Sen John Kerry bak SoS

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resigned 3 24 why?

John Kerry launches 'World War Zero' climate coalition - AOL.com

AOL.com

Activist group intends to hold 10 million climate town halls starting in January; reaction from Marc Morano, executive editor at ClimateDepot.com ...

cop 26 glasgow

see pvt jet eco-hypocrite BS

global elite eco-hyp gore tenn house fail? gop rep/sen does too pseudo-populist

Ted Cruz embarrassed after claiming Republicans don’t have private jets

Travis Gettys Raw Story

November 04, 2021

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) put his foot in his mouth on Wednesday while attempting to attack the Biden administration.

"John Kerry has a private jet that has flown dozens ...

morano 1 24 gmail

fox & friends weekend rachel campos duffy

Expert shares the year's worst climate hypocrites, from King Charles to John Kerry | Fox News Video

Expert shares the year’s worst climate hypocrites, from King Charles to John Kerry | Fox News Video

king weird ort toilet pvt jet

climate passport

cop28 pvt jets no insect lab grown fancy beef

bill gates largest carbon footprint, bid on biggest jet plane co? biggest elect bill

winner john kerry easily stood bef congress, i have never owned a pvt jet, but wife did for decades sold when outed; pos award disney sheriff stopped flying pvt ban for 1%

host: will do nothing for climate just boost poverty real ppl’s lives rachel

Fox News

'Climate Depot' publisher Marc Morano ranks the worst climate hypocrites of 2023 on 'Fox & Friends Weekend.'

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cop 28 note recycled BS: global elite

Marc Morano

Weekly update ⋅ December 8, 2023

Marc Morano: China is getting a pass | Fox News Video

Fox News

Climate Depot's Marc Morano discusses John Kerry's remarks at the U.N. COP28 climate conference in Dubai on 'The Ingraham Angle.'

ingraham, extra AC units kerry jetsetter india does not care what we think new plants permitted end global coal production, china 1/2 of production open 1 plant/wk; getting cty to cut back on naty gas lead the world in reducing emissions; greta will protest german plant but not in china; on x ingra how much does greta fam make?; li jets from mansion to mansion kite surfing ridiculous; 17m$ budget pvt jet potentate unelected; hillary says --- killing, studies show coal kills more? ej climate fund keep africa locked in poverty, then crush US decree global dictatorship vs trump 99 perent drop in 20 yrs? kery and hillary never fact checked; green reset summit; keruy not senate confirmed, how is that ok? US must take tougher approach on tech to China, says US House committee

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OMFG // antifa BLM BS oregon a couple years back?

https://www.mediamatters.org/climate-deniers/15-nonsensical-comments-made-right-wing-media-during-2023s-summer-climate-fueled

15 nonsensical comments made by right-wing media during 2023’s summer of climate-fueled extreme weather events

Special PROGRAMS

CLIMATE & ENERGY

WRITTEN BY ALLISON FISHER

PUBLISHED 08/07/23

July 2023 was the earth’s hottest month on record, punctuated by record-shattering extreme heat events, catastrophic floods, and historic wildfires. While major media outlets sounded the alarm on the climate crisis, climate denial and downplay reached a fever pitch among right-wing media outlets and influencers.

Many in the right-wing media have downplayed the record heat — suggesting that it’s normal summer weather, despite clear evidence that the intensity of this summer’s heat waves would not have been possible without climate change — or dismissed its lethal impact by arguing that more people die of cold than heat. Others have said those linking July’s extreme weather to climate change are weaponizing these events to push a radical climate agenda or call for climate lockdowns.

Here are 15 other examples that illustrate the lengths to which right-wing media are going — often deploying nonsensical arguments or outright lies that attempt to ignore the fact that there is scientific consensus that carbon emissions are heating our planet— to maintain climate denial in the face of climate-fueled catastrophes:

1 in

response to extreme weather that grounded planes in the Northeast, Fox host Rachel Campos-Duffy said the left is “trying to control the weather” and “trying to be God.” Fox News, :{Fox & Friends:(style="box-sizing:border-box"):}:, [7/3/23]
Responding to calls for climate action, Newsmax host Eric Bolling denied that human activity is responsible for warming: “Real scientists, meaning those not purchased by the kings of propaganda, well, they’ll tell you there is actually no such thing as climate change.” Newsmax, :{Eric Bolling The Balance:(style="box-sizing:border-box"):}:, [7/11/23]
Fossil fuel shill Steve Milloy on Newsmax’s Rob Schmitt Tonight: “The Earth is greener than ever before. Have we affected the planet and wildlife? Yeah, sure. But you know, in the end, it's been, I think, positive. The Earth is carrying more life now than ever before thanks to warming, thanks to CO2, thanks to fossil fuel use.” Newsmax, :{Rob Schmitt Tonight:(style="box-sizing:border-box"):}:, [7/11/23]
Newsmax host Greg Kelly said that “LGBTQ+IA whatever has been kind of pushed so relentlessly. … I think climate change and the whole phony debate about it has something to do with it,” suggesting the goal is to decrease population in order to reduce climate impacts. Newsmax, :{Greg Kelly Reports:(style="box-sizing:border-box"):}:, [7/11/23]
Fox host Jesse Watters suggested that U.S. special presidential envoy for climate John Kerry made it “impossible” to believe in climate change because according to Watters he lied about using a private plane. Fox News, :{Jesse Watters Primetime:(style="box-sizing:border-box"):}:, [7/13/23]
Conservative radio and Fox News host Mark Levin on his radioshow said climate change is a religion not based on science: “This is a religion. This is an ideology. This isn’t science. ...Don't you see how hot it is in Nevada? In the middle of the damn summer?It's what we have air conditioning for.”Westwood One, :{The Mark Levin Show:(style="box-sizing:border-box"):}:, [7/13/23]
Far-right media host Steven Crowder claims that carbon dioxide is not pollution because plants use it: “Is carbon dioxide the — basically, you know, the neurotoxin atmospheric poison that people make it out to be? Because you just pointed out plants thrive on it.” Rumble, :{Louder with Crowder:(style="box-sizing:border-box"):}:, [7/15/23]
Fox host Greg Gutfeld attempted to downplay the record-breaking heat with bizarre logic: “The problem with using weather — like saying, ‘This place broke records’ — how many states,how many countries didn't break records? Nobody ever provides you the context. They’re going, ‘Three countries had record-breaking heat waves.’ It’s like, well, how many countries are there?” Fox News, :{The Five:(style="box-sizing:border-box"):}:, [7/17/23]
The Daily Wire’s Matt Walsh claimed that the record heat is not a result of human activity but the sun: “The sun … that’s what calls the shots on Earth. It determines the temperature. It determines everything in terms of weather. … And until you can figure out a way to literally control the sun, there is basically nothing we can do to intentionally and significantly raise, lower, or otherwise affect the temperature on Earth.” The Daily Wire, :{The Matt Walsh Show:(style="box-sizing:border-box"):}:, [7/18/23]
The Daily Wire’s Ben Shapiro: “Thank God we have this thing called air conditioning. … You know what’s a great cure for being super-duper hot outside? Being a first world country.” The Daily Wire, :{The Ben Shapiro Show:(style="box-sizing:border-box"):}:, [7/20/23]
Fox Business host Larry Kudlow on America Reports: “This is not an overly hot July. ... Hot weather happens in some places; cooler weather happens in other places. We do not have a climate catastrophe.” Fox News, :{America Reports:(style="box-sizing:border-box"):}:, [7/21/23]
Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk on climate science and why carbon dioxide is not pollution: “The science is not solid. The science is debated. They look at science as if it is religious, irrefutable dogma.” Kirk added, “The built-in premise of the climate hoax is carbon is bad. OK, well, carbon is life, actually. … Don’t plants thrive on carbon dioxide?” :{Real America’s Voice:(style="background-color:#ffff66;"):}:, :{The Charlie Kirk Show:(style="box-sizing:border-box"):}:, [7/24/23]
On The Ingraham Angle, American Majority founder Ned Ryun called climate change a “hoax”: “It is nothing more than an attempt to manipulate people into a state of fear to have them give more control over to a ruling elitewho would take this hoax and enforce it through a whole host of means.” Fox News, :{The Ingraham Angle:(style="box-sizing:border-box"):}:, [7/27/23]
On America’s Newsroom, fossil fuel shill Daniel Turner deliberately conflated weather with climate: “And if you look at the weather forecast for this great city, where I’m born and raised, next Friday is mid-70s. So we are in what's called a heat wave.” :{Fox News, :{America’s Newsroom:(style="box-sizing:border-box"):}::(style="background-color:#6633ff;"):}:, [7/28/23]
Climate denier Marc Morano on Jesse Watters Primetime blamed global wildfires on arsonists, dismissing the role of climate change: “This is a global problem of people starting this. Now, is it climate change? Well, this would be the equivalent of blowing up a dam or sabotaging a dam and allowing a valley to flood and then saying, oh, look, climate change is causing more floods.” Fox News, :{Jesse Watters Primetime:(style="box-sizing:border-box"):}:, [7/28/23]

…

Related

Right-wing media deny climate change in face of deadly and record-breaking extreme weather event

07/20/23

Right-wing media downplay the hottest day in modern history with the help of Twitter’s community notes feature

07/11/23

Only 5% of national TV news segments on the record-shattering heat wave that scorched Texas mentioned climate change

07/03/23

PJ Media

Climate Depot's Marc Morano went on Fox Business Thursday and discussed how the Democrat and globalist push to replace gas cars with electric ...

pj no lnx pix

NEWS & POLITICS

Climate Expert: Gas Car Cancellation Is Intended to End Private Transport

BY CATHERINE SALGADO 3:01 PM ON JULY 15, 2023

Climate Expert: Gas Car Cancellation Is Intended to End Private Transport

Soon after a World Economic Forum partner was caught calling for an “end” to private car ownership, a climate expert is warning that the push to cancel gas-powered cars is just a ploy to end private transport. The climate crisis is a hoax, but it’s such a darn useful hoax for authoritarian globalists.

