webodec3ARCHIVEPreview
Open in TheBrain

Chaffetz, Jason Rep

==

GAI

1.20 new pension pensn tag in his dishonor, fox gig impeach, // trey gowdy

utah, young guy bailled 2017?! saw blue wave coming? --> fox

SUB FOR HANNITY

---

---

---

---

---

Sean Hannity Show guest host Jason Chaffetz cuts off guest from talking about the Supreme Court decision that limits Roundup cancer litigation against Bayer

07/01/26 MMA

---

MMA As MAHA activists fumed over the Supreme Court’s decision to shield Monsanto owner Bayer, right-wing cable news networks appeared to avoid the topic

Though the cancer liability case and the herbicide glyphosate have received significant attention from Trump supporters, Fox ignored it, and Newsmax barely discussed it

Written by Ilana Berger & Harrison Ray

Published 06/30/26

While MAHA decried the Supreme Court’s recent Monsanto Co. v. Durnell decision, Fox networks completely ignored the ruling, and Newsmax barely touched it, dedicating only 3 minutes of coverage to the decision.

The scant coverage on right-wing cable networks is notable given the immediate wave of backlash to the decision that came from the MAHA coalition, which Donald Trump successfully courted during the 2024 campaign cycle with promises that “we’re going to get toxic chemicals out of our environment, and we’re going to get them out of our food supply.” Prominent figures in the MAHA movement, which became a key component of Trump’s voting base, called the Supreme Court’s decision a “betrayal of the American people” and expressed outrage with the administration for orchestrating the outcome of the case.

Media coverage framed the ruling as a victory for the agrochemical industry and the Trump administration, which carried out a multipronged effort to shield Monsanto-owner Bayer from accountability for the harms allegedly caused by its controversial product. President Donald Trump issued an executive order in February declaring glyphosate, the active ingredient in Roundup, critical to national security, and in March, U.S. Solicitor General D. John Sauer filed an amicus brief urging the Supreme Court to rule in favor of Bayer.

According to the environmental advocacy group EarthJustice, the Monsanto v. Durnell ruling could allow companies to “escape liability simply because the EPA approved their labels at some point in the past, even if the company concealed how harmful their pesticides were to people.”

Despite widespread condemnation from MAHA advocates, many of whom have supported Trump in the past, major right-wing news networks largely ignored the ruling. From June 25, 2026, when the U.S. Supreme Court released its Monsanto v. Durnell decision, through June 29, 2026, Fox Business Network and Fox News Channel both failed to mention the ruling even once. Meanwhile, Newsmax gave the ruling only about 3 minutes of coverage across 2 segments and 1 mention in a segment about a different court case.

In one segment on the June 25 episode of Bianca Across the Nation, host Bianca de la Garza noted that the case had received “a lot of attention" from the MAHA movement and questioned whether the decision would be “letting people who believe they were sick be blocked altogether from making claims?"

Citation

From the June 25, 2026, edition of Newsmax's Bianca Across The Nation

Some other media figures have defended Trump’s characterization of glyphosate as essential to the United States’ national security and food systems. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the figure at the helm of the so-called Make America Healthy Again movement, also defended the administration's actions around glyphosate in March on The Joe Rogan Experience.

Methodology}:

---

the MAGA media response to six Democratic members of Congress reminding their former compatriots in the military and intelligence community of their duty to “refuse illegal orders” reached a fever pitch on Thursday. After President Donald Trump suggested earlier that day that the lawmakers should face the death penalty for sedition, his propagandists chimed in, describing the Democrats as “devious and subversive” and their actions as “border[ing] on treason.”

On Wednesday, Sens. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI) and Mark Kelly (D-AZ), as well as Reps. Jason Crow (D-CO), Maggie Goodlander (D-NH), Chris Deluzio (D-PA), and Chrissy Houlahan (D-PA) released a video in which they urged current members of the military and intelligence community to disobey “illegal orders.” While they did not provide examples, the release came amid debates over the legality of U.S. military strikes in the Caribbean and domestic troop deployments. The video drew a deranged response from many on the right, who accused the lawmakers of committing “treason” and trying to “trigger a military coup.”

The president himself weighed in Thursday morning with a series of Truth Social posts in which he accused the lawmakers of “SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR,” described them as “traitors to our Country,” and called for them to be “ARRESTED AND PUT ON TRIAL” for crimes he described as “punishable by DEATH!” The lawmakers in the video and Democratic House leadership both condemned Trump’s posts, while White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt claimed that Trump did not in fact seek the deaths of the members of Congress.

Trump is currently operating from a position of weakness, with his support in polls in a tailspinand his congressional allies having successfully revolted over the Jeffrey Epstein files. He’s previously responded to such circumstances by seeking to reunify his coalition by pointing them at a common enemy, and that seems to be what has happened this week. To the extent that he’s given his most loyal propagandists someone to attack, it’s working.

Fox News prime-time host Jesse Watters claimed on Thursday night that the “Democrats sent a clear message to everybody in the military and CIA: You're free to commit treason.” He described their actions as “devious and subversive,” said they were “planting coup seeds inside the Pentagon and at Langley,” and accused them of “psychological warfare launched by sitting politicians against the American military in peacetime” and “trying to blow up the chain of command.”

Video

Citation

From the November 20, 2025, edition of Fox News' Jesse Watters Primetime

Watters’ colleague Sean Hannity argued the next hour, “The only question tonight [is] will these six Democratic lawmakers be held accountable in a court of law?” He then commented that he’s “not sure” they committed crimes punishable by death because he’s “not a lawyer,” and asked Fox contributor and former Republican congressman Jason Chaffetz to weigh in. Chaffetz assured him that “what they did borders on treason. It really does.” He added that “President Trump was actually exactly right” because “If you do commit treason, guess what? It is punishable by death. That's just the law. He's just reciting the law.”

Their competitors at Newsmax were similarly enraged. Carl Higbie declared that Trump’s posts show he “is done playing around with garbage,” pointed out that “George Washington did hang traitors many times, including Benedict Arnold's British counterpart,” and claimed that the Democrats “should be court-martialed themselves” because “that type of rhetoric from senators and congressmen is sedition.” Greg Kelly commented that “a lot of people” think the lawmakers committed “treason, or mutiny, or something along those lines,” and accused them of “plotting the seeds, I think, of another coup.” And The Right Squad’s Chris Plante said the Democrats were “inciting civil war.”

And Laura Loomer, whose influence in the Oval Office has triggered the firings of numerous administration officials for insufficient loyalty, wrote: “President Trump just re posted a post on Truth Social calling for seditious Democrat Senators to be hung for calling on members of the military to defy President Trump’s orders as Commander in Chief.”

“Trump is right,” she added. “That’s the type of justice Americans want to see.”

//

  1. ### Right-wing media figures are calling a recent video from Democratic lawmakers “treason” and “sedition”

11/20/25 4:42 PM EST

  1. ### Fox News hid its brutal Trump job approval number from viewers — while showering him with praise

11/20/25 12:56 PM EST

  1. ### Trump’s latest attempt to defuse the Epstein revolt: Point supporters at common enemies

07/21/25

---

Steve Bannon threatens DOJ officials: “We are going to torment you and destroy your lives”

01/06/25 mma

January 6, 2025, edition of Real America's Voice's War Room

STEVE BANNON (HOST): Matthew Graves. These people are relentless. They are unchained, and Matthew Graves has to understand something. Matthew Graves, write this down. Or if Matthew Graves' family or anybody that knows Matthew Graves, make sure his family knows this.

You're going to prison for a very long time. You're a totally evil person that has broken the law and destroyed lives, and the people whose lives you destroyed may not have the power to do anything about it, but we certainly do, and we are. You are a truly evil individual and you're deranged.

Lisa Monaco, Merrick Garland, the guy Bratt, Matthew Graves, all of you, we are going to torment you and destroy your lives because you deserve to have your lives destroyed like you've destroyed patriots from January 6th. Yes, patriots.

…

Matthew Graves, you think this is funny? You think we take this as funny? We don't take it as funny, brother.

And when you're serving in your 10th year of your 20 year sentence in that - in the cell, in a cell block right at some low security, because you're not going to go to a camp, to a low security prison, I want you to remember this day when we actually committed ourselves body and soul to make sure that you people are hunted down and brought to justice.

//

Steve Bannon says Mike Johnson should not be speaker: “We don't need partisanship now. We need hyper-partisanship now.”

12/20/24 1:53 PM EST

  1. ### Media Matters weekly newsletter, December 20

12/20/24 10:48 AM EST

  1. ### Steve Bannon on a government shutdown: “I'd like just to shut it down. Go home.”

12/19/24

---

porn star case sentencing

Fox News legal analyst calls for investigation into Jack Smith and his staff

01/03/25

January 3, 2025, edition of Fox News' Hannity

JASON CHAFFETZ (HOST): Gregg, what's the incoming administration -- what can they do to push back not just in this case, but across the country, the lawfare that's been used against the Trump family, quite frankly, and against conservatives and Republicans broadly? What can this administration do to just put justice back where it's supposed to be, with a blindfold and equal to everybody?

GREGG JARRETT (GUEST): Well, Trump already won the lawfare battle. He is essentially prevailed. This is sort of the last case -- and the professor and I agree, it's guaranteed to get reversed because it was such an abomination.

But I do think, to answer your question, that the incoming Department of Justice needs to take a very close look at the conduct of Jack Smith, his entire staff, bringing specious cases in Washington and Florida. And if laws were broken by prosecutors, those prosecutors should be prosecuted. If they didn't break laws, nevertheless, their unscrupulous, unprincipled behavior needs to be exposed, and that's the job for Pam Bondi, assuming she is approved as the next attorney general in charge of the Department of Justice.

Same thing goes for the FBI. I mean, it has -- sad to say, this is not a reflection on the hardworking agents out in the field, but, you know, it is the headquarters that has corrupted itself with an abuse of the law and that needs to be fixed as well.

just loathesome

December 12, 2024, edition of Fox News' Hannity

SEAN HANNITY (HOST): Checking in with Tim and Gwen Walz, they released this incredibly, kind of cringeworthy video while decorating their Christmas tree. Take a look.

...

My only question is, Rachel, I wonder if they put any feminine hygiene products on the tree, number one. Number two, I wonder if they're burning tires outside their homes so they can get that smell of freedom back that they love so much.

RACHEL CAMPOS-DUFFY (GUEST): Yeah, this was so cringe, it almost felt like SNL. By the way, notice how they don't call their tree a Christmas tree, it's a "family tree." These guys were such communists. I have to tell you, we really dodged a bullet not just with Kamala but also imagine if this was the vice president and his second lady. I mean, these people are very strange. And it's weird, remember they went around saying JD Vance was weird. This is weird.

HANNITY: Yeah, you probably can't see this, Jason, but he walks on — up in the air, kicking his feet in the air — bowing. I mean, the weirdest guy I've ever seen in my life. But I do wonder, I mean, what did they decorate the tree with? I mean, if they believe so much in feminine hygiene products in boys bathrooms in school, why wouldn't they put it on their Christmas tree?

JASON CHAFFETZ (GUEST): Well, they put a toilet paper roll on top. I mean, they're just -- there are just some things that you're not supposed to share with the whole rest of the world. I mean, this is so embarrassing. The contrast couldn't be bigger. You've got freedom ringing out, you've got people chanting "USA," they're feeling, you know — they're talking about patriotism with Donald Trump. Meanwhile, we go to the Walz basement or wherever they're at, I mean, it's like taking the green casserole from Thanksgiving. You got to take it out of the fridge and at some point you just have to throw it away. And that's what we need to do here.

---

Fox News’ Jason Chaffetz threatens Republicans who refuse to confirm Fox & Friends weekend co-host Pete Hegseth for Secretary of Defense

11/12/24 MMA

Charlie Kirk threatens to remove Sen. John Thune (R-SD) as majority leader

11/13/24

2 mma same day harris BS

---

8 24 mma

on August 15, Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris began outlining her economic agenda, which includes fighting excessive prices by enacting a federal ban on price gouging.

Most states already have some kind of law banning price gouging in at least some circumstances, but Harris’ new proposal would create the first ever federal ban on price gouging on groceries and empower the Federal Trade Commission to enforce these new consumer protections.

Yet Fox News and others in the media reacted by falsely mischaracterizing Harris’ proposal as setting price controls, denying that price gouging exists in the food industry, and ranting about communism.

* ## An FTC investigation revealed price gouging by major supermarket chains, and there have been many cases of price fixing in the food industry

{ Fox guest Kevin O’Leary:}: “It's been tried before in countries like the Soviet Union, North Korea, Cuba. Doesn't work. So obviously that's not going to happen.” Fox News, *The Story*, [8/15/24]

* Conspiracy theorist Alex Jones: “This has always been the plan. You will eat the bugs! Kamala Harris’ Proposed Price Controls May Lead to ‘Communism, Mass Starvation, End of America.’” Twitter/X, [8/18/24]

related

  1. ### Fox goes to bat for supermarket price gouging as VP Harris prepares to call out corporate greed

08/15/24 11:20 AM EDT

  1. ### Conservative media defend Trump’s corporate tax cuts and make false claims about Kamala Harris’ proposed 28% rate

08/20/24 4:33 PM EDT

  1. ### Economists blame the Fed for jobs report missing expectations. Trump sycophants instead blamed Kamala Harris.

08/02/24

===

thom ref

kickass

How Citizens United Altered the Climate Debate

07.25.14

HOW CITIZENS UNITED ALTERED THE CLIMATE DEBATE
As delivered on the Senate floor

Thank you, Madam President, this is my seventy-fifth “Time to Wake Up” speech,something of a minor benchmark, I suppose. I come here urging my colleagues to wake up to the threat of climate change. I do this every week that we are in session, hoping that someday spark will hit tinder. But even as the evidence of climate change deepens, the dialogue here in Washington remains one-sided.

Climate change was once a bipartisan concern. In recent years, something changed. I think I know what changed, and I will get to that. But first, let’s reminisce about the bipartisanship.

If we take a look back, in this body we have Republican colleagues who once openly acknowledged the existence of carbon-driven climate change, and, and who called for real legislative action to cut carbon emissions. Imagine that. It wasn’t that long ago.

We have a former Republican presidential nominee,amongst us, who campaigned for the presidency on addressing climate change.

We have Republicans who have spoken favorably about charging a fee on carbon, including an original Republican cosponsor of a bipartisan Senate carbon fee bill.

We have a Republican colleague who cosponsored carbon fee legislation in the House, and another who voted for the Waxman-Markey “cap and trade” bill when he was in the House.

For years,for years there was a steady, healthy heartbeat of Republican support for major U.S. legislation to address carbon pollution. Let me be specific.

In 2003, Senator John McCain was the lead cosponsor of Democrat Joe Lieberman’s Climate Stewardship Act, which would have created a market-based emissions cap and trading program to reduce carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping pollutants from the biggest U.S. sources.

Here is what Senator McCain said at the time: I’ll quote him, “While we cannot say with 100 percent confidence what will happen in the future, we do know the emission of greenhouse gases is not healthy for the environment. As many of the top scientists through the world have stated, the sooner we start to reduce these emissions, the better off we will be in the future.”

