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WATCH as U.S. EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt defends himself amid mounting allegations of waste, cronyism and corruption.
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War On Our Future: Scott Pruitt's Legacy
WATCH as U.S. EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt defends himself amid mounting allegations of waste, cronyism and corruption. Read more: ecowatch.com/tag/scott-pruittvia The Years Project #YEARSproject #WarOnOurFuture
Posted by EcoWatch on Monday, April 30, 2018
By Andrew Eil April 30, 2018
EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt testifies before the House Appropriations Committee on April 26, 2018 in Washington, D.C. Alex Edelman/Getty Images
After months of trickling out, in the past several weeks the sordid revelations of Administrator Scott Pruitt’s corruption at the helm of our federal Environmental Protection Agency have been splashed sensationally across print, internet and cable news. The wanton dissipation of public resources for soundproof studios, round-the-clock security, first-class travel for Pruitt and a coterie of staff, extended layovers in Paris, and giant raises for EPA cronies plucked from the administrator’s home state of Oklahoma, among other indiscretions, are enough to turn one’s stomach. And then there’s the bombshell that Pruitt lived almost rent-free much of last year at the posh townhouse of—wait for it—the wife of a prominent lobbyist representing companies regulated by the EPA. Two more bombshells emerged courtesy of the New York Times this month: Pruitt met with said lobbyist, and he has been taking veiled bribes and favors, including buying a house in Oklahoma for $100,000 below market value, from lobbyists for more than 15 years.
And yet, the sensational headlines about corruption only scratch the surface of what is happening to environmental protection and the service of the public interest at the EPA. Since the first heady days of the Trump administration—remember the parade of staged photo-ops for the president to look busy and decisive, signing executive order after executive order?—deconstruction of our proud legacy of science-based environmental protection has been Trump’s and Pruitt’s calling card. In practice, the corruption and cynical mendacity required to excuse it are the gateway to an EPA that actively undermines its own mission.
More than 130 congressmen and 39 senators called for Pruitt’s ouster earlier this month. While all are Democrats, the issue of Pruitt’s gross ethical missteps isn’t typically partisan: The hard-hitting televised interrogation of Pruitt came courtesy of Fox News; House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chair Trey Gowdy (R-SC) has launched a probe to look into Pruitt’s travel; and Oklahoma Republican James Inhofe, Pruitt’s home-state senator and “political patron,” expressed concern over Pruitt’s behavior. Prominent House Republicans Elise Stafanik of New York and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and Carlos Curbelo of Florida have called for Pruitt’s removal. Career Republican and senior Trump EPA appointee Kevin Chmielewski spoke out after being marginalized for balking at Pruitt’s “inappropriate and unethical spending.”
At least, the imbroglio isn’t entirely partisan; many conservatives are rallying to Pruitt’s defense, and the Wall Street Journal editorial page claims the “green political machine” is agitating over trifles because liberals don’t like Pruitt’s politics. In fact, the Wall Street Journal has the political controversy over Pruitt backwards: No party likes corruption, but Trump is willing to give carte blanche to Pruitt because Trump’s backers see Pruitt as a deregulation warrior and “one of the most effective members” of his cabinet. While Pruitt’s reputation as a regulation-shredder is somewhat overblown—at least some observers think his haste and recklessness will get many of his regulatory gambits overturned in court—it is precisely that reputation that endears him to the commander-in-chief. Conservatives say so openly: A letter that arch-right party elders sent to Trump on April 6 “thanked Trump for sticking with Pruitt, one of their ideological brethren, and said, in essence, that Pruitt’s policy accomplishments made him worth the trouble,” according to Politico.
Let’s get one thing straight: One can believe both in protecting the environment and in minimally burdening businesses and the general public with regulations and government bureaucracies. The two American founding fathers of environmental protection—the national park system and EPA—were Republicans Teddy Roosevelt and Richard Nixon, respectively.
Fundamentally, environmental protection is about studying pollution sources and impacts and putting in place rules to rein them in. It’s these serious, labor-intensive pursuits that justify the EPA’s thousands of employees, from scientists to lawyers to inspectors, and its budgetary allocations from Congress.
On Trump and Pruitt’s watch, EPA leadership has been summarily and systematically dismantling all three pillars of environmental protection: scientific inquiry and informed rule-making; perpetuation of rules and standards that hold polluters to account; and enforcement of the rules and standards on the books.
