Month: January 2022

The Courier Journal

Biden administration takes action on toxic coal ash plaguing Kentucky and Indiana

James Bruggers January 17, 2022

The Biden administration is making its first significant move toward corralling lingering and widespread problems with toxic ash from coal-fired power plants, one of the nation’s most prominent environmental health legacies from more than a century of coal-fired electricity generation.

The agency’s action could have major implications in states such as Kentucky, Indiana and Tennessee, each of which has been wrestling with the consequences of huge volumes of waste products left behind by burning coal.

It is also where decisions are being made on whether coal ash can be safely entombed where it was once-storied in watery pits, or whether the waste should be removed and sent to modern, dry landfills with liner systems and other measures to protect groundwater.

In 2015, the EPA under the Obama administration put forth the first national rules on coal ash, which required most of the nation’s approximately 500 unlined coal ash surface impoundments to stop receiving waste and begin closing by April 2021.

Those ash dumps, laced with contaminants like mercury, cadmium and arsenic, often pollute groundwater and send particulate air pollution into nearby communities.

While the Trump administration allowed utilities to request extensions, the Biden EPA announced Tuesday it is taking action on nine of 57 extension applications filed.

The agency denied three, including one filed by the Clifty Power plant in Madison, Indiana. It approved one, at East Kentucky Power’s Spurlock power plant in Maysville, Kentucky, and it found four incomplete and one ineligible.

More determinations, EPA officials said, are coming.

You may like: US Catholic bishops largely ignore Pope Francis’ climate change message, new study finds

EPA deems retired Gallagher plant in Indiana out of compliance

The EPA also said it was putting several power plants on notice regarding their obligations to comply with rules, and it was working on plans for future changes to regulations aimed at making sure coal ash dumps meet strong environmental and safety standards.

One of those plants to get a letter saying it was out of compliance was the now-retired Gallagher plant in New Albany, owned by Duke Energy, which had stored millions of tons of coal ash near the banks of the Ohio River across from western Louisville.

The plant, whose twin stacks sent air pollution to Louisville for six decades, prompting prolonged regulatory battles, has two surface impoundments with ash sitting in 20 feet of groundwater, according to EPA. If Duke wants to avoid removing the ash, it will have to demonstrate how it can keep it in place without causing contaminants in the ash from getting into the groundwater, EPA said.

Duke Energy told the IndyStar it believes its current work was done in full compliance with regulations and industry standards. Still, “we have a shared interest with federal and state regulators to ensure customers and communities continue to remain protected in the future,” said utility spokeswoman Angeline Protogere.

Similar: How coal companies walked away from their ‘absolutely massive’ environmental catastrophes

In the agency’s actions, environmental lawyers who have been fighting for coal ash regulations saw a reason for optimism.

Abel Russ, a senior attorney with the group Environmental Integrity Project, said EPA’s proposed actions show it understands utilities are not properly monitoring groundwater in ways that can preclude cleanup requirements.

“It’s a start of a process where we hope to see enforcement from multiple levels,” said Russ, the lead author of a 2019 report that used utility records to determine there were unsafe levels of toxic contaminants in groundwater linked to more than nine out of every 10 coal-fired power plants.

Tennessee Valley Authority riddled with leaky coal ash pits

The Southern Environmental Law Center, which has litigated and won coal ash cleanup cases in states like North Carolina and South Carolina, said EPA’s determinations set a precedent for compliance nationwide, including in Tennessee, where the law center says tens of millions of tons of coal ash remains in leaky coal ash pits at Tennessee Valley Authority power plants.

“The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has stepped up to offer communities hope and to protect clean water, rivers, and drinking water supplies from the threats posed by coal ash,” said Frank Holleman, a senior attorney at the law center. “With EPA’s leadership, we now have the opportunity to put coal ash pollution and catastrophes behind us and to restore common-sense protections for communities across the South who have lived with coal ash contamination for far too long.”

The Edison Electric Institute, a trade group that represents investor-owned utilities, has long maintained that electric companies are managing coal ash “in ways that put safety first, protect the environment, minimize impacts to the community, and manage costs for customers.”

Institute spokesman Brian Reil did not immediately return requests for comment on the EPA actions. Nor did Jim Roewer, the executive director of the Utility Solid Waste Activities Group, an association of more than 131 utilities.

More: Another bankrupt coal company gets to walk away without cleaning up its mining mess

Utilities have argued they can remove the surface water from a coal ash pit and cover it up to protect the environment.

In announcing its proposed determinations, the agency said it was affirming its view that ash disposal pits or landfills cannot be closed with ash in contact with groundwater. Limiting contact between coal ash and groundwater after closure is critical to minimizing releases of contaminants into the environment and contamination of water for drinking and recreation, it stated.

“I’ve seen first-hand how coal ash contamination can hurt people and communities,” EPA administrator Michael Regan said in announcing Tuesday’s action. “Coal ash surface impoundments and landfills must operate and close in a manner that protects public health and the environment. Today’s actions will help us protect communities and hold facilities accountable.”

What is coal ash?

Coal ash and other combustion wastes are what remains after coal is burned to generate electricity.

The mercury, cadmium and arsenic contained in waste piles can pollute the air and groundwater and are associated with cancer and other health ailments. Over the last century, hundreds of power plants produced billions of tons of ash and other combustion wastes, including scrubber sludge.

Lisa Evans, a senior attorney specializing in hazardous waste law at Earthjustice, a national environmental law organization, described the new EPA proposed actions, taken together, as a potential “game-changer.”

She said they signal that the agency intends to use enforcement powers it has not previously employed to crack down on what she described as “blatant noncompliance” by utilities that has left what often are communities of color exposed to toxic pollution.

Still, Evans noted the EPA announcement does not address the problem of coal ash that was dumped and buried before the 2015 EPA regulations went into effect — perhaps as much as half of all the coal ash ever produced.