His Climate Stewardship Act actually got a vote. Imagine that!

And when it did not prevail, Senator McCain reintroduced the measure himself in the following Congress. Republican Senators Olympia Snowe of Maine and Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island—my predecessor—were among that bill’s cosponsors.

Other Republicans got behind other cap-and-trade proposals: Senator Tom Carper’s “Clean Air Planning Act”, at one time or another, counted Senator Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, Senator Lyndsey Graham of South Carolina and Senator Susan Collins of Maine among its supporters.

In 2007, Republican Senator Olympia Snowe was a lead cosponsor of then-Senator Kerry’s “Global Warming Reduction Act.” Senators Murkowski and Stevens from Alaska, and Senator Specter of Pennsylvania, then a Republican, were original cosponsors of the Bingaman “Low Carbon Economy Act.” And that same year, Senator Alexander introduced the “Clean Air/Climate Change Act.” Each of these bills sought to reduce carbon emissions through a cap-and-trade mechanism. Said Senator Alexander, and I’ll quote him, “It is also time to acknowledge that climate change is real, human activity is a big part of the problem, and it is up to us to act.”- 2007

That bipartisan heartbeat remained strong in 2009. Senator Mark Kirk of Illinois, while he served in the House of Representatives, was one of eight Republicans to vote for the Waxman-Markey cap-and-trade proposal.

In that same year, 2009, Senator Jeff Flake of Arizona, then representing Arizona in the House, was an original cosponsor of the “Raise Wages, Cut Carbon Act,” to reduce payroll taxes for employers and employees in exchange for equal revenue from a carbon tax. On the House Floor, then-Representative Flake argued the virtues of this approach. Here’s what he said:

If we want to be honest about helping the environment, then just impose a carbon tax and make it revenue neutral, give commensurate tax relief on the other side. Myself and another Republican colleague have introduced that legislation to do just that. Let’s have an honest debate about whether or not we want to help the environment by actually having something that is revenue neutral where you tax consumption as opposed to income.

Was a good idea then, and it is still a good idea now. Those words were echoed that year in the Senate by Senator Collins, a lead cosponsor of the “Carbon Limits and Energy for America’s Renewal Act,” Senator Cantwell’s carbon fee bill. “In the United States alone,” said Senator Collins, “emissions of the primary greenhouse gas carbon dioxide have risen more than 20 percent since 1990. Clearly climate change is a daunting environmental challenge,she said, but we must develop solutions that do not impose a heavy burden on our economy, particularly during these difficult economic times.”

2009, Think of it—there was once, not too long ago, clear and forceful acknowledgement, from leading Republican voices, of the real danger posed by climate change, and of Congress’s responsibility to act.

[Heartbeat Graph]

So what happened? Why did this heartbeat of Republican climate action suddenly flatline?

Madam President, I believe we lost the ability to address climate change in a bipartisan way because of the evils of the Supreme Court’s Citizens Uniteddecision. Our present failure to address climate change is a symptom of things gone awry in our democracy due to Citizens United.That decision did not enhance speech in our democracy; it has allowed bullying, wealthy special interests to suppress real debate.

I’ve spoken before on the Senate Floor about the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision—one of the most disgraceful decisions by any Supreme Court; destined ultimately, I believe, to follow cases like Lochner v. New Yorkonto the ash heap of judicial infamy.

But we’re stuck with it for now.

In a nutshell, the Citizens United decision says this: corporations are people; money is speech; so there can be no limit to corporate money influencing American elections. If that doesn’t seem right, it’s because it’s not.

Phony and improper fact-finding by the five conservative activists on the Supreme Court concluded that corporate spending could not ever corrupt elections, just couldn’t do it.By some magic, it’s pure. That’s a bad enough finding on its face, but they also didn’t get that limitless, untraceable political money doesn’t have to be spent to damage our democracy. Unlimited corporate spending in politics can corrupt, not just through floods of anonymous attack advertisements; it can corrupt, secretly and more dangerously, through the mere threat of that spending, through private threats and promises. The presiding officer was the Attorney General of her state, and she well knows how much mischief can be done in backrooms by threats and promises, that’s what Attorney Generals see when they go out and investigate.

And as we’re evaluating the effect of Citizens United on our climate change debate, let’s remember one thing; a lot of this special interest money has been spent against Republicans. I’ve had Republican friends tell me, “what are you complaining about?” They’re spending more against us, than against you. There have been times when that has been true. When the Koch Brothers’ polluter money can come in and bombard you in a small primary election, that’s pretty scary. And when the paid-for right-wing attack machine can be cranked up against you in your Republican primary, that’s pretty scary, too. And what the polluters can do with political spending, they can threaten or promise to do, in ways that the public will never see or know—but the candidate will know. The candidate will know, for sure.

So, I wrote a “friend of the Court” brief to the Supreme Court with Senator McCain to highlight for the justices some of the failings and pitfalls of their shameful Citizens United decision. “The dominating influence of super PACs,” we wrote, “makes it all the easier for those seeking legislative favors and results to discreetly threaten such expenditures if Members of Congress do not accede to their demands.” I think we were right.

So how does this bear on climate change?

All that bipartisan activity I talked about preceded Citizens United. After that, polluter attacks funded by Citizens United money, and the threat of those polluter attacks,perhaps promises not to make those attacks, if you behave cast a dark shadow over Republicans who might work with Democrats on curbing carbon pollution. Tens, perhaps even hundreds of millions of dark-money dollars are being spent by polluters and their front organizations, and God only knows what private threats and promises have been made.

The timing is telling. Before Citizens United, there was an active heartbeat of Republican activity on climate change. Since then, the evidence has only become stronger. But after Citizens United uncorked all that big, dark money, and allowed it to cast its bullying shadow of intimidation over our democracy, Republicans—other than those few who parrot the polluter party line that climate change is just a big old hoax— they have all walked back from any major climate legislation.

We have Senators here who represent historic native villages, now washing into the sea and needing relocation because of climate change and sea-level rise. We have Senators who represent great American coastal cities, now overwashed by high tides because of climate change. We have Senators representing states swept by drought and wildfire. We have Senators whose home-state forests—by the hundreds of square miles—are being killed by the marauding pine beetle. We have Senators whose home states’ glaciers are disappearing before their very eyes. We have Senators whose states are having to raise offshore bridges and highways before rising seas. We have Senators whose emblematic home state species are dying off, like the New Hampshire moose, for instance swarmed by ticks, by the tens of thousands that snows no longer kill.

Yet almost none will work on a major climate bill. It’s not safe to, ever since Citizens United allowed the bullying, polluting special interests to bombard our elections, and threaten and promise to bombard our elections, with their attack ads.

Well, despite all the dark money, despite the threats and intimidation, I still believe this can be a courageous time. We simply need conscientious Republicans and Democrats to work together, in good faith, on a common platform of facts and common sense, to protect the American people and the American economy from the looming effects of climate change in our atmosphere, on our lands, in our oceans. We simply need to shed the shackles of corrupting influence and rise to our duty.

In courageous times, Americans have done far more than that. It’s not asking much to ask this generation to stand up to a pack polluters, just because they have big checkbooks. In previous generations, Americans have put at risk their very lives, fortunes and sacred honor—to serve the higher interests of this great republic. We know it can be done, because it’s been done.

We do not have to be the generation that failed at our duty. We are headed down a road to infamy now, but it doesn’t have to be that way. We can leave a legacy that will echo down the corridors of history, so that those who follow us will be proud of our efforts. But sitting here, doing nothing, yielding to the special-interest bullies and their Citizens United money, pretending the problem isn’t real, that won’t accomplish that.

As I have said before seventy-four times, and as I say tonight for the seventy-fifth time, it is time for us to wake up.

I yield the floor. I thank the presiding officer.

---

---

an1123

Fox News host’s claim he spent $90 on a Thanksgiving turkey is getting tremendous pushback and mockery as economists note the price of turkeys, gas, airplane travel, and even complete Thanksgiving Day dinners have all dropped in what one jovially declared a “Thanksgiving miracle.”

“We went to go buy a turkey today — it was $90 for a turkey,” former Republican U.S. Congressman turned Fox News host Jason Chaffetz said Monday (video below).”The price of stamps is up 32% in the last four years. But it’s all a choice by Joe Biden. That is what Bidenomics is.”

The first of a first class stamp today is 66 cents. Four years ago, in 2019, it was 55 cents — that’s a 20% increase. (For the record, here’s the price 0f stamps since 1885.)

Chaffetz was roundly mocked, with many posting ads from their local grocers showing the price of turkeys this Thanksgiving, which CNBC and others report is actually lower than last year.

“On average, Americans can expect to pay $35.40 for a 15-pound turkey this year — an average of $2.36 per pound,” FinanceBuzz reports. “At more than $50 per bird ($52.85), Hawaii has the highest average turkey prices of all the states. In the contiguous U.S., Minnesota and California tie for the highest average price at $41.85.”

READ MORE: Republicans Push to Gut Food Aid Program That Helps Feed Half of All Infants in US

“Almost everything on the Thanksgiving menu is lower – prices for cranberries have dropped 18%,” CNBC reports. “But the main reason for the decrease is due to the star of the show — the turkey. This year, a 16-pound turkey is averaging $27.35, down 5.6% from a year ago.”

Inflation dropped from 9.1% annually in June of last year to 3.2% annually last month — inflation in the month of October was zero.

Indeed, prices are dropping, in some cases tremendously. The price of eggs is down 22%, TVs down 9.4%, butter is down 3.7%, and gas prices are “tumbling,” possibly to under $3/gallon before the end of the year.

Professor of economics Justin Wolfers, who often provides information in a more interesting form than some, served up several charts declaring “turkey prices are crashing,” heralding “turkey deflation,” and celebrating the “Thanksgiving miracle” that “Airfares are plummeting just in time for the holidays.”

Last week Wolfers noted that “Real wages are above pre-pandemic levels.”

Meanwhile, the Chaffetz mockery continues.

“We just bought a ginormous fresh local turkey (a lot pricier than frozen store turkey) and it didn’t cost 90 bucks, so apparently Chaffetz is buying turkeys covered in bling,” wrote The Atlantic’s Tom Nichols. “Because, you know, turkey and Halloween candy are why we need an unhinged dictator in the White House.”

READ MORE: ‘DC Gulag’: Possible Trump AG Wants to ‘Denaturalize’ and ‘Deport’ MSNBC Host

“WHAT?” snarked writer and filmmaker Melissa Jo Peltier. “You mean @POTUS is going around to ALL the poultry farms AND ALL the grocery stores in America, ordering them how to mark up their turkey prices? Phew! That must be exhausting. I couldn’t keep up a schedule like that. Joe sure has stamina!” [many twt ~

contrast benghazi bs to lack of 1/6 comm]

https://www.mediamatters.org/fox-news/fox-fueled-rise-new-host-trey-gowdy

matt g

Trey Gowdy, a former Republican congressman turned Fox News contributor, joins the ranks of the network’s hosts on Sunday night with the debut of his creatively named weekly program, Sunday Night in America with Trey Gowdy.

Fox looms large in the career ambitions of Republican politicians thanks to its large audience of GOP primary voters and its prominent, kingmaking hosts. It has been a launching pad for the party’s rising stars over the years, from Sen. Marco Rubio and former House Speaker Paul Ryan to Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy. And those who leave office or lose elections, from former House Speaker Newt Gingrich to Rep. Liz Cheney, have sought out a Fox landing spot as a way to collect a steady paycheck, stay in the network’s spotlight, and plan their next move.

But even with the network’s historic intertwining with Republican politics in mind, Gowdy’s rise is remarkable.

As a South Carolina congressman during President Barack Obama’s tenure, Gowdy gained prominence by stoking Fox’s obsession with the2012 Benghazi attacks, ultimately becoming chairman of a select committee that House Republicans formed at the network’s urging to investigate them.

After his Fox-fueled committee failed to find much new information (but succeeded in the GOP goal of defeating Hillary Clinton’s presidential bid), he turned to defending President Donald Trump in Congress and in Fox appearances, before leaving office to do the same thing on the network’s payroll.

And now he has his own show, a platform he can use to promote his ideas and make money while he waits to see if a return to politics is worthwhile.

Fox launched Gowdy to prominence as Benghazi prosecutor

Fox spent years obsessively trying to turn the deadly 2012 terrorist attacks on U.S. government facilities in Benghazi, Libya, into a political scandal for Obama and Clinton. Gowdy became one of the network's go-to congressional guests to discuss the attacks, using his regular appearances to push the same dishonest claims about the administration’s response to the attacks that Fox’s hosts championed.

Then in the spring of 2014, Fox seized on a newly released email from an Obama national security aide, distorting it to falsely suggest that the administration had lied about the attacks for political gain. The network’s commentators began demanding yet another congressional probe of the administration’s response based on this manufactured scandal, and then-House Speaker John Boehner obliged, with House Republicans voting to form a select committee to investigate the attacks.

Appointed to chair the committee was none other than Fox’s Benghazi favorite, Gowdy. He used the role to hold a series of high-profile hearings on the network’s preferred topic -- and garner more Fox airtime.

Gowdy’s committee shed little new light on the already extensively investigated attacks and found no new evidence of wrongdoing by Clinton, who had been secretary of state at the time. But it did achieve what both Fox hosts and Republican leaders had admitted was its real goal -- damaging Clinton’s political strength as she ran for president, particularly through its focus on her much-maligned use of a private email server.

The overwhelming press fixation on Clinton’s emails, particularly in the waning days of the campaign, ultimately helped ensure Trump’s 2016 victory.

Gowdy cuts political career short for Fox gig

Gowdy didn’t have to wait long to reap his rewards for helping to elect Trump.

He took over the chair of the House Oversight Committee in 2017, using that post largely to conduct oversight of Obama’s administration while defending Trump’s. But in late January 2018, he announced that would not seek another term in office and was returning to practicing law in South Carolina. A few days later, Fox announced that it had hired him as a contributor. He joined former Rep. Jason Chaffetz, his predecessor as Oversight Committee chair, who had similarly left office for a slot at the network in 2017.

Gowdy’s role, according to Fox’s press release announcing his new job, was offering “political and legal analysis.” In practice, that meant that when he appeared on Fox to defend Trump and his allies from investigations into their various scandals, his paycheck came from the network instead of Congress.

That brand of commentary apparently captured Trump's attention. Fox briefly cut ties with Gowdy in October 2019 amid reports that he had been hired as an outside legal counsel to the then-president, who was fighting his first impeachment (the arrangement quickly fell apart and Gowdy rejoined the network that December).

It also caught the eye of Fox’s brass. Gowdy did multiple stints earlier this year as one of the revolving guest hosts on Fox News Primetime, the network’s new 7 p.m. EST show.

