Pompeo, M Rep

=capt pompeo718 919<div>=</div><div><div>=</div><div>another kind of suppression:</div><div>
</div><div><div style="font-size: small;">ATTEMPTING TO DEFUND, LIMIT THE EPA </div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The first chance that the bloc of 85 freshman Republicans had to influence environmental policy was with H.R. 1, the bill that would fund the federal government for fiscal year 2011. The House passed a 27 percent budget cut for the EPA, which, had it passed the Senate, would have been the agency’s largest cut since 1981. </div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">“We were trying to tell our brothers on the Republican side that they’re never going to get this through the Senate, but they were posturing,” said Norm Dicks, a Democrat, and the former ranking member on the House Appropriations Committee. “They wanted to make the cuts. They thought they were going to win political points with the Tea Party-types for cutting the EPA budget.”</div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Lawmakers also attempted other cuts by proposing 162 amendments, 22 of which would have cut EPA programs or limited the government’s enforcement of environmental regulations and its ability to study climate change. However, H.R. 1 never became law because the House and Senate were not able to reach a budget compromise until April 2011, when H.R. 1473 narrowly avoided a government shutdown. After negotiations with the Senate, the two houses agreed on a 15.6 percent cut, the largest enacted cut since the EPA lost 16 percent of its budget in 1986. RR</div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The 22 amendments proposed in H.R. 1 signaled how this group of freshmen Republicans, and pledge-signers, wanted to limit the EPA and climate-change research. Think Progress, a liberal blog, researched climate change statements by members of the 112th Congress, and found many members of Congress were doubtful of climate-change science. The Investigative Reporting Workshop matched the Think Progress statements with the list of members of Congress who signed the pledge from Nov. 16, 2010, and found 17 of the 20 Senators who had signed the pledge said they doubted climate change science, as did 78 of the 156 representatives who had signed the pledge. </div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Throughout the House's debate on H.R. 1, several pledge signers proposed amendments that would limit government regulation of climate change.</div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Rep. Mike Pompeo, a Republican who represents the Kansas district where Koch Industries is headquartered, and is a signer of the No Climate Tax Pledge, received $10,000 from Koch Industries PAC in the 2010 election.</div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="font-size: small;">Once in the House, Pompeo proposed an amendment to H.R. 1 to cut $8.5 million, or roughly half the fiscal year 2010 budget, from the EPA’s greenhouse gas reporting program. Pompeo said at the time, “This data is the very foundation of the EPA's effort to pursue its radical anti-jobs agenda.”</div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Another amendment was proposed by Republican Rep. John Carter of Texas, who wanted to ban using money to enforce a rule on cement manufacturing emissions. He was one of the first representatives to sign the No Climate Tax Pledge. Carter and two other Texas Republicans proposed an amendment that would have prohibited the EPA from regulating greenhouse gases emitting from stationary sources, such as factories. </div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Republican Rep. Ralph Hall of Texas, also in that first group of representatives to sign the pledge, sponsored an amendment — which passed — to stop the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration from creating a National Climate Service, which was intended to be “a one-stop shop” for climate information. </div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Republican Rep. Morgan Griffith of Virginia sponsored an amendment — which passed — that stopped funds for EPA guidelines on surface coal mining operations. </div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Republican Rep. Kristi Noem of South Dakota signed the pledge in 2010 and received $5,000 from KochPAC. She sponsored an amendment — which passed — to prohibit money from being used to change the air quality standards regarding coarse particulate matter (dust). </div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">However, neither these amendments nor the bill survived in the Senate.</div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Many of the 85 freshman Republicans sponsored bills in the House to limit the EPA’s regulatory power or to expand oil and natural gas drilling. Koch Industries Public Sector LLC, the lobbying arm of Koch Industries, lobbied for H.R. 910, the Energy Tax Prevention Act, which would have rolled back the Supreme Court’s ruling that the EPA could regulate greenhouse gases. The bill was sponsored by Republican Rep. Fred Upton of Michigan and co-signed by 92 Republicans (and three Democrats), 61 of whom also signed the pledge. Had it passed, the Energy Climate Prevention Act would have prevented the EPA from defining greenhouse gases as air pollutants and prohibited all federal research or programs on climate change research.</div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">In June 2011, Rep. Griffith of Virginia also introduced the EPA Regulatory Relief Act, which would have allowed companies to ignore future EPA rules on industrial boiler and heater emissions while delaying the implementation of any rules that would constitute the “least burdensome regulatory alternative.” The bill eventually gained 101 Republican and 25 Democratic co-sponsors, 67 of whom signed the No Climate Tax Pledge.</div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Griffith said he signed the No Climate Tax pledge because he believes national limits on greenhouse-gas emissions harm Virginia’s coal industry and the jobs it provides. He said he didn’t feel any pressure to sign the pledge from Americans for Prosperity, which he credits with helping him win a seat in Congress in 2010 by campaigning against the policies of his Democratic predecessor, Rick Boucher. </div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Griffith also said that the $5,000 his campaign received from Koch Industries in June 2010 had no influence on his decision to sign the pledge less than two weeks later. Opposing President Obama’s “war on the coal industry” was a top issue during his campaign, he said.</div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">“When I was running in early 2010, this was already on my agenda,” Griffith said. “I was talking about these things long before I even knew that the Koch brothers and AFP were involved in these issues.” </div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The pledge isn't limited to those in Washington. Among other office-holders who signed it is Oklahoma Schools Superintendent Janet Barresi, who declined to talk about her reasons for signing the pledge in August 2010. But through her press secretary, Barresi said in statement that the school district relies on property taxes from power plants and oil and gas production.</div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">"Oklahoma's schools depend on revenue from fossil fuels, and the destructive power of a tax on these fuels is not justified by questionable science," Barresi said in the statement.</div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Contributing: Julia Broemmel</div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">=</div></div></div><div><a href="https://www.huffpost.com/entry/the-koch-brothers-are-sti_b_4396033">https://www.huffpost.com/entry/the-koch-brothers-are-sti_b_4396033</a>THE BLOGThe Koch Brothers Are Still Trying to Break WindThe Koch brothers have turned loose their network of advocacy groups, think tanks and Capitol Hill friends to kill a key federal tax break for the wind industry, despite the fact that the oil and gas industry has been getting four times more in tax breaks and subsidies annually since 1918.Elliott Negin, ContributorSenior Writer, Union of Concerned ScientistsDec. 9, 2013, 09:01 AM EST | Updated Dec. 6, 2017This post was published on the now-closed HuffPost Contributor platform. Contributors control their own work and posted freely to our site. If you need to flag this entry as abusive, send us an email.As Congress dithers for the umpteenth time over extending a key subsidy for wind energy, the industry once again is up in the air. Called the production tax credit (PTC), the subsidy helps level the playing field between wind and fossil fuels and has proven to be critical for financing new projects, helping to make wind one of the fastest growing electricity sources in the country. Given the planet needs to transition as quickly as possible away from coal and natural gas to carbon-free energy to avoid the worst consequences of climate change, who would be against renewing wind's tax credit.
The Koch brothers, that's who.Charles G. and David H. Koch -- the billionaire owners of the coal, oil and gas Koch Industries conglomerate -- have enlisted their extensive network of think tanks, advocacy groups and friends on Capitol Hill to spearhead a campaign to pull the plug on the PTC. Never mind the fact that the oil and gas industry has averaged four times what the wind tax credit is worth in federal tax breaks and subsidies annually for the last 95 years.The Koch network is fighting the wind industry on a number of fronts. Last month, Koch-funded Congressman Mike Pompeo (R-Kansas) sent a letter signed by 52 House members to the chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, urging him to let the PTC expire. Meanwhile, a coalition of some 100 national and local groups organized by the Koch-founded Americans for Prosperity sent a letter to each member of Congress asking them to do the same. And earlier this month, the Koch-funded Institute for Energy Research launched an anti-PTC ad campaign and released a report claiming that only a handful of states actually benefit from the subsidy.Malcolm Gladwell didn't include this battle in his new book David and Goliath because, given the odds, it's more like Bambi versus Godzilla.