Inside Climate News is a nonprofit, nonpartisan news outlet that covers climate, energy and the environment.

The Guardian

Democracy under attack: how Republicans led the effort to make it harder to vote

Sam Levine in New York December 27, 2021

2021 was the year that America’s democracy came under attack from within.

Donald Trump’s effort to overturn the election results, an endeavor that culminated in the 6 January assault on the Capitol, ultimately failed. But the lies the former president spread about fraud and the integrity of the 2020 results have stuck around in a dangerous way. False claims about the election have moved to the center of the Republican party.

Republican lawmakers have seized on the fears created by those baseless claims and weaponized them into new laws that make it harder to vote. Between January and October, 19 states enacted 33 laws to restrict voting access, according to the Brennan Center for Justice.

Related: ‘Terrifying for American democracy’: is Trump planning for a 2024 coup?

But Republicans haven’t stopped there. There is now a concerted effort to take more partisan control of election administration. Trump is supporting election deniers in their efforts to take control of key offices that control the rules of elections and counting of ballots. That effort has elevated fears that Trump is laying the groundwork for another coup in 2024, when supporters in those roles could help overturn the election results.

All these actions are taking place against the backdrop of the once-per-decade redistricting process, which Republicans dominate in many states. Republicans are taking full advantage of that power, drawing districts that will entrench their control of state legislatures and win congressional seats for the next decade.

Joe Biden has described this attack as “the most significant test of our democracy since the civil war”. But Democrats in the US Senate have been unable to pass two bills with significant voting rights protections. Whether Biden and Senate Democrats can find a way to get those bills through Congress looms as a major test of his presidency.

Here are the ways that voting rights emerged as the most important story in American politics in 2021:

New voting restrictions

When state legislatures convened at the start of 2021, many moved quickly to enact new laws making it harder to cast a ballot. Many of these new measures targeted voting by mail, which a record number of Americans used in 2020.

One of the most high profile battles was in Georgia, a state Trump targeted with baseless claims of fraud after a surprising loss to Biden there. Republicans enacted a law that requires voters to provide additional identification information on both absentee ballot request forms and the ballot itself. They also restricted the availability of absentee ballot drop boxes, a popular method of returning ballots in 2020. The law also criminalized providing food and water to people standing in line within 150ft of a polling place.

In Florida, Republicans enacted a new law that also restricts the availability of ballot drop boxes, imposes new rules around third-party registration groups, and requires voters to more frequently request absentee ballots.

The fight over new voting restrictions exploded in July, when Democrats in the Texas legislature fled the state for several weeks, denying Republicans the quorum they needed to pass new voting restrictions. Republicans eventually succeeded in passing a law that banned 24-hour voting, established regular citizenship checks for voter rolls, made it harder to assist voters, and empowered partisan poll watchers.

Undermining confidence in elections

A staggering number of Americans continue to deny the results of the 2020 election. A September CNN poll found 36% of Americans do not believe Biden was the legitimate winner of the election.

Trump has fed that disbelief by continuing to make claims of irregularities that have already been debunked. Republicans in several states continue to call for the “decertification” of elections, something that is legally impossible.

Republicans in some places have gone even further, authorizing unusual post-election inquiries into election results.

The most high-profile of those reviews was in Arizona, where Republicans hired a firm with no election experience, called Cyber Ninjas, to examine all 2.1m votes cast in Maricopa county, the most populous in the state. That monthslong effort, which included a hand count of every single ballot, was widely criticized by election experts, who noted that the firm had shoddy methodology and its leader had embraced conspiracy theories about the election. Ultimately, the Cyber Ninjas effort affirmed Biden’s win in Maricopa county.

Related: Cyber Ninjas, UV lights and far-right funding: inside the strange Arizona 2020 election ‘audit’

Republicans elsewhere have embraced similar reviews. In Wisconsin, Republicans in the legislature have hired a former Republican supreme court justice to examine the election, but that effort has been marked by sloppiness and accusations of partisan bias.

“This is a grift, to be clear,” Matt Masterson, a former top official at the Department of Homeland Security, who works on election administration, said in December.

These efforts have been coupled with an even more alarming effort in Republican legislatures to empower lawmakers to alter election results. Lawmakers in seven states, including Michigan, Arizona, Missouri and Nevada, introduced 10 bills this year that would empower them to override or change election results, according to the Brennan Center for Justice. Some of the bills would allow partisan lawmakers to outright reject election results, while others would allow for post-election meddling in the vote count.

Attacks on election officials

Over the last year, there’s been a surge in election administrators who have left their positions because of threats and harassment. Experts are deeply concerned about that exodus and say that it could make room for more inexperienced, partisan workers to take over the running of elections. Ben Ginsberg, a longtime Republican election lawyer, said earlier this month the effort was an attempt to take election administration “from the pros” and give it “to the pols”.

Trump has endorsed several candidates who have embraced the myth of a stolen election to be the secretary of state, the chief election official, in many states. So far, he’s made endorsements in GOP primaries in Michigan, Arizona, Georgia and Nevada – all swing states that could play a determinative role in 2024.

Extreme partisan gerrymandering

At the start of each decade, state lawmakers across the US draw new congressional and state legislative districts. In 2020, Republicans dominated the down-ballot races that determine who gets to control the redistricting process. And this year, they’ve used their power remarkably powerfully.

In Texas, where 95% of the state’s population growth was from non-white people, Republicans drew maps blunting the political power of minorities. They drew no new majority-minority districts, instead giving Republicans an advantage at winning the state’s two new congressional seats. Republicans have also moved to shore up their advantage in politically competitive states like North Carolina, Ohio and Georgia. Democrats are gerrymandering the states where they have power, like Illinois and Maryland, but control the redistricting process in far fewer places than Republicans do.