Gowdy was apparently not ready for Primetime. But Fox is happy to give him a chance on Sunday Night.

cf mma RU solanli 1/24/20 split screen silent // scroll of djt accomplishments

https://www.alternet.org/2020/01/fox-news-coverage-of-trumps-impeachment-trial-has-been-an-embarrassing-joke/

no lnx

Fox News’ coverage of Trump’s impeachment trial has been an embarrassing joke

Written by Alex Henderson January 24, 2020

When Rep. Hakeem Jeffries addressed the U.S. Senate on Thursday night as part of President Donald Trump’s impeachment trial, there was a crucial difference between how Jeffries’ speech was covered on different cable news outlets: while CNN and MSNBC broadcast the speech, Fox News muted the speech while its pundits offered pro-Trump talking points. CNN and MSNBC allowed viewers to hear Jeffries making a compelling case for removing Trump from office; Fox News let views see Jeffries but not hear him. And that Trump-friendly way of covering the trial is the subject of an article journalist Aaron Rupar wrote for Vox this week.

“Starting with ‘The Five,’ the network’s early evening roundtable commentary show, and continuing throughout the evening, Fox News broadcast portions of screen-in-screen video of the trial,” Rupar explains in his Vox article. “But instead of playing the audio, network hosts provided the normal Trumpian spin. So while someone who just looked at the screen may have concluded Fox News was covering the trial, in fact it wasn’t covering it at all.”

Fox News, Rupar adds, “went as far as to broadcast screen-in-screen video of the trial during commercial breaks — but again, without the sound that was necessary to make any sense of what was being discussed.”

Aaron Rupar

@atrupar

Fox News has the optics of covering the #ImpeachmentTrial without actually covering it. They've been showing screen-in-screen video of the proceedings without audio. Instead, hosts are providing Trumpian spin. It's propaganda giving the illusion of journalism. Remarkable.

Embedded video

Lis Power

@LisPower1

Step 1: Dems try repeatedly to get new evidence into the trial

Step 2: Republicans repeatedly vote it down

Step 3: Fox criticizes Dems for having no new evidence.

Rinse and repeat.

Fox's Jason Chaffetz:"It had nothing to do with proving the facts, there was no new evidence"

Embedded video

Millions of Fox News viewers, Rupar points out, have been fed a steady diet of “propaganda” and misinformation during Trump’s impeachment trial.

“The 2.7 million people who have been watching Fox News’ impeachment trial coverage at any given time are being told a story about it that’s completely untethered from reality — one that reinforces America’s deep polarization between the roughly 50% of voters who want Trump removed from office and the 40 to 45% who continue to support him through scandal after scandal.”

Like Jeffries, Rep. Adam Schiff (the California Democrat who chairs the House Intelligence Committee) has, during the trial, made convincing arguments in favor of removing Trump from office for his impeachable offenses — which, according to Schiff, include trying to pressure Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky into investigating former Vice President Joe Biden and his son, Hunter Biden, and withholding military aid to Ukraine in the hope of getting that investigation. Someone who watched MSNBC or CNN got to hear Schiff skillfully laying out fact after fact after fact showing that Trump committed impeachable offenses. But Fox News carnival barkers like Sean Hannity and Tucker Carlson, as Rupar points out in Vox, haven’t seriously addressed the facts Schiff presented — only insulted and defamed him.

Aaron Rupar

@atrupar

Tucker Carlson began his show dismissing the #ImpeachmentTrial by comparing it to "a movie written & directed by children whose ending you already know, & by the way, it's 20 hours long, in Hungarian, with misspelled subtitles." That's how his viewers will process things.

Embedded video

Andrew Lawrence

@ndrew_lawrence

Fox News added scary music and, in one section, a red overtone to an Adam Schiff supercut from today

Embedded video

“There’s nothing Schiff could have said on Wednesday that Fox News’ evening and primetime hosts wouldn’t have spun as evidence of his mental instability, his obsession with taking down Trump,” Rupar asserts. “And while viewers were being spun on Wednesday, they were shown soundless video of the trial, the misleading implication being that they don’t have to bother watching it since Fox News is on top of it for them.”

==

==

1219 mma

https://www.mediamatters.org/fox-news/foxs-jason-chaffetz-set-do-more-gop-fundraisers-despite-purported-network-policy

9/19 booktv pro trump mirror bs LAT woman undoc collect ballots, IRS stopped 300 conserv (TP?) orgs, Plan P hides $ offshore (african abortions?)

scary pix of peolsi all red

Jason Chaffetz(R-UT) talked about his book, Obstruction: How the Democrats Abuse Congressional Rules and Committees to Block the Trump Agenda, in which he argued that liberals are trying to undermine the Trump presidency.

https://www.c-span.org/video/?464062-1/power-grab

lose fox? only station that give = time?!

broadside harper collins

review

“In Power Grab, Jason Chaffetz takes us along his path toward a disturbing realization. Even as a seasoned political insider, he was taken aback by the post-Trump American reality in which news was quickly replaced by political theatre and little was as it appeared to be. An organic town hall meeting? It’s co-opted through a highly-organized and potentially dangerous scheme to control the narrative. Altruistic-sounding nonprofits? They’re actually creations intended to obscure donors and questionable motives. Chaffetz exposes a seedy world where a dizzying concoction of players work to manipulate the message— and we’re the target. In Power Grab, there are lessons for all of us, if we are willing to open our eyes.” (Sharyl Attkisson)

“Power Grab will leave you wanting more. Long after you’ll be thinking about the implications of what Jason Chaffetz reveals in this stunning new account of Washington D.C. politics. Readers will never again take Democratic narratives at face value. The duplicity, the hypocrisy, and the flippancy with which they sacrifice the very foundational elements of our government must be fought on every level.” (Sara A. Carter)

“Jason Chaffetz has consistently been in the fight and understands first hand just how power hungry the Democrats have become. Chaffetz lays out the case for how and why Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer and their minions will do and say just about anything to tear down and smear hard-working, patriotic Americans that oppose their unrelenting desire to control our lives and press forward with their far-left agenda.” (Sean Hannity)

About the Author

Jason Chaffetz is an American politician and Fox News contributor. He was elected as a U.S. Representative from Utah in 2008 after spending 16 years in the local business community. When he left Congress in 2017, he was the chairman of the United States House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.

Radicals, Resistance, and Revenge: The Left's Plot to Remake America

Jeanine Pirro

4.2 out of 5 stars 83

$14.99

Open Borders Inc.: Who's Funding America's Destruction?

Open Borders Inc.: Who's Funding America's Destruction?

Michelle Malkin

4.6 out of 5 stars 43

$12.99

The United States of Trump: How the President Really Sees America

The United States of Trump: How the President Really Sees America

Bill O'Reilly

4.7 out of 5 stars 50

$14.99

Exonerated: The Failed Takedown of President Donald Trump by the Swamp

Exonerated: The Failed Takedown of President Donald Trump by the Swamp

Dan Bongino

4.4 out of 5 stars 45

$14.99

Power Grab: The Liberal Scheme to Undermine ... - Amazon.com

https://www.amazon.com › Power-Grab-Liberal-Undermine-Republic-ebook

:{:(style="border-color:#006621;;border-style:solid;border-width:5px 4px 0px;width:0px;height:0px;margin-left:3px;top:7.5px;margin-top:-4px;position:absolute;left:0px"):}:

1.

:{:{:(style="display:block;background:url("):}::(style="display:inline-block;overflow:hidden;top:1px;position:relative;background:url("):}: Rating: 5 - ‎9 reviews

:{Editorial Reviews. Review. “In Power Grab, :{Jason Chaffetz:(style="font-weight:bold"):}: takes us along :{his:(style="font-weight:bold"):}: path toward :{a:(style="font-weight:bold"):}: ... Power Grab: The Liberal Scheme to Undermine Trump, the GOP, and Our .... States House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, Jason Chaffetz .... desire to control our lives and press forward with :{their:(style="font-weight:bold"):}: far-left :{agenda:(style="font-weight:bold"):}:.:(style="overflow-wrap:break-word"):}:

Missing: (R-

The Deep State: How an Army of Bureaucrats Protected Barack

https://www.amazon.com › Deep-State-Bureaucrats-Protected-Working

:{:(style="border-color:#006621;;border-style:solid;border-width:5px 4px 0px;width:0px;height:0px;margin-left:3px;top:7.5px;margin-top:-4px;position:absolute;left:0px"):}:

1.

:{... and Is Working to Destroy the :{Trump Agenda:(style="font-weight:bold"):}: [:{Jason Chaffetz:(style="font-weight:bold"):}:] on Amazon.com. ... works to promote the :{Democrat agenda:(style="font-weight:bold"):}: and undermine President :{Trump:(style="font-weight:bold"):}:. ... Enjoy :{a:(style="font-weight:bold"):}: great reading experience when you buy the Kindle edition of this :{book:(style="font-weight:bold"):}:. ..... Former :{Congressman:(style="font-weight:bold"):}: and Chairman of the House Oversight :{Committee:(style="font-weight:bold"):}: had to ...:(style="overflow-wrap:break-word"):}:

Missing: UT) ‎Obstruction: ‎Rules

Jason Chaffetz: Pelosi wants oversight tools for her war on ...

https://www.foxnews.com › opinion › jason-chaffetz-pelosi-oversight-war-tr...

Aug 26, 2019 - What Democrats are proposing is facism, says Jason Chaffetz ... Nancy Pelosi has transformed congressional oversight from a government ... fraud and abuse was lost in the political goal to root out a sitting president ... from any House committee unless the targets are Trump appointees. ..... TermsPrivacy.

Missing: (R- ‎Obstruction: ‎Rules ‎Block

Jason Chaffetz: House Dems' planned contempt votes on Barr ...

https://www.foxnews.com › opinion › jason-chaffetz-house-democrats-overs...

Jun 11, 2019 - Democrats have one set of rules for their own presidential ... Former Republican lawmaker Jason Chaffetz, who once chaired the House Committee on ... to reestablish their fact-free narrative against President Trump. With the Mueller report failing to establish collusion or obstruction, Democrats have turned ...

==

https://www.europeanpressprize.com/article/monsanto-papers/

This piece by Stéphane Horel and Stéphane Foucart at Le Monde won the European Press Prize in the category Investigative Reporting in 2018. To see who's been nominated for the 2019 edition, click here.

In order to save glyphosate, the Monsanto corporation has undertaken an effort to destroy the

United Nations’ cancer agency by any means possible. Le Monde started the Monsanto papers, resulting in a dozen investigative articles exploring the many strategies used by Monsanto to interfere with science, influence the regulatory process and orchestrate PR campaigns to defend their products.

These two articles uncover how Monsanto actively tried to undermine the credibility of the International Agency for Research on Cancer.

The Monsanto Papers, Part 1 

— Operation: Intoxication.

02/06/2017

“We have been attacked in the past, we have faced smear campaigns, but this time we are the target of an orchestrated campaign of an unseen scale and duration.”

Christopher Wild’s smile quickly faded. Through the window of the high rise where the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) is headquartered, the rooftops of Lyon, France, spread out behind his tall figure.

Christopher Wild is the director of the agency so he weighed every word—speaking with a seriousness appropriate for the situation. For the past two years, a blazing onslaught has targeted the institution he is running: the credibility and integrity of IARC’s work are being challenged, its experts are being denigrated and harassed by lawyers, and its finances weakened.

Fornearly half a century IARC has been charged, under the auspices of the World Health Organization (WHO), to draw up an inventory of carcinogens. But now the venerable agency is beginning to waver under the assault. The hostilities were launched on a specific date: March 20, 2015. On that day, IARC announced the conclusions of its “Monograph 112“. The findings left the whole world stunned. Unlike the majority of regulatory agencies, IARC declared the most widely used pesticide on the planet to be genotoxic (it causes DNA damage), carcinogenic to animals, and a “probable carcinogen” for humans.

The pesticide is glyphosate, the main component of Roundup, the flagship product of one of the world’s most well-known companies: Monsanto. Glyphosate is also the Leviathan of the agrochemical industry. Used for more than 40 years, it is present in no less than 750 products marketed by about 100 companies in more than 130 countries.

Glyphosate, the bedrock of Monsanto

Between 1974, when it was placed on the market, and 2014, the use of glyphosate increased from 3,200 tons to 825,000 tons per year. A dramatic increase that is due to the massive adoption of seeds that are genetically modified to tolerate it – “Roundup Ready” seeds.

Of all the agrochemical companies that could be affected by measures to restrict or ban the product, there is one whose very survival is at stake. Monsanto, which developed glyphosate, has made the chemical the bedrock of its economic model. The company has built its fortune selling Roundup and the seeds that go with it.

So when IARC announced that glyphosate was “probably carcinogenic,” the American firm reacted with unprecedented brutality. In a company statement, it vilified IARC’s work as “junk science”— a selective “cherry-picking” of data, based on an “agenda driven bias,” all leading to a decision made after only “hours of discussion at a one-week meeting”

Never before had a corporation so crudely challenged the integrity of an agency under the aegis of the United Nations. The battle was launched—the one taking place in the open at least.

A year’s work to evaluate the pesticide

Because in its own offices Monsanto was dancing to a completely different tune. The company knew full well that IARC’s evaluation of glyphosate was carried out after a year of work by a group of experts, who then met for several days in Lyon to deliberate. IARC procedures require that the industries affected by the product under review have the right to attend this final meeting.

For the evaluation of glyphosate, Monsanto had sent an “observer,” the epidemiologist Tom Sorahan, a professor at the University of Birmingham (UK), whom the company sometimes employs as a consultant. The report he sent to his bosses on March 14, 2015, assured them that everything was done according to the rules.

“I found the Chair, sub-chairs and invited experts to be very friendly and prepared to respond to all comments I made,” wrote Mr Sorahan in an email sent to a Monsanto executive. The email appears in the “Monsanto Papers” —a collection of the company’s internal documents that a U.S. court started to make public in early 2017 as part of ongoing lawsuits.

“The meeting followed the IARC guidelines,” the observer added. “Dr Kurt Straif, Head of the IARC Monographs Programme, has an intimate knowledge of the IARC rules and insists these are followed.”

Counter-attack

The academic scientist, who has not responded to requests from Le Monde, seemed to be very embarrassed by the idea that his name might be associated with Monsanto’s response to the IARC decision: “I do not wish to be referenced in any document from your PA/PR people,” he wrote, though at the same time proposing that he would be “happy to assist in formulating statements that you may wish to make” in the inevitable counter-attack that the company was putting in place.

A few months later, the non-American scientists who had been members of the IARC panel on glyphosate all received the same letter. Sent by Monsanto’s law firm, Hollingsworth, the letter told them to hand over all the files related to their work on “Monograph 112.”

Drafts, comments, data tables … everything that had gone through the IARC computer system. “If you decline to provide the files,” the lawyers warned, “we request and instruct you to immediately take all reasonable steps in your power to preserve all such files intact pending formal discovery requests issued via a US Court.”

“I found your letter intimidating and noxious,” said one of the scientists in his reply dated November 4, 2016. “I find your approach reprehensive and lacking in common courtesy even by today’s standards.”

Pathologist Consolato Maria Sergi, a professor at the University of Alberta in Canada continued: “I consider your letter pernicious because it maliciously seeks to instill some anxiety and apprehension in an independent group of experts.”

Lettre de Hollingsworth à Consolato Maria Sergi by LeMonde.fr on Scribd

Intimidating maneuvers

U.S. members of the IARC working group are being subjected to even more “intimidating” measures. In the U.S., the Freedom of Information Act, or FOIA, allows every citizen—under certain conditions—to request access to documents produced by public bodies and their officials: memos, emails, internal reports, etc.