The full extent of this travesty is difficult to convey, as there have been hundreds if not thousands of actions taken by Pruitt and his staff to turn the EPA (and the Departments of Interior and Energy, our other primary federal bodies that protect the environment) into a paper tiger, purring at the feet of corporate titans. The litany is long: Disbanding scientific advisory panels. Muzzling scientists and federal employees on the issue of climate change. Scrubbing climate change information from government websites. Excluding scientists and their studies from EPA proceedings. Rolling back existing and proposed rules, such as the Clean Power Plan, methane emissions standards for oil and gas wells, and “CAFE” vehicle fuel efficiency standards that reduce greenhouse emissions, improve air quality, and save consumers money, but which are inconvenient and costly for a small number of politically powerful energy, utility, and automotive companies. And, of course, neglecting the worst environmental crises, such as lead in drinking water in Flint, Michigan and scores of other cities, likely leading to illness and impaired brain function.
These actions are all part and parcel of the free-for-all in the Trump administration, which at every turn flouts the rule of law, scorns expertise, and undermines the mission and value of government services.
But, you say, countries do this the world over. Why should we be so different? Just loosen up and enjoy the party, right?
Not so. Take China: Last month, the Chinese government announced the formation of a new, powerful Ministry of Ecological Environment. This is no mere window dressing; the national 2018 government work plan calls for “closing inefficient coal and steel plants, increasing China’s electric car fleet, banning waste imports, and hardening pollution standards and enforcement.” This follows on aggressive moves to shutter coal power plants, coal mines, household coal stoves, and factories in Beijing and around the country in recent years, as well as the January launch of a national cap-and-trade system on carbon emissions.
Or Latin America, long a playground for rapacious multinational corporations and unscrupulous caudillos raiding natural resources and pillaging indigenous peoples’ lands. Things are changing: 24 countries across the region last month signed a landmark treaty to protect the rights and safety of local environmental advocates.
Or the scores of countries worldwide racing to tackle climate change. Following the landmark agreements in Paris in 2015, Kigali on refrigerants and Montreal on airplane emissions in 2016, and global climate summits in France and California last year, action to rein in emissions and help ourselves and the world’s vulnerable adapt to the impacts of climate change remains a top priority—except in Washington.
It’s true that most countries around the world have been guilty of environmental degradation and corruption for decades. Yet their leaders have recognized that clean air, clean water, a level playing field for environmentally-friendly technologies, and accountability for polluters are hallmarks of development and too important for their nations’ health, wellbeing, and economic future to neglect.
The rationale for environmental protection is straightforward. When will we in the U.S. come to our senses?
Andrew Eil is an independent consultant with expertise in climate change and clean energy policy, international development and sustainable investing
Kyra Phillips, Stephanie Ebbs, John Santucci, Matthew Mosk. April 30, 2018
A whistleblower from the Environmental Protection Agency says that Administrator Scott Pruitt was “bold-faced” lying when he told members of Congress that no EPA employees were retaliated against for raising concerns about his spending decisions.
In an exclusive interview with ABC News’ Kyra Phillips, former deputy chief of staff Kevin Chmielewski said he was “100 percent” forced out after raising concerns about Pruitt’s spending on first-class travel.
Chmielewski said chief of staff Ryan Jackson called him into his office and said: “Hey — Administrator Pruitt either wants me to fire you or put you in an office so that he doesn’t have to see you again,” Chmielewski told ABC News adding that “And in addition to that, he wants to put Millan (Hupp) in your spot, as your title and your pay grade.”
“I think Ryan Jackson, the chief of staff, is a very honorable guy. I think he’s just in a weird situation,” Chmielewski said. “Because he was — he was the biggest advocate about doing the right thing. We would talk about it all the time.”
ABC News has reached out to Jackson and Hupp for comment.
Pete Marovich/The New York Times via Redux. Scott Pruitt, administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, testifies before the House Interior, Environment and Related Agencies Appropriations subcommittee on Capitol Hill in Washington, April 26, 2018. more +
The EPA declined to comment in response to questions about Chmielewski’s allegations against Pruitt and his staff. ABC News obtained a personnel form filled out by an EPA HR officials that says he resigned on March 17.
The form is not signed by Chmielewski, who says he was actually forced to leave a month before that date.
Chmielewski said he had previously raised concerns about things like Pruitt’s first-class flights and a request to spend $100,000 a month on a private jet, even meeting with the presidential personnel office about what he called lavish spending at the EPA. He said no one would look into his concerns further.
“They didn’t wanna touch it with a ten-foot pole. Understandably. I mean, at this point I’m going up against a cabinet secretary. Who wants to do that? I sure didn’t want to, and still don’t want to. But that’s apparently where I’m at now,” he said.
The Trump campaign veteran says he believes he started being pushed out after he refused to sign off on first-class flights for one of Pruitt’s aides. Chmielewski said there was no reason for that person to fly first class.
