entering the camp. And the father had routinely saved a piece of his bread for his son, and he kept it under his arm at… He kept it under his arm at night so the other inmates wouldn’t steal it, you know. So you see these human stories which are not — they’re not real. They’re not real. But they were real.

Ferencz came home, married his childhood sweetheart and vowed never to set foot in Germany again. But that didn’t last long. General Telford Taylor, in charge of the Nuremberg trials, asked him to direct a team of researchers in Berlin, one of whom found a cache of top-secret documents in the ruins of the German foreign ministry.

Benjamin Ferencz: He gave me a bunch of binders, four binders. And these were daily reports from the Eastern Front– which unit entered which town, how many people they killed. It was classified, so many Jews, so many gypsies, so many others–

Ferencz had stumbled upon reports sent back to headquarters by secret SS units called Einsatzgruppen, or action groups. Their job had been to follow the German army as it invaded the Soviet Union in 1941, and kill Communists, Gypsies and especially Jews.

Benjamin Ferencz: They were 3,000 SS officers trained for the purpose, and directed to kill without pity or remorse, every single Jewish man, woman, and child they could lay their hands on.

Lesley Stahl: So they went right in after the troops?

Benjamin Ferencz: That was their assignment, come in behind the troop, round up the Jews, kill ’em all.

Only one piece of film is known to exist of the Einsatzgruppen at work. It isn’t easy viewing…

Benjamin Ferencz: Well, this is typical operation. Well, see here, this– they rounded ’em up. They all have already tags on ’em. And they’re chasing them.

Lesley Stahl: They’re making them run to their own death?

Benjamin Ferencz: Yes. Yes. There’s the rabbi coming along there. Just put ’em in the ditch. Shoot ’em there. You know, kick ’em in.

Lesley Stahl: Oh, my God. Oh, my God.

This footage came to light years later. At the time, Ferencz just had the documents, and he started adding up the numbers.

Benjamin Ferencz: When I reached over a million people murdered that way, over a million people, that’s more people than you’ve ever seen in your life, I took a sample. I got on the next plane, flew from Berlin down to Nuremberg, and I said to Taylor, “General, we’ve gotta put on a new trial.”

But the trials were already underway, and prosecution staff was stretched thin. Taylor told Ferencz adding another trial was impossible.

Benjamin Ferencz: And I start screaming. I said, “Look. I’ve got here mass murder, mass murder on an unparalleled scale.” And he said, “Can you do this in addition to your other work?” And I said, “Sure.” He said, “OK. So you do it.”

And that’s how 27-year-old Ben Ferencz became the chief prosecutor of 22 Einsatzgruppen commanders at trial number 9 at Nuremberg.

Judge: How do you plead to this indictment, guilty or not guilty?

Defendant: Nicht schuldig.

Benjamin Ferencz: Standard routine, nicht schuldig. Not guilty.

Judge: Guilty or not guilty?

Defendant: Nicht schuldig.

Lesley Stahl: They all say not guilty.

Benjamin Ferencz: Same thing, not guilty.

But Ferencz knew they were guilty and could prove it. Without calling a single witness, he entered into evidence the defendants’ own reports of what they’d done. Exhibit 111: “In the last 10 weeks, we have liquidated around 55,000 Jews.” Exhibit 179, from Kiev in 1941: “The city’s Jews were ordered to present themselves… about 34,000 reported, including women and children. After they had been made to give up their clothing and valuables, all of them were killed, which took several days.” Exhibit 84, from Einsatzgruppen D in March of 1942: Total number executed so far: 91,678. Einsatzgruppen D was the unit of Ferencz’s lead defendant Otto Ohlendorf. He didn’t deny the killings — he had the gall to claim they were done in self-defense.

Benjamin Ferencz: He was not ashamed of that. He was proud of that. He was carrying out his government’s instructions.

Lesley Stahl: How did you not hit him?

Benjamin Ferencz: There was only one time I wanted to– really. One of these– my defendants said– He gets up, and he says, “[GERMAN],” which is, “What? The Jews were shot? I hear it here for the first time.” Boy, I felt if I’d had a bayonet I woulda jumped over the thing, and put a bayonet right through one ear, and let it come out the other. You know? You know?

Lesley Stahl: Yeah.

Benjamin Ferencz: That son of a bitch.

Lesley Stahl: And you had his name down on a piece of—

Benjamin Ferencz: And I’ve got– I’ve got his reports of how many he killed. You know? Innocent lamb.