According to our information, since November 2015 the law firms Hollingsworth and Sidley Austin have filed five applications to the National Institutes of Health (NIH) alone where two of the group experts are employed.

Applications on other scientists have also been made to the California Environmental Protection Agency (CalEPA),Texas A&M University and Mississippi State University. Some of these institutions have even been subpoenaed by Monsanto lawyers as part of ongoing glyphosate litigations – and therefore obliged to hand over some of their internal documents.

Is the aim of these intimidating maneuvers to silence criticism? World-renowned scientists who are usually open to media requests did not respond to Le Monde’s requests—even for interviews off the record. Some did agree to speak but only from a private line outside office hours.

Members of the U.S. Congress do not need to use FOIA to be able to hold federal scientific institutions accountable. Republican Jason Chaffetz, former member of the House of Representatives and former chair of the House Oversight & Government Reform Committee, wrote to Francis Collins, the director of NIH, on September 26,

2016. IARC’s decisions have “generated much controversy and alarm,” he wrote. And despite its “record of controversy, retractions, and inconsistencies,” IARC receives “substantial taxpayer funding” from the NIH.

In fact, 1.2 million euros out of IARC’s 40 million euros annual budget comes from a NIH grant. For this reason Jason Chaffetz asked the NIH director for details and justifications of all NIH expenditure related to IARC.

Characters that are almost out of a John Le Carré novel

The same day, the Chaffetz letter was applauded by the American Chemistry Council (ACC). As the U.S. chemical industry’s powerful lobbying organization, of which Monsanto is a member, they “hope that it will shed light on the close and somewhat opaque relationship” between the IARC and American scientific institutions. The chemical lobby had found a valuable ally in Mr. Chaffetz. In March, the former congressman wrote to the head of another federal research organization – the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) – to ask her to account for the research that the institution has funded on the harmful effects of bisphenol A, a compound widely used in some plastics.

What better way to neutralize an institution than to cut off its funding? In the months following the publication of “Monograph 112,” CropLife International, the organization that defends the interests of pesticide and seed companies around the world, approached some representatives of the 25 member states of IARC’s governing council to complain about the quality of the agency’s work.

Known as “Participating States,” they contribute about 70 percent of IARC’s total budget. According to IARC, at least three of them—Canada, the Netherlands and Australia—were approached. None of them replied to Le Monde’s requests. Throughout 2016, characters who seemed to be almost out of a John Le Carré novel made their appearances in the glyphosate saga. In June, someone who presented himself as a journalist but did not announce or register himself as such attended the conference organized by IARC in Lyon for its fiftieth anniversary.

==

mofo

https://theintercept.com/2019/08/23/monsanto-republicans-cancer-research

EMAILS SHOW MONSANTO ORCHESTRATED GOP EFFORT TO INTIMIDATE CANCER RESEARCHERS

Lee Fang

August 23 2019, 3:00 a.m.

IN 2015, the World Health Organization’s cancer research arm, the International Agency for Research on Cancer, classified glyphosate, an active ingredient in the herbicide Roundup, as a “probable carcinogen,” setting off a global debate about the world’s most popular weedkiller.

:{

}:

Over the last four years, Republicans in Congress have excoriated and pushed to defund the IARC, casting their defense of the chemical as a quest on behalf of small American farmers. Rep. Frank Lucas, R-Okla., has written that his outrage over the cancer research is on behalf of the “farmers and food manufacturers who rely on traditional farming methods to produce the food that fuels America — and the world.”

:{

}:

But according to a recent trove of documents, the ongoing political assault on the IARC has been scripted in part by Monsanto, the St. Louis-based chemical and seed conglomerate that produces Roundup and Roundup-resistant crops.

:{

}:

Roundup has been cash cow for the company since the 1970s, fueling billions of dollars in annual profits. Its use has skyrocketed in recent decades since the company developed genetically modified corn and other crops that are resistant to it; it is now the world’s leading herbicide.

:{

}:

A growing number of individuals say that Monsanto failed to warn consumers of the dangers of using Roundup and had marketed the chemical spray as harmless to humans, while internally recommending that its own employees use gloves and protective gear. Critics say that the Roundup formula used in the U.S. also contains a surfactant that makes the herbicide far more toxic than the variation of the spray sold in the European market.

:{

}:

Monsanto, which merged with German multinational pharmaceutical company Bayer AG last year, is facing as many as 11,000 cases relating to glyphosate. Last year, Dewayne Johnson, a former groundskeeper now dying of cancer, was the first to win his jury trial in San Francisco state court against Monsanto, alleging that years of using Roundup contributed to his non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. Johnson was awarded $289 million by a jury, though a judge later reduced the amount to $78 million. Another plaintiff, Edwin Hardeman, also alleged that he spent decades spraying the glyphosate-based weedkiller with little to no protective gear and developed the same blood cancer, won a similar case in federal court this year.

:{

}:

[Plaintiff Dewayne Johnson after hearing the verdict in his case against Monsanto at the Superior Court of California in San Francisco on Aug. 10, 2018. Photo: Josh Edelson, Pool/AP]

The newly disclosed files, released by a plaintiff’s law firm, Baum Hedlund, include company emails, documents, and deposition transcripts showing that Monsanto lawyers and lobbyists guided lawmakers, coordinating efforts to question the IARC’s credibility and slash U.S. support for the international body.

:{

}:

The company has denied claims that its products cause cancer, and Monsanto lawyers have declared that Environmental Protection Agency’s designation of glyphosate as safe should clear the company of any legal liability. In a recent marketing campaign, Bayer touted its friendly cooperation with regulators as a sign that the public should have nothing to fear from its products.

:{

}:

But the documents also suggest that the firm has used its influence with lawmakers to antagonize regulators, applying pressure and investigative threats to shape the science used to research glyphosate and other controversial chemical compounds, as part of a larger campaign to silence critics and discredit the IARC.

:{

}:

IN JUNE 2015, Michael Dykes, then serving as Monsanto’s vice president of government affairs, laid out the company’s strategy for “managing the IARC issue,” following the cancer research center’s determination that March.

:{

}:

The company, he wrote in an email, had dispatched its team of lobbyists to brief “key staff at EPA, USTR, USDA, and the State Department as well as members of Congress” to raise concerns with the IARC’s scientific process, and with how the decision could impact agriculture as well as international trade. Lobbyists also met with an official at the Department of Health and Human Services; they saw the agency’s support as key “to secure a WHO clarification.”

:{

}:

Later in the year, Dykes updated the Monsanto team with plans to push back against the IARC, including the possible placement of advertisements — in the form of letters from third-party groups — in Capitol Hill newspapers, as well as preparation to use a Senate Agriculture Committee hearing as a venue to get the EPA to reaffirm support for glyphosate. “We will make sure Committee members ask EPA the glyphosate safety question,” Dykes wrote.

:{

}:

[Roundup weed killing products on May 14, 2019. Photo Illustration: Scott Olson/Getty Images

The following year, FTI Government Affairs, one of several consulting firms guiding Monsanto’s political response to the IARC decision, assisted GOP lawmakers with an effort to investigate U.S. support for the IARC.

:{

}:

In one email sent by Todd Rands, a former Monsanto attorney working with FTI, sent a draft of a letter ostensibly written by Rep. Rob Aderholt, R-Ala., a senior lawmaker on the House Appropriations Committee,addressed toDr. Francis Collins, the director of the National Institutes for Health. NIH is the government agency responsible for most federal public health research and is the largest funder to the IARC. The letter, in fact, had been written by FTI consultants, along with Rands’s edits, according to his deposition testimony.

:{

}:

The FTI-written letter declared that glyphosate “does not cause cancer,” accused the IARC of peddling “bunk science,” and threatened a reassessment of the NIH budget to ensure that the agency is “committed to only funding organizations that produce information and conclusions based on sound science, robust processes, and credible methodology.”

:{

}:

During his deposition, Rands said that he believed it appropriate for Monsanto to draft a letter on behalf of a lawmaker toNIH, calling such ghostwriting a “common practice in Washington.”

:{

}:

It’s not clear what Aderholt’s office did with the FTI-authored letter. Aderholt’s office did not respond to a request for comment from The Intercept. On June 2, 2016,Aderholt sent a letter to NIHto request a briefing on the IARC’s designation of glyphosate as a probable carcinogen and “the standards that NIH places on research funded by the U.S. taxpayers,” a letter that mirrored many of the demands in the FTI letter, though it used different language.

:{

}:

More GOP letters and demands for investigation over NIH’s funding for IARC followed. Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, then-chairman of the House Oversight Committee, Rep. Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., Chaffetz’s successor as Oversight chair, and Rep. Lamar Smith, R-Texas, then-chair of the House Science Committee, all called for inquiries into IARC funding and the designation of glyphosate as a carcinogen.

:{

}:

The Monsanto lobbyists closely conferred with the committees as they honed in on the IARC’s funding. Drew Feeley, an attorney for the GOP staff of the House Oversight Committee, emailed an FTI consultant to explain that his office was working to attach a line to a government budget bill designed “to apply to IARC” in order to slash its funding over the glyphosate issue. “Thanks again for coordinating,” Feeley wrote to the Monsanto consultant. Feeley, notably, is now serving as an attorney with the Council on Environmental Quality, the White House office that oversees environmental policy.

:{

}:

“We expect the House OGR investigation about IARC to expand as they move into the new administration,” wrote Rands, in an update to Monsanto colleagues.

:{

}:

Last year, under Smith, the House Science Committee devoted an entire committee hearing into questioning the IARC, with a focus on its conduct around glyphosate. Smith subsequently sent more letters to cancer researchers in Norway, demanding they “correct the flaws in IARC.” The House Appropriations Committee followed up by cutting $2 million in funding to the IARC, a symbolic move to distance the U.S. from the international body, which relies on a budget of around $40 million from a range of member countries.

:{

}:

THE CONGRESSIONAL OUTREACH was only part of a multifaceted effort to control the backlash sparked by the IARC designation.

:{

}:

In recent years, a great deal of new information has come to light around Monsanto’s work to conceal the potential health risks around glyphosate. Earlier this month, new documents revealed that Monsanto operated a “fusion center” to discredit critics of the company, including former Reuters journalist Carey Gillam, who has written extensively about glyphosate. The operation even monitored and considered legal action again singer Neil Young, a critic of Monsanto.

:{

}:

Le Monde, the French newspaper, published an award-winning investigation on the controversy, referring to the Monsanto-run campaign to discredit the IARC as an effort to “intimidate” the cancer research center.

:{

}:

A separate cache of litigation files, released in May, revealed that Monsanto also contracted with Hakluyt, a corporate intelligence firm, to keep close tabs on political elites in Washington. The company consulted with senior Trump and EPA officials, and confirmed that the administration would support Monsanto on glyphosate issues. “We have Monsanto’s back on pesticide regulation,” a domestic policy adviser in the White House told Hakluyt.

:{

}:

[pixA building on the campus of Monsanto headquarters in St. Louis on May 23, 2016. Photo: Michael B. Thomas/AFP/Getty Images

The last year has exposed other cloak-and-dagger tactics. The company was criticized for ghostwriting scientific studies on the safety of glyphosate, which were presented as independent research. At the San Francisco civil trial over glyphosate, an FTI consultant working for Monsanto was caught posing as a journalist working for the BBC and another British outlet.

:{

}:

And in 2017, one of the most stunning disclosures revealed that a senior EPA staffer, Jess Rowland, had quietly tipped Monsanto off to the fact that federal agencies had sought to reevaluate the safety of glyphosate, boasting to the company that he could “kill” federal investigations into glyphosate. Shortly before a crucial European Union vote on glyphosate products, the EPA suddenly released a report declaring the safety of the product. The document was later taken down because it had not yet been completed. One Monsanto official relayed to a colleague that Rowland had told him, “If I can kill this I should get a medal,” in regards to the glyphosate review conducted by the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, a department of Health and Human Services.

:{

}:

After leaving the EPA, Rowland went to work in the private sector, consulting for chemical companies.

:{

}:

There’s also a revolving door between lawmakers supporting Monsanto and professionals working on behalf of the company. Shortly after retiring from Congress this year, following his investigation of the IARC, Lamar Smith took a job at Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP, a lobbying firm that represents Bayer-Monsanto’s interests in Washington.

==

==

mma tag

Fox's Jason Chaffetz on Democratic debates: "They were doing everything they could to take away your freedoms"

==

wikifluff?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jason_Chaffetz

Jason E. Chaffetz (/:{ˈtʃeɪfɪts:(style="border-bottom:1px dotted"):}:/; born March 26, 1967) is an American retired politician who served as the U.S. Representative for Utah's 3rd congressional district from 2009 until his retirement in 2017.[1] He chaired the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform from 2015 until 2017.

During his tenure as a US Representative, his political positions included opposition to the Affordable Care Act, same-sex marriage, and scientific consensus on climate change. He expressed skepticism over mandatory vaccinations and pledged to hold hearings to determine their safety. He was a vocal critic of the Obama administration's conduct in the 2012 Benghazi attack. He also had been critical of Planned Parenthood. He opposes net neutrality and held hearings to investigate the FCC's decision to adopt net neutrality rules in 2015.

Chaffetz came to prominence in 2015 for his extensive investigations into Hillary Clinton. He rescinded his endorsement of Donald Trump in early October 2016 but expressed his intent to vote for him three weeks later. Having investigated Hillary Clinton and the Obama administration extensively, Chaffetz drew criticism after the 2016 election for declining to investigate certain potential conflicts of interest relating to President Donald J. Trump, and that of other individuals involved in his 2016 presidential campaign and subsequent presidential administration.