“I refused to do it. And, once again, I think that was some of the beginning of the retaliation, and why you know, cause I said absolutely not. And I kinda got in trouble behind closed doors for not signing that. Just Kevin, “Sign it. You know, be done with it.” And the last thing I was doing was signing off on that,” he said.
Chmielewski said that when a manager told him Pruitt wanted him fired he said that he also wanted to place one of his aides, Hupp, into the deputy chief of staff job.
Hupp was one of the aides that was granted a controversial raise that Pruitt said he reversed and that he didn’t know the specific amount. Chmielewski said the raise was “100 percent Pruitt.”
EPA chief Pruitt testified on Capitol Hill: ‘I have nothing to hide’
Months after he first raised concerns, Chmielewski said he returned from a trip to Japan with the vice president and was immediately told to surrender his parking pass. He said that after he declined, the head of Pruitt’s security detail Nino Perrotta called him multiple times threatening to come to his house and physically take his pass, even though Chmielewski said that would be trespassing. He said he was ultimately told to resign or he would be fired but he still refused to resign.
Perrotta has not responded to ABC News’ request for comment.
When asked about Chmielewski’s situation Pruitt said last week during congressional testimony that the former deputy chief of staff resigned, but Chmielewski says that he was fired and that the agency has been trying to discredit him.
When asked about reports that the agency pushed out employees that raised concerns about his spending, Pruitt told lawmakers last week that there was “no truth” to the reports and that the agency will work to protect whistleblowers.
ABC. Presidential candidate Donald Trump invites Kevin Chmielewski on stage during a campaign rally in Berlin, Md., April 2017.
“I just want to emphasize very very clearly to you that there’s no actions that we have taken that I’m aware of related in any way to the issues you raise as far as reassignment or employment action based upon that,” Pruitt told lawmakers.
The New York Times first reported that Chmielewski and four other EPA employees were reassigned or removed from their positions for raising concerns about Pruitt’s spending. Chmielewski met with members of Congress and staffers earlier this month.
Pruitt, who is the subject of multiple ethics investigations and a White House probe, appeared before Congress on April 26 where he insisted he did not retaliate against employees in response to questions from both Democrats and Republicans.
“I have nothing to hide as it relates to how I’ve run the agency for the past 16 months,” Pruitt said during his remarks before a House subcommittee last week.
The EPA’s internal watchdog is looking into multiple questions about Pruitt’s decisions since taking over at the EPA, including the allegations of retaliation against employees, his spending on travel and security, and his living arrangement.
In March, ABC News first reported that Pruitt had been living in a Capitol Hill condo co-owned by the wife of a prominent lobbyist with business interests before the EPA. Pruitt paid just $50 a night, claiming it was just for a one bedroom.
ABC News also reported that Pruitt’s daughter was staying in the condo for an extended period of time as she was completing a White House internship, without permission, according to his former landlord.
The report launched queries into other Pruitt and EPA expenditures, including questions about Pruitt’s security spending, which far outpaced his predecessors, on things like first class flights, a 24-hour security detail, and a $43,000 soundproof phone booth for his office. It was also found that Pruitt’s chief of staff had approved significant raises for some of Pruitt’s top aids on the administrator’s behalf.
Chmielewski said that he was involved in planning the phone booth and that Pruitt knew it would cost more than $40,000. “He knew what was going on, and what the ideas were,” he said, though Chmielewski said he didn’t personally see Pruitt sign anything authorizing the expense.
Pruitt said last week that he asked his staff for a way to answer secure calls but did not directly ask for the $43,000 “secure phone booth.”
ABC News. Kevin Chmielewski talks with ABC News, April 30, 2018.
Chmielewski also said that he isn’t criticizing the administrator because he disagrees with his political agenda. Chmielewski worked on President Donald Trump’s campaign said he is still loyal to Trump and Vice President Mike Pence. He said he thinks the president doesn’t have the full story when it comes to Pruitt.
“I’m a pretty credible source. No one in this world can say that I’m not a Republican and no one in this world can say that I’m not the biggest fan of the president or the vice president,” he said. “I would still go through a brick wall for the guy today, either one of them.”
By Steve Benen April 30, 2018
In this Oct. 11, 2007 file photo, Carl Icahn speaks in New York. Photo by Mark Lennihan/File/AP
At last count, EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt has found himself at the middle of 13 separate investigations. New reporting from Reuters points to a controversy that should probably become the 14th:
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has granted a financial hardship waiver to an oil refinery owned by billionaire Carl Icahn, a former adviser to President Donald Trump, exempting the Oklahoma facility from requirements under a federal biofuels law, according to two industry sources briefed on the matter.
The waiver enables Icahn’s CVR Energy Inc to avoid tens of millions of dollars in costs related to the U.S. Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) program. The regulation is meant to cut air pollution, reduce petroleum imports and support corn farmers by requiring refiners to mix billions of gallons of biofuels into the nation’s gasoline and diesel each year.