These rigged districts will insulate Republicans from threats to their political power for the next decade.

Federal voting rights legislation

One of the biggest frustrations of the first year of Biden’s presidency has been that Democrats have not been able to pass two crucial pieces of voting rights legislation through Congress. One bill would set a minimum of access across the country, guaranteeing things like 15 days of early voting, as well as prohibiting partisan gerrymandering. The second bill would re-establish a critical piece of the 1965 Voting Rights Act requiring states where there is repeated evidence of voting discrimination to get voting changes approved by the federal government before they go into effect.

There is growing frustration that Biden has not pushed hard enough to get rid of the filibuster, which Republicans have relied on to stall those bills. Democrats have pledged to find a way around the filibuster next year.

Los Angles Times

Abcarian: Kevin McCarthy is a spineless noodle who nonetheless owes us the truth

Robin Abcarian January 16, 2022

Now that Devin Nunes has slunk off to the Trump-a-verse, is there anyone in Washington who is as transparently cynical, cowardly and dishonest as House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, the Republican shape-shifter from Central California?

Here is a man who blamed then-President Trump for inciting the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection … before changing his mind.

A man who was for a bipartisan investigation of the horrible events of that day … before he was against it.

A man who said he was willing to testify before an investigative committee about his conversations with Trump on that terrible day … before he decided not to.

On Thursday, CNN’s Don Lemon described “the duality of Kevin McCarthy — that’s a kind way of putting it.”

And now, because McCarthy is desperately trying to stay on Trump’s right side and become House speaker, McCarthy is threatening to retaliate against House Democrats for pursuing the crucial Jan. 6 investigation, for doing their jobs.

If Republicans do retake the House in November and McCarthy ascends to the top post, he said last week that he would strip Democratic Reps. Adam B. Schiff, Eric Swalwell and Ilhan Omar of their committee assignments.

Why?

Because he would rather retaliate than legislate.

Because Democrats stripped two far-right conspiracy-addled GOP representatives, Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia and Paul Gosar of Arizona, of their committee assignments for truly despicable behavior.

It wasn’t just Democrats who were repulsed; 11 Republicans joined House Democrats in February to punish Greene for, among other things, supporting violent threats against Democrats. Two Republicans joined Democrats in November in censuring Gosar for promulgating a video depicting him murdering Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) by plunging a sword into her neck.

And, of course, in July, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi refused to seat two of McCarthy’s five picks for the House Jan. 6 committee. She accepted three Republicans and nixed two, the unbearable Jim Jordan of Ohio and Jim Banks of Indiana.

McCarthy, it should be noted, then picked up his marbles and went home. He withdrew from the process entirely and refused to appoint any of his members. In response, Pelosi invited onto the committee two Republicans who have not been cowed by Trump, Liz Cheney of Wyoming and Adam Kinzinger of Illinois.

Pelosi, by the way, was not just within her rights as speaker to refuse to seat Jordan and Banks. She essentially had no choice.

Jordan and Banks have both demonstrated zero interest in sussing out the truth about Jan. 6. Both were vocal critics of the committee’s very existence. Nominating them in the first place was simply further proof of McCarthy’s bad faith, fealty to Trump and obstructionism.

Jordan beclowned himself every time he opened his mouth during the House Intelligence Committee’s hearings on the first Trump impeachment. For his performance, Trump awarded him the Medal of Freedom.

But more important, Jordan has no business on the committee because he is a material witness to the events of Jan. 6. And so, for that matter, is McCarthy. Both have refused the committee’s invitation to testify, speciously claiming they have no relevant information to share — as if it’s up to them to make that judgment — that the investigation is an exercise in Democratic partisanship and serves no legitimate legislative purpose.

Contrast that to the House Republicans’ Benghazi hearings spectacle. Recall that McCarthy infamously admitted on national television that they were nothing more than political theater designed to dirty up Hillary Clinton. “Everybody thought Hillary Clinton was unbeatable, right?” he told Sean Hannity. “But we put together a Benghazi special committee, a select committee. What are her numbers today? Her numbers are dropping. Why? Because she’s untrustable. But no one would have known any of that had happened, had we not fought.”

The refusal of McCarthy and Jordan to cooperate puts committee members in the uncomfortable position of having to decide whether to issue subpoenas to their own colleagues.

“I wish that he were a brave and honorable man,” Cheney said ruefully of McCarthy last week in an interview with CNN. “He’s clearly trying to cover up what happened. He has an obligation to come forward and we’ll get to the truth.”

At her weekly news conference, Pelosi said McCarthy “has an obligation, as we seek the truth, to help with that.”

Schiff, who used to be friendly with McCarthy, did not mince words: “By his own admission, Kevin McCarthy is a key witness to the events of January 6 and Trump’s response to the violence,” he said by email Friday. “Nevertheless, it should come as no surprise that McCarthy is refusing to cooperate with the Select Committee’s investigation, because McCarthy always puts Donald Trump’s interests ahead of the country. And from the very beginning, Trump and McCarthy have vigorously opposed any effort at accountability.”

Thankfully, the truth about Jan. 6 is already emerging in ways that are beyond the control of Trump lackeys like McCarthy and Jordan.

On Thursday, the Justice Department announced that 11 people, including Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes, had been arrested and charged with “seditious conspiracy” in connection with the plot to invade the Capitol to prevent Congress from certifying President Biden’s victory.

Contrary to sweeping Republican efforts to downplay the attempted coup, this was not a spontaneous act by dupes who let Trump goad them into criminal behavior.

According to the federal grand jury indictment, the Oath Keepers, a right-wing militia group that recruited former and current military and law enforcement personnel, conspired to violently thwart the peaceful transfer of power.

The defendants, according to the Justice Department, organized into “teams that were prepared and willing to use force and to transport firearms and ammunition into Washington, D.C.”