On April 19, 2017, Chaffetz announced he would not seek re-election in 2018,[2][3] and on May 18, 2017, announced he would leave the House of Representatives on June 30, 2017.[4] Chaffetz signed on as a contributor for**Fox News** and began with the network on July 1, 2017.[5]

Early life

Chaffetz was born in Los Gatos, California, and raised in California,[6] Arizona[7] and Colorado with his younger brother Alex.[citation needed] His father, John A. Chaffetz (1935–2012),[8] was a businessman,[9] and his mother, Margaret "Peggy"[10] A. Wood,[11] was a Christian Scientist who later became a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and ran a photography business.[9][12] In the late 1970s, his father became involved with the ownership group of the Los Angeles Aztecs, a professional soccer team.[13][14] His father later wrote Gay Reality: The Team Guido Story, a book about gay couple Bill Bartek and Joe Baldassare, who competed on The Amazing Race.[15]

Chaffetz's father was Jewish, and his paternal grandfather Maxwell (Max) Chaffetz (1909–1986), the son of immigrants from Russia, became an FBI Special Agent.[16] Chaffetz's father's first wife was Kitty Dukakis (née Dickson), who later married Michael Dukakis, future Massachusetts Governor and 1988 Democratic presidential nominee.[17][18] The relationship between Chaffetz's father and Kitty Dukakis lasted four years[19] and produced Chaffetz's elder half-brother John Dukakis (born John A. Chaffetz),[20] who was later adopted by Michael and Kitty Dukakis. While in college, Chaffetz worked as a Utah co-chairman of Michael Dukakis' 1988 presidential campaign. As reported in 2009, Chaffetz remains close to his half-brother and the Dukakis family.[21]

Chaffetz attended high school in California[6] as well as Middle Park High School in Granby, Colorado,[22] followed by Brigham Young University on an athletic scholarship,and was the starting placekicker on the Brigham Young University football team in 1988 and 1989.[1][citation needed] Over two seasons, Chaffetz converted 16 of 25 field goal attempts (64 percent) and 89 of 94 point-after attempts (95 percent).[23] As of 2011, he still held the school's individual records for most extra points attempted in a game, most extra points made in a game, and most consecutive extra points made in a game.[24] Chaffetz graduated from the BYU College of Fine Arts and Communications in 1989, with a B.A. in communications.[25]

RaisedJewish, Chaffetz converted to Mormonism during his college years.[26][27] In 1989, he met his future wife Julie Johnson at a wedding in Arizona when he was a senior and Julie was a junior at Brigham Young University. They married in February 1991.[28] After college, Chaffetz worked for about a decade in public relations for a multi-level marketing company, Nu Skin International.[29][30]

Political career

Early political career

Chaffetz became a Republican after meeting Ronald Reagan, in 1990, when Reagan visited Chaffetz's employer, Nu Skin, as a motivational speaker. However, his political views had been drifting more to the right even while working for Dukakis.[31] In 2003, Chaffetz applied to be an agent in the United States Secret Service but was not accepted because "better qualified applicants existed."[32] In 2004, Chaffetz was the campaign manager for Utah gubernatorial candidate Jon **Huntsman**. Huntsman won the race, and when he took office in January 2005, Chaffetz became Huntsman's chief of staff.[33] In 2005, Chaffetz started Maxtera Utah Inc., a corporate communications and marketing company.[34][35] In 2006, Chaffetz was appointed by Huntsman as a trustee for Utah Valley State College.[36] Chaffetz has also served as a member of the Highland City planning commission and as chairman for the Utah National Guard adjutant general review.

U.S. House of Representatives

Elections
2008

Main article: United States House of Representatives elections in Utah, 2008 § District 3

On January 1, 2007, before the 110th Congress was sworn in, Jason Chaffetz announced that he was "testing the waters" for a Congressional run against six-term incumbent Chris Cannon, for the Republican nomination in the 3rd District.[37][38] Nine months later, on October 1, 2007, Chaffetz formally entered the race for the Republican nomination. That same day, David Leavitt issued a press release announcing his campaign had raised $100,000 to challenge Cannon.[39] Leavitt, brother to popular three-term Utah governor and Bush Administration cabinet member Mike Leavitt, more than doubled Chaffetz in fundraising for that quarter.[40] A March 2008 Deseret News/KSL TV poll by Dan Jones & Associates released two days before the party caucuses showed Chaffetz with 4% support.[41]

After the nearly 1200 3rd District delegates to the state Republican convention were elected on March 25, 2008, Chaffetz sent a mailer announcing that he would run a different kind of campaign. He would have no paid staff, no campaign office, no free meals for delegates, no campaign debt and no polling. He committed to spend between $70 and $80 per delegate, telling voters, "How you run your campaign is indicative of how you're going to be in office."[42][43]

Although Cannon was one of the most conservative members of the House, Chaffetz ran to his right. He said that Cannon "has failed us for not instituting conservative principles", consistently calling for a return to the core conservative principles of fiscal discipline, limited government, accountability and a strong national defense. He campaigned on stronger measures to fix legal immigration and remove the incentives for illegal immigration, an issue he continued to press throughout the campaign.[17][44] The week before the convention, David Leavitt told The Salt Lake Tribune, "if Jason Chaffetz beats me [at the convention], Chris Cannon will be the congressman. Jason Chaffetz has no resources, no organization."[45]

At the May 10, 2008 state convention, Chaffetz won 59% of the 3rd District's delegates to Cannon's 41%. He came a few hundred votes short of ending Cannon's career; had he tallied 60% of the delegates, he would have won the nomination without a primary.[46] Leavitt finished a distant third, and immediately endorsed Cannon.[47] Primary polls had shown a close race: a May 2008 poll showed Cannon leading Chaffetz 39% to 37% among likely voters,[48] and June 2008 poll showed likely voters favoring Cannon by 44% to 40%.[49] On June 24, 2008, Chaffetz defeated Cannon by a vote of 60% to 40%.[50] It was considered an upset victory as Cannon was endorsed by George W. Bush,[51] the state's two U.S. Senators Orrin Hatch and Bob Bennett, and nearly all of the state Republican establishment. Cannon also outspent Chaffetz by 6 to 1.[52] Cannon's primary defeat spurred worry among Republican incumbents.[53]

Chaffetz faced Democrat Bennion Spencer in the 2008 general election, along with Jim Noorlander of the Constitution Party. Chaffetz's firm position against asking for earmarks created some controversy during the general election campaign.[54] Chaffetz said, "Until there's reform, I will not ask for them. They're a cancer within the system and I want to extract them." Ultimately, Chaffetz won election with 66% of the vote. However, he had effectively clinched a seat in Congress when he won the Republican nomination. The 3rd is one of the most Republican districts in the nation; in 2008 it had a Cook Partisan Voting Index of R+26.

Chaffetz announced at the start of the congressional term, in 2009, that he would be sleeping on a cot in his office, rather than renting a Washington, D.C., apartment.[55] Chaffetz said, "I'm trying to live the example that it doesn't take big dollars in order to get where we want to go. I can save my family $1,500 a month by sleeping on a cot in my office as opposed to getting a fancy place that's maybe a little bit more comfortable."[55] His family will continue to live in Alpine. "We are now $10 trillion in debt. $10 trillion. Those are expenses that have to be paid at some point", he said. If he can tighten his belt in these tough economic times, Chaffetz said, Congress should be able to as well.[55] Chaffetz appeared on the "Better Know A District" segment of The Colbert Report on January 6, 2009, where he was defeated by Stephen Colbert in leg wrestling.[56]

2010

Main article: United States House of Representatives elections in Utah, 2010 § District 3

Chaffetz won reelection to a second term, gaining 72% of the vote and defeating Democratic nominee Karen Hyer.[57] The Salt Lake Tribune endorsed him in the race, writing "U.S. Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, has delivered as advertised for Utah's 3rd District."[58]

2012

Main article: United States House of Representatives elections in Utah, 2012 § District 3

In early 2012 Chaffetz worked as a representative of the Mitt Romneypresidential campaign during primary season, shadowing the campaign of rival Republican candidate Newt Gingrich to offer rebuttals to reporters following Gingrich speeches.[59][60] He refused to endorse Haitian-American candidate Mia Love, who ran against incumbent 2nd District congressman Jim Matheson, for the newly created 4th District seat. Nationally, Love had received campaign support from 2012 Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney, House Budget Committee Chairman and 2012 Republican vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan, Speaker of the House John Boehner, and House Majority Leader Eric Cantor.[61][62]

In his own 2012 election, Chaffetz won election to a third term, gaining 76% of the vote and defeating Democratic nominee Soren Simonsen, an architect and chairman of the Salt Lake City Council. The campaign was a "low-key" race in which Chaffetz was heavily favored.[63][64]

2014

Main article: United States House of Representatives elections in Utah, 2014 § District 3

In the 2014 election, Chaffetz won election to a fourth term in a race in which he was again heavily favored.[65][66] He received about 72% of the vote,[65] defeating Democratic nominee, Brian Wonnacott.[66]

2016

Main article: United States House of Representatives elections in Utah, 2016 § District 3

In the 2016 election, Chaffetz won a fifth term, defeating Democratic nominee Stephen Tryon, a former Overstock.com executive, with about 74% of the vote.[67]

Chairmanship, House Oversight & Government Reform Committee, 2014 - 2017

In November 2014, Chaffetz won a four-way race to become the chairman of the United States House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. He was only the fifth Member of Congress in 89 years to become a full chairman after just three terms.[68] He ran on a promise to emphasize reform, telling Politico that "the pitch I made to the steering committee is we really have to triangulate the problem if we're actually going to get to reform. In order to fix the problem long term, we can't just be the highlighter pen. We do a good job highlighting things, but we don't do a great job of fixing things."[69]

Town hall protests in February 2017

Chaffetz faced protests and jeering at a town hall meeting in February 2017. Attendees questioned Chaffetz about his political positions and whether he would hold President Trump to account.[70] Chaffetz later accused the crowd of being paid protesters,[71][72] and said that he may now avoid providing a venue "for these radicals to further intimidate."[70] Chaffetz's unsubstantiated claim attracted scorn and anger from the town-hall attendees, some of whom sent mocking "invoices" to Chaffetz.[73]

Leave of Absence and 2017 Resignation

Main article: United States House of Representatives elections in Utah, 2018 § District 3

On April 19, 2017, Chaffetz announced via Facebook that he would neither seek reelection to the United States House of Representatives nor run for any other elected office in 2018. At that time, he also implied that he might not even finish out the current term.[74]

In early 2017 Chaffetz took a month-long leave of absence from Congress after doctors had recommended "immediate" surgery to remove the "risk of infection" posed by orthopedic hardware installed in his foot following a ladder-related accident 11 years earlier.[75]

On May 18 Chaffetz announced his retirement from the House, effective June 30, just 6 months into the two-year term.[76] A special election was held to replace Chaffetz in 2017, costing approximately $675,000 from the counties involved.[77]

Post-congressional career

On July 1, 2017, the day following his official resignation from Congress, Chaffetz became a contributor to Fox News [78]

In August 2017, it was announced that Chaffetz would be visiting the Institute of Politics (IOP) at the Harvard Kennedy Schoolas a fall fellow.[79]

Positions

Affordable Care Act

Chaffetz has repeatedly voted in favor of repealing the Affordable Care Act.[80] In March 2017 Chaffetz drew criticism for and later walked back on a statement comparing the cost of healthcare coverage to the cost of purchasing an iPhone. In an interview with CNN he said, "So rather than getting that new iPhone that they just love and want to go spend hundreds of dollars on that, maybe they should invest in their own health care."[81]

Budget and taxation

In June 2011, Chaffetz sponsored HR 2560, the Cut, Cap, and Balance Act of 2011. HR 2560 capped FY 2012 discretionary appropriations at $1.019 trillion, which was $31 billion below FY 2011 discretionary spending, and provided $126.5 billion for war spending. HR 2560 imposed a cap of $681 billion on "other" mandatory spending. Excluded from the $681 billion cap were Social Security, Medicare, veterans programs, and interest payments. HR 2560 gradually reduced federal government spending as a percent of gross domestic product from 24.1% in 2011[82] to 21.7% in 2013 and 19.9% in 2021. HR 2560 also allowed for an increase in the debt ceiling of $2.4 trillion, as requested by President Obama, conditioned upon approval by both Houses of Congress of a qualifying Balanced Budget Amendment which would then be sent to the states for approval. HR 2560 passed the House of Representatives but was rejected by the Senate.[83]

Chaffetz described Obama's attempts to introduce an inheritance tax on value over $5 million as "one of the most immoral things you can do".[84]

District of Columbia legislation

Marijuana

In February 2015, Chaffetz threatened Washington, D.C. mayor Muriel Bowser with possible jail time if she implemented Initiative 71. The ballot initiative would legalize small amounts of cannabis in the district and was approved by about 64.87 percent of the voters in 2014.[85] In a letter, Chaffetz asserted that D.C. officials who implemented the initiative would violate the Antideficiency Act (an 1884 act that bars government agencies from spending funds that have not been appropriated by Congress) because Congress had passed a Republican-supported appropriations rider providing that "none of the funds contained in this act may be used to enact any law, rule or regulation" to legalize or lessen the criminal penalty "for any Schedule I drug, including marijuana."[85][86][87] Chaffetz's statement was rejected by Mayor Bowser, D.C. Attorney General Karl Racine, and D.C. police chief Cathy Lanier, who stated that I-71 was the law and implemented it as scheduled.[86][87]

Other interference

In 2017, Chaffetz stated that he planned to seek a congressional vote to overturn D.C. legislation allowing terminally ill individuals to end their life.[88] Local organizations decried Chaffetz's move, and District political leaders considered it an attack on the principle of District of Columbia home rule.[88] Chaffetz also led the charge in an unsuccessful attempt to overturn the District of Columbia's legalization of same-sex marriage in 2009.[89][90]

Energy and environment

Chaffetz has expressed his support for "an all-of-the-above energy strategy".[91] However, he has criticized solar energy for having a negative impact on animals and wildlife.[91]

Chaffetz rejects the scientific consensus on climate change.[92][93] In his 2008 stump speech, Chaffetz claimed global warming was a "farce."[6][94] He has voted in favor of legislation that would bar the Environmental Protection Agency from regulating greenhouse gases.[95]

Chaffetz advocates for the sale of millions of acres of publicly owned land to the highest bidder.[96] In January 2017 Chaffetz introduced a bill, the Disposal of Excess Federal Lands Act (H.R. 621), which would have transferred 3.3 million acres of public land in ten Western states from the federal Bureau of Land Management to state ownership.[97][98] Chaffetz said that the land served "no purpose for taxpayers."[99] On February 1, following a backlash, Chaffetz announced via Instagram that he was withdrawing the resolution.[99][100][101]

Chaffetz has opposed federal protection for Utah's resident greater-sage grouse, a bird whose population has shrunk from 16 million 100 years ago to about 200,000 today. In 2007, a court ruled that political tampering by Julie A. MacDonald, then-deputy assistant secretary for the United States Fish and Wildlife Service, had "tainted" the bird's assessment, and a new review was ordered. In March 2010, U.S. interior secretary Ken Salazar assigned the bird "warranted but precluded" status, paving the way for its future protection.[102]

Chaffetz scored 0% in 2015, and 3% lifetime, on the National Environmental Scorecard of the League of Conservation Voters.[92][103][104]

Foreign and defense policy

Afghanistan

Chaffetz criticized the surge of 30,000 troops President Obama authorized for the war in Afghanistan, saying that the United States does not have a clear policy or exit strategy.[105][106][107]

Benghazi attack

Chaffetz has been vocal against the White House and State Department's handling of the September 11, 2012 attacks on the US Consulate compound in Benghazi. The Administration first stated the attacks were sparked by a spontaneous protest, then later stated the violence was a planned terrorist attack.