The Kochs' Man in CongressThe fact that Kansas Rep. Mike Pompeo is the Kochs' point man to scuttle the PTC in the House is a bit ironic given his state is a wind energy leader. Kansas has the second highest wind potential in the country, it has already attracted more than $5 billion in wind industry investment, and last year wind generated 11.4 percent of its electricity. With stats like that, the industry has broad bipartisan support. Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback and Sens. Jerry Moran and Pat Roberts -- all Republicans -- are big fans.Pompeo, who has been in Congress since only 2011, would argue that he's against all energy tax credits. For the second year in a row, he has introduced a bill that would eliminate tax breaks that benefit oil, natural gas, coal, nuclear, electric vehicles, alternative fuels, solar and wind, including the PTC, which gives wind developers a tax credit of 2.3 cents for each kilowatt-hour of electricity they produce.But there's a catch. Although it appears evenhanded, Pompeo's bill would severely hamper wind and solar but preserve a number of oil, gas and coal subsidies, including the percentage depletion allowance, the ability to expense the costs of exploration, and the accelerated depreciation of certain kinds of "geologic property." These and other tax breaks he left out of his bill would be worth about $12.5 billion to the oil and gas industry from 2011 through 2015, according to a March 2012 Congressional Research Service report.Why is Pompeo so down on wind? Perhaps it's because Koch Industries is headquartered in Wichita, smack-dab in the middle of his district -- and the fact that the company is by far and away his biggest campaign contributor. Since 2010, Koch Industries has given him $200,000, more than four times what his second highest contributor kicked in. Besides Koch Industries, three other oil companies are among Pompeo's top five contributors -- McCoy Petroleum, Mull Drilling and Richie Exploration -- and they're also based in Wichita.What about the other 51 House members who signed Pompeo's letter? As it turns out, 65 percent of them received contributions from Koch Industries during the last two or three campaign cycles, according to Federal Election Commission data compiled by the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics. A quarter of them, meanwhile, cashed checks from ExxonMobil. And except for two congressmen who didn't take any energy industry money, the signatories received sizable contributions from a number of other corporations that compete with wind, including coal barons Arch Coal and Alpha Natural Resources; oil and gas giants Chesapeake Energy, Chevron, ConocoPhillips and Valero Energy; and Exelon, which owns the most nuclear reactors in the country.
Americans for (Koch) Prosperity Weighs InPompeo's letter came on the heels of a letter from the Kochs' flagship advocacy group, Americans for Prosperity, calling for Congress to kill the PTC. AFP's letter, which was signed by 102 organizations, claims that "the wind industry has very little to show after 20 years of preferential tax treatment" and declares that "Americans deserve energy solutions that can make it on their own in the marketplace -- not ones that need to be propped up by government indefinitely."
Is that right? Little to show? Preferential tax treatment?In fact, until Congress left the wind industry hanging late last year, it had been doing quite well. Even with a deep recession and slow recovery, over the previous five years -- with the help of the PTC, stimulus spending and state renewable electricity standards -- the industry doubled its electricity output, employment and private investment. In 2012, domestic manufacturers produced roughly 72 percent of the wind turbine equipment erected across the country -- nearly triple the percentage in 2006 -- and more than 13,000 megawatts of new wind generation capacity was installed. By the end of last year, there were enough wind turbines to power 15 million typical American homes -- without toxic pollutants or carbon emissions.But AFP's complaint that the wind industry has been on the dole far too long is even more galling. What about the oil and gas industry? It's been feeding at the federal trough since 1918! On average, the industry has benefited from $4.86 billion in tax breaks and subsidies in today's dollars every year since then, according to a 2011 study by DBL Investors, a venture capital firm. Renewable energy technologies, meanwhile, averaged only $370 million a year in subsidies between 1994 and 2009. The 2009 stimulus package did provide $21 billion for wind, solar and other renewables, but that support barely begins to balance the scales that have tilted toward nuclear power for more than 50 years, oil and gas for 95 years, and coal for more than two centuries.So who signed the AFP letter? About half of the signatories are local tea party affiliates and anti-wind NIMBY groups of indeterminate size and funding. The other half are, for the most part, relatively obscure national groups, but there are a few that have attracted attention over the years for their contrarian views on climate science and renewable energy. Like AFP, those groups are awash in petrodollars. The American Energy Alliance (and its parent, the Institute for Energy Research), Competitive Enterprise Institute, Freedom Works, Frontiers of Freedom and Heritage Action (and its parent, the Heritage Foundation) collectively have received millions of dollars from Koch family foundations, ExxonMobil and the American Petroleum Institute, the oil and gas industry's premier trade association.
The Institute for Energy Research's Questionable ResearchOn December 3, the Institute for Energy Research and its political arm, the American Energy Alliance, sponsored what they dubbed the "wind welfare" summit in Washington, D.C., featuring IER founder and CEO Robert Bradley Jr., a Koch network veteran. AEA announced it would spend $40,000 on print and digital ads calling for an end to the PTC and is flying in anti-PTC advocates for meetings on Capitol Hill.Bradley presumably highlighted the findings of a report IER released the day before claiming that a small number of states with wind resources -- Iowa, North Dakota, Oklahoma and Texas -- are reaping the benefits of the PTC while 30 states and the District of Columbia are "losing millions" to fund it.The report's findings, however, don't hold up to scrutiny. Mike Jacobs, a senior energy analyst at the Union of Concerned Scientists, pointed out in a recent blog that IER ignored the fact that a number of the states it identified as "net payers" are home to wind industry manufacturing facilities. There are 62 companies in Ohio making turbine components, for example, 40 in Michigan and 21 in California. Jacobs also discovered that IER downplayed the fact that "the PTC benefits consumers where wind-generated electricity adds to the supply and lowers the price of electricity, landowners who receive lease payments from the wind turbines, and local communities that collect tax payments on installed wind farms."Jeff Spross, blogging on the Center for American Progress' ThinkProgress website, also chided IER, pointing out that most industries are not equally distributed across the country. "The oil and gas industries, for instance, benefit from a wealth of federal tax carve-outs," he wrote, "but the economic activity they generate is concentrated in just a few key states."In other words, it's disingenuous to single out the wind industry.