The company sought a waiver from the Obama administration, which rejected the request. Trump’s EPA appears to have reached the opposite conclusion.
Brooke Coleman, head of the Advanced Biofuels Business Council industry group, told Reuters, in reference to the EPA’s scandal-plagued chief, “This one’s going to be hard for Pruitt to explain.”
That’s true. After all, Reuters’ report noted that Icahn is currently facing a Justice Department investigation for his role in “influencing biofuels policy” while serving as Donald Trump’s special adviser to the president on regulatory reform. Now Trump’s EPA is reportedly giving a waiver to one of Icahn’s companies, allowing him to sidestep regulations on biofuels policy.
And if all of this sounds a little familiar, there’s a very good reason for that.
Rachel put all of this in context on the show a few weeks ago. Indeed, this New Yorker piece was published last summer on Carl Icahn allegedly using his influence with the president, and leveraging his role as a White House adviser on regulations, to benefit his investment.
Icahn resigned from his position on Trump’s team the day the New Yorker piece was published. (Because this White House is often ridiculous, Trump World then pretended Icahn had never actually served as the president’s regulatory czar, which was demonstrably absurd.)
And just in case this story weren’t quite troubling enough, let’s also not forget that Scott Pruitt may have his job at the EPA in part because of Icahn. From the aforementioned New Yorker piece:
When potential Cabinet secretaries visited Trump Tower to meet with the President-elect, they were sometimes sent for a second interview – with Icahn…. When Scott Pruitt visited Trump Tower to discuss the top job at the E.P.A., the President-elect concluded the interview by instructing him to walk two blocks uptown to meet with Icahn. Trump, according to a Bloomberg News account, told him, “He has some questions for you.” Pruitt was precisely the sort of candidate that Icahn might favor. A fierce opponent of environmental regulation, Pruitt had spent years, as the attorney general of Oklahoma, suing the agency that he was now in talks to oversee. Even so, Pruitt knew that Icahn would likely want to discuss one particular issue – RIN credits – and as Pruitt and an aide headed up Fifth Avenue they searched the Internet for information on the credits system and its impact on Icahn’s refiner.
Pruitt was nominated on December 8th. The next day, Icahn said in an interview with Bloomberg News, “I’ve spoken to Scott Pruitt four or five times. I told Donald that he is somebody who will do away with many of the problems at the E.P.A.”
It’s Pruitt’s EPA that just gave Icahn’s company a waiver that may be worth tens of millions of dollars, which brings me back to that “This one’s going to be hard for Pruitt to explain” quote.
Alexander C. Kaufman, HuffPost April 28, 2018
Taking the stage at the glitzy Mayflower Hotel in Washington last November, Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt casually quoted the New Testament as he recited his pitch for reimagining the role of the country’s top environmental regulator.
“We as a country have been blessed with tremendous natural resources,” he told the audience gathered for an American Principles Project Foundation gala, according to previously unpublished audio HuffPost obtained. “And to whom much is given, much is required.”
The reference to Luke 12:48 was likely not lost on the crowd gathered that Wednesday night for the conservative religious think tank’s fourth annual Red White and Blue Gala. The event’s brochure, a copy of which HuffPost reviewed, listed the group’s programs on “bioethics and life” and “religious freedom,” and advertised a downloadable white paper responding to the way in which “politics as usual has failed Christian conservatives.”
Rebekah Mercer, the billionaire GOP megadonor and financier of anti-abortion groups, Christian colleges and climate change denial think tanks, bankrolled the confab, according to the brochure.
Brent Bozell, founder of the right-wing Media Research Center, opened the program as the master of ceremonies before Pruitt gave his roughly four-minute speech in acceptance of an award for “human dignity leadership.” The Rev. Thomas Joseph White, a professor at the Catholic Pontifical Faculty of the Immaculate Conception, followed him with an invocation.
This was Pruitt’s hometown crowd. Until 2017, he had served on the board of trustees at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky, an institution that called for “a wife is to submit herself graciously” to her husband and formally opposed “all forms of sexual immorality, including … homosexuality.” The bio on Pruitt’s now-defunct official Twitter account as Oklahoma’s attorney general reads: “Husband, Father, Christ Follower.” He been attending Bible studies with Vice President Mike Pence and other Cabinet secretaries since shortly after taking office at the EPA last year.
While Pruitt’s penchant for rolling back environmental regulations and bolstering the fossil fuel industry is widely touted as the reason President Donald Trump has refused to fire the EPA chief amid a four-week whirlwind of ethical and spending scandals, that largely overlooks Pruitt’s other asset: His reputation as a zealous crusader for conservative Christian politics.