There was a very conscious decision made, I believe—my personal opinion is that they wanted the appearance of 'normalization' there in Libya and building up of an infrastructure, putting up barbed wire on our facility would lead to the wrong impression. Something that this administration didn't want to have moving forward.[108]

He criticized United States Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice's initial comments calling them "somewhere between an outrageous lie and total falsehood."[108]

Chaffetz has been criticized for politicizing the Benghazi incident, acknowledging in an interview with CNN anchor Soledad O'Brien that he had "voted to cut the funding for embassy security" and that House Republicans had consciously voted to reduce the funds allocated to the State Department for embassy security since winning the majority in 2010. "Absolutely," he said. "Look, we have to make priorities and choices in this country."[109]

Homeland security

In December 2009, Chaffetz championed legislation to limit the use of full-body imaging scanners at airports unless a metal detector first indicated a need for more screening. The images have come under intense scrutiny from privacy groups for allegedly letting security administrators view images of undressed passengers.[110]

Chaffetz and Transportation Security Administration (TSA) have had a rocky relationship since he joined Congress. In his freshman year, in what critics have described as political grandstanding, he accused TSA agents at his hometown airport in Salt Lake City of unfairly targeting him to pass through a full-body scanning machine—a device Chaffetz believes is invasive. The Republican lawmaker said he believed he was targeted partially for his opposition to granting TSA screeners collective bargaining rights. A FOIA request by the Deseret News for video of the incident showed it to be a "tame and rather civilized exchange between the two."[111] TSA's November 2009 report following their internal investigation primarily supported the Chaffetz version of the story.[112] The union representing some of the officers said at the time that agents followed proper procedure and that an officer who had recently returned from military service in Iraq had not even recognized Chaffetz.[113]

Regarding Jakelin Caal Maquin, a seven-year-old girl who died in the custody of US Border Patrol on December 8, 2018, Chaffetz said on Fox News: "That should be the message, don't make this journey, it will kill you."[114]

Nuclear waste

In November 2009, Chaffetz co-sponsored a bill in the House with Rep. Jim Matheson to block the importation of foreign nuclear waste into the United States, putting him directly at odds with Rep. Rob Bishop and Utah senators Bennett and Hatch, who had historically supported importing foreign nuclear waste into Utah with restrictions.[115]

LGBT issues

Chaffetz opposes same-sex marriage.[89] After the District of Columbia legalized same-sex marriage in 2009, Chaffetz led the charge in attempts to overturn the decision taken by mayor of DC.[89]

On the one-month anniversary of the 2016 Orlando nightclub shooting, Chaffetz chaired committee hearings on the First Amendment Defense Act, which would prevent the government from taking discriminatory action against people from taxpayer-funded entities and would protect tax exemption status of parochial organizations if they refused service to LGBT individuals on the basis of their religious beliefs.[116][117][118] The American Civil Liberties Union, the Human Rights Campaign, the NAACP and Planned Parenthood Federation of America were among those who criticized him for it.[116]

National Public Radio

Chaffetz has voted in favor of eliminating federal funding for National Public Radio (NPR).[119]

Net neutrality

Chaffetz opposes net neutrality, the principle that Internet service providers should not be allowed to discriminate or charge differentially by user, content, website or platform.[120] In March 2015, he held hearings as to whether the Obama administration had secretly influenced the Federal Communications Commission when it adopted rules to ensure net neutrality.[121]

Planned Parenthood hearings

In a September 2015 hearing, Chaffetz questioned Planned Parenthood's president Cecile Richards on her salary,[122] and displayed a chart that he claimed was taken from Planned Parenthood's annual report that showed Planned Parenthood-provided abortions going up while cancer screenings and preventative care going down.[123] In fact, the chart was actually taken from a Web post by an anti-abortion group, Americans United for Life, and was presented in a misleading way, using questionable "dual-axis" charting.[123] Experts in data presentation said this was an egregious example of using a chart to mislead; Alberto Cairo of the University of Miami, an expert in visual communication, said it was a "damn lie,"[123] and Andrew Gelman, professor of statistics and political science, and director of the Applied Statistics Center at Columbia University, described the graph as a "truly immoral bit of graphical manipulation."[124]

President Obama

In January 2010, Chaffetz was called upon to question Barack Obama when the president spoke to the House Republican Conference retreat in Baltimore.[125] Chaffetz applauded Obama for some of the promises made during the campaign, but asked why promises to broadcast healthcare debates on C-SPAN, keep lobbyists out of senior positions, go line-by-line through the health care bill and end earmarks had not been kept. Video of the Q&A session received extensive media coverage.[126][127][128][129]

Upon hearing that Obama had won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2009, Chaffetz said he had "lost all respect for the award" and that "it used to be one of distinction, but [now] it is hard to give it any credibility."[130]

President Trump

2016 presidential election

Following the Donald Trump *Access Hollywood* controversy, on October 7, 2016, Chaffetz was the first Republican member of Congress to rescind his endorsement of Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump.[131] "I can't endorse somebody who acts and thinks like this."[132] The Washington Post quoted Chaffetz as saying that he couldn't look his 15-year-old daughter in the eye and talk about what the GOP presidential nominee said, "It is some of the most abhorrent and offensive comments that you can possibly imagine."[133] However, less than three weeks later, on October 26, 2016, he posted on Twitter that he was voting for Trump, while claiming that vote was not an endorsement: "I will not defend or endorse @realDonaldTrump, but I am voting for him."[134][135]

Oversight Committee chairmanship during the Trump administration

As chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee (which is tasked with investigating "waste, fraud, and abuse" in the executive branch), Chaffetz has been criticized for showing a disinterest in investigating President Trump's conflicts of interest and for failing to criticize him for not resolving ethical questions.[136][137] Chaffetz has said that Trump's global financial ties don't merit a congressional investigation: "It's interesting, because under Section 208 of the criminal code, the president is exempt from almost every conflict-of-interest [law] ... I think the president has a duty and an obligation to live up to the Constitution and the law. And what he's required to do by law, it appears he's done."[137] However, ethics experts have said that Trump's business conflicts and his failure to resolve them are "nakedly unconstitutional."[137] Chaffetz also declined to investigate the circumstances surrounding the resignation of National Security Adviser Michael Flynn, who stepped down amid controversy over his communications with the Russian government before Trump took office. Chaffetz said that "it's taking care of itself" and that any investigation into Flynn was for the House Intelligence Committee to conduct; Chaffetz also asked the Justice Department inspector general to investigate the leaks that brought Flynn's contacts with Russian officials to public light.[138]

Some commentators criticized Chaffetz's perceived lack of interest in Trump administration oversight, especially in light of Chaffetz's zealous investigation of items such as the CDC's use of the Sid the Science Kidcartoon character as part of an anti-Zika virus campaign[139] and a December 2016 tweet from Bryce Canyon National Park welcoming the designation of a new national monument.[140]

Chaffetz has also attacked those who have brought attention to Trump's conflicts of interest. In January 2017, Chaffetz threatened to investigate the independent Office of Government Ethics (OGE) after the Office had questioned Trump's commitment to resolve conflicts of interest.[141] According to the New York Times, "Chaffetz, in his letter, noted his committee's authority to reauthorize the office, a hint that it could perhaps be shut down."[141] Richard W. Painter, a former ethics lawyer in the George W. Bush administration, said that Chaffetz was trying to punish the OGE for criticizing Trump.[141] A January 2017 poll by The Salt Lake Tribune and Hinckley Institute of Politics found that 65% of registered Utah voters supported a probe into Trump's conflicts of interest, compared to just 31% opposed.[142]

Chaffetz said in January 2017 that he would continue his investigations into Hillary Clinton.[143] In October 2016, when Clinton seemed likely to become the next President, Chaffetz said that he was already preparing for "years" of investigations of Clinton.[144]

Michael T. Flynn

Chaffetz drew criticism again in January–February 2017 for his refusal to investigate White House National Security Adviser Michael T. Flynn's ties to Russia after it was revealed that U.S. counterintelligence agents were investigating him for his communications with Russian officials.[145][146][147] The day after Flynn's resignation, a reporter asked Chaffetz whether he would investigate Flynn, and Chaffetz answered, "It's taking care of itself".[147]

Social Security

In November 2011, Chaffetz announced a seven-point Social Security proposal.[148] The seven provisions include using a chained CPI-W for calculating annual cost-of-living adjustments (COLAs), increasing normal retirement age, adding progressive price indexing to primary insurance amount calculations, means-testing benefits for high-income beneficiaries, increasing the number of years for calculating average indexed monthly earnings, indexing special minimum benefits to wages instead of CPI, and increasing benefits by 5% for retirees when they reach age 85.[149]

Vaccine controversy

See also: Vaccine controversy

Chaffetz has expressed concerns about mandatory vaccinations: "there are some documentaries out there, there is a lot of evidence out there, it happens in mass numbers ... if you look at what's happening with immunizations, I got to tell you, it really does concern me."[150] He has called for investigations into the "adverse effects of immunizations".[150]

When asked at a town-hall meeting in February 2017 what he would do if President Trump would enact policy on the basis of his belief that vaccines cause autism, Chaffetz said, "On the vaccines issue ... there have been a lot of people in my offices and other meetings that have really expressed concerns about the rise of autism but also whether there is a cause-and-effect with vaccines ... I don't want to say that vaccines are not safe, but at the same time, a lot of people have expressed concerns."[151] Chaffetz then said that it was important to remove the backlog of cases in the "vaccine court" (the Office of Special Masters of the U.S. Court of Federal Claims), which administers a no-fault system for litigating vaccine injury claims, so as to be better able to answer questions that have been raised about the safety of vaccines.[151]

Violence Against Women Act

In 2013, Chaffetz voted against re-authorizing the Violence Against Women Act.[152]

Committee assignments

Caucus memberships

References

==

norm o nation mag 2016 show trial irs

The IRS had gone for several years with a commissioner held over from the Bush years, had been embattled by allegations of scandal over how the agency had handled classification of non-profits under the 501(c)4 rubric, had seen a brain drain of key tax professionals as its budget got slashed. It has labored with antiquated computers and information systems. No one in their right mind would have wanted the job.Koskinen took it for the reasons that Dwight Ink (and the wonk community) prized when he singled out Koskinen for praise. He did it to make government work better for the American people. And, like most other executive-branch nominees, he had to endure delays and a filibuster before being confirmed in December 2013.

His reward: an irresponsible, unprecedented, and politically motivated attack from Republicans in the House. Under Chairman Jason Chaffetz, the members of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee just voted on a party-line basis to censure Koskinen, and are moving to impeach him. The censure move includes an attempt to block Koskinen’s government pension from his decades of public service—so add mean-spirited to the adjectives above....

==

...In one instance, Smith acted with a like-minded Republican committee chairman, Jason Chaffetz of House Oversight, to demand internal documents on one of the Obama administration's most contentious regulations, intended to protect thousands of waterways and marshlands. After Chaffetz obtained memos showing an interagency dispute over the rule, he released them. EPA's foes, including the oil industry, which would not normally have had access to the records, sought to introduce them in a court challenge to the new clean water regulation. "Once documents have been disclosed and widely disseminated, an agency has waived any deliberative process or other privilege that may have applied," argued North Dakota's attorney general, the lead litigant.

In letters to Smith, EPA repeatedly raised its concern about the risk of releasing documents in cases involving the Clean Water Act, the regional haze pollution standards, a decision over a controversial copper mine decision in Alaska, and others.

Rep. Lamar Smith, speaking here with John Holdren, director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy under President Barack Obama, strongly opposed the Obama administration's efforts to reduce power plant emissions.

foto

Smith's most dramatic rush to the legal defense of the fossil fuel industry was his unprecedented move last year to issue subpoenas to two state attorneys general and several nongovernmental advocacy groups over the states' climate change fraud investigation of Exxon. He accused the attorneys general of colluding with environmentalists, violating Exxon's free speech rights and chilling private sector science funding.

...

bucking for promotion native am

Rep. Jason Chaffetz has strolled to four easy re-election wins in his Republican-friendly Utah congressional district, but now he's facing a surprising challenge from a Democratic political newcomer who raised nearly a half million dollars — by tapping into anger over Chaffetz' recent comment suggesting people should spend their money on health insurance instead of iPhones.

Dr. Kathryn Allen has been transformed from a political unknown into a liberal hero for calling out Chaffetz on Twitter, giving her an early boost in name recognition ahead of the November 2018 election.

Bolstered by a Twitter shout-out from comedian Rosie O'Donnell and a mention on the Rachel Maddow show on MSNBC, Allen's Crowdpac page donations spiked from about $18,000 the day Chaffetz uttered the comment to $467,000 as of Friday morning. The donations come from around the country and most are under $200, Allen said.

Chaffetz' was asked on March 7 by CNN how lower-income Americans would get access to health insurance when the Affordable Care Act is replaced.

"Americans have choices," he responded. "Maybe rather than getting that new iPhone that they just love, and they want to go spend hundreds of dollars on that, maybe they should invest in their own health care."

The remarks triggered a firestorm of criticism on social media with people comparing how many iPhones they could buy if they didn't have to pay medical bills in the tens of thousands of dollars. He later conceded on Fox News that his point about people being self-reliant didn't come out as smoothly as it could have.

https://www.propublica.org/article/as-trump-slashes-epa-worry-over-the-fate-of-an-agency-doing-similar-work

It  has little name recognition, a budget less than 10 percent of the Environmental Protection Agency’s, and is part of a government institute embraced by both of the nation’s major political parties. “In light of what President Trump wants to do to the EPA, I don’t think any agency that deals with issues unpopular with the current government is going to escape,” said Tracey Woodruff, a professor at University of California, San Francisco’s School of Medicine.

The National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences is a branch of the National Institutes of Health based in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina. Founded in 1966 under President Lyndon B. Johnson, it has a 2017 fiscal year budget of $771 million, far less than the EPA’s $8.2 billion and a tiny fraction of the NIH’s $32 billion.

The NIEHS studies the health effects of pesticides, chemicals and cancer-causing compounds. Some of its work is akin to the EPA’s efforts on environmental health — programs that would be eliminated or rolled back under President Trump’s proposed 31 percent cut to the EPA’s budget.

Trump’s initial 2018 budget calls for a 19 percent cut in NIH funding and an unspecified “major reorganization” of NIH’s 27 institutes and centers “to help focus resources on the highest priority research and training activities.” But it doesn’t mention the NIEHS.

It’s not like the NIEHS hasn’t found itself in political crosshairs before.

Last spring, for instance, Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, demanded documents from the NIEHS about its research with the Food and Drug Administration on Bisphenol A (BPA), a chemical used in food packaging that mimics the hormone estrogen. The FDA banned BPA from baby bottles and sippy cups in 2012, and California regulators declared the chemical a known reproductive toxicant three years later. Chaffetz’s wide-ranging inquiry asked for a slew of documents including “all communications referring or relating to BPA between any NIEHS employee and any FDA employee since April 1, 2008.” In response, NIEHS scientists met with GOP staffers from the House Committee on Oversight and Reform, which Chaffetz chairs, and spent an hour briefing them on the BPA study.

==

http://archive.sltrib.com/story.php?ref=/sltrib/politics/54485756-90/alec-utah-legislation-group.html.csp

ALEC bringing its clout, agenda and convention to Utah

By Robert Gehrke The Salt Lake Tribune

Published July 14, 2012 11:14 pm

Critics say group advances corporate interests at the expense of citizens.

This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2012, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.

Utah's Republican lawmakers will roll out the red carpet later this month for more than 1,500 members of the American Legislative Exchange Council, but, in reality, conservative legislators have welcomed the pro-business group for years.

Dozens of state lawmakers have attended ALEC conferences and looked to the organization for inspiration and guidance on legislation.