Climate Depot’s Marc Morano went on Fox Business Thursday and discussed how the Democrat and globalist push to replace gas cars with electric vehicles (EVs) isn’t about helping the environment but restricting Americans’ freedom of movement.“This really isn’t about them driving an electric car,” Morano said, highlighting how this is a top-down decision not based on popular demand. “This literally is — the banning of gas-powered cars — is being done just like a COVID lockdown without a vote,” he added. From California to the Biden Environmental Protection Agency to Australia, leftists are trying to force ordinary citizens into a corner with their gas car restrictions.

Indeed, Pew Research Center published the results of its new survey on June 28, which found that “Less than half of the [U.S.] public (40%) favors phasing out the production of gas-powered cars and trucks.” It’s also significant that EV batteries actually generate lots of toxic waste, so they’re not better for the environment.

“The intent is not to necessarily force people into an electric vehicle,” Morano went on. “The intent is to collapse our plentiful freedom of movement and force us to use mass transit. They want us on the subway.” It’s a global collusion. “They want us on buses. That is what this is about,” Morano insisted. “[Former UK PM] Boris Johnson’s transportation secretary said owning a car was outdated ’20th-century thinking’. They are rationing vehicle use. It’s very simple. You can look at Cuba to see how that turned out; you are going to have a lot of used cars.”

Morano also called out the hypocrisy and deception of U.S. Special Presidential Envoy for Climate John Kerry, who just testified to Congress and denied owning a private jet (though his family owned a private jet for years):

Now, keep in mind when John Kerry was confronted publicly last time was in Iceland. He flew on a private jet to Iceland to pick up an environmental award, and he gave the original defense, the equivalent of ‘Do you know who I am? I am so important I have to fly a private jet. I am trying to save the climate.’ But he doesn’t have time to be with the masses on a commercial airplane.

What he said today was, ‘I don’t own a private jet’, and ‘We don’t own one,’ meaning his wife owned one — until last year. And now he says he has been on only one flight and that goes against a lot of contradictory evidence. There is evidence that shows that since the Biden administration started, he has been on several dozen private jet flights.

Bill Gates was asked the same thing, and he said he gives to carbon offset funds when he flies a private jet. Al Gore actually had the same exact line about 20 years ago, he said he didn’t own a private jet without addressing whether he flew in them. This is Bill Clinton-level parsing.

Related: Electric Cars Are a Scam

Climate alarmists have been wrong for 50 years,and they’re not right now. But many of the top-level climate propagandists don’t believe their own lies (which is why they fly private jets). As Morano emphasized, climate hysteria is a political tool to end private transport and thus give governments ever more control over people’s lives.

Catherine Salgado

Catherine Salgado is a contributor for PJ Media. She also writes for The Rogue Review, Media Research Center, and her Substack Pro Deo et Libertate. She received the Andrew Breitbart MVP award for August 2021 from The Rogue Review for her journalism.

https://www.mediamatters.org/fox-news/how-trump-fox-feedback-loop-triggered-federal-probe-john-kerry

no lnx many vid

How the Trump-Fox feedback loop triggered a federal probe of John Kerry

WRITTEN BY MATT GERTZ

PUBLISHED 09/08/22

Geoffrey Berman, a former top federal prosecutor during Donald Trump’s administration, reportedly writes in a new book that a spurious investigation of former Secretary of State John Kerry was set in motion in response to then-president Donald Trump’s May 2018 tweet accusing Kerry of “potentially illegal shadow diplomacy” with Iran. Trump’s tweet came in response to a report the then-president was watching at the time on Fox News, according to a Media Matters review.

As president, Trump reportedly watched hours of Fox programming a day and regularly tweeted his responses to what he was seeing on television in real-time or on tape-delay, as Media Matters extensively documented. The network’s commentators and coverage shaped the former president’s worldview – and thus his administration’s actions, including presidential pardons, federal contracting, legislative and communications strategy, pandemic policies, and much more.

Now it seems we can add a federal probe of one of Trump’s political opponents to the list. The New York Times reported Thursday that in a new book, Berman wrote that while he was U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, Justice Department officials ordered him to investigate Kerry after Trump criticized Kerry’s “possibly illegal” behavior on Twitter. Those tweets have their roots in Fox’s coverage.

On May 7, 2018, Washington, D.C., was abuzz with the prospect that Trump might withdraw from the Iran nuclear accord that Kerry negotiated during the Obama administration. The president, meanwhile, spent the morning tweeting along with Fox & Friends, the Fox morning show, which he was apparently watching on tape-delay.

At 10:08 a.m. ET, Trump tweeted, “The United States does not need John Kerry’s possibly illegal Shadow Diplomacy on the very badly negotiated Iran Deal. He was the one who created this MESS in the first place!” As I noted at the time, that tweet tracked with the content of a segment that had aired on Fox’s America’s Newsroom roughly an hour earlier.

During that segment, Fox correspondent Griff Jenkins discussed a Boston Globe report from a few days earlier about Kerry’s behind-the-scenes effort to salvage the Iran deal. Kerry “has been engaging in what some are calling shadow diplomacy,” Jenkins reported, using the same term Trump would in his subsequent tweet.

Immediately after Jenkins’ report, anchor Bill Hemmer turned to contributorByron York, who said that Kerry’s actions were “a big deal” because Kerry was “meeting with foreign governments in an attempt to undermine the current U.S. administration.” York added that while “you will hear” that Kerry may have violated the Logan Act, “it likely does not apply here.”

Video From the May 7, 2018, edition of Fox News' America's Newsroom.

Indeed, conservatives were raising the prospect that Kerry had violated the Logan Act – including Fox & Friends host Steve Doocy earlier that morning, in a segment the then-president likely watched. But as University of Texas School of Law professor Stephen Vladeck explained in the Globe report, that statute would not apply in this case, since Kerry was acting to maintain what was (at the time) current U.S. policy.

Trump’s tweet set off his supporters at the network, particularly Sean Hannity, who maintained dual roles as a close Trump adviser and primetime host. On his show that night, Hannity suggested that Kerry was “violating the law, the Logan Act,” and asked, “Where are the agents in the FBI and the DOJ breaking down John Kerry's door? Another blatant example of a two-tier justice system sadly in this country today.”

Later in the program, Hannity polled members of his panel as to whether Kerry had violated the Logan Act. After they all agreed that he had, Hannity said, “Let's see when that investigation begins.”

Video From the May 7, 2018, edition of Fox News' Hannity.

Fox’s criticism of Kerry continued into the next day on Fox & Friends, including a segment in which co-host Brian Kilmeade claimed his action “seems to be a violation of the Logan Act,” while his guest compared the former secretary of state to the Taliban. Roughly an hour after that, Trump tweeted, “John Kerry can’t get over the fact that he had his chance and blew it! Stay away from negotiations John, you are hurting your country!”

Later that day, Trump announced that the U.S. would withdraw from the Iran deal.

Trump’s tweets had a major and immediate impact, Berman explained in his book. The Times reported:

On May 9, Mr. Berman writes, Justice Department officials told his office that it would be responsible for an investigation into Mr. Kerry’s Iran-related conduct. The F.B.I. would join the inquiry.

The focus was on the Logan Act, a rarely invoked 1799 statute barring private citizens from unauthorized negotiations with foreign governments, which has been criticized as unconstitutionally vague. Mr. Berman notes that no one has ever been successfully prosecuted under the law.

But, as he puts it, “The conduct that had annoyed the president was now a priority of the Department of Justice.”

Although Mr. Berman says he does not know what prompted the Justice Department to seek a Kerry investigation, “No one needed to talk with Trump to know what he wanted. You could read his tweets.”

According to the Times account, Berman wrote that in subsequent months, the Justice Department repeatedly pressured his office to move forward with the investigation of Kerry, particularly after Trump again tweeted about the purported crimes.

“They were asking us, basically, what’s taking so long? Why aren’t you going harder and faster at this enemy of the president? There was no other way for me to look at it,” he wrote.

Berman said that when his office told the Justice Department it would not be prosecuting Kerry following a year-long investigation, the case was passed to another U.S. attorney’s office. When that office also determined the case lacked merit, he wrote, “the Kerry investigation just quietly died — as it should have.”

Trump ultimately fired Berman in June 2020 during a purge of federal prosecutors seen as insufficiently loyal to him.

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Prosecuted While President

In a new book, the former U.S. Attorney in Manhattan says Trump’s Justice Department “kept demanding that I use my office to aid them politically.”