For a president dogged by accusations of adultery and sexual impropriety, that sort of reputation has currency. The ostentatiously devout Pruitt gives Trump cred among evangelical Christian power players at a time when five Republican lawmakers and 170 Democrats in Congress are calling for his resignation. On Thursday, the EPA head testified before two House hearings for a total of six hours, during which Republicans leaped to his defense, arguing the administrator was the victim of “Washington politics,” “innuendo and McCarthyism,” and “a shameful attempt to denigrate the work that’s being done at the EPA.”
Neither the White House nor the EPA returned requests for comment.
“Pruitt is clearly part of the Christian right wing of the Republican Party, and it’s possible that these elite Christian right networks are protecting him, or they’ve sent some kind of message that this is our guy,” said Lydia Bean, author of The Politics of Evangelical Identity. “He’s opposed abortion and worked as an attorney for religious liberty cases, so he checks the right boxes for Christian right evangelicals.”
White evangelicals overwhelmingly support Trump’s job performance, at 61 percent in a December Pew survey, compared to just 32 percent of voters overall. Still, that marks a significant decline from the 78 percent approval in February 2017. Among nonwhite evangelicals, his approval rating plummets, according to a FiveThirtyEight analysis.
Pruitt has played an outsize role in courting leaders on the evangelical right. In September, Trump hosted a dinner with “grassroots leaders,” including evangelical heavyweights such as Concerned Women for America CEO Penny Nance, Faith & Freedom Coalition Chairman Ralph Reed and Tim Goeglein, a vice president at Focus on the Family. In a photo posted to the White House website, Pruitt appears at the table opposite Trump, the only Cabinet secretary in attendance, though his name is not listed in the caption.
As Pruitt’s scandals mount, Christian groups have rallied to defend him. On April 6, the Conservative Action Project published an open letter calling for Pruitt’s “continued tenure at the EPA” and thanking him “for the significant actions he has taken to implement President Trump’s deregulatory agenda.” The list of 186 signatories included Christians for a Sustainable Economy Executive Director David Kullberg, Christian educator Lisa Calvert and Faith Wins President Chad Connelly. Some of the religiously affiliated signatories, such as Anne Schlafly Cori, chair of the “pro-family” Eagle Forum, have a history of backing climate change denial efforts, according to research compiled by the nonpartisan Climate Investigations Center.
White evangelical Christians, more than 80 percent of whom supported Trump in 2016, are the least likely of any religious group in the U.S. to understand the science behind climate change, according to 2015 data from the Pew Research Center. Just 28 percent of white evangelicals believed the planet is warming primarily due to human activity, compared to 41 percent of white mainline Protestants and 56 percent of black Protestants. About 37 percent of white evangelicals don’t believe the climate is changing at all.
In 2005, the National Association of Evangelicals was on the cusp of affirming climate science in a new national platform called “For the Health of a Nation.” But, after passing the board unanimously, the proposal tanked in a rank-and-file vote that followed a massive donation spree by oil, gas and coal-linked groups. Since then, the same dark-money donors ― including Mercer ― who sponsor the network of think tanks that provide contrarian (and readily debunked) research contesting the consensus on climate change have also funded conservative Christian groups. The fossil fuel industry made climate change denial, as Splinter’s Brendan O’Connor described it last year, “the word of God.”
Pruitt hasn’t been shy about proselytizing that view. Last October, Pruitt invoked God’s warning to pagans in the book of Joshua to “choose this day whom you will serve” in a speech announcing a new policy barring scientists who receive EPA research funding from serving on the agency’s advisory boards.
In a February interview with the Christian Broadcasting Network, Pruitt said, “The biblical worldview with respect to these issues is that we have a responsibility to manage and cultivate, harvest the natural resources that we’ve been blessed with to truly bless our fellow mankind.”
In March, Politico published tapes from more than decade ago in which Pruitt disputes evolution: “There aren’t sufficient scientific facts to establish the theory of evolution, and it deals with the origins of man, which is more from a philosophical standpoint than a scientific standpoint.”
The statements have rankled EPA workers.
“It’s terrifying,” said one EPA employee who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal. “The impression we are left with is that his faith has led him to counterfactual beliefs.”
The staffer, who identifies as queer, said Pruitt’s past affiliations with groups that take hard-line stances on gender and sexuality “are painful to confront.”
“Knowing that the man I work for every day not only disrespects the agency’s mission but also believes that I, as a pansexual woman, and many other EPA employees … are ‘perversions’ in his belief system, is a heavy weight I feel each day at work,” she said.
Though Pruitt’s reputation for piety may help protect him for now, Bean cautioned that it may not filter down to ordinary evangelical voters.