Critics in Utah and nationwide, however, have taken aim at the symbiotic relationship between lawmakers and ALEC's corporate members, who they say are pulling legislative strings from coast to coast, using the secretive group to roll back regulations, push privatization and undermine worker rights and citizen protections.

"It represents a pay-to-play system where corporations work with select legislators to draft model legislation that puts corporate profit ahead of the public interest and often ahead of public safety," said Doug Clopp, deputy program director with the watchdog group Common Cause.

ALEC's defenders see nothing nefarious in what they do and accuse the critics of a coordinated assault on free markets and the news media of being willing participants.

"This whole idea being perpetuated that somehow they're puppet masters, and some shadowy group of corporate czars are directing the affairs of state is simply misguided," said state Sen. Curt Bramble, R-Provo, ALEC's Legislator of the Year in 2008 and a member of its governing board.

At least two dozen Utah legislators belong to ALEC and several hold leadership positions with the group, which traces its roots back to 1973. Each year, the group boasts, 1,000 pieces of legislation are introduced around the country based on model bills adopted at ALEC meetings.

Other groups — the National Conference of State Legislatures and Council of State Governments, for example — also draft model legislation, noted Sen. Wayne Niederhauser, R-Sandy, ALEC's Utah chairman.

"ALEC, in short, serves as a legislative organization, just like NCSL or CSG," Niederhauser said, "as a place where legislators can get together and talk about what's been successful in other states."

But there are distinct differences, Clopp says.

First is ALEC's partisan slant. Its members are almost entirely Republicans and the legislation reflects that. Second, ALEC has a structure in which corporate members can pay to sit on task forces and boards alongside lawmakers and vote on legislation.

The third, says Maryann Martindale, executive director of the Alliance for a Better Utah, a progressive-leaning good-government group, is perhaps the most troubling: ALEC's lack of transparency.

"We don't know who they're meeting with. We don't really know who are members," she said. "There's a veil of secrecy and security around these conferences."

Corporate members and think tanks pay nearly all of ALEC's operating expenses. In Utah, EnergySolutions held a spot on the environment and energy task force in the past, and 1-800 Contacts is an ALEC member....

==

http://www.alternet.org/environment/gop-and-alecs-brazen-plan-sell-americas-public-lands-fossil-fuel-industry

GOP and ALEC's Brazen Plan to Sell Off America's Public Lands to the Fossil Fuel Industry

Western states have already sold and privatized 31 million acres of state lands—an area about the size of Louisiana.

By Brad Brooks / AlterNet February 21, 2017

...Forests, refuges and other public lands have been important to Americans since the realization in the mid-19th-century that our wild places were disappearing. Today, these protected, shared lands are valued for their beauty, recreation and economic values as well as the clean air, water and wildlife habitat they provide.

Protected forests and red rock lands in Nevada and Utah belong to vacationing families in Massachusetts and New Mexico. Parks and refuges in Montana and California belong to campers and birdwatchers from South Carolina and Illinois.

But the political regime change in Washington, D.C. means that our wild American lands—and the outdoor recreation opportunities they offer—are under direct attack.

The armed standoff at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge at the hands of the Bundys and their allies last January may have seemed distant and unimaginable to most American communities. But what these reckless delinquents are after and what some politicians are supporting in Congress is very similar: reducing the “federal estate”—parks, forests, refuges and monuments that belong to all Americans, and turning them over to private interests to log, mine, drill and otherwise develop for short-term gain. The freedom to access these places for America’s favorite outdoor pastimes like hunting, camping, hiking and fishing will be lost.

A no-trespassing sign in New Mexico, where oil and gas production is by far the largest source of revenue on state lands. (credit: Mason Cummings, The Wilderness Society)]

Anti-federal voices mangle facts and distort the truth about the history behind America’s public lands. For starters, our public lands—all 640 million acres of national forests, wildlife refuges, deserts, grasslands and parks—belong to the American people. They are cared for, on our behalf, by agencies like the Bureau of Land Management, the National Park Service, the U.S. Forest Service and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. When criminals like the Bundys suggest we need to “give” public lands “back” to the people, they are conveniently distorting the truth to steal these lands from every one of us.

In fact, this effort to reduce and dismantle public lands has virtually no legal merit, according to a 2016 report by 12 western attorneys general, and is nothing more than an attempt to give away the nation’s outdoor legacy. ..

Rep. Chaffetz did the right thing in listening to an overwhelming tide of constituents who castigated him for such an un-American piece of legislation. But this is just one victory in a broader defense of public lands at large.

The congressman’s troubling record on public lands issues in general—including his open push to roll back protection for sacred sites like Utah’s Bears Ears National Monument—means the Wilderness Society and many other sportsmen and conservation groups will keep Rep. Chaffetz and his allies under close scrutiny. At a town hall meeting just last week outside of Salt Lake City, Rep. Chaffetz faced an angry and volatile crowd demanding answers to numerous public lands questions.

Another Chaffetz bill, H.R. 622, would eliminate law enforcement officers from U.S. Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management lands, making it even harder for the chronically underfunded agencies to protect wildlife habitat, prevent poaching, preserve cultural sites, prevent reckless off-road vehicle use and otherwise take care of the nearly 440 million acres of land these two agencies collectively manage. 

Furthermore, an association of federal agents and officers said it "vehemently disagrees" with Chaffetz's proposal because it will put public and federal workers at risk and embolden anti-public lands interests like the Bundy family, potentially leading to more violent incidents like the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge standoff.

In early February, a survey highlighted that many staffers from national wildlife refuges and other public lands feel less safe than in the past, with about one in five saying they, their staff or their families have been threatened or harassed over land management disputes. Slashing law enforcement in such places only emboldens anti-federal vigilantes like the Bundys to trash the land and resources we all treasure and take the law into their own hands....

==

===

Republicans Are Majorly Infighting Over a Plot to Sell Off Federal Wilderness

Plenty of right-wingers want to sell off the wilderness, but they're getting opposition from unexpected corners.

By Amanda Marcotte / Salon February 7, 2017

ni link

Despite his overt moves towards authoritarianism in his first couple weeks of office, Donald Trump still has the loyalty of most Republicans, who either agree with him or simply see him as a useful tool to cram in their agenda.

Among those feeling newly empowered by the Trump presidency are a group of anti-environmentalist extremists, including some members of Congress, who cannot wait to use the Trump presidency to cut down forests and sell off millions of acres of federal land at cut-rate prices to drilling interests and developers.

In an interesting twist, the debate over federal land ownership is exposing real rifts in the Republican coalition. It may even create a rift between business interests and conservative voters who love to hunt, fish and enjoy nature.

This tension revealed itself last Wednesday, during Sean Spicer’s daily White House press briefing, which featured a bizarre exchange between Spicer and right-wing talk-radio host Lars Larson, a radical anti-environmentalistwho believes that all land should be owned by private citizens or corporate interests. Larson had a chance to ask a question through the new Skype service the White House is using, and things did not go well.

After addressing the press secretary as “Commander Spicer,” Larson demanded to know whether Trump wants “to start returning the people’s land to the people.”

Then in an especially strange move, Larson appeared to attack the very existence of forests.

Can the president, Larson asked, “tell the Forest Service to start logging our forests aggressively again to provide jobs for Americans, wealth for the Treasury, and not spend $3.5 billion a year fighting forest fires?”

Spicer, who looks bug-eyed and nervous under normal circumstances, responded to this attack on parks and trees with some awkward rhetorical dodging, promising that Trump and his pick for Department of the Interior secretary, Ryan Zinke, would “figure out how to best utilize” natural resources. But Spicer did not commit to selling off public lands to “the people,” which in this context is right-wing code for corporate interests, and he completely ignored Larson’s question about the imminent danger posed by letting trees live.

But tree-hating right-wing talk-radio hosts aren’t the only people who hope that the Trump presidency presents an opportunity to turn large tracts of American wilderness into suburban tract housing or fields of oil and gas wells.

Rep. Jason Chaffetz has a long history of hostility to the concept of public lands, even though his home state of Utah has some of the most beautiful wilderness areas in the country. Last week he introduced a bill, House Resolution 621, that would force the federal government to sell off 3.3 million acres of public land, mostly in Western states.

In a phone interview, Louis Geltman, policy counsel for Outdoor Alliance, explained that Chaffetz had brought forward similar bills in the past, “as sort of a messaging bill to express his feelings about public lands.” But with Trump in office, there is suddenly reason to fear that he might rubber-stamp such a sale, just as it’s assumed he’ll endorse House Speaker Paul Ryan’s plan for upper-class tax cuts or Vice President Mike Pence’s anti-choice agenda.

“Now that this thing has a real chance of becoming law, people are starting to give it a harder look,” Geltman continued. “The reality is that it was something that was not well thought through.”

That became immediately evident when a surge of opposition to the proposed sale poured in, both offline and in social-media channels like Instagram and Twitter, often using the hashtag #keepitpublic. In an exciting twist, a lot of the people pushing back weren’t just liberal tree huggers but conservatives who enjoy hunting and fishing.

“These issues really transcend left and right typical constructs,” explained Alan Rowsome, a senior government relations director for the Wilderness Society, over the phone. “You’re seeing conservatives, liberals, people of all political bents getting more and more fired up over these issues.”

“The vast majority of hunting and sportsman recreation on public lands is done on Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management” property, he added.

Within a week’s time, Chaffetz had pulled the bill and put up perhaps the thirstiest Instagram post in the history of politicians on social media:

ni img

He didn’t have a chance to bribe the guys from “Duck Dynasty” to pose with him, but he did end up using the very same hashtag (#keepitpublic) that people were using to organize against him.

“Orweillian is an overused term, but I can’t come up with a better one at the moment,” George Nickas, the director of Wilderness Watch, wrote in an email when asked about Chaffetz’s use of this environmentalist hashtag. “It shows, however, that Rep. Chaffetz recognizes the unpopularity of divesting of public lands, hence he’s trying to appear to be a champion of them.”

But as all the wilderness activists I spoke to hastened to add, Chaffetz is not viewed as trustworthy on this front. He and many other Republicans are still eyeing our public lands, wiping drool off their faces at the idea of turning them over to private business interests.

For instance, Chaffetz has also introduced House Resolution 622, a bill that would bar federal law enforcement from federal lands and turn such authority over to local police, which functionally would end effective law enforcement on those lands. Local police in sparsely populated counties, as local police are unlikely to have the manpower and equipment needed to encompass vast areas of federal land.

HR 622 “is a really egregious piece of legislation,” Rowsome said, “that says, ‘If we’re not going to transfer these lands to states, then we’re just not going to manage them with law enforcement and people can just do what they want on them.'"

If this bill became law, it would be easier for right-wing radicals like the Bundy family and friends who took over the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Oregon last year to pull similar stunts in the future. It would also make the lands less safe for outdoorsmen, hunters and others who want to use the lands for recreation. So while HR 621 has been retracted, the issue of privatizing public lands has not gone away. As Tania Lown-Hecht, communications director of the Outdoor Alliance, explained over the phone, people should look below the surface of right-wing rhetoric that tries to cast such privatization efforts in populist terms.

“Right now, the lands are owned by all the people and managed on their behalf by the federal government,” Lown-Hecht said. “Privatizing them by turning them over to states to sell them to private enterprises, to developers or to private real estate, is certainly not returning land to the people.”

Amanda Marcotte is a politics writer for Salon.

http://www.alternet.org/environment/republicans-are-majorly-infighting-over-plot-sell-federal-wilderness

==

==

http://www.alternet.org/environment/utah-monument-fight-pits-native-americans-against-land-use-militants

By all accounts, the looting was terrible. Across the Southwest a century ago, thousand-year-old Native American granaries were pillaged by clay pot hunters. Grave robbers worked in the open. In the sandstone dwellings perched high in the cliffs, tourists cut souvenirs out of the ancient ceiling beams. Vandals carted off heirlooms by the wagonload.

In response, Congress acted swiftly. In the summer of 1906, the House and the Senate passed, and President Theodore Roosevelt quickly signed, a law known as the Antiquities Act, which was designed to protect America’s cultural and physical treasures. Results were immediate. Within two years, Roosevelt had invoked the new law to protect Wyoming’s Devil’s Tower (held sacred by the Cheyenne and the Lakota as “Bears Lodge”) from timber and mining interests, to provide new security to Chaco Canyon and Gila Cliff Dwellings in New Mexico, and to safeguard Arizona’s Montezuma’s Castle and the Grand Canyon.

A century later, a similar (if less intense) looting spree is once again destroying tribal artifacts in Utah’s red rock country, in an area known as Bears Ears. According to archaeologists, San Juan County, Utah, may be home to as many as 100,000 archaeological and cultural sites. Grave robbing and vandalism, always a problem in the vast and under-policed region, is on the rise. Since 2011, federal officials have reported at least 25 incidents of looting and disturbance of human remains, though citizen watchdog groups say the number is likely twice as high. In one instance, vandals dismantled a 19th-century Navajo hogan for firewood. Prehistoric petroglyphs have been found pockmarked with bullet holes—the North American equivalent of, say, using the Chartres Cathedral’s rose window for target practice.

Native Americans are in shock. “In the region here, the looting and vandalism of cultural sites is pretty rampant. It’s a serious offense, but if it gets reported, it doesn’t get dealt with,” Regina Lopez-Whiteskunk, a councilmember of the Ute Mountain Ute, told The American Prospect. “This is the final resting place of our ancestors. We feel they deserve the same respect as, say, the battlefield at Gettsyburg. … When places like that get destroyed, it’s like ripping a page out of history.”

For now, the Bears Ears, a pair of red sandstone buttes popping out of the pinyon-juniper forest—the southern one cocked in what does resemble ursine curiosity—is ground zero in the dispute about who should get to manage western lands, how they should be managed, and, to some, whether there is even such a thing as federal lands.

In response, the Ute Mountain Ute have joined with four other native nations—the Navajo, the Hopi, the Utes, and the Pueblo of Zuni—in an unprecedented tribal alliance to press for additional federal protections for southeastern Utah. The five tribes—historic enemies still riven by contemporary disputes over resource allocation—have set aside their differences to join in the common cause of calling on President Obama to establish a 1.9 million–acre Bears Ears National Monument. But GOP lawmakers and some Utahns with links to the Bundy militia are intensely opposed to any monument designation, turning this swath of high desert into the latest front in a long-running war over public lands policy in the West. For now, the Bears Ears, a pair of red sandstone buttes popping out of the pinyon-juniper forest—the southern one cocked in what does resemble ursine curiosity—is ground zero in the dispute about who should get to manage western lands, how they should be managed, and, to some, whether there is even such a thing as federal lands.

The Bears Ears Inter-Tribal Coalition is barely a year old, but the group has an important ally in the Obama administration. On July 15 and 16, Interior Secretary Sally Jewell, National Park Service Director John Jarvis, and Neil Kornze, the head of the Bureau of Land Management, traveled to Utah for public hearings over the proposed monument. Jewell, for one, was moved by what she heard from tribal members. “Everyone recognizes this is a special area,” Jewell said while standing in the middle of the Bears Ears meadow. “What I have seen on this trip, and especially here, is this incredible treasure trove of cultural resources. It’s beyond imagination. I am also shocked at the lack of protection for many of these resources.”