By Paul Blest

September 8, 2022,

trump prosecuting democrats jeffrey berman

Former President Donald Trump has spent the weeks since the FBI’s raid on Mar-a-Lago describing the investigation as yet another witch hunt brought against him by partisan Democrats.

But Trump’s own former U.S. Attorney in Manhattan reportedly claims in a new book that the Department of Justice pushed him to prosecute Democrats and even bring criminal charges against former Secretary of State John Kerry.

Geoffrey Berman spent two and a half years as the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, one of the most high-profile prosecutorial positions in the federal government, before he was forced out in June 2020. Prior to that, Berman had volunteered on the Trump campaign transition and was a law partner of Rudy Giuliani.

But in Berman’s new book, he says that he quickly fell out of favor with the Department of Justice because he declined to prosecute Democrats on trumped-up charges, according to the New York Times, which obtained a copy of the book.

“Throughout my tenure as U.S. attorney,” Berman wrote in the new book, “Trump’s Justice Department kept demanding that I use my office to aid them politically, and I kept declining — in ways just tactful enough to keep me from being fired.”

Specifically, Berman says that he was pressured to pursue charges against former Secretary of State John Kerry, who made Trump angry when he attempted to salvage the Iran nuclear deal during Trump’s presidency.

Berman also said a senior Justice Department official called one of his deputies and pressed him to charge Gregory Craig, a Democratic lawyer accused by Republicans of breaking the Foreign Agents Registration Act, because Berman’s office had gone after Trump allies for breaking the law.

Berman said he believed Craig was innocent of the charge, and he ultimately was not charged, but the Justice Department official allegedly told Berman’s deputy that it was “time for you guys to even things out.”

The official, former Acting Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Ed O’Callaghan, told the Times Berman’s claim was “categorically false.”

Former Attorney General William Barr pushed for Berman to be replaced with an administration ally, and Trump fired him after he refused to resign in June 2020. “The reason Barr wanted me to resign immediately was so I could be replaced with an outsider he trusted,” Berman writes in the book, according to the Guardian.

“I walked this tightrope for two and a half years,” he said. “Eventually, the rope snapped.”

Follow Paul Blest on Twitter.

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an 9 22 ah

Republican attorney Geoffrey S. Berman was once an ally of Donald Trump. The former federal prosecutor volunteered on Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign, and he was a law partner of former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani.

But in his forthcoming book, “Holding the Line: Inside the Nation's Preeminent U.S. Attorney's Office and Its Battle with the Trump Justice Department,” Berman reveals that he was fired from his position with the Southern District of New York in 2020 after refusing to prosecute some Democrats who Trump had it in for.

The New York Times has obtained a copy of Berman’s book, which has a September 13 release date on Amazon. In the book, according to Times reporter Benjamin Weiser, Berman describes himself as a Rockefeller Republican — in other words, a moderate Republican. And that would explain why Berman eventually proved incompatible with Trump and the far-right MAGA movement.

Berman, now 62, was a Southern District of New York prosecutor from 1990-1994, and he returned to the Southern District in January 2018 — an announcement made by Jeff Sessions, who was U.S. attorney general for the Trump Administration at the time.

Weiser reports, “Mr. Berman’s book says that during Mr. Trump’s presidency, (Justice) Department officials made ‘overtly political’ demands, choosing targets that would directly further Mr. Trump’s desires for revenge and advantage. Mr. Berman wrote that the pressure was clearly inspired by the president’s openly professed wants.”

The Democrats Trump and his allies wanted to prosecute, according to Berman, included formerSecretary of State John Kerry and attorney Gregory Craig (who Trump’s allies accused of violating the Foreign Agents Registration Act). But Berman, according to his book, didn’t believe that a prosecution of either Kerry or Craig was warranted.

During his four years in the White House, Trump could turn against fellow Republicans in a hurry. Trump fired Sessions in 2018 for recusing himself from Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation, and Bill Barr became U.S. attorney general in early 2019. Later, both Barr and Trump turned against Berman, according to “Holding the Line.”

In the book, according to The Guardian’s Martin Pengelly, guk Berman writes, “The reason Barr wanted me to resign immediately was so I could be replaced with an outsider he trusted.”

Berman also writes, “Throughout my tenure as U.S. attorney, Trump’s Justice Department kept demanding that I use my office to aid them politically, and I kept declining — in ways just tactful enough to keep me from being fired…. I walked this tightrope for two and a half years. Eventually, the rope snapped.”

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https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/08/nyregion/geoffrey-berman-trump-book.html

ref no lnx

Trump Pushed Officials to Prosecute His Critics, Ex-U.S. Attorney Says

Geoffrey S. Berman, who headed the Manhattan office, says in a book the Justice Department pushed cases, against John Kerry and others, to help Mr. Trump.

By Benjamin Weiser

Sept. 8, 2022

A book by a former top federal prosecutor offers new details about how the Justice Department under President Donald J. Trump sought to use the U.S. attorney’s office in Manhattan to support Mr. Trump politically and pursue his critics — even pushing the office to open a criminal investigation of former secretary of state John Kerry.

The prosecutor, Geoffrey S. Berman, was the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York for two and a half years until June 2020, when Mr. Trump fired him after he refused a request to resign by Attorney General William P. Barr, who sought to replace him with an administration ally.

A copy of Mr. Berman’s book, “Holding the Line,” was obtained by The New York Times before its scheduled publication Tuesday.

The book paints a picture of Justice Department officials motivated by partisan concerns in pursuing investigations or blocking them; in weighing how forthright to be in court filings; and in shopping investigations to other prosecutors’ offices when the Southern District declined to act.

The book contains accounts of how department officials tried to have allusions to Mr. Trump scrubbed from charging papers for Michael D. Cohen, his former personal lawyer, and how the attorney general later tried to have his conviction reversed. It tells of pressure to pursue Mr. Kerry, who had angered Mr. Trump by attempting to preserve the nuclear deal he had negotiated with Iran.

And in September 2018, Mr. Berman writes, two months before the November midterms, a senior department official called Mr. Berman’s deputy, cited the Southern District’s recent prosecutions of two prominent Trump loyalists, and bluntly asserted that the office, which had been investigating Gregory B. Craig, a powerful Democratic lawyer, should charge him — and should do so before Election Day.

“It’s time for you guys to even things out,” the official said, according to Mr. Berman.

The book comes as Mr. Trump and his supporters have accused the Biden administration and Attorney General Merrick Garland of using the Justice Department as a weapon after a judge authorized FBI agents to search his Florida house for missing classified records. Mr. Trump, who is a likely presidential candidate in 2024, has suggested without evidence that President Biden is playing a role in that investigation.

However, Mr. Berman’s book says that during Mr. Trump’s presidency, department officials made “overtly political” demands, choosing targets that would directly further Mr. Trump’s desires for revenge and advantage. Mr. Berman wrote that the pressure was clearly inspired by the president’s openly professed wants.

In the book, Mr. Berman, who as U.S. attorney did not give news interviews, offers new details about the high-profile prosecutions of defendants like Mr. Cohen; Chris Collins, a Republican congressman from New York; Michael Avenatti, the celebrity attorney and Trump antagonist; and Jeffrey Epstein, the disgraced financier.

He says there were cases his office pursued without pressure from Washington, but in others, he makes clear his greatest challenges did not always have to do with the law.

“Throughout my tenure as U.S. attorney,” Mr. Berman, 62, writes, “Trump’s Justice Department kept demanding that I use my office to aid them politically, and I kept declining— in ways just tactful enough to keep me from being fired.”

“I walked this tightrope for two and a half years,” writes Mr. Berman, who is now in private practice. “Eventually, the rope snapped.”

Mr. Berman, who in the book describes himself as a Rockefeller Republican, had been a federal prosecutor in the Manhattan office from 1990 to 1994, and went on to become a co-managing partner of the New Jersey office of the law firm Greenberg Traurig.

Numerous inquiries. Since former President Donald J. Trump left office, he has been facing several civil and criminal investigations into his business dealings and political activities. Here is a look at some notable cases:

Classified documents inquiry. The F.B.I. searched Mr. Trump’s Florida home as part of the Justice Department’s investigation into his handling of classified materials. The inquiry is focused on documents that Mr. Trump had brought with him to Mar-a-Lago, his private club and residence, when he left the White House.

Jan. 6 investigations. In a series of public hearings, the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack laid out a comprehensive narrative of Mr. Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election. This evidence could allow federal prosecutors, who are conducting a parallel criminal investigation, to indict Mr. Trump.

Georgia election interference case. Fani T. Willis, the Atlanta-area district attorney, has been leading a wide-ranging criminal investigation into the efforts of Mr. Trump and his allies to overturn his 2020 election loss in Georgia. This case could pose the most immediate legal peril for the former president and his associates.

New York State civil inquiry. Letitia James, the New York attorney general, has been conducting a civil investigation into Mr. Trump and his family business. The case is focused on whether Mr. Trump’s statements about the value of his assets were part of a pattern of fraud or were simply Trumpian showmanship.

Manhattan criminal case. Alvin L. Bragg, the Manhattan district attorney, has been investigating whether Mr. Trump or his family business intentionally submitted false property values to potential lenders. But the inquiry faded from view after signs emerged suggesting that Mr. Trump was unlikely to be indicted.]