Twisting in the WindWhile Congress has generously provided the fossil-fuel and nuclear-energy industries a number of permanent subsidies, it has typically granted the wind industry the PTC on a short-term basis and then wavered over renewing it. Last year the PTC expired on December 31, but as part of the "fiscal cliff" budget deal the next day, Congress extended it for the seventh time since it debuted in 1992 -- for only one year.This uncertainty over the PTC's status has put wind developers at a distinct disadvantage, making it difficult to attract investors and plan ahead. Last year's cliffhanger, for example, definitely did a number on the industry. Wind farm construction has fallen off dramatically compared with 2012: Only one utility-scale wind turbine was installed in the first six months of this year. Business picked up somewhat in the third quarter, with 68.3 megawatts installed, according to the American Wind Energy Association, but that's far below the average of more than 1,000 megawatts that the industry constructed in most quarters in recent years.Given that it takes years to plan, finance and construct a wind farm, Congress is again undermining the industry's potential by slow-walking the PTC extension this year. And that potential is tremendous. Wind currently generates about 4 percent of U.S. electricity, but by 2030 it could produce more than 20 percent, according to the U.S. Department of Energy. The DOE's National Renewable Energy Laboratory also is bullish on wind and renewables writ large. Last year, it published a report that concluded today's commercially available renewable technologies could easily generate 80 percent of U.S. electricity by 2050, with nearly half coming from wind. If the Koch brothers and their allies have their way, however, it likely will take a lot longer to get there -- and it will cost a hell of a lot more.Elliott Negin is the director of news and commentary at the Union of Concerned Scientists.=</div><div>=</div><div><a href="https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/07/11/bolton-mek-and-trump-iran-strategy/">https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/07/11/bolton-mek-and-trump-iran-strategy/</a></div><div>
</div><div>leupp</div><div>
</div><div>There are growing indications that the Trump administration plans to use the Mojahedin-e Khalq (People’s Mojahedin of Iran, or MEK) as a key element in its strategy to destabilize Iran preparatory to regime change.On June 30 Trump’s personal lawyer Rudolph Giuliani told the group in Paris: “We are now realistically being able to see an end to the regime in Iran. Trump doesn’t turn his back on freedom fighters.”On July 1, 2017 John Bolton, former State Department official and Trump supporter, addressed a large gathering of MEK supporters in Paris.“There is a viable opposition to the rule of the ayatollahs,” he told the enraptured crowd, “and that opposition is centered in this room today…I have said for over 10 years since coming to these events that the declared policy of the United States should be the overthrow of the regime in Tehran. The behavior and the objectives of the regime are not going to change. And therefore the only solution is to change the regime itself. And that’s why before 2019 we here will celebrate in Tehran!”Yes, the man who has been U.S. National Security Advisor since April 9 predicted to MEK that he would celebrate with them the downfall of the Iranian regime by next year. On May 8 of this year Bolton’s boss withdrew from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).So it’s virtually official. MEK freedom fighters will be chief U.S. proxy in the coming confrontation, or rather the ongoing confrontation renewed when Trump withdrew the U.S. from the Iran deal, threatening all countries with sanctions if they so much as buy Iranian oil. They are comparable to the peshmerga of Syria, or the Northern Alliance warlords in Afghanistan, or the motley array of militia that overthrew Gaddafi in Libya with U.S.-NATO support—willing accomplices in a regime-change effort directed from Washington.Who are these people? MEK was founded in Iran in 1965 as a revolutionary anti-capitalist, anti-imperialist organization dedicated to the violent overthrow of the U.S.-backed regime of the Shah. It sought to produce a synthesis of Shiite Islam and Marxism, an inherently problematic project that has been more or less abandoned, especially as MEK has in recent years courted U.S. officials like Bolton. (A huge number of prominent U.S. officials and former officials have spoken in recent years, often for large fees, at MEK events. They include Howard Dean. Gen. Wesley Clark, Rudolph Giuliani, Porter Goss, Gen. Michael Hayden, Gen. Richard Myers, Bill Richardson, and Gen. Anthony Zinni.)Embracing urban guerrilla warfare tactics in the 1970s, MEK targeted the regime and the U.S. military presence, conducting many attacks on U.S. personnel and gunning down Lt. Col. Louis Lee Hawkins, a U.S. Army comptroller, in 1973. Its members trained with the PLO and al-Fateh and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Oman.During the revolution of 1979 that toppled the Shah, MEK was the largest of the radical left parties (if we exclude the Tudeh or Communist Party founded in 1941, dismissed by MEK as “revisionist”). It worked with smaller communist groups, notably Sardedaran (Union of Iranian Communists) founded in the U.S. by Iranian students in 1976 under the strong influence of the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA.Initially, MEK aligned itself with Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, whose triumphant return from French exile had met with a rapturous response. They perceived him as a popular nationalist leader. But when he denied its leaders input into the writing of a constitution, and forbade them from running for political office, they revolted. Results of their uprising were disastrous; about 10,000 perished and thousands of its members including the leadership fled to Iraq or France. Hosted by Saddam Hussein, they fought alongside the Iraqi Army against their countrymen throughout the 1980s. This is one reason they are generally, according to plausible reports, despised in Iran even by those who chafe under the mullah’s rule.Camp Ashraf in Iraq was created by the MEK to accommodate its 3500 soldiers in the country. This camp was taken over by the U.S. following the 2003 invasion. Indeed the U.S. protected MEK from the Iraqis’ intention to deport them and indeed housed them at Camp Fallujah and arranged for some to be relocated to Albania. In 1975 MEK split into its component parts; that is, a faction arguing rather simply that Marxism, not Islam, is the revolutionary path, and the dominant faction arguing the opposite. This is the MEK that hosts the most reactionary U.S. officials and—after inveighing against Zionism for decades—now cultivates ties with Israeli intelligence. In 1997 it was listed as a “terrorist” organization by the U.S. State Department. The UK and EU soon followed suite. But MEK was delisted as terrorist by Britain in 2008, the EU in 2009, and the U.S. in 2012.Why? Hillary Clinton determined that MEK had changed its ways and given up terrorism. Plus, MEK was so useful, cooperating as it was and is with U.S. and Israeli intelligence, smuggling intelligence out of Iran, abetting U.S.-Israeli disinformation schemes, maintaining an underground presence in Iran that will be useful (some suppose) when the regime-change moment comes.Analysts agree that MEK is a very unusual organization. Led by a married couple, Massoud Rajavi and his wife Maryam Rajavi, it imposes strict discipline including life-long celibacy on its members. It forbids them to entertain sexual thoughts. It punishes rules infractions with public shaming and sleep deprivation. It is often termed a cult.That this group should become a key U.S. ally—as Secretary of State Mike Pompeo virtually declares war on Iran—is truly perplexing. Surely U.S. officials know that MEK is hated in Iran, and that its tactics in Iran have not produced mass support. Other underground opposition parties, such as the National Front of Iran, founded by Mohammed Mossadegh (toppled by the CIA in 1953), will not likely cooperate with them in producing a second regime change. The idea is as wild as Bolton’s idea that Cuba’s pharmaceutical plants are producing biological weapons.Can it be that Pompeo does not understand the enduring outrage felt among Iranians about that 1953 coup? The U.S. didn’t just “interfere” in somebody else’s election, it toppled a democratically elected prime minister because he had the temerity to try to nationalize the nation’s petroleum industry. The world knows the U.S. interferes in other nations’ politics and electoral processes habitually, and that the “bi-partisan” National Endowment for Democracy “NGO” funnels billions into pro-U.S. forces in countries targeted for “color revolutions.” Only the cable anchors on CNN, MSNBC and Fox seem clueless, wide-eyed, indignant and outraged at the thought that “Russia interfered in OUR election!” As though we, as a people, ever had a real election in 2016.)Bolton resembles his boss in that he cares nothing for the truth; lies boldly with angry, smug confidence, daring his audience to differ; is a loud bully with an ego and an agenda to which he hopes to commit the president. His main project is the Iranian regime change, much as Iraqi regime was Paul Wolfowitz’s preoccupation from 9/11/2001 to March 2003 when the plot to conduct a war-based-on-lies was finally consummated. (Bolton continues to say: “I still think the decision to overthrow Saddam was correct,” and that the U.S. has the right to overthrow sovereign states at will.)Bolton has told reporters (who note his changing stance on war with North Korea) that anything he may have said in print or on television in the past is irrelevant now since he is in the service of the president and committed to his policies. But he happily realizes his boss is an air-head, ignorant and impressionable, generally Islamophobic, committed to a hawkish anti-Iran policy because (1) he wants to reverse any Obama policy; (2) he made a campaign promise; (3) he’s slavishly deferential to Binyamin Netanyahu, who wants the U.S. to bomb Iran; and (4) hostility towards Iran invites little opposition in Netanyahu’s fan club, Congress. Bolton has lots to work with there.Congressional attitudes could change if U.S. secondary sanctions applied on European allied nations further strain the Atlantic Alliance already stressed by the trade wars Trump has unleashed. The EU, Russia and China all need to unite in demanding that the U.S. not only end its threats to attack Iran but respect other nations’ rights to trade with that great, large, relatively wealthy nation. (The IMF ranks Iran as 27th of 191 nations in terms of GDP; that is, it’s among the world’s top 15%. China, UAE, Germany and India are main trade partners.)As U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo provokes Iran with his arrogant demands—“preconditions” for a U.S. return to the deal, which essentially demand that it grovel at America’s feet—the U.S. provokes the rest of the world too, for multiple reasons. Its demand for allies’ cooperation in its efforts to undermine Tehran conflict with their efforts to improve both diplomatic and trade relations, to say nothing of their hopes for more stability in the region flooding Europe with refugees....