Utah’s congressional delegation is also aghast—at the prospect of a new national monument in their region. Representative Rob Bishop, a Republican who chairs the Natural Resources Committee, has called the Antiquities Act “the most evil act ever invented.” The San Juan County Commission, dominated by Bundy-clan sympathizers, is also vehemently opposed to the potential monument. Utah’sSenator Orrin Hatch has hinted that a monument designation by Obama could lead to violence.

For the Native American nations spearheading the Bears Ears campaign, the drive for a national monument in their ancestral lands marks a major turnabout. The relationship between tribes and the federal land-management agencies has long been marked by mistrust, the natural result of centuries of dispossession and exclusion. The Obama administration has sought to hit the reset button on federal-tribal relations; at Grand Canyon National Park, for example, deputy superintendent Brian Drapeaux, a member of the Rosebud Sioux, has increased tribal representation at the main tourist spots, while boosting Indian involvement in the lucrative sale of concessions.

But tribal leaders remain suspicious. “Historically, we haven’t been part of the [land] management process,” says Carleton Bowekaty, a Zuni tribal councilmember and the co-chair of the Bears Ears alliance. “Normally, we are consulted afterward.”

The Inter-Tribal Alliance’s proposal is as audacious as it is ambitious. The five tribes are asking the government to let the native nations co-manage Bears Ears National Monument, an arrangement without precedent. The tribes envision an oversight commission that would include the National Park Service, the Forest Service, the Bureau of Land management, state and county representatives, and the five tribes in the coalition. “Here we want to make sure the tribes have a voice from the beginning,” Bowekaty says. “And that’s important because the voice we want to include doesn’t have to do with the material, but with the spiritual, and that’s normally foreign to federal policy.”

For their part, national conservation groups such as the Sierra Club and the Wilderness Society, which normally lead campaigns to protect public lands, have deliberately stepped back, acknowledging that the tribes have the highest moral ground when it comes to Bears Ears. “This is exactly what the Antiquities Act was designed to do—protect archaeological and cultural sites,” says Matt Lee-Ashley, director of the public lands program at the Center for American Progress. “The tribes are obviously able to speak to that very well. They’ve mapped out what needs protection, and how to engage in co-management to protect it.”

The dispute has devolved into the use of dark ops. Lands-rights activists have sought to gin up resistance among area Indians by floating rumors that monument designation would put an end to the common (and lawful) practice of collecting firewood and gathering medicinal herbs and plants for spiritual ceremonies. This spring, leaflets that faked the appearance of Interior Department press releases began appearing in public places on the Navajo Nation, stating falsely that the monument would seize four million acres of tribal land. Another phony flyer announced a party celebrating the Bears Ears Monument, and provocatively blared that “everyone is excited except Utah Navajos.”But the local opposition to the monument proposal is fierce. While the Indians merely mistrust the feds, many whites in southern Utah have openly voiced hatred against them. San Juan County is a hotbed of don’t-tread-on-me Sagebrush Rebellion sentiment. In 2014, right after the armed standoff at the Bundy Ranch in Nevada, some local residents, led by County Commissioner Phil Lyman, violated federal laws by riding all-terrain vehicles into a canyon where they’d been banned after damage to archaeological sites. Many of the lawbreakers were packing guns. On his Facebook page, Lyman has described the BLM as “despotic.” He has also been quoted as saying that Native Americans have no standing on public lands issues because “they lost the war.”

Native proponents of the monument dismiss this as nothing but dishonest scaremongering, and say their monument would not ban such traditional land uses as wood and plant gathering. “There is a lot of misinformation out there, a lack of understanding about the access to resources,” Bowekaty says. “This is not exclusionary.” Nevertheless, the inaccurate rumors have misled some area natives. A video produced by the Sutherland Institute, a Utah think tank “supporting limited government and private property rights,” features a string of Indian speakers coming out against the Bears Ears proposal and asking that Obama not “take our land.”

Monument opponents’ most vocal champion on Capitol Hill is Utah’s Bishop, who has said that anyone who likes the Antiquities Act as written should “die” because he “needs stupidity out of the gene pool.” Bishop has repeatedly introduced or co-sponsored legislation that would dilute and render meaningless the Antiquities Act, and has supported calls for the transfer of federal lands to state governments to allow for more mining or oil and gas extraction.

In an effort to forestall a monument designation, Bishop and fellow Utah Representative Jason Chaffetz introduced a bill in early July called the Public Lands Initiative as an alternative to the tribal plan. Bishop’s proposal would protect 1.4 million acres in the Bears Ears region as National Conservation Areas (a designation that offers less protection than a national monument) whilegiving the state of Utah new powers to open 300,000 acres of federal land to oil and gas drilling.

Bishop has sought to sell his legislation as a “grand bargain” that could appeal to all sides. But it has left many cold. Green groups blasted it as an effort to “divest Americans of their shared public lands.” The tribal leaders pushing for Bears Ears protection were nonplussed. “Where was the state delegation, and why haven’t they approached the tribal governments earlier?” asks Lopez-Whiteskunk, of the Ute Mountain Utes. If anything, Lopez-Whiteskunk adds, Bishop has mostly been useful to the monument campaign as a political foil. “I would thank him for giving us an opposition. You always need an opposition.”

==

~ Media Matters delves into **Rep. Jason Chaffetz**, Issa protege and one of Glenn Beck's favorites in Congress. With Glenn Beck set to "transition off," having folks like Chaffetz in Congress to keep pushing crazy conspiracy theories will help maintain Beck's de facto subpoena power.

issa threatens to subpoena chu http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fQJb0EmFWsU

Controversial Energy Subsidy Report Made Public By Watchdog Group

Brendan DeMelle|Posted 10.01.2011|Green

Read More:Corporate Welfare,Energy Information Administration,Checks and Balances Project,Howard Gruenspecht,DeSmog Blog,Energy Information Administration Report Flaws,Energy Information Administration Report,Energy Reports,Renewable Energy Report,Green News

The Checks and Balances Project has obtained a copy of the controversial Energy Information Administration report that was called "garbage" by EIA Acting Administrator Howard Gruenspecht.

Read Whole Story

Checks and Balances Project has obtained a copy of the controversial Energy Information Administration report that was called “garbage” by EIA Acting Administrator Howard Gruenspecht.  The polluter-friendly report was just delivered yesterday afternoon to the GOP House requesters, Reps. Jason Chaffetz (R-UT), Congresswoman Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) and Congressman Roscoe Bartlett (R-MD). Checks and Balances provided a copy to DeSmogBlog, which we’re providing to the public here: “Direct Federal Financial Interventions and Subsidies in Energy in Fiscal Year 2010” [PDF].

Gabe Elsner, Deputy Director of the Checks and Balances Project, told DeSmogBlog that, “if it’s true that the Acting Administrator Gruenspecht called this report a “piece of garbage” he was right, because it deliberately leaves out the six other ways in which coal, oil and natural gas get government handouts.  The fossil fuel welfare tab is tens or hundreds of times greater than the cost of pro-renewable policy support.”

Elsner says that this report is essentially a re-issue of the 2007 Alexander study that was designed to defend public welfare to the fossil fuel industry, such as oil and gas industry subsidies. The new EIA analysis fails to take into account the full range of subsidies at play in the energy sector, and therefore delivers a favorable analysis of fossil fuels over renewables.

By excluding a lot of the other avenues of direct federal support given disproportionately to fossil fuel interests, as well as financial tools designed to assist dirty energy companies, the report is just plain faulty, or “fuzzy math” as some guy once said.

Missing from the EIA calculations are a plethora of advantages the dirty energy industry enjoys over clean tech companies, including outsized direct subsidies for mature industries, publicly funded pollution cleanup assistance, cheap insurance, low-interest federal loans, extensive tax breaks, and — most gut wrenching in the wake of Tim DeChristopher’s imprisonment — insanely cheap public land leases for oil and gas drilling, as well as access to public lands and tax credits to build transmission lines.

On Monday, the :{Checks and Balances Project, Greenpeace U.S. and Oil Change International plan to file this Freedom of Information Act (FOIA):(style="background-color:#ffff66;"):}: request [PDF] to the EIA seeking records of the meetings and communications between the EIA and the three GOP Congressmembers’ offices, as well as other materials used in compiling the report.

==

==

$ mostly pac, financial  http://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/industries.php?cycle=2012&cid=N00028958&type=I&newmem=N

SW

Jason Chaffetz has been a Republican member of the United States House of Representatives, representing the 3rd district of the State of Utah, since 2009 (map).

Positions, record and controversies

Abortion

Chaffetz would support making abortions illegal except for circumstances when the woman is endangered. [1]

Spending

Chaffetz would support slightly increased defense, homeland security, and federal law enforcement spending. He supports maintaining current spending levels for the environment, FEMA, state law enforcement, medical research, national parks, public health services, scientific research, welfare, and transportation and highway infrastructure. He would support decreased spending for agriculture, arts, international aid, space exploration programs and the elimination of spending towards the United Nations. [1]

Taxes

Chaffetz would vote to maintain the Bush tax cuts but calls for driving down spending to be in line with revenue. He supports the elimination of the capital gains taxes, corporate taxes, inhertiance taxes. He would support maintaining the current taxes on alcohol, cigarettes and gasoline.[1]

Campaign Finance and Government Reform

Chaffetz supports increasing the the amount individuals are permitted to contribute to federal campaigns and also removing all contribution limits on federal campaigns and parties. He supports allowing unregulated soft money campaign contributions to political parties or committees.[1]

Education Issues

Chaffetz supports allowing parents to use vouchers to send their children to any public, private, or religious school. He would support tax incentives to help families save for college and would seek to eliminate federal education standards and testing such as the No Child Left Behind Act.[1]

Employment

Chaffetz supports reducing government regulation of the private sector and would encourage employers to offer child care services, flex-time scheduleing, comp-time and unpaid leave for family emergencies.[1]

Environment and Energy

Chaffetz supports increased development of traditional energy sources such as coal, oil, gas as well as alternative fuels including nuclear reactors. He would strengthen emissions controls on all gasoline and diesel-powered engines. He supports domestic oil exploration in areas currently off-limits.[1]

Health

He supports expanding eligibility for tax-free medical savings accounts and tax credits to individuals and small businesses to offset the cost of insurance coverage. He believes that providing healthcare is not the responsibility of the federal government. [1]

Immigration

Chaffetz believes illegal immigrants should have to return to their countries of origin before being considered for citizenship. He does support temporary worker programs and harsher financial punishments to those who knowingly employ illegal immigrants. He would support making English the official national language.[1]

International Policy

While Chaffetz supports the United States granting aid to countries in cases of disaster, threat to civilian lives, or when it is in the security interests of the United States, he believes U.S. aid should be scaled back and eventually eliminated. In regards to the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, he supports U.S. leadership in the process and the creation of a Palestinian state. He does not support financial aid but does believe in military support for Afghanistan. He is willing go consider sanctions against North Korea (nuclear), China (economic)and Iran (nuclear) if the situation warranted such action. He also believes the U.S. should be involved in bringing an end to violence in Darfur, Congo and human rights abuses in Zimbabwe.[1]

Iraq War

Withdrawing troops from Iraq is right, but at the right time. I do not support a random timetable.[1]

National Security

Chaffetz he does not support greater discretion for law enforcement agencies to monitor domestic communications to prevent future terrorist attacks. He is also does not support a federal identification card system. He would hold foreign states accountable for terrorists operating in their countries and is also willing to use preemptive military strikes against countries deemed to be a threat to the United States' national security. He supports the expansion of a missile defense shield. [1]

Social Issues

Chaffetz does not support same-sex couples from marrying and would support a federal constitutional amendment defining marriage as between a man and a woman. He does not support federal funding of stem cell research on new or existing stem cell lines. He believes the federal government should not continue affirmative action programs. He would support abolishing all federal welfare programs but would support the continuation of giving states and local governments flexibility in and responsibility for welfare programs through federal block grants. [1]

Bio

Currently sole owner of Maxtera Utah, Inc., a corporate communications and marketing company. [2]

2008 elections

Chaffetz became the Republican nominee after defeating incumbent Rep. Chris Cannon (R-Utah) in primary elections which took place on June 24, 2008. [3] He went on to defeat Democratic nominee Bennion L. Spencer in the November 2008 general election.[4]

Money in politics

This section contains links to – and feeds from – money in politics databases.

Campaign contributions

The following is drawn from government records of campaign contributions to Jason Chaffetz. Campaign contributions are one of the most direct conduits for influencing members of Congress. How to use this information. cid=N00028958&cycle=2008

Nu Skin Enterprises$60,900$60,900$0Zions Bancorp$41,058$21,658$19,400Every Republican is Crucial PAC$30,000$0$30,000Honeywell International$29,999$0$29,999American Bankers Assn$29,793$250$29,543

...view more data

Top 5 Industries, 2007 - 2014

IndustryTotalIndivsPACs
Computers/Internet$145,288$46,500$98,788Pharmaceuticals/Health Products$127,845$75,250$52,595Commercial Banks$104,201$26,758$26,758

==

career

Nu Skin Enterprises$60,900$60,900$0
Zions Bancorp$41,058$21,658$19,400
Every Republican is Crucial PAC$30,000$0$30,000
Honeywell International$29,999$0$29,999
American Bankers Assn$29,793$250$29,543
Vivint Inc$25,000$25,000$0
Wine & Spirits Wholesalers of America$25,000$0$25,000
National Beer Wholesalers Assn$22,500$0$22,500
Merit Medical Systems$22,000$14,500$7,500
National Assn of Realtors$20,000$0$20,000
National Auto Dealers Assn$20,000$0$20,000
Northrop Grumman$19,000$0$19,000
Goldman Sachs$18,750$1,250$17,500
American Express$18,000$0$18,000
Berkshire Hathaway$17,500$0$17,500
CK&C Inc$16,700$16,700$0
Oracle Corp$16,240$2,500$13,740
Delta Air Lines$15,000$0$15,000
National Rural Letter Carriers Assn$15,000$0$15,000
Check City$14,900$14,900$0

Committees and affiliations

Committees

Chaffetz will be assigned committees if and when he is elected to Congress.

Affiliations

More background data

Contact

Campaign Contact Information

Friends of Jason Chaffetz

175 S. West Temple #650

Salt Lake City, UT 84101

Jennifer Scott

Campaign Manager

jennifer@chaffetz.com

Twitter

Jason Chaffetz posts on Twitter at http://twitter.com/jasoninthehouse/**

Latest posts:

See all the members of Congress who Twitter

Articles and resources

Related SourceWatch articles

Sources

  1. ↑ 1.00 1.01 1.02 1.03 1.04 1.05 1.06 1.07 1.08 1.09 1.10 1.11 1.12 Project Vote Smart Political Courage Test
  2. ↑ Meet Jason page on campaign website
  3. ↑ Michael Teitelbaum, " Utah GOP Rep. Cannon Defeated in Primary", CQ Politics, June 25, 2008
  4. ↑ "Utah 2008 General Election", TheGreenPapers.com, November 4, 2008

External resources

External articles

Corresponding article on Wikipedia and Cause Caller. (If Cause Caller link does not work, pick from its list of senators and representatives.)