During the 2016 presidential primary season, Mr. Berman volunteered for Mr. Trump’s campaign and later for his transition committee. Originally believing he might be named U.S. attorney for New Jersey, he was instead tapped to lead the Southern District, the most prestigious prosecutor’s office outside Washington. It handles Wall Street crime, international terrorism, political corruption and complex frauds.

Mr. Berman met briefly with Mr. Trump in the Oval Office in June 2017, where the president did most of the talking, he writes. Mr. Berman, a Princeton resident, said he would need to move into the city. Mr. Trump recommended he live in downtown Manhattan, near the Southern District’s offices, ahead of what could be a dicey confirmation hearing.

“Make it a rental,” Mr. Trump said.

In March 2018, some two months after Mr. Berman assumed the post, the Justice Department, then headed by Attorney General Jeff Sessions, referred to the Southern District the investigation of Mr. Craig.

The allegations focused on whether Mr. Craig, a White House counsel under President Barack Obama, had concealed work he had done years earlier for the government of Ukraine in violation of the Foreign Agents Registration Act, and whether he had lied to the Justice Department when questioned about it.

After months of investigation, the Southern District and Justice Department met with Mr. Craig’s lawyers, who made a presentation on his behalf. After his lawyers left and prosecutors voiced their opinions, Mr. Berman said he believed Mr. Craig was innocent of the FARA charge and so a jury would be unlikely to convict him on a false statement count.

A short time later, around mid-September, Mr. Berman writes, his deputy, Robert S. Khuzami, walked into his office and said he had just gotten a call fromEdward O’Callaghan, the principal associate deputy attorney general, a political appointee. Mr. O’Callaghan, the book says, asked that the office “even things out” by charging Mr. Craig before Election Day.

In that conversation, Mr. Berman writes, Mr. O’Callaghan kept reminding Mr. Khuzami that the Southern District had just prosecuted Representative Collins and Mr. Cohen.

Mr. O’Callaghan said in a brief interview Wednesday that he had not read the book, but after being told by The Times of the statements attributed to him, called them “categorically false.”

Mr. Berman says he ignored the edict.

In mid-December, after a thorough investigation, Mr. Berman informed the department that his office was declining to prosecute Mr. Craig. He writes that he soon learned that the department had “peddled” the case to the U.S. attorney in Washington, where Mr. Craig was eventually indicted and tried on a single count of making false statements.

On Sept. 4, 2019, Mr. Craig was acquitted by the jury in less than five hours.

One of his lawyers, William W. Taylor III, said after the trial that the department had “hounded” his client “without any evidence and without any purpose.”

Mr. Berman writes: “The verdict felt like justice. Greg Craig should never have been prosecuted.”

One case Mr. Berman says his office had to fight to keep alive was the 2018 prosecution of Mr. Cohen, the president’s former lawyer. That August, Mr. Cohen pleaded guilty to campaign finance violations over payments he arranged before the 2016 election, to keep two women from disclosing affairs they said they had with Mr. Trump. Mr. Berman did not participate in the investigation, because he had volunteered for the campaign. But he was later briefed on interference in the case.

Before the plea, Mr. Berman writes, as his office was preparing a charging document detailing the crimes, a Justice Department official badgered his deputy, Mr. Khuzami, without success, to remove all references to a person identified as “Individual-1.” It was Mr. Trump.

In the months after Mr. Cohen’s guilty plea, Mr. Berman writes, the Southern District continued to pursue investigations related to possible campaign finance violations, apparently by others in Mr. Trump’s orbit.

But after Mr. Barr became attorney general in February 2019, Mr. Berman writes, he tried to kill the investigations and suggested that Mr. Cohen’s conviction on campaign finance charges be reversed, even though six months had passed since Mr. Cohen had entered his guilty plea.

In late February, he writes, Mr. Barr summoned the Southern District deputy, Mr. Khuzami, who was overseeing the inquiry, to challenge the legal basis for Mr. Cohen’s plea and “the reasoning behind pursuing similar campaign finance charges against other individuals.”

His office was ordered to pause all investigative steps, Mr. Berman writes. “Not a single document in our possession could be reviewed,” he says. Mr. Barr assigned the department’s Office of Legal Counsel to study the issue.

Mr. Berman says his office submitted memos to the department in support of its position, and top prosecutors met with officials in Washington, including Mr. Barr, to press the case.

[Read More on the Trump Investigations

Key developments in the inquiries into the former president and his allies.

Special Master: A judge granted former President Donald J. Trump’s request for an independent arbiter, known as a special master, to review the documents the F.B.I. seized from Mar-a-Lago. The ruling surprised experts and could slow the investigation.

The ‘60-Day Rule’: As midterms near, the Justice Department is weighing whether to temporarily scale back the criminal investigations involving Mr. Trump because of an unwritten rule forbidding overt actions that could improperly influence the vote.

Election Data: Newly released surveillance video from rural Coffee County, Ga., raised questions about the extent to which election data was improperly shared with pro-Trump figures who were challenging the 2020 election results.]

In late April, with the case effectively stalled, Audrey Strauss, who had succeeded Mr. Khuzami as Mr. Berman’s deputy, finally persuaded Mr. Barr there was no basis to dismiss any charges against Mr. Cohen and that the investigations should be completed, Mr. Berman writes. The inquiry eventually ended without additional charges.

Mr. Barr did not respond to a request for comment.

After the September 2019 acquittal of Gregory Craig, Mr. Berman writes, he hoped the verdict would ease pressure on the Southern District “to prosecute yet another enemy of the president” — Mr. Kerry.

“That was naïve on my part,” Mr. Berman says.

Mr. Kerry, a Vietnam War veteran and a former longtime Massachusetts senator, was secretary of state under President Obama, a role in which he led the lengthy negotiations that produced the Iran nuclear accord — that administration’s signature foreign policy achievement. Mr. Trump, during his presidential campaign, called the deal “insane” and a “disaster.”

On May 7, 2018, Mr. Trump tweeted about Mr. Kerry’s “possibly illegal Shadow Diplomacy” — an apparent reference to reports of Mr. Kerry having conversations as a private citizen with Iranian and other officials.

Mr. Trump tweeted another attack on Mr. Kerry the next day — the same day Mr. Trump announced the United States was withdrawing from the accord.

On May 9, Mr. Berman writes, Justice Department officials told his office that it would be responsible for an investigation into Mr. Kerry’s Iran-related conduct. The F.B.I. would join the inquiry.

But, as he puts it, “The conduct that had annoyed the president was now a priority of the Department of Justice.”

Although Mr. Berman says he does not know what prompted the Justice Department to seek a Kerry investigation, “No one needed to talk with Trump to know what he wanted. You could read his tweets.”

Mr. Berman writes that Mr. Kerry did not learn of the investigation and it never leaked into the news media.

Mr. Trump, meanwhile, kept tweeting. “Iran is being given VERY BAD advice by @JohnKerry,” he tweeted on the morning of April 22, 2019. “Big violation of Logan Act?”

That afternoon, Mr. Berman says, one of the co-chiefs of the Southern District’s national security unit got a call from a Justice Department official, asking why the office was delaying seeking an order to review “header information,” such as the date, recipients and senders of Mr. Kerry’s electronic communications. A more senior official pressed the issue again the next day with Southern District officials.

Mr. Berman writes that the pattern was “clear — and outrageous.” He said that the investigation began after Mr. Trump started tweeting “his displeasure about Kerry,” and a new tweet 11 months later prompted further prodding.

“And they were asking us, basically, what’s taking so long? Why aren’t you going harder and faster at this enemy of the president? There was no other way for me to look at it,” Mr. Berman writes.

A spokesman for Mr. Trump did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Mr. Berman says that after an investigation of roughly a year, his office told the Justice Department that it would not prosecute Mr. Kerry.

A short time later, on Sept. 19, 2019, Mr. Berman writes, a senior adviser to the attorney general called to say that Mr. Barr expected to take the Kerry case to another U.S. attorney’s office, this time in Maryland.

That office reached the same conclusion as the Southern District had, Mr. Berman writes, “and the Kerry investigation just quietly died — as it should have.”

Alain Delaquérière contributed research.

kos ref

for the longest time, the FoxNews website seemed pretty normal on climate change, all things considered. While Fox TV centered hatemongers like Tucker Carlson and the website reflects that with ample coverage of what was on TV, the original content produced for the website was generally indistinguishable from any other lazy political "news" that quotes who said what. The site was clearly biased in every conceivable way (choice of stories to cover, who to quote, how to frame stories, etc) but wasn’t necessarily going out of the way to spread climate disinformation.

That appears to be changing.

fox News dot com has, in the last month or so, hired two conservative propagandists in journalist disguises, Thomas Catenacci, formerly an energy reporter at the Koch-sponsored Daily Caller, and Haris Alic, formerly of the cult-founded and $1bilion+ sponsored Washington Times where he turned fossil fool press releases into "news”. Before that, he was at white supremacy-laundering Breitbart, and before that, the billionaire-backed Free Beacon.

Back on June 21st, Thomas Catenacci published his first Fox pieceattacking Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer for calling on Biden to pause the federal gas tax, "just months after declining to pause her own state's gas tax." (Maybe something changed in the months between?)

Since then, he's published one Dem hit piece after another, real hard-hitting stuff like "Kamala Harris' office posts video of VP sinking basketball shot, leaves out her first 5 misses."