The indictment quoted many of the Oath Keepers’ internal communications, many about weapons being stashed just outside Washington. “It will be a bloody and desperate fight,” wrote Rhodes in one. “We are going to have a fight. That can’t be avoided.”

There is no question now, a year later, that anti-democratic conspirators armed to the teeth were prepared to do violence to overturn the results of a fair and fraud-free election.

The fact that they failed does not make the attempt any less grave.

McCarthy needs to tell Americans what he knew, when he knew it and exactly what Trump told him on Jan. 6.

Otherwise, he has made himself into a confederate of the insurrectionists and fools who, as Biden so memorably put it, held a dagger to the throat of our democracy that day.

USA Today

Former President Barack Obama: We need to follow John Lewis’ example and fight for our democracy

“The world, and future generations, will be watching,” Obama writes as he calls on Senate to “do the right thing” and pass legislation to protect voting rights.

Barack Obama Special to USA TODAY January 12, 2022

When I spoke at John Lewis’ memorial service two years ago, I emphasized a truth John knew better than just about anyone. Our democracy isn’t a given. It isn’t self-executing. We, as citizens, have to nurture and tend it. We have to work at it. And in that task, we have to vigilantly preserve and protect our most basic tool of self-government, which is the right to vote.

At the time, various state legislators across the country had already passed a variety of laws designed to make voting harder. It was an attack on everything John Lewis fought for, and a challenge to our most fundamental democratic freedoms.

Since then, things have only gotten worse.

Slow unraveling of basic democratic principles

While the American people turned out to vote at the highest rate in a century in the last presidential election, members of one of our two major political parties – spurred on by the then-sitting president – denied the results of that election and spun conspiracy theories that drove a violent mob to attack our Capitol.

Columnist Connie Schultz:Why aren’t all of us having nightmares about the next Jan. 6? Next time may succeed.

Although initially rejected by many Republicans, those claims continued to be amplified by conservative media outlets, and have since been embraced by a sizable portion of Republican voters – not to mention GOP elected officials who do, or at least should, know better. Those Republican officials and conservative thought leaders who have courageously stood their ground and rejected such anti-democratic efforts have found themselves ostracized, threatened and subjected to primary challenges.

Meanwhile, state legislators in 49 states have introduced more than 400 bills designed to suppress votes. Some of these bills we’ve seen before: legislation that would discourage voters, including racial minorities, low-income voters and young people from casting a ballot. Others aim to treat certain polling locations differently, creating one set of rules for voters living in cities and another set for people living in more conservative, rural areas.

We’re also seeing more aggressive attempts to gerrymander congressional districts. Gerrymandering, which essentially allows politicians to choose their voters instead of the other way around, isn’t new – and both parties have engaged in it.

USA TODAY Editorial: Senate can safeguard democracy by outlawing partisan redistricting

But what we’re seeing now are far more aggressive and precise efforts on the part of Republican state legislatures to tilt the playing field in their favor. In states that have approved new congressional maps, there are now 15 fewer competitive districts than there were before. Fewer competitive districts increases partisanship, since candidates who only have to appeal to primary voters have no incentive to compromise or move to the center.Get the Opinion newsletter in your inbox.

What do you think? Shape your opinion with a digest of takes on current events.Delivery: DailyYour Email

Finally and perhaps most perniciously, we’ve seen state legislatures try to assert power over core election processes including the ability to certify election results. These partisan attempts at voter nullification are unlike anything we’ve seen in modern times, and they represent a profound threat to the basic democratic principle that all votes should be counted fairly and objectively.

The good news is that the majority of American voters are resistant to this slow unraveling of basic democratic institutions and electoral mechanisms. But their elected representatives have a sacred obligation to push back as well – and now is the time to do it.

Now, there are bills in front of the Senate that would protect the right to vote, end partisan gerrymandering, and restore crucial parts of the Voting Rights Act.  Bill sponsors have diligently reached out to their Republican colleagues to obtain their support. Sadly, almost every Senate Republican who expressed concern about threats to our democracy in the immediate aftermath of the Jan. 6 insurrection has since been cowed into silence or reversed their positions. When one of the bills in front of the Senate today was introduced in November, every Democrat supported it. And every Republican but one voted against moving it forward.

Protecting our democracy wasn’t always a partisan issue. The Voting Rights Act was the result of Democratic and Republican efforts, and both President Reagan and President George W. Bush signed its renewal when they were in office. But even if Senate Republicans now refuse to stand up for our democracy, Democrats should be able to get the job done with a simple majority vote. There are already 50 Senators who support bills to safeguard elections. The only thing standing in the way is the filibuster – a Senate procedure that allows a minority of just 41 Senators to prevent legislation from being brought up for a vote.

The filibuster has no basis in the Constitution. Historically, the parliamentary tactic was used sparingly – most notably by Southern senators to block civil rights legislation and prop up Jim Crow. In recent years, the filibuster became a routine way for the Senate minority to to block important progress on issues supported by the majority of voters. But we can’t allow it to be used to block efforts to protect our democracy. That’s why I fully support President Joe Biden’s call to modify Senate rules as necessary to make sure pending voting rights legislation gets called for a vote. And every American who cares about the survival of our most cherished institutions should support the president’s call as well.

Protecting our democratic institutions

For generations, Americans of every political stripe have taken pride in our status as the world’s oldest continuous democracy. We have spilled precious blood and spent countless treasure in defense of democracy and freedom abroad. But as we learned during the Jim Crow era, our role as democracy’s defender isn’t credible when we violate the rights and freedoms of our own citizens. And at a time when democracy is under attack on every continent, we can’t hope to set an example for the world when one of our two major parties seems intent on chipping away at the foundation of our own democracy.