</div>=<a href="https://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/senate-approval-mike-pompeos-secretary-state-nomination-would-spell-disaster">https://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/senate-approval-mike-pompeos-secretary-state-nomination-would-spell-disaster</a>hard to think of a worse candidate than Mike Pompeo to lead the State Department. As leaders of national organizations working toward a more just, sustainable, and peaceful world, we are not trying to sound hyperbolic in asserting that Pompeo is a threat to people everywhere and to the survival of the planet. His performance at last week's Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing only confirmed how dangerous he really is.The Senate's confirmation of Pompeo to lead the CIA was a grave mistake, but thankfully, it is a mistake that can now be rectified. The Senate—particularly the 14 Democrats and one Independent who cast their vote for Pompeo to head the CIA—should make amends and reject Pompeo’s nomination for secretary of state. No senator can now credibly argue that Trump deserves the benefit of the doubt. <div id="TeadsNative" style="">The State Department is an entirely different institution from the CIA. Its mandate is vast, with a portfolio of issues ranging from international climate change negotiations to diplomacy to avert war, and from protection of religious freedom to human rights and women’s reproductive health. Given such a massive portfolio, there’s simply no room for the person heading the State Department to be an anti-Muslim, climate-denying warmonger who has ardently defended torture. In other words, that person must not be Mike Pompeo...secretary of state is supposed to be the nation’s top diplomat, but Pompeo has a unique disdain for diplomacy. During his hearing last week, he gave no indication that he would push to preserve the Iran nuclear deal, and he has in the past advocated for military strikes on Iran. He also refused to rule out a first strike on North Korea. He is a hawk’s hawk, and his hard-fisted approach to highly sensitive diplomatic issues could undo the best chance we have had in a very long time for foundational peace on the Korean peninsula.Mike Pompeo’s hawkish tendencies alone would be bad enough, but he is set to join the Cabinet of a president who cavalierly threatens nuclear war and who is now being advised by a national security adviser with views so extreme, he was previously unable to be confirmed by a Republican Senate. Senators hoping to prevent the next war may not be able to stop Donald Trump or John Bolton, but they can help constrain them by rejecting Pompeo's nomination.Yet as dangerous as the threat of war is now, we are already living with an existential threat to humanity: climate change. On this front as well, Mike Pompeo is intolerably dangerous. He is an unabashed denier of the basic science of climate change. Letting him represent our country in international climate negotiations, as is the responsibility of the secretary of state, is like having a fox guard a henhouse, eat the hens—and then deny that the hens ever existed in the first place.It is no surprise that Pompeo holds such extreme views on climate change. He owes his political career to the Big Oil billionaire Koch brothers. They not only kick-started his run for the House seat representing Wichita, Kansas, where Koch Industries is headquartered, they also showered him with so much cash that when his tenure ended in Congress, Pompeo was the all-time top recipient of Koch Industry money, according to OpenSecrets.org. In fact, Pompeo is such a scion of the Kochs that the nicknames "Koch Brothers' Congressman" and "the Congressman from Koch" have haunted his political fortunes.To the detriment of the planet, the Koch's investment in Pompeo has delivered sound dividends. Pompeo described former president Barack Obama's involvement with the U.N. Paris Climate Agreement as "bow(ing) down to radical environmentalists." Further, while National Intelligence Assessments under both Democratic and Republican administrations found that climate change poses a threat to national security, and the Department of Defense characterized climate change as a "threat multiplier," Pompeo told the Senate last year that viewing climate change as a major national security threat is "ignorant, dangerous, and absolutely unbelievable."
As the Senate weighs his nomination, they must also examine his record on human and civil rights. Here too, Mike Pompeo's career and beliefs should be disqualifying. Throughout his decades in the public eye, he has expressed deeply troubling views on the most basic rights of Muslims, LGBTQ individuals and women.Pompeo's underwhelming concession at the April 12 Senate hearing that humans "likely" contribute to climate change comes straight from the climate-denier's playbook. It provides us no comfort and in no way demonstrates that Pompeo sees climate change as the global emergency that it is.The United States—and the rest of the world—cannot afford to have Mike Pompeo as secretary of state. The Senate must vote down his confirmationomfg, down for the ct then rand paul does his usual fake maverick schtik then cave 180<a href="https://www.democracynow.org/2018/4/27/headlines/senate_confirms_mike_pompeo_as_secretary_of_state">
</a><a href="https://www.democracynow.org/2018/4/27/headlines/senate_confirms_mike_pompeo_as_secretary_of_state" style="">https://www.democracynow.org/2018/4/27/headlines/senate_confirms_mike_pompeo_as_secretary_of_state</a>=see binney

promoted to primary

<h1 class="widgetheadline h1" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 10px 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; cursor: pointer; overflow-wrap: break-word; line-height: 22px;"><a class="widgetheadline-text custom-post-headline" href="https://www.ecowatch.com/pompeo-climate-change-security-risk-2559651377.html" style="text-decoration-line: none; word-break: break-word; word-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px; margin: 0px; line-height: 31px;">Pompeo Changes Tune on Climate After Green Groups Oppose Top Diplomat Nomination</a></h1><div class="body js-expandable clearfix js-listicle-body js-update-url expanded" data-elid="2559651377" data-authors="Olivia Rosane" data-headline="Pompeo Changes Tune on Climate After Green Groups Oppose Top Diplomat Nomination" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 10px; line-height: 24px;"><div class="body-description" style=""><div class="widgetbrief" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">When <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/mike-pompeo" target="self" style="text-decoration-line: none; word-wrap: break-word;">Mike Pompeo</a> was director of the CIA, there were concerns that his <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/climate-change" target="self" style="text-decoration-line: none; word-wrap: break-word;">climate change</a> waffling would prevent him from taking it seriously as a national security threat.A <a href="https://www.politico.com/interactives/2018/climate-science-doubters/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; word-wrap: break-word;">Politico</a> analysis of the <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/trump-watch/" target="self" style="text-decoration-line: none; word-wrap: break-word;">Trump</a> team's climate views, reported on by <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/climate-change-deniers-politico-2544470168.html" target="self" style="text-decoration-line: none; word-wrap: break-word;">EcoWatch</a> in March, pointed out that the Pentagon had excluded climate change from the 2018 National Defense Strategy, and quoted a 2013 interview in which Pompeo hedged on climate science.</div><div class="js-appear-on-expand" style="transition: all 350ms; height: auto; overflow: hidden; opacity: 1;">"There's some who think we're warming, there's some who think we're cooling, there's some who think that the last 16 years have shown a pretty stable climate environment," he had said.But now that Pompeo is seeking Senate confirmation to replace <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/rex-tillerson" target="self" style="text-decoration-line: none; word-wrap: break-word;">Rex Tillerson</a> as Secretary of State, a role for which an accurate assessment of national security risks is also essential, he is changing his climate tune somewhat."