He also covered the climate activists slashing SUV tires in NYC (twice), and somehow suckered a Sierra Club spokesperson into feeding him quotes for a piece about how environmentalists are "pushing extreme measures amid global energy crisis," like investing in clean energy sources not controlled by Russia, which is apparently extreme.

This week, Catenacci helped propagate the lie that protests in the Netherlands and the uprising in Sri Lanka are driven by anti-climate policy sentiments, and yesterday he brought the Daily Caller's trick of "reporting" on a climate advocate's airline emissions toFox with a piece about John Kerry's family's private jet emissions (quoting, of course, a professional denier).

Meanwhile, on July 8th Haris Alic published his first Fox story, advancing the Koch network's organized anti-ESG disinformation with "news" that Sen. Steve Daines(R., Mont.) introduced a go-no-where bill to "block Biden from adding 'woke' requirements to US retirement plans." Then he did a puff piece about Republican Gov. Youngkin's "speculation of 2024 presidential run," followed by a piece about how Nancy Pelosi went on "lavish Italian vacation as inflation back home hits 40-year high."

You know, Fair And Balanced.

This week, Alic is gassing up former ALEC chair Joe Manchin with an entirely credulous story headlined "Manchin denies he opposes Democratic spending bill, says he'll wait until August to decide." No surprise, when it comes to the fossil fuel loving Democrat, Fox News has no problem taking him at his word and including zero skeptical quotes pushing back on his claims!

How do you follow "reporting" that is shamelessly tongue-on-boot? With a story about conservative ads, of course, turning your compatriot's paid media spend into some free earned media about how (industry front) groups have paid for a "deluge of conservative ads [to] urge Manchin to stand up to Democrats."

Not exactly breaking news that Fox is backing fossil fuels over a livable climate, but the fact that its website just hired not one but two up-and-coming climate disinfo spreaders suggests Fox is only ramping up the lies as the midterm election season heats up.

In 1976, Rupert Murdoch bought the Post for US$30.5 million.

MURDOCH, INTERESTING IT'S A FOSSIL FOOL DOING POLITICAL/MILITARY ATTACK?

i think i've seen this BS crit elsewhere

https://nypost.com/2022/02/25/john-kerry-just-reminded-us-of-how-unserious-a-statesman-he-really-is/

OPINION

John Kerry just reminded us of how unserious a statesman he really is

By Daniel Turner

February 25, 2022 8:58pm Updated

John Kerry, US special envoy for climate, speaks at the 58th Munich Security Conference in Munich, Germany.

John Kerry's main concern about the Russian invasion of Ukraine is, you guessed it, the climate.

[MORE ON:

JOHN KERRY

John Kerry’s deadly Ukraine hot air

Nancy Pelosi spent almost $500K on private jets despite climate preaching

The comic cries of climate apocalypse — 50 years of spurious scaremongering

‘Not my lane’: John Kerry sidesteps China’s human rights violations]

To state the obvious, John Kerry is an unserious person. That’s not a reference to his wind-surfing or flip-flops or other classic campaign faux pas from days gone by.

With Ukraine suffering death and destruction at the hands of Vladimir Putin’s military, Kerry shared his true concern about the conflict: climate.

“A war is the last thing you need with respect to a united effort to try to deal with the climate challenge,” Kerry told a Reuters reporter. He then decried the “emissions” consequences of Russia’s invasion, adding, “You’re going to lose people’s focus . . . certainly big country attention, because they will be diverted” from the climate agenda.

Kerry’s remarks are aloof, callous, clueless — but, most of all, unserious.

In fact, hisclimate agenda is partly to blame for the current geopolitical mess. The Biden administration, from its first day in office, unleashed an attack on our once-robust energy industry. In pursuit of the Green New Deal, the socialist utopia that would ban the combustion engine, regulate diets and employ solar panels and wind turbines alone to power the nation, President Joe Biden & Co. sought to get rid of fossil fuels.

Russian President Vladimir Putin enters a hall to chair a Security Council meeting in Moscow, Russia.]

Alexei Nikolsky, Sputnik, Kremlin Pool/AP]

But by throttling the industry, they cut the global supply and prices rose accordingly. That hurt Americans, while making Vladimir Putin rich.

And a Vladimir Putin with surplus cash is a dangerous thing.

America’s shortsighted climate-change efforts are destabilizing world peace. This was not Biden or Kerry’s intention, but it is the consequence — and the more dangerous the world becomes, the more unserious “climate change” hysteria is.

[Get the latest updates in the Russia-Ukraine conflict with the Post’s live coverage.

Telling Putin not to invade Ukraine because of emissions is akin to lecturing those fleeing Kyiv to mask up and social distance. It’s a luxury they don’t have.

That is the climate agenda: the luxury of privileged elites. Families who can’t afford their heating bill or grocery bill thanks to energy-price-caused inflation don’t have the luxury of fretting about climate change. The 7,000 US soldiers headed to Germany right now don’t have the luxury of handwringing about their climate footprint.

John Kerry does, and he loves luxury, too.

Asked about the green contradiction of traveling on his private jet to win an environmental award in 2019, the unserious statesman claimed it was “the only choice for someone like me.” Reporters have tracked numerous such Air Kerry flights. Emissions? What emissions?

U.S. climate envoy John Kerry speaks during a press conference with Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry, at the foreign ministry headquarters in Cairo, Egypt.

With Ukraine suffering death and descrution at the hands of Vladimir Putin’s military, Kerry shared his true concern about the conflict: climate.

Kerry made his latest cringeworthy comments in Egypt as preparations begin for COP27, the international climate-change conference coming this fall to the Red Sea resort town of Sharm-el-Sheikh. If you’re going to fuss about the climate, you might as well do it in comfort. Last year’s conference in Glasgow, Scotland, boasted 40,000 people in attendance, along with 670 private jets: Kerry isn’t the only green hypocrite.

We didn’t elect John Kerry, so as climate czarin the White House, he’s unaccountable to Congress and therefore the American people who pay his salary. No one gets to look at his budgets. No one has oversight over his meetings, but there he goes on his private jet committing the United States to emissions reductions and punitive measures on fossil fuels.

[SEE ALSO

Biden slams Ukraine invasion as he reveals new sanctions that leave Putin untouched]

Meanwhile, the real threats are Russia, China, Iran and North Korea continuing to build weapons, steal technology, launch cyberattacks, engage in terrorism and now start a full-scale war, the likes of which Europe hasn’t seen in 75 years.

Take the threat of climate change seriously when John Kerry forgoes the private jets and luxury mega-conferences. Worry about rising sea levels when John Kerry sells his oceanfront mansion.

Until then, we need to stop the attack on America’s energy industry, attacks that have strengthened our enemies and weakened our own nation. Until we reverse Biden’s reckless and dangerous energy policies, we don’t have the luxury of worrying about tomorrow when we can’t afford life today.

Daniel Turner is the founder and executive director of Power The Future, a national nonprofit that advocates for American energy jobs.

Twitter: @DanielTurnerPTF

not the epa

http://epadvocates.org/Colorado/DC-Kerry-Recusal-Request_2.pdf

August 3, 2021

Freedom of Information Act Request

U. S. Department of State

Office of Information Programs and Services

2201 C Street N.W., Suite B266

Washington, D.C. 20520-0000

By Facsimile (202) 485-1669

Re: Recusal memos and communications related to John Kerry

Dear Ms. Hardy:

On behalf of Energy Policy Advocates (“EPA”), recognized by the Internal Revenue Service

[yeah we gotta fix that; corp? reg where?]

as a non- profit public policy institute under § 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code,

pursuant to the Freedom of Information Act (“FOIA”), 5 U.S.C. § 552 et seq., please provide

copies of the records as described herein

Records Requested

EPA requests the following records from the Office of Management and Budget (“OMB”).

The requested information is of great public interest for its relevance to the Biden

Administration’s ethics policies and procedures and compliance therewith:

1. All memoranda or documents produced by or received by employees within

the Office pertaining or relating to creation of and/or compliance with

recusal statements of and any ethics waivers and/or recusals for John Kerry.

This request includes, but is not limited to, any draft or final memoranda or

letter(s) outlining recusal obligations, potential conflicts of interest, and any

particular matters that have been identified for recusal, as well as any

waivers issued by ethics officials for those named officials.

This request also includes but again is not limited to any and all

communications, including written analysis in any form, regarding actual or

possible meeting requests with non-governmental entities which meeting(s)

or request(s) involve Mr. Kerry. If any requested records were produced

between December 2, 2020, and the official start date of Mr. Kerry, those

should also be included.

This request also includes, but is not limited to, all other communications

between Mr. Kerry, and employees within the Executive Office of the

President pertaining or relating to the drafting and revision of any ethics or

recusal letter, any memoranda or other documents pertaining or relating to

Mr. Kerry’s actual or possible recusal obligations. That is, this request ...

huffpo NK

One last question. Former Secretary of State John Kerry just :{announced:(style="box-sizing:inherit"):}: a new project, this star-studded effort called World War Zero, saying we’ve got to have war footing on climate change but we’re not married to any specific policy. John Kasich, the Republican former governor of Ohio, was quoted in The New York Times saying he was on board because it’s policy agnostic and if there were a “no frackers” provision, he wouldn’t join. Is there a danger to these elite, “let’s just do something about climate change” efforts?

hmmn 2004

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2005/8/13/138132/-

questions about exit polls, recounts and voting machines (esp in Ohio?)

https://grist.org/article/why-kerry-lost/ mARCH 2005

hey, turns out there’s no need to worry about ANWR. Our cause has been taken up by a man with a proven record of outmaneuvering Bush. We’re in the clear!