No single piece of legislation can guarantee that we’ll make progress on every challenge we face as a nation. But legislation that ensures the right to vote and makes sure every vote is properly counted will give us a better chance of meeting those challenges. It’s how we can overcome the gridlock and cynicism that’s so prevalent right now. It’s how we can stop climate change, and reform our broken immigration system, and help ensure that our children enjoy an economy that works for everyone and not just the few.

Now is the time for all of us to follow John Lewis’ example. Now is the time for the U.S. Senate to do the right thing. America’s long-standing grand experiment in democracy is being sorely tested. Future generations are counting on us to meet that test.

Barack Obama was the 44th president of the United States. This is the first opinion piece he’s authored since leaving the White House on Jan. 20, 2017.

DailyBeast

Liz Cheney’s Wyoming Nemesis Is an Oath Keeper Who Was at Capitol Rally

Sam Brodey January 16, 2022

When the Department of Justice indicted members of the Oath Keepers last week for their role in the Jan. 6 insurrection, one Republican official might have taken more notice of the arrests than others.

Frank Eathorne, who was revealed in a leak last year to be one of 191 Wyoming-based members of the far-right militia group, was in Washington for protests on Jan. 6. But Eathorne is no rank-and-file fringe crank. He is the sitting chairman of the Wyoming Republican Party.

That role has made him one of the more influential Republican officials in the country. Eathorne is presiding over what is perhaps the GOP’s highest-profile primary battle of the 2022 election: the MAGA-fueled campaign to unseat Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) for her unrelenting criticism of former President Donald Trump’s lies about the 2020 election.- ADVERTISEMENT -https://s.yimg.com/rq/darla/4-10-1/html/r-sf-flx.html

Will the Oath Keepers Founder Spill on the Jan. 6 Organizers?

And rather than remain neutral, Eathorne has been one of the top figures fighting to defeat Cheney. He has appeared frequently in conservative media to denounce her since her January 2021 vote to impeach Trump for inciting the riot, which kicked off the nasty primary campaign.

In February 2021, Eathorne supported an effort by the party to formally censure Cheney, which narrowly succeeded. In November, he presided over a successful vote to no longer recognize Cheney as a member of the Republican Party.

But the Oath Keepers indictments mean that Eathorne’s aggressive efforts to keep the pressure on Cheney—in hopes of replacing her with a MAGA acolyte—are going to be complicated by his association with an extremist group facing grave, and rare, federal criminal charges.

Aside from his aggressive efforts to bring down Cheney, Eathorne has made national news for amplifying the most fringe of right-wing ideas. Appearing on former Trump adviser Steve Bannon’s podcast in 2021, he expressed interest in the idea of Wyoming seceding from the United States. The remark prompted a quick and strident rebuke from Bannon.

In 2022, state and local Republican Party organizations are home to figures like Eathorne. But Eathorne stands out for his association with the Oath Keepers, as well as his participation in the Jan. 6 riots.

Of the 700-plus Capitol rioters who have been charged with a crime, Oath Keeper leaders and members are facing some of the most serious prosecutions. Eleven members of the Oath Keepers—including the group’s founder, Stewart Rhodes—have been charged with “seditious conspiracy.”

These charges cover the specific crime of conspiring to overthrow the government or disrupt its functioning, and they are rarely brought. The federal government has not charged anyone on these grounds since 2010.

In fall 2021, a whistleblower group called Distributed Denial of Secrets published a trove of hacked documents and information about the Oath Keepers. The identities of more than 38,000 members were in that data dump, sparking nationwide scrutiny on politicians and law enforcement officers who were named.

In the aftermath, BuzzFeed News reported that 28 elected officials nationwide were Oath Keepers, including a pair of GOP state legislators from Alaska and Arizona who traveled to the Capitol on Jan. 6.

Using that data, the Wyoming-based news site WyoFile reported in December that Eathorne, along with former governor candidate Taylor Haynes, were members of the militia group.

Lindsay Schubiner, program director at the Western States Center—a nonprofit advocacy group that tracks far-right extremism, particularly in the West—called the militia membership of party figures like Eathorne a “dangerous signal about the state of our democracy.”

The Real Reason Liz Cheney Had to Go

“It’s troubling to see leaders in institutions that should be engaging in the democratic process not only condone paramilitaries, but officially join them,” Schubiner said.

Eathorne did not respond to a request for comment.

The Republican National Committee, which oversees state-level GOP organizations, did not respond to questions about whether Eathorne should remain the leader of the Wyoming GOP, nor did Sens. John Barrasso or Cynthia Lummis, the state’s two Republican U.S. senators. A Cheney spokesperson also declined to comment on Eathorne.

But Cheney has made no secret of her views on Eathorne. “Certainly, there are people in the state party apparatus of my home state who are quite radical,” Cheney said during an interview with Fox News’ Bret Baier on Jan. 7. “And some of those same people, include people who were here on Jan. 6, include a party chair who has toyed with the idea of secession.”

Eathorne was not mentioned in the federal indictment of Oath Keepers, and he has not been arrested or charged with any offense in relation to Jan. 6.

In a statement a day after the insurrection, Eathorne confirmed he was in Washington for the events, including “a brief stop in the vicinity of the Capitol building property.”

“I retired from the public gathering near mid-afternoon and watched the news of some reported events I personally had not witnessed,” Eathorne said.

The MAGA Nuts Think Liz Cheney, of All People, Is a RINO

The Southern Poverty Law Center now describes the Oath Keepers as one of the largest far-right groups operating in the U.S. today. Many of its members are former military and law enforcement personnel.

The federal government’s filing details a painstaking plan by Rhodes and his fellow militiamen to disrupt the certification of Joe Biden’s presidential election victory to ensure Trump remained in power.

The indictment alleges that the defendants “conspired through a variety of manners and means,” including recruiting members to come to Washington on Jan. 6 and procuring and transporting paramilitary gear and weapons.