[I] believe that the climate is changing, that there's a warming taking place. I'm happy to concede there is likely a human component to that," Pompeo said during his confirmation hearing Thursday before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, <a href="https://qz.com/1251137/mike-pompeo-now-believes-manmade-climate-change-exists/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; word-wrap: break-word;">Quartz</a> reported.He also said that the State Department should work to meet climate-based security threats."You're heading in the right direction," Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-OR), who he had been addressing, said, according to Quartz.But an Associated Press live-update of the proceedings printed in the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/whitehouse/the-latest-protesters-interrupt-as-pompeo-hearing-begins/2018/04/12/212fd25a-3e5f-11e8-955b-7d2e19b79966_story.html?utm_term=.c9ca1b65c44c" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; word-wrap: break-word;">Washington Post</a> reported that Democrats found his remarks "insufficient."During his 2017 Senate hearing to be named CIA director, Pompeo had refused to "get into the details of climate debate and science," Quartz reported.His most climate-accurate remarks to date come two days after more than 200 environmental groups sent a letter to senators asking them to reject Pompeo for the secretary of state position due to his history of <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/climate-denier" style="text-decoration-line: none; word-wrap: break-word;">climate change denial</a>, <a href="http://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/382476-green-groups-ask-senate-to-reject-pompeo-nomination" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; word-wrap: break-word;">The HIll reported</a>."Any Senator who votes in support of his nomination to the important position of Secretary of State is complicit in advancing the Trump/Pompeo pro-fossil fuel, anti-climate agenda," The HIll reported the letter read, in part.Tillerson, who Pompeo would replace if confirmed, ended up being one of the more climate-friendly members of the <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/trump-watch/" style="text-decoration-line: none; word-wrap: break-word;">Trump</a> administration, despite his former role as CEO of ExxonMobil. He supported staying in the Paris agreement, though he also <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/mike-pompeo-climate-denier-2546931171.html" target="self" style="text-decoration-line: none; word-wrap: break-word;">cut the position</a> of U.S. climate envoy.Pompeo's updated views on climate might not be enough to win him Tillerson's old gig. Since Republican Senator Rand Paul has already said he would not recommend Pompeo for secretary of state, if the two Democratic senators on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee join him, Pompeo would not get a favorable recommendation overall. Republicans could still bring Pompeo's nomination to a Senate vote without the recommendation of the committee, but it would be an unusual move, <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/politics/live-news/mike-pompeo-hearing-april-12-18/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; word-wrap: break-word;">CNN reported Thursday</a>.RELATED ARTICLES AROUND THE WEB<div class="around-the-web" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><ul class="around-the-weblist" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; list-style: none;"><li class="around-the-webitem"><a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/mike-pompeo-environment-2550301113.html" class="around-the-weblink" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; line-height: normal; display: inline-block; margin-top: 10px; word-wrap: break-word;">Why Mike Pompeo Could Be Even Worse for the Environment Than ... ›</a></li><li class="around-the-webitem"><a href="https://thinkprogress.org/secretary-of-state-pick-pompeo-top-koch-money-recipient-e910ba9e14fd/" class="around-the-weblink" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; line-height: normal; display: inline-block; margin-top: 10px; word-wrap: break-word;">Trump's Secretary of State pick is 'the number 1 all time recipient of ... ›</a></li><li class="around-the-webitem"><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/13/climate/pompeo-state-department-climate-change.html" class="around-the-weblink" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; line-height: normal; display: inline-block; margin-top: 10px; word-wrap: break-word;">Pompeo, Trump's Pick for Secretary of State, Is a 'Great Climate ... ›</a></li><li class="around-the-webitem"><a href="https://www.politico.com/story/2018/03/07/trump-climate-change-deniers-443533" class="around-the-weblink" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; line-height: normal; display: inline-block; margin-top: 10px; word-wrap: break-word;">Climate change skeptics run the Trump administration - POLITICO ›</a></li></ul></div></div></div></div><a href="https://theintercept.com/2017/12/04/trump-white-house-weighing-plans-for-private-spies-to-counter-deep-state-enemies/">https://theintercept.com/2017/12/04/trump-white-house-weighing-plans-for-private-spies-to-counter-deep-state-enemies/</a>
<div data-reactid="203" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box;">THE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION is considering a set of proposals developed by Blackwater founder Erik Prince and a retired CIA officer — with assistance from Oliver North, a key figure in the Iran-Contra scandal — to provide CIA Director Mike Pompeo and the White House with a global, private spy network that would circumvent official U.S. intelligence agencies, according to several current and former U.S. intelligence officials and others familiar with the proposals. The sources say the plans have been pitched to the White House as a means of countering “deep state” enemies in the intelligence community seeking to undermine Donald Trump’s presidency.The creation of such a program raises the possibility that the effort would be used to create an intelligence apparatus to justify the Trump administration’s political agenda.“Pompeo can’t trust the CIA bureaucracy, so we need to create this thing that reports just directly to him,” said a former senior U.S. intelligence official with firsthand knowledge of the proposals, in describing White House discussions. “It is a direct-action arm, totally off the books,” this person said, meaning the intelligence collected would not be shared with the rest of the CIA or the larger intelligence community. “The whole point is this is supposed to report to the president and Pompeo directly.”North, who appears frequently on Trump’s favorite TV network, Fox News, was enlisted to help sell the effort to the administration. He was the “ideological leader” brought in to lend credibility, said the former senior intelligence official.Some of the individuals involved with the proposals secretly met with major Trump donors asking them to help finance operations before any official contracts were signed.</div><div class="Alert Alert--default" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 2em -272px 2em -20px; border-top: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); border-image: initial; border-left: none; border-right: none;"><div data-reactid="205" style="box-sizing: border-box;">The proposals would utilize an army of spies with no official cover in several countries deemed “denied areas” for current American intelligence personnel, including North Korea and Iran. The White House has also considered creating a new global rendition unit meant to capture terrorist suspects around the world, as well as a propaganda campaign in the Middle East and Europe to combat Islamic extremism and Iran.“I can find no evidence that this ever came to the attention of anyone at the NSC or [White House] at all,” wrote <a href="https://theintercept.com/2017/02/12/dark-essays-by-white-house-staffer-are-the-intellectual-source-code-of-trumpism/" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">Michael N. Anton</a>, a spokesperson for the National Security Council, in an email. “The White House does not and would not support such a proposal.” But a current U.S. intelligence official appeared to contradict that assertion, stating that the various proposals were first pitched at the White House before being delivered to the CIA. The Intercept reached out to several senior officials that sources said had been briefed on the plans by Prince, including Vice President Mike Pence. His spokesperson wrote there was “no record of [Prince] ever having met with or briefed the VP.” North did not respond to a request for comment.According to two former senior intelligence officials, Pompeo has embraced the plan and lobbied the White House to approve the contract. Asked for comment, a CIA spokesperson said, “You have been provided wildly inaccurate information by people peddling an agenda.”At the heart of the scheme being considered by the White House are Blackwater founder Erik Prince and his longtime associate, CIA veteran John R. Maguire, who currently works for the intelligence contractor Amyntor Group. Maguire also served on Trump’s transition team. Amyntor’s role was first <a href="https://www.buzzfeed.com/aramroston/trump-administration-mulls-private-rendition?utm_term=.hmlKz39vev#.ccw8pD0NGN" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">reported</a> by BuzzFeed News.Michael Barry, who was recently named NSC senior director for intelligence programs, worked closely with Prince on a CIA assassination program during the Bush administration.Prince and Maguire deny they are working together. Those assertions, however, are challenged by current and former U.S. officials and Trump donors who say the two men were collaborating.As with many arrangements in the world of CIA contracting and clandestine operations, details of who is in charge of various proposals are murky by design and change depending on which players are speaking. An Amyntor official said Prince was not “formally linked to any contract proposal by Amyntor.” In an email, Prince rejected the suggestion that he was involved with the proposals. When asked if he has knowledge of this project, Prince replied: “I was/am not part of any of those alleged efforts.”The former senior intelligence official with direct knowledge of the efforts scoffed at Prince’s denials. “Erik’s proposal had no company names on the slides,” this person said, “but there is no doubt that Prince and Maguire were working together.”Prince and Maguire have a long professional relationship. Maguire recently completed a stint as a consultant with Prince’s company, Frontier Services Group, a Hong Kong-based security and logistics company partially owned by the Chinese government. FSG has no known connections to the private spy plan.Prince has strong ties to the Trump administration: His sister Betsy DeVos is secretary of education, he was a major <a href="http://docquery.fec.gov/cgi-bin/forms/C00575373/1112111/sa/ALL" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">donor</a> to the Trump election campaign, and he advised the transition team on intelligence and defense appointments, as The Intercept has previously <a