Lesley Stahl: Did you look at the defendants’ faces?

Benjamin Ferencz: Defendants’ face were blank, all the time. Defendants– absolutely blank. They could– like, they’re waiting for a bus.

Lesley Stahl: What was going on inside of you?

Benjamin Ferencz: Of me?

Lesley Stahl: Yeah.

Benjamin Ferencz: I’m still churning.

Lesley Stahl: To this minute?

Benjamin Ferencz: I’m still churning.

All 22 defendants were found guilty, and four of them, including Ohlendorf, were hanged. Ferencz says his goal from the beginning was to affirm the rule of law and deter similar crimes from ever being committed again.

Lesley Stahl: Did you meet a lot of people who perpetrated war crimes who would otherwise in your opinion have been just a normal, upstanding citizen?

“War makes murderers out of otherwise decent people. All wars, and all decent people.”

Benjamin Ferencz: Of course, is my answer. These men would never have been murderers had it not been for the war. These were people who could quote Goethe, who loved Wagner, who were polite–

Lesley Stahl: What turns a man into a savage beast like that?

Benjamin Ferencz: He’s not a savage. He’s an intelligent, patriotic human being.

Lesley Stahl: He’s a savage when he does the murder though.

Benjamin Ferencz: No. He’s a patriotic human being acting in the interest of his country, in his mind.

Lesley Stahl: You don’t think they turn into savages even for the act?

Benjamin Ferencz: Do you think the man who dropped the nuclear bomb on Hiroshima was a savage? Now I will tell you something very profound, which I have learned after many years. War makes murderers out of otherwise decent people. All wars, and all decent people.

So Ferencz has spent the rest of his life trying to deter war and war crimes by establishing an international court – like Nuremburg. He scored a victory when the international criminal court in The Hague was created in 1998. He delivered the closing argument in the court’s first case.

“If they tell me they want war instead of peace, I don’t say they’re naive, I say they’re stupid.”

Lesley Stahl: Now, you’ve been at this for 50 years, if not more. We’ve had genocide since then.

Benjamin Ferencz: Yes.

Lesley Stahl: In Cambodia—

Benjamin Ferencz: Going on right this minute, yes.

Lesley Stahl: Going on right this minute in Sudan.

Benjamin Ferencz: Yes.

Lesley Stahl: We’ve had Rwanda, we’ve had Bosnia. You’re not getting very far.

Benjamin Ferencz: Well, don’t say that. People get discouraged. They should remember, from me, it takes courage not to be discouraged.

Lesley Stahl: Did anybody ever say that you’re naive?

Benjamin Ferencz: Of course. Some people say I’m crazy.

Lesley Stahl: Are you naive here?

Benjamin Ferencz: Well, if it’s naive to want peace instead of war, let ’em make sure they say I’m naive. Because I want peace instead of war. If they tell me they want war instead of peace, I don’t say they’re naive, I say they’re stupid. Stupid to an incredible degree to send young people out to kill other young people they don’t even know, who never did anybody any harm, never harmed them. That is the current system. I am naive? That’s insane.

Ferencz is legendary in the world of international law, and he’s still at it. He never stops pushing his message and he’s donating his life savings to a Genocide Prevention Initiative at the Holocaust Museum. He says he’s grateful for the life he’s lived in this country, and it’s his turn to give back.

Lesley Stahl: You are such an idealist.

Benjamin Ferencz: I don’t think I’m an idealist. I’m a realist. And I see the progress. The progress has been remarkable. Look at the emancipation of woman in my lifetime. You’re sitting here as a female. Look what’s happened to the same-sex marriages. To tell somebody a man can become a woman, a woman can become a man, and a man can marry a man, they would have said, “You’re crazy.” But it’s a reality today. So the world is changing. And you shouldn’t– you know– be despairing because it’s never happened before. Nothing new ever happened before.

Lesley Stahl: Ben—

Benjamin Ferencz: We’re on a roll.

Lesley Stahl: I can’t—

Benjamin Ferencz: We’re marching forward.

Lesley Stahl: Ben? I’m sitting here listening to you. And you’re very wise. And you’re full of energy and passion. And I can’t believe you’re 97 years old.

Benjamin Ferencz: Well, I’m still a young man.

Lesley Stahl: Clearly, clearly.

Benjamin Ferencz: And I’m still in there fighting. And you know what keeps me going? I know I’m right.

Produced by Shari Finkelstein and Nieves Zuberbühler.