Ah, I kid. I’m actually quite fond ofJohn Kerry, stilted speech and utter lack of charisma and all.

Since speculating about a) why Kerry lost and b) why the environment didn’t play a bigger role in the election never goes out of style, I found this interesting:

Seated in his modest Senate office, Kerry reflected on why matters like the environment — an issue he believes remains potent with the electorate — had not won him election in November.

“There was one dominant complication in the year 2004,” Kerry said. “It’s called the war. The war on terror. It’s the only thing Bush people really talked about, advertised on, scared people about.”

…

Some environmentalists have faulted Kerry — as they did Vice President Al Gore before him — for not making matters such as Alaska drilling, regulating air and water pollution, forest management and endangered species protection a higher priority during the campaign. In rebuttal, Kerry cited a half a dozen events he held during the campaign, including Earth Day in Houston, and events focused on Great Lakes protection in Michigan and coastal erosion in Louisiana.

Had it not been for the threat of terror, he said, “I think the environment would have emerged as a greater issue, as would health care and education. A lot of issues were drowned out. And purposely so by the administration, because their strategy was obviously to use the war as the fulcrum that it was. It was … effective.”

It’s fashionable in eco-circles to call bullshit on this, but I actually think it’s accurate. It was a narrow loss and there are plenty of things that could have tipped the balance, but I’m inclined to doubt that raising the volume on environmental issues is one of them. If I had to rank them, I’d say 1) a better national security message, 2) smarter campaign tactics (especially on theSwift Boat stuff), and 3) a more mediagenic personality.

https://www.alternet.org/devin-nunes-calls-john-kerry-be-arrested-fbi-send-g-men

no lnx

Devin Nunes Calls for John Kerry to Be Arrested By the FBI: ‘Send In the G Men’:

Congressman Devin Nunes (R-CA) made his demand to imprison the former Massachusetts Democrat under the Logan Act,

By Bob Brigham / Raw Story

May 4, 2018, 11:04 PM GMT

The chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence is calling for former Secretary of State John Kerry to be the very first person every arrested under a constitutionally dubious 1799 law.

Congressman Devin Nunes (R-CA) made his demand to imprison the former Massachusetts Democrat under the Logan Act, which could theoretically result in three year in federal prison.

The allegations followed a new Boston Globe report on former Secretary of State Kerry working to save the Iran nuclear deal.

sec of state; http://grist.org/news/as-climate-change-broils-the-arctic-john-kerry-apologizes/

uber: https://webbrain.com/brainpage/brain/6950F840-FB80-FCB0-D505-8AB1FA685F08

Boston Brahmin, opium trade:

The influence of these opium fortunes seeped into virtually every aspect of American life. That influence was cultural: the transcendentalistRalph Waldo Emersonmarried John Murray Forbes’s daughter, and his father-in-law’s fortune helped provide Emerson with the cushion to become a professional thinker.

It was found in technology:Forbes’s son watched over his father’s investment in the Bell Telephone Company as its first president, and Abiel Abbot Low provided start-up money for the first transatlantic cable.

And it was ideological: JosephCoolidge’s heirs founded the Council on Foreign Relations. Several companies that would play major roles in American history were also the product of drug profits, among them the United Fruit Company, started by the Coolidge family. Scratch the history of an institution or a person with the name Forbes attached to it, and there’s a good chance you’ll see that opium is involved.Secretary of State John Forbes Kerry’s great-grandfather was Francis Blackwell Forbes, who got rich selling opium in China.

During his time as president, George W. Bush's foreign policy was driven largely by fear of terrorists and WMDs. Obama's State Department seems at least equally worried about climate change.

Secretary of State John Kerry gave a speech in climate-vulnerable Indonesia on Sunday during which he mocked climate deniers and compared the threat of global warming to terrorism and poverty. The speech came a day after Kerry visited China, where he worked out details of a U.S.-China climate agreement struck last year.

Here are some highlights from his speech in Jakarta:

Colson works with o'neill to discredit kerry

kerry exposed drugs in iran contra hunt 173 [seems a recurring gop strategy: take standard charges and show demos do them too, eg naacp racists and karl bugged]

New book on mil threat of GW

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Kerry

Yale University

In 1962, Kerry entered Yale University, majoring in political science. He graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1966. Kerry played on the soccer, hockey, lacrosseand fencing teams; in addition, he took flying lessons.^[22]

In his sophomore year, Kerry became the Chairman of the Liberal Party of the Yale Political Union, and a year later he served as President of the Union. Amongst his influential teachers in this period was Professor H. Bradford Westerfield, who was himself a former President of the Political Union.^[23] His involvement with the Political Union gave him an opportunity to be involved with important issues of the day, such as the civil rights movement and Kennedy's New Frontier program. He was also a member of the secretive Skull and Bones Society. He also traveled to Switzerland^[24] through AIESEC Yale.^[25][26]

Under the guidance of the speaking coach and history professor Rollin Osterweis, Kerry won many debates against other college students from across the nation.^[27] In March 1965, as the Vietnam War escalated, he won the Ten Eyck prize as the best orator in the junior class for a speech that was critical of U.S. foreign policy. In the speech he said, "It is the spectre of Western imperialism that causes more fear among Africans and Asians than communism and thus, it is self-defeating."^[28]

Kerry, viewed as a capable speaker, was chosen to give the class oration at graduation. His speech was a broad criticism of American foreign policy, including the Vietnam War, in which he would soon participate.

[edit] Military service (1966–1970)

Main article: John Kerry's military service

[edit] Duty on the USS Gridley

On February 18, 1966, Kerry enlisted in the Naval Reserve.^[29] He began his active duty military service on August 19, 1966. After completing sixteen weeks of Officer Candidate School at the U.S. Naval Training Center in Newport, Rhode Island, Kerry received his officer's commission on December 16, 1966. During the 2004 election, Kerry posted his military records at his website, and permitted reporters to inspect his medical records. In 2005, Kerry released his military and medical records to the representatives of three news organizations, but has not authorized full public access to those records.^[30][31]

Kerry's first tour of duty was as an ensign on the guided missile frigate USS *Gridley* in 1968. The executive officer of the Gridley described the deployment as: "We deployed from San Diego to the Vietnam theatre in early 1968 after only a six-month turnaround, and spent most of a four month deployment on rescue station in the Gulf of Tonkin, standing by to pick up downed aviators."

During his tour on the Gridley, Kerry requested duty in Vietnam, listing as his first preference a position as the commander of a Fast Patrol Craft (PCF), also known as a "Swift boat."^[32] These 50-foot (15 m) boats have aluminum hulls and have little or no armor, but are heavily armed and rely on speed. "I didn't really want to get involved in the war", Kerry said in a book of Vietnam reminiscences published in 1986. "When I signed up for the swift boats, they had very little to do with the war. They were engaged in coastal patrolling and that's what I thought I was going to be doing."^[33] However, his second choice of billet was on a river patrol boat, or "PBR", which at the time was serving a more dangerous duty on the rivers of Vietnam.^[32]

On June 16, 1968, Kerry was promoted to the rank of lieutenant, junior grade. On June 20, 1968, he left the Gridley for Swift boat training at the Naval Amphibious Base in Coronado.

[edit] Swift boat duty

On November 17, 1968, Kerry reported for duty at Coastal Squadron 1 in Cam Ranh Bay in South Vietnam. In his role as an officer in charge of Swift boats, Kerry led five-man crews on a number of patrols into enemy-controlled areas. His first command was Swift boat PCF-44, from December 6, 1968 to January 21, 1969, when the crew was disbanded. They were based at Coastal Division 13 at Cat Lo from December 13, 1968 to January 6, 1969. Otherwise, they were stationed at Coastal Division 11 at An Thoi. On January 30, 1969, Kerry took charge of PCF-94 and its crew, which he led until he departed An Thoi on March 26, 1969, and subsequently the crew was disbanded.^[34]

On January 22, 1969, Kerry and several other officers had a meeting in Saigon with Admiral Elmo Zumwalt, the commander of U.S. Naval forces in Vietnam, and U.S. Army General Creighton Abrams, the overall commander of U.S. forces in Vietnam. Kerry and the other officers reported that the "free-fire zone" policy was alienating the Vietnamese and that the Swift boats' actions were not accomplishing their ostensible goal of interdicting Viet Cong supply lines. According to his biographer, Douglas Brinkley, Kerry and the other visiting officers felt their concerns were dismissed with what amounted to a pep talk (Tour of Duty, pp. 254–261).

[edit] Military honors

During the night of December 2, 1968 and early morning of December 3, 1968, Kerry was in charge of a small boat operating near a peninsula north of Cam Ranh Baytogether with a Swift boat (PCF-60). According to Kerry and the two crewmen who accompanied him that night, Patrick Runyon and William Zaladonis, they surprised a group of men unloading sampans at a river crossing, who began running and failed to obey an order to stop. As the men fled, Kerry and his crew opened fire on the sampans and destroyed them, then rapidly left. During this encounter, Kerry received a shrapnel wound in the left arm above the elbow. It was for this injury that Kerry received his first Purple Heart.^[35]

Kerry received his second Purple Heart for a wound received in action on the Bo De River on February 20, 1969. The plan had been for the Swift boats to be accompanied by support helicopters. On the way up the Bo De, however, the helicopters were attacked. They returned to their base to refuel and were unable to return to the mission for several hours.