“He’s not an individual with a mass following, not a household name for the evangelical rank and file,” she said. “I do not think Scott Pruitt has a national brand as an evangelical leader that, by itself, would stop Trump from firing him.”
Pruitt’s legacy could alienate him from moderate evangelicals. Ronald Sider, a professor at the Palmer Theological Seminary in Pennsylvania, called Pruitt’s lead role in pushing Trump to withdraw from the Paris climate accord one of the administration’s “really big, longer-term negative policies,” and said the administrator’s failure to take climate change seriously will define his tenure for years to come.
“It’s really immoral and tragic,” Sider said. “Unless that can be turned around fairly soon, our grandchildren will pay for it.”
By Jack Holmes April 27, 2018
Getty Images
The president knows nothing about much of anything, and cares less. He is President Fox News Grandpa, the low-information voter we elected to make some of the most complex, nuanced decisions facing any human being in the history of the world. Donald Trump has no area of expertise and very little in the way of intellectual curiosity, but he does have a bottomless faith in the power of his own gut instinct. Sometimes, this has disastrous consequences. Sometimes, it is seriously hilarious.
Take Thursday, for example. As part of an overall freak show on Fox & Friends, Donald J. Trump announced he wanted to abandon the Electoral College and use the popular vote to elect United States presidents:
Of course, Trump is president solely because of the Electoral College, an anti-democratic anachronism that has outstayed its welcome by at least a half-century. He lost the popular vote—which he wants to switch to—by nearly 3 million. Then again, he claims 3 million people voted illegally in California alone. There is zero evidence of that, but plenty of evidence it’s a deranged lie borne of crippling insecurity that he is not a truly legitimate president.
Trump has also long sustained himself, as he did speaking to the Friends of Fox, on the belief he could and would have won the popular vote if he hadn’t spent so much time winning the Electoral College:
trump tweet: Campaigning to win the Electoral College is much more difficult & sophisticated than the popular vote. Hillary focused on the wrong states!
trump tweet: I would have done even better in the election, if that is possible, if the winner was based on popular vote – but would campaign differently
Of course, even when you dive into the details of his Electoral College win, the numbers aren’t exactly pretty. Trump won the three key states in 2016—Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin—by a combined 77,000 votes, a razor-thin margin. But thanks to the ludicrous Electoral College system, he received all of their 46 combined electoral votes.
This is why the system is so undemocratic, along with the fact that it makes some citizens’ votes count for more than others. Because only a small group of “swing states” are up for grabs, the residents of other states are largely ignored and have little impact on the outcome. If it were a popular vote, the vote of a Texan or a Californian would be just as valuable as an Ohioan—and turnout might even be higher as a result.
Getty Images
To a lesser extent, the votes of those that live in more sparsely populated states count for more than those of others. A state’s electoral vote count is its number of senators and congressmen combined. Since all states get two senators regardless of population, this means citizens of densely populated states have at least slightly less electoral power than those of sparsely populated ones.
Montana has just over a million residents and two senators. California has 39.5 million residents…and two senators. That means each Montanan receives far more representation by percentage in the Senate—and by extension, the Electoral College. That was actually an explicit goal for the Founders: representatives of rural and less-populated states, mostly in the southern colonies, were wary of being dominated by densely populated states, most of which were in the north. The compromise was to have a House of Representatives tied closely to population, but equality among states in the Senate.
All this is to say that, contrary to Trump’s shtick, the Electoral College is not some game devised to make it easier for Democrats to win elections. In fact, it’s closer to the opposite: In the five presidential elections since 2000, Republican candidates won the popular vote just once—but won the presidency three times. If Trump wants to blow that up out of some very on-brand combination of ignorance and hubris, American democracy stands to benefit. A broken clock, twice a day, et cetera.
Lorraine Chow April 20, 2018
Polar Bear sow and two cubs in the Arctic Refuge’s 1002 area targeted for oil drilling. Wikimedia Commons
The Interior Department has launched the process of holding lease sales for oil and gas drilling in the 1.6-million-acre coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR).
Despite decades of fierce resistance from Democrats and conservation groups, pro-drilling Republicans were able to realize their goal of opening the refuge after quietly including the measure in last year’s Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.
A notice published Friday in the Federal Register starts the 60-day public scoping period to assist in the preparation of an environmental impact statement for the leasing program.
The sale targets the 1002 area on the Prudhoe Bay in Northern Alaska, which has an estimated 12 billion barrels of recoverable crude. The area is described by the Sierra Club as “the biological heart” of the Arctic Refuge—home to polar bears, caribou, migratory birds and other species—as well as vital lands and wildlife for the subsistence way of life of the Gwich’in Nation.