href="https://theintercept.com/2017/01/17/notorious-mercenary-erik-prince-is-advising-trump-from-the-shadows/" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">reported</a>. Prince has also contributed to Pence’s campaigns.Maguire spent more than two decades as a paramilitary officer in the CIA, including tours in Central America working with the Contras. He has extensive experience in the Middle East, where he helped plan the 2003 invasion of Iraq.Maguire and Prince met together in September with a senior CIA official at a Virginia restaurant to discuss privatizing the war in Afghanistan.Prince told a top fundraiser that Maguire was working on part of his Afghanistan plan, characterizing it as the first part of a multi-pronged program. The fundraiser added that Prince never directly asked him for money. But sources close to the project say Maguire did seek private funding for Amyntor’s efforts until a CIA contract materialized. “They’ve been going around asking for a bridge loan to float their operations until the CIA says yes,” said a person who has been briefed on the fundraising efforts.Beginning last spring and into the summer, Maguire and a group of Amyntor representatives began asking Trump donors to support their intelligence efforts in Afghanistan, the initial piece of what they hoped would be a broader program. Some Trump fundraisers were asked to provide introductions to companies and wealthy clients who would then hire Amyntor for economic intelligence contracts. Maguire explained that some of the profit from those business deals would fund their foreign intelligence collection. Others were asked to give money outright.“[Maguire] said there were people inside the CIA who joined in the previous eight years [under Obama] and inside the government, and they were failing to give the president the intelligence he needed,” said a person who was pitched by Maguire and other Amyntor personnel. To support his claim, Maguire told at least two people that National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster, in coordination with a top official at the National Security Agency, authorized surveillance of Steven Bannon and Trump family members, including Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump. Adding to these unsubstantiated claims, Maguire told the potential donors he also had evidence McMaster used a burner phone to send information gathered through the surveillance to a facility in Cyprus owned by George Soros.Amyntor employees took potential donors to a suite in the Trump Hotel in Washington, which they claimed was set up to conduct “secure communications.” Some White House staff and Trump campaign supporters came to refer to the suite as “the tinfoil room,” according to one person who visited the suite. This account was confirmed by another source to whom the room was described. “John [Maguire] was certain that the deep state was going to kick the president out of office within a year,” said a person who discussed it with Maguire. “These guys said they were protecting the president.”Maguire and others at Amyntor have boasted that they have already sent intelligence reports to Pompeo....PRINCE, MAGUIRE, AND North have long shared a common frustration over the failure of the U.S. government to bring two suspects from a high-profile terrorist event in the 1980s to justice. Last summer, Maguire discussed rendering the suspects with White House officials after learning the men had been located in the Middle East. Despite having no U.S. government approval, associates of Maguire began working on a snatch operation earlier this year, according to a former senior U.S. intelligence official and a former Prince colleague.Maguire, concerned that the FBI would not take action, made an offer to senior White House officials. The message, according to a person with direct knowledge of the rendition plan, was: “We’re going to go get these guys and bring them to the U.S. Who should we hand them over to?”The rendition plan was meant to be a demonstration that Maguire and his associates had an active intelligence network and the capability to grab suspects around the world. Prince maintains he has nothing to do with that plan. But according to a source with extensive knowledge of Prince’s networks, Prince was working in parallel to assemble a team to help apprehend the men.According to two people who have worked extensively with Prince in recent years, Prince has been contacting former Blackwater personnel who worked on a post-9/11 era CIA assassination program targeting Al Qaeda operatives. That program, which the Bush White House prohibited the CIA from disclosing to congressional intelligence committees, was revealed to Congress in 2009 by then-CIA Director Leon Panetta. The CIA says the program did not result in any assassinations.Among the capabilities Prince offers is a network of deniable assets —  spies, fixers, foreign intelligence agents — spread across the globe that could be used by the White House. “You pick any country in the world Erik’s been in, and it’s there,” said a longtime Prince associate. “They’re a network of very dark individuals.” The associate, who has worked extensively with Prince, then began rattling off places where the private spies and paramilitaries already operate — Saudi Arabia, Israel, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, “all across North Africa.”Opaque contracting arrangements are typical for Prince, who became a lightning rod in his Blackwater days and now prefers to minimize controversy by operating in the shadows, disguising his involvement in sensitive operations with layers of subcontractors and elaborately crafted legal structures. “That’s his exact MO,” said the longtime Prince associate, adding that Prince consistently attempts to ensure plausible deniability of his role in U.S. and foreign government contracts.“I have zero to do with any such effort and saying that I did/do would be categorically false,” Prince said in his email to The Intercept. “Knowingly publishing false information exposes you to civil legal action. The only effort I’ve quite publicly pitched is an alternative to Afghanistan.”THE INTELLIGENCE AND covert action program would mark an unorthodox return to government service for Prince, the onetime CIA contractor who built a mercenary force that became notorious during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. It would also raise new questions about Prince’s foreign entanglements since he sold Blackwater.In addition to Prince’s former assassination network, the hidden cadre of spies with no official cover — NOCs in CIA jargon — includes the assets of another key player in the Iran-Contra affair, CIA Officer Duane Clarridge, who died in 2016. Maguire, who worked under Clarridge as a young CIA paramilitary in Central America during the mid-1980s, took over the network of contract spies, who operate mostly in Afghanistan and Pakistan.Last summer, as Prince pushed his public proposal to privatize the war in Afghanistan, he and Maguire had broader ambitions, according to a person involved in the discussions. “The goal was to eventually get their network of NOCs worldwide, but they initially started with Afghanistan and Pakistan.”“Prince seems to be firing on a lot of cylinders and pitching overt and covert plans,” said a current intelligence officer who has closely monitored Prince’s career and been briefed on several of Prince’s recent efforts, including the proposals to Pompeo. The official declined to discuss details of the plans but pointed to Prince’s much-discussed pitch to privatize the war in Afghanistan as a smokescreen for offering other more controversial programs and operations.Prince’s Afghanistan plan, which received substantial media attention and got a hearing at the highest levels of the Trump administration, “was brilliant because it changed the narrative and made him relevant,” the officer said, referring to Prince’s scandal- and investigation-plagued career at Blackwater. The officer also added that the very public Afghanistan pitch, replete with cable news interviews and op-eds, provided a legitimate reason “to justify meeting with people” at the White House, CIA, or other government agencies.“Erik has no hobbies,” said the longtime Prince associate. “Counterterrorism is his hobby.”In some ways, these plans mirror operations Prince led during the Bush-Cheney administration. When Prince was running Blackwater, he and a former CIA paramilitary officer, Enrique Prado, set up a global network of foreign operatives, offering their “deniability” as a “big plus” for potential Blackwater customers, according to internal company communications.In a 2007 email, with the subject “Possible Opportunity in DEA—READ AND DELETE,” Prado sought to pitch the network to the Drug Enforcement Administration, bragging that Blackwater had developed “a rapidly growing, worldwide network of folks that can do everything from surveillance to ground truth to disruption operations.” He added, “These are all foreign nationals (except for a few cases where US persons are the conduit but no longer ‘play’ on the street), so deniability is built in and should be a big plus.”The longtime Prince associate said that the nexus of deniable assets has never gone away. “The NOC network is already there. It already exists for the better part of 15 years now,” he said.Prince has long admired North and viewed his role in Iran-Contra as heroic, said the Prince associate. In 2007, Prince testified defiantly before Congress following the Nisour Square massacre in Baghdad, in which Blackwater operatives gunned down 17 Iraqi civilians, including women and children. Shortly after his testimony, Prince’s longtime friend, conservative California Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, praised the Blackwater chief. “Prince,” Rohrabacher said, “is on his way to being an American hero just like Ollie North was.”North, a Marine lieutenant colonel on the Reagan National Security Council, oversaw a scheme to divert proceeds from illicit arms sales to Iran to Contra death squads in Nicaragua. The resulting scandal became known as the Iran-Contra affair, and North was convicted of three felonies, though these convictions were later thrown out.Both North and Maguire attended a small reception in 2014 celebrating Prince’s third marriage — to his former spokesperson Stacy DeLuke. “It was an intimate affair,” said the Prince associate. “Only Erik’s closest friends were invited to that reception.” On election night in 2016, DeLuke posted photos on social media from inside Trump headquarters.On November 30, Prince testified behind closed doors before the House Intelligence Committee about his January trip to the Seychelles to meet with Mohammad bin Zayed, crown prince of Abu Dhabi, and a Russian fund manager close to Vladimir Putin. According to the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/blackwater-founder-held-secret-seychelles-meeting-to-establish-trump-putin-back-channel/2017/04/03/95908a08-1648-11e7-ada0-1489b735b3a3_story.html" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">Washington Post</a>, Prince presented himself as an unofficial envoy of President-elect Trump. The Intercept <a href="https://theintercept.com/2017/11/28/blackwaters-erik-prince-met-with-ceo-of-russian-direct-investment-fund/" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">reported</a> last week that the fund manager was Kirill Dmitriev, head of the Russian Direct Investment Fund. Prince repeatedly <a href="https://twitter.com/ErinBurnett/status/894728814671966209?