As the Swift boats reached the Cua Lon River, Kerry's boat was hit by a RPG round, and a piece of shrapnel hit Kerry's left leg, wounding him. Thereafter, they had no more trouble, and reached the Gulf of Thailand safely. Kerry still has shrapnel in his left thigh because the doctors tending to him decided to remove the damaged tissue and close the wound with sutures rather than make a wide opening to remove the shrapnel.^[36] Kerry received his second Purple Heart for this injury, but like several others wounded earlier that day, he did not lose any time off from duty.^[37][38]

Eight days later, on February 28, 1969, came the events for which Kerry was awarded his Silver Star. On this occasion, Kerry was in tactical command of his Swift boat and two others in an eight boat formation. Their mission on the Duong Keo river included bringing a demolition team and dozens of South Vietnamese Marines to destroy enemy sampans, structures and bunkers as described in the story The Death Of PCF 43.^[39] Running into an ambush, Kerry "directed the boats to turn to the beach and charge the Viet Cong positions" and he "expertly directed" his boat's fire and coordinated the deployment of the South Vietnamese troops, according to the original medal citation (signed by Admiral Zumwalt). Going a short distance farther, Kerry's boat was the target of an RPG round; as the boat beached at the site, a VC with a rocket launcher jumped and ran from a spider hole. While the boat's gunner opened fire, wounding the VC on the leg, and while the other boats approached and offered cover fire, Kerry jumped from the boat and chased the VC and killed him, capturing a loaded rocket launcher.^[40][41][41]

Kerry's commanding officer, Lieutenant Commander George Elliott, joked to Douglas Brinkley in 2003 that he didn't know whether to court-martial Kerry for beaching the boat without orders or give him a medal for saving the crew. Elliott recommended Kerry for the Silver Star, and Zumwalt flew into An Thoi to personally award medals to Kerry and the rest of the sailors involved in the mission. The Navy's account of Kerry's actions is presented in the original medal citation signed by Zumwalt. The engagement was documented in an after-action report, a press release written on March 1, 1969, and a historical summary dated March 17, 1969.^[42]

On March 13, 1969, five Swift boats were returning to base together on the Bay Hap river from their missions that day, after a firefight earlier in the day (during which time Kerry received a slight shrapnel wound in the buttocks from blowing up a rice bunker), and debarking some but not all of the passengers at a small village. They approached a fishing weir (a series of poles across the river for hanging nets), so that one group of boats went around left, hugging the shore, and a group with Kerry's 94 boat went around right along the shoreline. A mine was detonated directly beneath the lead boat, PCF-3, as it crossed the weir to the left, lifting PCF-3 completely into the air.^[43]

James Rassmann, a Green Beret advisor who was aboard PCF-94, was knocked overboard when, according to witnesses and the documentation of the event, a mine or rocket exploded close to the boat. According to the documentation for the event, Kerry's arm was injured when he was thrown against a bulkhead during the explosion. PCF 94 returned to the scene and Kerry rescued Rassmann from the water. Kerry received the Bronze Star for his actions during this incident; he also received his third Purple Heart.^[44]

After the crew of PCF-3 had been rescued, and the most seriously wounded sailors evacuated by two of the PCFs, PCF 94 and another boat remained behind and helped salvage the stricken boat together with a damage-control party that had been immediately dispatched to the scene.

[edit] Controversy

Main article: John Kerry military service controversy

As the presidential campaign of 2004 developed, approximately 200 Vietnam veterans formed the group Swift Boat Veterans for Truth (SBVT), subsequently renamed Swift Vets and POWs for Truth, which held press conferences, ran ads and endorsed a book questioning Kerry's service record and his military awards.

[edit] Return from Vietnam

After Kerry's third qualifying wound, he was entitled per Navy regulations to re-assignment away from combat duties. Navy records show that Kerry's preferred choice for re-assignment was as an aide in Boston, New York or Washington, D.C.^[45]

On March 26, 1969, after a final patrol the night before, Kerry was transferred to Cam Ranh Bay to await his orders. He was there for five or six days and left Vietnam in early April. On April 11, 1969, he reported to the Brooklyn-based Atlantic Military Sea Transportation Service, where he would remain on active duty for the following year as a personal aide to an officer, Rear Admiral Walter Schlech. On January 1, 1970 Kerry was temporarily promoted to full Lieutenant.^[46] Kerry had agreed to an extension of his active duty obligation from December 1969 to August 1970 in order to perform Swift Boat duty,^[47][48] but in January, 1970, he requested early discharge in order to run for Congress the following fall. He was discharged from active duty on March 1, 1970.

John Kerry was on active duty in the United States Navy from August 1966 until January 1970. He continued to serve in the Naval Reserve until February 1978. Kerry lost at least five friends in the war including Yale classmate Richard Pershing, who was killed in action on February 17, 1968.

[edit] Anti-war activism (1970–1971)

After returning to the United States, Kerry joined the Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW). Then numbering about 20,000,^[49] VVAW was considered by some (including the administration of President Richard Nixon) to be an effective, if controversial, component of the antiwar movement.^[50]

On April 22, 1971, Kerry became the first Vietnam veteran to testify before Congress about the war, when he appeared before a Senate committee hearing on proposals relating to ending the war. He was still a member of the United States Navy Reserve, holding the rank of Lieutenant Junior Grade. Wearing green fatigues and service ribbons, he spoke for nearly two hours with the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in what has been named the Fulbright Hearing, after the Chairman of the proceedings, Senator J.W. Fulbright. Kerry began with a prepared speech, in which he presented the conclusions of the Winter Soldier Investigation, and then went on to address larger policy issues.

The day after this testimony, Kerry participated in a demonstration with thousands of other veterans in which he and other veterans threw their medals and ribbons over a fence erected at the front steps of the United States Capitol building to dramatize their opposition to the war. Jack Smith, a Marine, read a statement explaining why the veterans were returning their military awards to the government. For more than two hours, almost 1000 angry veterans tossed their medals, ribbons, hats, jackets, and military papers over the fence. Each veteran gave his or her name, hometown, branch of service and a statement. As Kerry threw his decorations over the fence, his statement was: "I'm not doing this for any violent reasons, but for peace and justice, and to try and make this country wake up once and for all."^[51] The documentary film Sir! No Sir! includes archival footage of Kerry at the demonstration: he is one of several young men seen throwing things over the fence.

[edit] Media appearances

Because Kerry was a decorated veteran who took a stand against the government's official position, he was frequently interviewed by broadcast and print media. He was able to use these occasions to bring the themes of his Senate testimony to a wider audience.

For example, Kerry appeared more than once on The Dick Cavett Show on ABC television. On one Cavett program (June 30, 1971), in debating John O'Neill, Kerry argued that some of the policies instituted by the U.S. military leaders in Vietnam, such as free-fire zones and burning noncombatants' houses, were contrary to the laws of war. In the Washington Star newspaper (June 6, 1971), he recounted how he and other Swift boat officers had become disillusioned by the contrast between what the leaders told them and what they saw: "That's when I realized I could never remain silent about the realities of the war in Vietnam."

On NBC's Meet The Press in 1971, Kerry was asked whether he had personally committed atrocities in Vietnam. He responded:

“

There are all kinds of atrocities, and I would have to say that, yes, yes, I committed the same kind of atrocities as thousands of other soldiers have committed in that I took part in shootings in free fire zones. I conducted harassment and interdiction fire. I used 50 calibre machine guns, which we were granted and ordered to use, which were our only weapon against people. I took part in search and destroy missions, in the burning of villages. All of this is contrary to the laws of warfare, all of this is contrary to the Geneva Conventions and all of this is ordered as a matter of written established policy by the government of the United States from the top down. And I believe that the men who designed these, the men who designed the free fire zone, the men who ordered us, the men who signed off the air raid strike areas, I think these men, by the letter of the law, the same letter of the law that tried Lieutenant Calley, are war criminals.

”

[edit] Operation POW

Kerry's prominence also made him a frequent leader and spokesman at antiwar events around the country in 1971. One of particular note was Operation POW, organized by the VVAW in Massachusetts. The protest got its name from the group's concern that Americans were prisoners of the Vietnam War, as well as to honor American POWs held captive by North Vietnam.

The event sought to tie antiwar activism to patriotic themes. Over the Memorial Day weekend, veterans and other participants marched from Concord to a rally on Boston Common. The plan was to invoke the spirit of the American Revolution and Paul Revere by spending successive nights at the sites of the Battle of Lexington and Concordand the Battle of Bunker Hill, culminating in a Memorial Day rally with a public reading of the Declaration of Independence.

The second night of the march, May 29, 1971, was the occasion for Kerry's only arrest, when the participants tried to camp on the village green in Lexington. At 2:30 a.m. on May 30, 1971, local and state police awoke and arrested 441 demonstrators, including Kerry, for trespassing. All were given the Miranda Warning and were hauled away on school buses to spend the night at the Lexington Public Works Garage. Kerry and the other protesters later paid a $5 fine, and were released. The mass arrests caused a community backlash and ended up giving positive coverage to the VVAW.^[52][53][54]

Despite his role in Operation POW and other VVAW events, Kerry eventually quit the organization over leadership differences. Kerry has been criticized regarding VVAW—see John Kerry VVAW controversy for more details.