Environmental groups condemned the plan, calling it “shameful” that it would be published just before the eighth anniversary of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, the worst environmental disaster in U.S. history.
“The Trump administration’s reckless dash to expedite drilling and destroy the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge will only hasten a trip to the courthouse,” Jamie Rappaport Clark, president of Defenders of Wildlife, said in a statement. “We will not stand by and watch them desecrate this fragile landscape.”
In a statement, Assistant Interior Secretary Joe Balash called the drilling plan “an important facet for meeting our nation’s energy demands and achieving energy dominance.”
“This scoping process begins the first step in developing a responsible path forward. I look forward to personally visiting the communities most affected by this process and hearing their concerns,” Balash added.
Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski, who has long fought to open the refuge, said in a joint statement with other Alaskan lawmakers that drilling would “help ensure the energy and economic security of our nation.”
In February, President Trump spoke about his indifference on the matter until an oil industry friend told him that past presidents, including conservative icon Ronald Reagan, couldn’t get drilling done. He then directed lawmakers to put the provision in the tax bill.
“I never appreciated ANWR so much,” Trump said during a speech at a Republican retreat in West Virginia. “A friend of mine called up who is in that world and in that business. He said, ‘Is it true that you’re thinking about ANWR?’ I said ‘Yeah, I think we’re going to get it but you know …’ He said, ‘Are you kidding? That’s the biggest thing by itself. Ronald Reagan and every president has wanted to get ANWR approved.’ And after that I said ‘Oh, make sure that is in the bill. It was amazing how that had an impact.”
He made similar remarks a month later at the National Republican Congressional Committee dinner.
The purpose of the public scoping process is to assist the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) in identifying relevant issues that will influence the scope of the environmental impact statement and guide its development. It may also inform post-lease activities, including seismic and drilling exploration, development, and transportation of oil and gas in and from the coastal plain.
The bureau has invited the public to provide comments on scoping issues and will hold public scoping meetings in Anchorage, Arctic Village, Fairbanks, Kaktovik and Utqiaġvik at times and locations to be announced in local media, newspapers and on the BLM website.
Comments will be accepted through June 19, 2018, and can be sent by any of the following methods:
Website: www.blm.gov/alaska/coastal-plain-eis
Email: blm_ak_coastalplain_EIS@blm.gov
Mail: Attn: Coastal Plain Oil and Gas Leasing Program EIS
222 West 7th Avenue, Stop #13
Anchorage, Alaska 99513
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Ronald L. Feinman, Newsweek April 28, 2018
This article originally appeared on the History News Network.
The scandals surrounding President Donald Trump are metastasizing rapidly, much more than anyone would have thought just a few months ago.
The investigation by Robert Mueller, now 11 months in duration, has been accumulating evidence of possible Russian collusion, obstruction of justice, abuse of power, violation of the emoluments clause of the Constitution, and the corruption surrounding many members of the Trump circle, including his own children and his son-in-law, Jared Kushner.
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But then the Stormy Daniels scandal, and other related shameful episodes involving other women became part of the equation, and the business dealings of Donald Trump in New York State were added to the complicated situation. And now, the seizure of materials and records of Trump personal lawyer Michael Cohen raises the ante on the troubles and turmoil surrounding Donald Trump. At the same time, Trump is without stable advice from his cabinet or others, due to the chaotic nature of a constantly changing set of advisers, and his tendency to “shoot from the hip” not only in tweets, but in constantly evolving views on domestic and foreign policy challenges.
With the midterm congressional elections now less than seven months away, and with the Republicans running scared about potential massive losses, and with more criticism emerging from not only respectable conservatives, but also from some of his own loyalists, Donald Trump’s time in the Presidency seems rapidly coming toward a sudden end.
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While Republican members of Congress look unlikely to abandon him before the midterm elections, it could still happen if Donald Trump fires Robert Muller, Rod Rosenstein, Jeff Sessions, and others, a constant threat. New indictments by Mueller, and the possibility of such action by the New York State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman could be in the offing very soon. And if Trump family members were to be indicted, it could put Trump under such pressure that possible resignation, through some form of arranged “deal,” is not beyond imagination. If the Democrats win control of the House of Representatives in November, impeachment action seems highly likely in 2019, although conviction in the US Senate would be nearly impossible.
However, there is a scheduled meeting of right-wing Evangelical leaders with President Trump on June 19, to consider strategy for the midterm elections, as this group is alarmed at the thought that the Trump scandals could cost them the advancement of their religious agenda. It could be, two months from now, that gloom and doom will set in, and cause these pastors and ministers and their allies to consider Trump’s resignation as preferable, as it would bring a “true believer,” Vice President Mike Pence, to the Presidency.