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Ftheintercept.com%2F2017%2F11%2F28%2Fblackwaters-erik-prince-met-with-ceo-of-russian-direct-investment-fund%2F" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">said</a> that he did not remember the identity of the Russian, but on Thursday, in testimony before the House Intelligence Committee, Prince <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/powerpost/erik-prince-tells-house-investigators-he-met-with-kremlin-linked-banker-in-seychelles/2017/11/30/c8a66e3e-d62e-11e7-95bf-df7c19270879_story.html" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">admitted</a> that he did in fact meet with Dmitriev.Prince may have revealed part of his strategy in a July 2016 radio interview with Steve Bannon, when he proposed recreating the CIA’s Phoenix Program, an assassination ring used in the Vietnam War, to battle the Islamic State. Prince said in the interview that the program would be used to kill or capture “the funders of Islamic terror, the wealthy radical Islamist billionaires funding it from the Middle East.”</div><a href="http://">https://insideclimatenews.org/news/13032018/mike-pompeo-koch-brothers-secretary-state-climate-change-rex-tillerson-exxon?</a><div class="content" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit;"><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><div class="field-items" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded" style="box-sizing: inherit;">With Rex Tillerson's firing, President Donald Trump's new choice for Secretary of State—Mike Pompeo, a former Kansas congressman currently serving as director of the CIA—signals a hardening stance against international engagement on climate change.Pompeo's career in business and politics was tightly intertwined with the oil magnate Koch brothers, and he has shown a deep disregard for climate science and the need to address the climate crisis.As a congressman, <a href="https://votesmart.org/public-statement/1063247/pompeo-on-president-obamas-dangerously-wrong-priorities-radical-climate-change-agenda-is-not-more-important-than-fighting-isis#.WqfdwpMbPq1" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold;">Pompeo said</a> the <a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/tags/paris-climate-agreement" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold;">Paris climate agreement</a> amounted to "bow(ing) down to radical environmentalists," and he blasted President Barack Obama for what Pompeo called a "perverse fixation on achieving his economically harmful environmental agenda" in the 2015 talks.Pompeo's past statements indicate a far more recalcitrant stance than Tillerson's.Tillerson, a longtime oil executive, argued that the U.S. should keep a "seat at the table" in global <a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/topic/climate-change" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold;">climate change</a> talks and unsuccessfully sought to persuade Trump to stay in the Paris accord. Environmentalists noted the irony that the best advocate of their cause in the Trump administration—albeit never an effective one—was the former CEO of Exxon.<div id="mc_embed_signup" class="widget widget-newsletter-block embed-horiz fbia-strip" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; border: 3px solid rgb(0, 0, 0); padding: 1em; text-align: center;">"In a strange kind of way, [Tillerson's] experience at Exxon dealing with energy and heads of state and climate gave him a deeper understanding of the diplomatic, economic and political dimensions of the issue," said Alden Meyer, director of strategy and policy for the Union of Concerned Scientists. "From what we know, that does not seem to be the case with Pompeo."As a congressman, Pompeo described the new 2015 Paris climate pact as a "costly burden" to the United States. "Congress must also do all in our power to fight against this damaging climate change proposal and pursue policies that support American energy, create new jobs and power our economy," he said.During the hearings that led to his confirmation as CIA director last year, Pompeo dodged a direct answer on his views on climate change, but he made clear—as Tillerson did during his own confirmation hearing—that he did not view it as a national security issue."I, frankly, as the director of CIA, would prefer today not to get into the details of climate debate and science," he said in response to questions from Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) "It just seems—my role is going to be so different and unique from that. It is gonna be to work alongside warriors keeping Americans safe."Meyer predicted that Pompeo will not be able to evade discussing his views on climate change so easily at his next confirmation hearing, before the Senate Foreign Relations committee, which is chaired by retiring Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.).<h3 style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 0.5em; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.333;">Pompeo's Koch Brothers Connections</h3>Pompeo, who graduated first in his class at West Point and served in the mechanized cavalry during the Gulf War, earned a law degree at Harvard and built a business career as founder of an aerospace and security firm with an investment from Koch Industries. He later became president of the oilfield services firm Sentry International, which partnered with Koch.Pompeo was among the Tea Party class that was swept into office in 2010 and helped the Republicans regain control of the U.S. House. The Koch advocacy group Americans for Prosperity was among the right-wing groups that spent tens of thousands of dollars to attack his opponent in the primary and secured him the Republican nomination. Every year after that, the Kansas congressman was <a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/toprecips.php?id=D000000186&type=&sort=&cycle=2016" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold;">the No. 1 recipient </a>of money from the political action committee of Wichita-based Koch Industries, with more than $375,000 in contributions.Pompeo's close ties to the Koch brothers and his dismal environmental voting record have raised alarm bells with climate advocates. Sierra Club Executive Director Michael Brune said replacing Tillerson with Pompeo amounts to turning "our global diplomatic efforts over from Exxon to the Koch Brothers.""Every single other world leader accepts climate science, and every single other nation wants to be a part of the Paris Agreement, yet Trump wants to give the stewardship of our international relations to an extremist," Brune said.Tiernan Sittenfeld, senior vice president of government affairs for the League of Conservation Voters, said that, "with a history of questioning the science of climate change, a close relationship with the polluter Koch brothers and <a href="http://scorecard.lcv.org/moc/mike-pompeo" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold;">lifetime LCV score of 4 percent</a>, Mike Pompeo has no business becoming the next secretary of state."<h3 style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 0.5em; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.333;">Influence Over Future Climate Efforts  </h3>If Pompeo is confirmed, one of the big questions is how much attention he will give to climate change at all, given the pressure of addressing upcoming talks with North Korea and the international trade disputes arising in the wake of Trump's tariff decisions, Meyer said.Meyer, who has more than 30 years of experience as an observer of international climate talks, described Tillerson's approach as akin to "benign neglect.""He allowed career diplomats to continue to engage on issues that have had bipartisan support in the past, without backing away from the Trump administration's stand," Meyer said. For example, allowing them to argue for greater transparency and reporting, and against the divide between developing and developed nations."To me, it's an open question whether Pompeo will continue that, or does he actively try to shift U.S. policy?" Meyer said.Harvard economist Robert Stavins <a href="http://www.robertstavinsblog.org/2018/03/13/rex-tillerson-secretary-state-make/" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold;">writes</a>: "Perhaps Mr. Tillerson should be credited for the fact that the State Department has at least remained engaged in the climate change negotiations. ... However, such continued bureaucratic involvement cannot make up for the fact that the U.S. is disengaged at political levels, which must be attributed—at least in part—to Tillerson's ineffectiveness in tilting the president toward a more sensible path on climate change policy."