[edit] Early political career (1972–1985)

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/10/11/101011fa_fact_lizza

...

W?hen the Obama era began, John Kerry was looking for a new political identity. Like Lieberman, he had a strained relationship with the new President. Kerry had been scheduled to endorse Obama the day after Obama’s presumed victory in the New Hampshire primary. But Obama lost, and that night he nervously called Kerry and asked, “Are you still on board?” Kerry said he was. “Ninety-nine per cent of politicians would have walked away at that moment, because our odds of winning the primaries were quite low,” Dan Pfeiffer, now Obama’s communications director, told me in a 2008 interview. “It was a huge moment.” Kerry and his aides believed that, if Obama was the President, Kerry’s endorsement would give him the inside track in the competition for the job as Secretary of State. But Obama passed him over.

Kerry, as the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, could help steer the Administration’s foreign policy, but he wanted to play a big role in shaping Obama’s domestic agenda. In 2007, he had written a book about environmental activism, “This Moment on Earth,” and the issue was a rare one in which the junior senator from Massachusetts had a deeper interest than the senior senator, Ted Kennedy. For most of their quarter century together in the Senate, Kennedy was the legislator (the Americans with Disabilities Act, State Children’s Health Insurance Program, No Child Left Behind), and Kerry was the investigator (P.O.W.s in Vietnam, B.C.C.I., Iran-Contra). Now that could change. “This was Kerry’s opportunity to prove that he could be in a major, really historic piece of legislation,” Lieberman said.

At first, Kerry joined forces with Barbara Boxer, and spent months trying to find a Republican co-sponsor for her bill, which was almost a carbon copy of Waxman-Markey. In August, Rosengarten was eating lunch with Kerry’s climate-policy aide, Kathleen Frangione, at Sonoma, a Capitol Hill wine bar. Rosengarten said she had spent hours working on the nuclear legislation with Graham’s policy aide, Matthew Rimkunas, and she was shocked by something he had recently told her: Graham would have backed a climate-change bill that Lieberman had co-sponsored in 2007 if it had included the language supportive of nuclear power that they had just worked out. Kerry and Graham had to talk. Perhaps Kerry could split off from Boxer and try to work with Graham on a bipartisan bill.

Within days, Kerry and Graham were meeting in Kerry’s office to negotiate the language of a Times Op-Ed piece announcing their partnership. As they talked, Kerry suddenly found himself having to reassess his convictions on oil drilling, nuclear energy, and environmental regulations with someone he barely knew and whom he had reason not to like. In 2004, Graham had gratuitously told the Times that Kerry “has no charisma” and “doesn’t relate well to average people.” But the two men agreed that their eventual bill would have to help the nuclear industry and expand oil drilling. As they wrote the article, Graham introduced a third issue: revoking the E.P.A.’s authority to regulate greenhouse gases. Kerry was furious, but he eventually relented. The Op-Ed would include language signalling to insiders that E.P.A. authority would be curtailed: “Industry needs the certainty that comes with congressional action.”

The article ran on October 11th. The next day, Graham was holding a town-hall meeting in the gym of a high school in Greenville, South Carolina. His constituents were not happy. One man accused him of “making a pact with the Devil.” Another shouted, “No principled compromise!” One audience member asked, “Why do you think it’s necessary to get in bed with people like John Kerry?” Graham, dressed in a blue blazer and khakis, paced the floor, explaining that there were only forty Republicans in the Senate, which meant that he had to work with the sixty Democrats. A man in the bleachers shouted, “You’re a traitor, Mr. Graham! You’ve betrayed this nation and you’ve betrayed this state!”

Soon afterward, Graham called Lieberman. He was concerned that Kerry might drag him too far to the left, and he knew that Lieberman, a close friend with whom he had travelled during McCain’s Presidential campaign, could serve as a moderating force. Graham may not have remembered that Kerry and Lieberman had, according to a Senate aide, “a tense personal relationship.” (Lieberman and Kerry ran against each other for President in 2004. In 2006, Kerry endorsed and campaigned for Lieberman’s Democratic opponent in his Senate race.) “I’m happy to try and negotiate a bill with Kerry,” Graham told Lieberman. “But I really want you in the room.”...

Three weeks later, Kerry and some aides were in his office discussing the progress of their bill. Someone mentioned T. Boone Pickens, the author of the so-called Pickens Plan, an energy-independence proposal centered on enormous government subsidies for natural gas, which is abundant, cleaner-burning than other fossil fuels, and sold by a Pickens-controlled corporation at some two hundred natural-gas fuelling stations across North America. Back in 2004, Pickens had helped to fund the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, a group that ran a sleazy—and inaccurate—ad campaign proclaiming, among other things, that Kerry had lied about the circumstances that led to his Bronze Star and Purple Hearts.

Kerry had an inspiration. “I’m going to call T. Boone,” he said. Frangione was surprised. “You really want to call that guy?” she asked. Kerry told an aide to get Pickens on the phone. Minutes later, Kerry was inviting Pickens to Washington to talk. Rosengarten, who watched Kerry make the call, thought it was “a show of extraordinary leadership.” The following week, Pickens and Kerry sat in two upholstered chairs in the Senator’s office. Between them loomed a giant model of Kerry’s Vietnam swift boat. Kerry walked Pickens through the components of the bill that he and his colleagues were writing, but Pickens seemed uninterested. He had just one request: include in the climate legislation parts of a bill that Pickens had written, called the Natural Gas Act, a series of tax incentives to encourage the use of natural-gas vehicles and the installation of natural-gas fuelling stations. In exchange, Pickens would publicly endorse the bill. At the end of the meeting, the Senator shook hands with the man who had probably cost him the Presidency. Afterward, staffers in one of the K.G.L. offices started telling a joke: “What do you call a climate bill that gives Pickens everything he ever dreamed of?” “A Boonedoggle!”

...

By the end of April, about sixty thousand barrels of oil a day were flowing into the Gulf of Mexico. To many environmentalists, the Deepwater Horizon catastrophe was a potential turning point, a disaster that might resurrect the climate legislation. But in Washington the oil spill had the opposite effect. Kerry and Lieberman were left sponsoring a bill with a sweeping expansion of offshore drilling at a moment when the newspapers were filled with photographs of birds soaking in oil. Even worse, the lone Republican, who had written the oil-drilling section to appeal to his Republican colleagues, was gone. The White House’s “grand bargain” of oil drilling in exchange for a cap on carbon had backfired spectacularly.

For three months, a period of record-high temperatures in Washington, what was now called the Kerry-Lieberman bill was debated and discussed as if it were a viable piece of legislation, but no Republican stepped forward to support it. During one speech in early June, Obama said that he knew “the votes may not be there right now, but I intend to find them in the coming months.” He never found them, and he didn’t appear to be looking very hard.

Kerry and Lieberman abandoned their attempt to cap the emissions of the oil industry and heavy manufacturers and pared the bill back so that it would cover only the utility industry. The E.E.I. wanted even more if utilities were to be the only guinea pigs for cap-and-trade. This time, the electric companies demanded regulatory relief from non-greenhouse-gas emissions, like mercury and other poisons, as well as more free allowances. Kerry refused to discuss those pollutants, but, in what was probably the nadir of the twenty-month effort, he responded, “Well, what if we gave you more time to comply and decreased the rigor of the reduction targets?” The cap was supposed to be sacrosanct, but Kerry had put it on the table. As a participant said afterward, “The poster child of this bill is its seventeen-per-cent-reduction target. It’s the President’s position in Copenhagen. It’s equal to the House bill.” Now Kerry was saying they could go lower.

As hopes for any kind of bill faded, Kerry and Lieberman kept fighting. They met with Olympia Snowe, who, like Tantalus’ fruit tree, always seemed to be almost within their grasp. She had started talking to them about the utility-only bill, and the two senators begged her to allow them to mention her name publicly to reporters. “Can we please just say that you’re willing to have a conversation about options?” Kerry asked. “No, do not say that,” Snowe responded. Still, Kerry could not resist telling reporters that day, “Even this morning, Senator Lieberman and I had a meeting with one Republican who has indicated a willingness to begin working towards something.”

By DARREN SAMUELSOHN | 11/1/10 1:50 PM EDT Updated: 11/1/10 2:43 PM EDT

The late nights and lost weekends have finally caught up with Sen. John Kerry's top climate staffer, who will join a downtown lobbying shop next week after spending much of the past three years writing global warming legislation on Capitol Hill.

Kathleen Frangione was Kerry’s lead aide during negotiations on the Senate cap-and-trade proposal, a job that put her in the middle of closed-door talks with Sens. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.), Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and dozens of other offices.

Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1110/44494.html#ixzz17p728lzI

Opposition from Republicans and moderate Democrats ultimately killed the bill despite support from President Barack Obama and the passage of a similar measure in the House.

Starting Nov. 8, Fragione will be an executive vice president at McBee Strategic, a Washington D.C.-based lobbying and communications shop, a company official said Monday.

Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1110/44494.html#ixzz17p6upszj