It is also alleged that the defendants used organized, military-style tactics to breach the U.S. Capitol that day “in an effort to prevent, hinder and delay the certification of the electoral college vote.”

If convicted, defendants face a maximum of 20 years in federal prison. Nine of the 11 Oath Keepers charged with seditious conspiracy have already been charged with other crimes in connection with Jan. 6.

Schubiner, with the Western States Center, emphasized that while the Oath Keepers are known for their far-right, anti-government, and frequently bigoted views, the insurrection underscored that they are focused on seizing power. The mainstreaming of their members, she said, is part of achieving that goal.

“It’s incredibly important for Republican leaders and any political leaders,” she said, “to denounce affiliations with paramilitary groups, if they do not want their party to become identified with those groups.”

The New York Times

Frustrated Democrats Call for ‘Reset’ Ahead of Midterm Elections

Lisa Lerer and Emily Cochrane January 15, 2022

WASHINGTON — With the White House legislative agenda in shambles less than a year before the midterm elections, Democrats are sounding alarms that their party could face even deeper losses than anticipated without a major shift in strategy led by the president.

The frustrations span the spectrum from those of the party’s liberal wing, which feels deflated by the failure to enact a bold agenda, to the concerns of moderates, who are worried about losing suburban swing voters and had believed Democratic victories would usher a return to normalcy after last year’s upheaval.

Democrats already anticipated a difficult midterm climate, given that the party in power historically loses seats during a president’s first term. But the party’s struggle to act on its biggest legislative priorities has rattled lawmakers and strategists, who fear their candidates will be left combating the perception that Democrats failed to deliver on President Joe Biden’s central campaign promise of rebooting a broken Washington.

“I think millions of Americans have become very demoralized — they’re asking, what do the Democrats stand for?” said Sen. Bernie Sanders, the Vermont independent in charge of the Senate Budget Committee. In a lengthy interview, he added, “Clearly, the current strategy is failing, and we need a major course correction.”

Rep. Tim Ryan, a Democrat from a blue-collar Ohio district who is running for the state’s open Senate seat, said his party isn’t addressing voter anxieties about school closures, the pandemic and economic security. He faulted the Biden administration, not just for failing to pass its domestic agenda but also for a lack of clear public health guidance around issues such as masking and testing.

“It seems like the Democrats can’t get out of their own way,” he said. “The Democrats have got to do a better job of being clear on what they’re trying to do.”

The complaints capped one of the worst weeks of the Biden presidency, with the White House facing the looming failure of voting rights legislation, the defeat of their vaccine-or-testing mandate for large employers at the Supreme Court, inflation rising to a 40-year high and friction with Russia over aggression toward Ukraine. Meanwhile, Biden’s top domestic priority — a sprawling $2.2 trillion spending, climate and tax policy plan — remains stalled, not just because of Republicans but also opposition from a centrist Democrat.

“I’m sure they’re frustrated — I am,” said Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois, the No. 2 Senate Democrat, when asked this week about the chamber’s inability to act on Biden’s agenda. Discussing the impact on voters before the midterm elections, he added, “It depends on who they blame for it.”

The end of the week provided another painful marker for Democrats: Friday was the first time since July that millions of U.S. families with children did not receive a monthly child benefit, a payment established as part of the $1.9 trillion pandemic relief plan that Democrats muscled through in March without any Republican support.

Plans to extend the expiration date for the payments, which helped keep millions of children out of poverty, were stymied with the collapse of negotiations over the sprawling domestic policy plan. And additional pandemic-related provisions will expire before the end of the year without congressional action.

“That’s just about as straightforward as it gets,” said Ryan. “If the Democrats can’t get on with a tax cut for working families, what are we for?”

In recent days, Biden has faced a wave of rising anger from traditional party supporters. Members of some civil rights groups boycotted his voting rights speech in Atlanta to express their disappointment with his push on the issue, while others, including Stacey Abrams, who is running for governor in Georgia, were noticeably absent. Biden vowed to make a new forceful push for voting right protections, only to see it fizzle the next day.

And last week, six of Biden’s former public health advisers went public with their criticisms of his handling of the pandemic, calling on the White House to adopt a strategy geared to the “new normal” of living with the virus indefinitely. Others have called for the firing of Jeffrey Zients, who leads the White House pandemic response team.

“There does not seem to be an appreciation for the urgency of the moment,” said Tré Easton, a senior adviser for Battle Born Collective, a progressive group that is pushing for overturning the filibuster to enable Democrats to pass a series of their priorities. “It’s sort of, ‘OK, what comes next?’ Is there something that’s going to happen where voters can say, yes, my life is appreciatively more stable than it was two years ago.”

White House officials and Democrats insist that their agenda is far from dead and that discussions continue with key lawmakers to pass the bulk of Biden’s domestic plans. Talks over an omnibus package to keep the government open beyond Feb. 18 have quietly resumed, and states are beginning to receive funds from the $1 trillion infrastructure law.

“I guess the truth is an agenda doesn’t wrap up in one year,” said White House press secretary Jen Psaki.

While there’s widespread agreement around the electoral peril that the party faces, there’s little consensus over who, exactly, is to blame. Liberals have been particularly scathing in their critique of two centrist senators, Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, and their long-standing objections to undermining the Senate filibuster, as well as Manchin’s decision to abruptly reject the $2.2 trillion spending plan last month. For months, Democratic lawmakers, activists and officials have been raising concerns about sinking support among crucial segments of the party’s coalition — Black, female, young and Latino voters — ratings many worry could drop further without action on issues like voting rights, climate change, abortion rights and paid family leave.

“In my view, we are not going to win the elections in 2022 unless our base is energized and ordinary people understand what we are fighting for, and how we are different than the Republicans,” Sanders said. “That’s not the case now.”