One would think behind the scenes that many congressional Republicans and conservatives would clearly prefer Pence, who is religiously devout, and does not have the drama and controversy that Donald Trump constantly presents. With Pence, the right-wing would not lose, but instead gain a great deal of comfort. This makes it conceivable that we’ll see a repeat of history. When Richard Nixon proved toxic in July 1974 a delegation of congressional Republicans marched to the White House to let him know his base of support on Capitol Hill had collapsed.
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No matter what the future scenario, America is in a constitutional crisis of greater proportions than Watergate, and with the attendant danger of a Great Recession or a third World War, caused by a mentally unstable and highly stressed President. So while it now seems likely that Trump will outlast the 492 days of President Zachary Taylor, to be reached on May 27, 2018, once thought by this scholar to be the end point of the Trump Presidency, it seems evident that Trump will leave office before the 4th shortest Presidency, that of Warren G. Harding from 1921-1923, a total of 881 days. This would be Thursday, June 20, 2019.
So with 15 months down in the Trump Presidency, the chance of his leaving in the next 14 months at the most is on the horizon.
Ronald L. Feinman is the author of Assassinations, Threats, and the American Presidency: From Andrew Jackson to Barack Obama (Rowman Littlefield Publishers, August 2015). A paperback edition is now available.
Teachers in Colorado are taking to the streets today! #Solidarity
We're in Denver, Colorado where thousands of teachers walk out of class, rallying over low pay and funding.Tens of thousands of teachers are expected to stage walk outs across two states. https://abcn.ws/2JxNbrM
Posted by ABC News on Friday, April 27, 2018
ABC News is live now — in Denver, Colorado.Follow
We’re in Denver, Colorado where thousands of teachers walk out of class, rallying over low pay and funding.
Tens of thousands of teachers are expected to stage walk outs across two states. https://abcn.ws/2JxNbrM
By Rob Hopkins, orig. pub. by Rob Hoskins blog April 26, 2018
Retrosuburbia: the downshifter’s guide to a resilient future. Meliodora Publishing 2018. Available here (UK) or here (elsewhere).
I am increasingly fascinated by two words I think are vital to our future, but which I see declining in the world around us, “what if?” Navigating a way to a safe, nurturing and liveable future requires our coming together to create What If spaces, places and events where we can come together with others to ask those questions. The Transition movement, for me, has always been one of those spaces, the invitation for people to join up with others to look at their place through what if lenses.
David Holmgren’s new book is a fascinating, and intoxicating blast of ‘what if?’ which ought to be put through every suburban letterbox in the world, although given its size I have doubts that it would fit. I am a huge Holmgren fan. ‘Permaculture: principles and pathways beyond sustainability’ changed my life. The ‘what if?’ at the heart of RetroSuburbia is “what if our suburbs were reimagined and repurposed to be sustainable, productive and vibrant?” Good question.
It takes his ‘permaculture flower’ at its basis, as the lens through which it looks at the possibilities of how the suburbs could be if catalysed with imagination and possibility. Although written very much for the Australian context, there is much in its almost 600 pages to inspire suburban permaculturists anywhere.
There’s a treasury of Holmgren insight on topics from retrofitting your house, harvesting water and storing food, to setting up a food garden, managing with less than perfect urban soils, working with animals in the suburbs and maximising diversity. You’ll find guidance on different models of living together, making decisions, creating a livelihood, reimagining your family finances, planning for disasters, ‘rearing self-reliant and resilient children’ and so much more.
While ‘Permaculture’ was a book that had so many brilliant ideas it struggled sometimes to imagine that you might need some time and space, or some nice photos even, to be able to digest them, ‘Retrosuburbia’ is a different beast. Presented in full colour it is rich with photos, case studies from his own life and the lives of people he knows, every page drips with ideas, experience and advice with dirt beneath its nails.
A couple of years ago, David and I debated publicly his ‘Crash on Demand’ paper, where he declared that “an argument can be mounted for putting effort into precipitating that crash, the crash of the financial system”. I disagreed, arguing that we needed to be very careful what we wish for. What I love about ‘Retrosuburbia’ is that the concerns that underpinned that paper are still present here, but beautifully couched in an utterly practical, utterly convincing vision for the suburbs.
It is the perfect riposte to anyone who says “permaculturists/Transitioners/greenies just want to take us back”. Although that’s always a lazy and rather pointless accusation, this book shows a way forward in which human culture, in all its aspects, can flourish. This is my vision for the future. It’s beautiful, it’s delicious, and it’s entirely possible.
You want ‘Take Back Control’? In these pages, you got it. This book will become the banner, the standard, around which people everywhere reimagine their future and then make it happen. And written on that banner? Two words. “What if”.