But many in the party concede that the realities of their narrow congressional majorities and united Republican opposition have blocked their ability to pass much of their agenda. Some have faulted party leaders for catering to progressives’ ambitions, without the votes to execute.

“Leadership set out with a failed strategy, and while I guess, maybe they can message that they tried, it actually isn’t going to yield real laws,” said Rep. Stephanie Murphy, a Florida centrist, who is retiring but has signaled aspirations for a future Senate run.

Rep. Cheri Bustos, a Democrat from rural Illinois, said Democrats should consider less ambitious bills that could draw some Republican support to give the party accomplishments it can claim in the midterm elections.

“We really kind of need to reset at this point,” said Bustos, who is retiring from a district that swung to Donald Trump in 2020. “I hope we focus on what we can get done and then focus like crazy on selling it.”

Biden effectively staked his presidency on the belief that voters would reward his party for steering the country out of a deadly pandemic and into economic prosperity. But even after a year that produced record job growth, widely available vaccines and stock market highs, Biden has not begun to deliver a message of success nor focused on promoting his legislative victories.

Many Democrats say they need to do more to sell their accomplishments or risk watching the midterms go the way of the off-year elections, when many in the party were surprised by the intensity of the backlash against them in races in Virginia, New Jersey and New York.

“We need to get into the business of promotion and selling and out of the business of moaning and groaning,” said Bradley Beychok, a senior adviser of American Bridge 21st Century, a Democratic group.

Others say that as president, Biden has fallen out of step with many voters by focusing on issues like climate change and voting rights. While crucial for the country, those topics aren’t topping the list of concerns for many voters still trying to navigate the uncertainties of a pandemic stretching into a third year.

“The administration is focused on things that are important but not particularly salient to voters and sometimes as president you have to do that,” said Matt Bennett, a co-founder of Third Way, a moderate Democratic think tank. “Now, we need to begin to move back to talking about the things that people do care about.”

© 2022 The New York Times Company

The Wrap

MSNBC Host Tiffany Cross Accuses Kyrsten Sinema of ‘Upholding White Supremacy’

Lindsey Ellefson January 15, 2022

MSNBC’s Tiffany Cross was the latest to scold Democratic Sen. Kyrsten Sinema for her refusal to align with her party on dismantling the filibuster, saying Saturday that, “Sinema is a Democrat, but she is in many ways upholding white supremacy.”

During Saturday’s “The Cross Connection,” viewers saw a clip of Sinema’s emotional Thursday speech in which she reiterated her decision not to vote with the majority of her party for filibuster reform, which garnered significant blowback online and on cable news. Senate Democrats have been attempting to pass two voting rights bills in the face of unified GOP opposition. The passages hinge on Sinema and Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin.

“I don’t think I can roll my eyes hard enough and you kind of just want to say, ‘Girl, bye,’” Cross said of Sinema.

Guest Angela Rye also weighed in, adding Sinema’s stance is “rooted in falsehoods.”

“We also know that voting rights has been supported on a bipartisan level in both chambers of Congress since 1965, when a Democrat signed the bill into law,” Rye continued. “So, what I would tell Sen. Sinema is to please reflect on your history. Not not a wobbly voice, not an emotional plea for people to remove or to not remove the filibuster when you just could cross that hurdle. Right now — I’m talking about this year — they could cross that hurdle.”

Cross added, “It is a way to ensure we’re back on that right road, and in this case, she is a hurdle on that road.”

Former President Donald Trump, the leading figure in the Republican party, is planning a rally in Arizona Saturday, just two days ahead of Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. The late civil rights leader’s family is rallying for the voting rights bills in the same state over the holiday.

Insider

A Florida Republican who was defeated by 59 percentage points in a congressional special election won’t concede

John L. Dorman January 16, 2022

• The Republican Jason Mariner hasn’t conceded in Florida’s 20th District special election House race.
• Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick, a progressive Democrat, beat Mariner in a 79%-20% landslide.
• Mariner filed a lawsuit before the election was called, telling CBS Miami “stuff” was “discovered.”

A Florida Republican who last Tuesday lost a congressional special election by a landslide in a heavily Democratic district has declined to concede the race, according to CBS Miami.

Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick — a Democrat who pledged to fight for $1,000 monthly checks for Americans and who backs progressive policies such as the Green New Deal and “Medicare for All” — easily defeated the Republican Jason Mariner in the race to succeed the Rep. Alcee Hastings, who died in April.

With all precincts reporting, Cherfilus-McCormick defeated Mariner 78.7% to 19.6% in Florida’s 20th District — a 59.1-percentage-point victory. She received 43,663 votes to her opponent’s 10,883 votes.

But in a move reminiscent of former President Donald Trump, who continues to dispute his election loss to President Joe Biden, Mariner has made claims of irregularities in the South Florida district.

“Now they called the race — I did not win, so they say, but that does not mean that they lost either, it does not mean that we lost,” the Republican told CBS after the race was called.

Before the polls closed for the special election, Mariner filed a lawsuit alleging ballot issues in Broward and Palm Beach counties, the two populous Democratic-leaning jurisdictions that anchor the district.

“We’ll also have some stuff coming out that we’ve recently discovered,” Mariner told the TV station without elaborating.

Cherfilus-McCormick — who eked by Dale Holness by five votes in a multicandidate Democratic primary in November — brushed off Mariner’s actions.

“Well, this wouldn’t be my first time running against an opponent who is refusing to concede, so it’s not our first time, and at the end of the day nothing can stop the motion,” she told CBS.

Holness, a former Broward County commissioner, filed a lawsuit in November seeking to invalidate the Democratic primary results, alleging that Cherfilus-McCormick’s advocacy for universal basic income was tantamount to bribing voters.

Election officials in Broward and Palm Beach counties told CBS the election results would be certified in 14 days — with challenges permitted for 10 days after that point.

While candidates who are unsuccessful in their races aren’t legally bound to formally concede, Trump’s continued refusal to acknowledge his 2020 loss despite a clear 306-232 Electoral College victory for Biden has morphed into a major point of contention for partisans, from the grassroots level to the halls of Congress.

In the wake of Trump’s defeat in 2020, Republicans across the US have raced to implement voting restrictions, fueled by Trump’s widely debunked claims of mass voter fraud.

Congressional Democrats have sought to nullify many of the provisions of Republican-authored election laws with the Freedom to Vote Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act but have been stymied nearly unanimous GOP opposition to the bills as well as by resistance from Sens. Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona to changing the filibuster.

The New York Times

A Vivid View of Extreme Weather: Temperature Records in the U.S. in 2021

Krishna Karra and Tim Wallace January 15, 2022

Temperatures in the United States last year broke more records for the hottest or coldest ever documented than any other year since 1994, according to a New York Times analysis of Global Historical Climatology Network data.

Heat waves made up most of these records, setting a new mark at 8.3% of all U.S. weather stations, more than in any year since at least 1948, when weather observations were first digitally recorded by the federal government.

The world has been warming by almost two-tenths of a degree per decade. Extreme-temperature events can often demonstrate the most visible effects of climate change.

“We do not live in a stable climate now,” said Robert Rohde, the lead scientist at Berkeley Earth, an independent organization focused on environmental data science. “We will expect to see more extremes and more all-time records being set.”

The brutal arctic outburst that caused Texas’ power grid to fail and the heat wave in the Pacific Northwest in June account for many of the records.

During the winter storm, on Feb. 17, the temperature dropped to minus 5.98 degrees in Jacksonville, Texas, far below its normal February low of about 40 degrees. State officials in Texas said that 246 people died in the storm.

In Salem, Oregon, the temperature spiked to 116.96 degrees on June 28. The normal high there in June is around 74 degrees. The National Weather Service has attributed at least 110 deaths to the extreme heat.

The Times analyzed temperature data from more than 7,800 weather stations across the United States. Locations without at least 30 years of weather data were ignored, though most stations have recorded temperature for at least 65 years.

Records have been set somewhere in the country every year since at least 1970, but 2021 stands alone when compared with recent years, a Times analysis found.

Heat waves in 2002 and 2012 brought extreme temperatures to hundreds of cities and towns. Like 2021, 2011 broke numerous cold and heat records. But last year’s extreme temperatures were spread across large areas of the country and surpassed even more records.

Numerous records set in 2021 were also broken by double digits.

To explain these extremes, Rohde made a comparison with world records in the 100-meter dash. Runners typically break world records by hundredths of a second.

Among the new temperature records, Rohde said, “it’s like someone came in and seemed to be running an entirely different race because they just blew past everything we’ve come to expect.”

New marks were also set by breaking records that have stood for decades. Bottineau, North Dakota, set a new minimum temperature record of minus 50.98 Fahrenheit, eclipsing tens of thousands of daily observations since 1893.

According to experts, climate change has pushed the extremes of temperature ranges around the world.

“What were hot days in the past are becoming more common,” Rohde said. “What were very, very hot days in the past are now two or three times more common than they used to be.”

METHODOLOGY

Data in the United States was obtained from the Global Historical Climatology Network (GHCN), an integrated database maintained by NOAA that contains daily climate summaries from land surface stations. The data was processed and analyzed with BigQuery.

The GHCN daily data set acts as the official weather record of the United States, and it has been validated for spatial and temporal consistency across measurements. Daily observations that failed any quality checks were excluded, such as measurements that far exceed the lowest or highest temperatures ever recorded on Earth.

A historical record is defined as the hottest or coldest temperature ever recorded up to that date. Only the hottest or coldest record for a particular year is compared. Other records in the same year, like, for example, during an extended heat wave, are excluded.

For every historical record, only stations that have collected a minimum of 30 years of data are used. Further, each station included in our analysis is required to have collected data for a minimum of half of its life span.

To compute historical records for cities, stations were aggregated to incorporated places as defined by the U.S. Geological Survey. Within each area, data across stations is treated as a unified measurement for calculating historical records. Records may differ slightly from other aggregated sources based on the specific regions and stations considered.

© 2022 The New York Times Company

Insider

Liz Cheney says Kevin McCarthy is ‘clearly trying to cover up what happened’ at the Capitol riot after he refused to work with investigators

Sinéad Baker January 13, 2022

• House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy refused to cooperate with Capitol-riot investigators.
• Liz Cheney, who is on the committee, said he was trying to “cover up” what happened at the riot.
• McCarthy called the committee “illegitimate” and said it was trying to hurt Republicans.

Rep. Liz Cheney said House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy was trying to “cover up” what happened at the Capitol riot by refusing to work with the House committee investigating it.

Cheney, one of two Republicans on the committee, told CNN on Wednesday: “I wish that he were a brave and honorable man. He’s clearly trying to cover up what happened. He has an obligation to come forward and we’ll get to the truth.”

She also refused to rule out the option of subpoenaing him, CNN reported.

McCarthy had said in a statement earlier on Wednesday that he would not work with the committee, which he called “illegitimate” and accused of trying to damage Republicans.

“As a representative and the leader of the minority party, it is with neither regret nor satisfaction that I have concluded to not participate with this select committee’s abuse of power that stains this institution today and will harm it going forward,” he said.

The committee had asked him to take part voluntarily in its investigation, noting that he has said he spoke with then-President Donald Trump while the riot was unfolding and that he spoke on the House floor after the insurrection about Trump’s role in it.

McCarthy said in that speech that Trump bore responsibility for the riot, though he has since downplayed it and suggested people need to move on from the attack.

Cheney, in stark contrast with some other Republicans, has repeatedly criticized Trump over the riot. She was the third-most-senior House Republican before her party removed her from leadership last May over her comments on Trump.