</div></div></div></div><div class="tagged-with" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-transform: uppercase; margin-bottom: 1em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><label style="box-sizing: inherit; display: block; line-height: 1.2;">PUBLISHED UNDER:</label><div class="field field-name-field-topics field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-hidden" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><div class="field-items" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><div class="field-item even" style="box-sizing: inherit; display: inline-block; padding-right: 0.5em;"><a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/topics/politics" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none;">POLITICS</a></div> <div class="field-item odd" style="box-sizing: inherit; display: inline-block; padding-right: 0.5em;"><a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/topics/climate-denial" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none;">CLIMATE DENIAL</a></div> <div class="field-item even" style="box-sizing: inherit; display: inline-block; padding-right: 0.5em;"><a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/topics/global-climate-treaty" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none;">GLOBAL CLIMATE TREATY</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-hidden" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><div class="field-items" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><div class="field-item even" style="box-sizing: inherit; display: inline-block; padding-right: 0.5em;"><a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/topic/climate-change" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none;">CLIMATE CHANGE</a></div> <div class="field-item odd" style="box-sizing: inherit; display: inline-block; padding-right: 0.5em;"><a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/tags/rex-tillerson" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none;">REX TILLERSON</a></div> <div class="field-item even" style="box-sizing: inherit; display: inline-block; padding-right: 0.5em;"><a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/tags/mike-pompeo" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none;">MIKE POMPEO</a></div></div></div></div>=they're baaaaackOnce upon a time there were hopes that Donald Trump as president might pursue a different kind of American foreign policy; call it non-interventionist, or isolationist, or transactional.He certainly broke with conventional Washington discourse. When the foreign policy establishment of Washington almost unanimously urged President Obama in September 2013 to punish the Syrian government for a chemical gas attack, Trump <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/375577511473983488" style="text-decoration-line: none;">tweeted</a>, “Do not attack Syria” three times in two days.<div id="TeadsNative" style="">Trump denounced previous administrations, Democratic and Republican, for casting America as the "policeman of the world.” He criticized President George W. Bush even more harshly than many liberal critics did. ...No longer. For the first year of his presidency, Trump <a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2017/12/29/how-donald-trump-learned-to-love-war-in-2017/" style="text-decoration-line: none;">intensified U.S. military action</a> in every war theater he inherited from Obama. He sent more troops to Afghanistan. He dropped more bombs on Somalia than Obama and Bush combined. He loosened the rules of engagement in Syria. And he supplied Saudi Arabia with the bombs to besiege the civilians of Yemen.  Only on the issue of Iran did Trump exercise a degree of restraint. While he repeatedly disparaged the 2015 international agreement on Iran’s nuclear program, he deferred to the triumvirate of his national security advisers: Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, Defense Secretary James Mattis and National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster.They all told Trump that international inspectors confirm Iran is abiding by the terms of the deal, and the results serve American security interests by blocking Iran’s path to a nuclear weapon at least until 2025.But Tillerson’s "<a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/news/archive/2017/08/tillerson-iran-jcpoa/535602/" style="text-decoration-line: none;">differences</a>" with Trump on Iran chafed the president and finally cost Tillerson his job.Neo-Continuity"When you look at the Iran deal, I thought it was terrible,” Trump said of Tillerson Tuesday. “He thought it was okay. I wanted to either break it or do something, he felt a little differently.”Trump is now moving toward renouncing the deal in May, a move Pompeo has long advocated. Along the way, Trump is adopting the worldview of the neoconservatives he once scorned.“For anybody who thought that Trump was bluffing about his May 12 deadline to fix the deal or nix it, the appointment of Mike Pompeo as secretary of state should be a wake-up call,” said Mark Dubowitz, an executive at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, which has close ties to the Trump administration.The foundation, created in 2001, embodies the continuity between the neoconservative policies of the Bush administration and the Trump administration. Founded by a “group of visionary philanthropists and policymakers who understood the threat facing America, Israel and the West,” the foundation's advisers include former Sen. Joe Lieberman, columnists Bret Stephens and Charles Krauthammer, and neoconservative guru William Kristol.The personnel has changed—Kristol is now a Never Trump conservative—but the song of “regime change” in Iran remains the same.Even before the invasion of Iraq, the foundation’s ideologues were dreaming of invading Iran. “Everyone talks about going to Baghdad,” said one British official of the neoconservatives. "<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/18/opinion/things-to-come.html" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Real men talk about going to Tehran</a>."“The potential for a democratic transition exists in Iran, where such aspirations have been growing for over 100 years,” Reuel Marc Gerecht, senior fellow at the foundation, wrote last week in the Wall Street Journal. “As regime-shaking street protests have repeatedly revealed, the country is a volcano. We want it to erupt. For the U.S. and the Middle East, sooner is better than later.”The ostensible goal of reaching a better agreement with Iran cannot conceal a larger ambition. In 2016, Pompeo said, “Congress must act to change Iranian behavior, and ultimately, <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/mike-pompeo-said-all-muslims-are-potentially-complicit-terrorism-he-ncna856531" style="text-decoration-line: none;">the Iranian regime</a>."Pompeo, much more than Tillerson, identifies with Israel, which has sought to kill the Iran agreement even while it was being negotiated. He was much more energetic than Tillerson in cultivating the Persian Gulf oil states that feel most threatened by Iran.Jim Lobe notes that Pompeo <a href="https://www.thenational.ae/world/gcc/saudi-s-king-salman-discusses-relations-with-cia-chief-pompeo-1.688905" style="text-decoration-line: none;">met</a> with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in Saudi Arabia in December to promote an anti-Iran coalition of Israel and the Gulf Arab states. The Jerusalem-Riyadh axis wants to enlist the United States in their campaign to confront and disrupt Iran.“We absolutely need Sunni partners,” Pompeo said <a href="https://www.aei.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/180123-AEI-Intelligence-Beyond-2018.pdf" style="text-decoration-line: none;">in a talk</a> at the neoconservative American Enterprise Institute. “This administration has broadly reached out to Sunni countries all throughout the Middle East to form coalitions… not only against ISIS, but against Iran as well.”Enter Bolton?“Tillerson’s dismissal has also deepened speculation about the departure of the national-security adviser, General H. R. McMaster,” <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/with-mike-pompeo-at-the-state-department-are-the-uber-hawks-winning" style="text-decoration-line: none;">says</a> Robin Wright of the New Yorker. “The former U.N. Ambassador John Bolton, an über-hawk on foreign policy, visited the White House last week; Republicans in previous administrations told me that he is an increasingly likely candidate to replace McMaster, whose long-winded lectures Trump has grumbled about.”Bolton's policy goals are not subtle. In a 2015 New York Times opinion column, he advocated <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/26/opinion/to-stop-irans-bomb-bomb-iran.html" style="text-decoration-line: none;">bombing Iran</a> immediately.Trump’s firing of Tillerson and his chumminess with Bolton is a reminder that the president once harbored the belief that instigating war with Iran would be a good move for a president in need of a boost at the polls.      In 2011 and 2012, Trump tweeted six times that Obama was going to attack Iran in order to win the election....[tweets]<a href="https://www.alternet.org/return-neoconservatives-trump-administration">https://www.alternet.org/return-neoconservatives-trump-administration</a>=</div>Tillerson's troubled tenure at the State Department has been marked by frequent clashes with <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/donald-trump" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">President Trump</a>over policy as well as fierce opposition from career diplomats in the department. CIA director <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/trumps-cabinet-climate-change-denial-2103057287.html" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Mike Pompeo</a> is thought to be the top choice to replace Tillerson. Unlike Tillerson, who paid <a href="https://climatenexus.us4.list-manage.com/track/click?u=d1f5797e59060083034310930&id=1daad45968&e=d462721836" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">some lip service</a> to climate science and occasionally <a href="https://climatenexus.us4.list-manage.com/track/click?u=d1f5797e59060083034310930&id=0514162820&e=d462721836" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">stood at odds</a> with the White House on international action, Pompeo has an extensive record of <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/climate-denier" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">climate denial</a>, once calling the assertion that climate change is a national security threat "ignorant, dangerous and absolutely unbelievable."<a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/fossil-fuels-advocate-mike-pompeo-may-replace-exxonmobil-ceo-rex-tillerson-as-secretary-of-state-2514044018.html">https://www.ecowatch.com/fossil-fuels-advocate-mike-pompeo-may-replace-exxonmobil-ceo-rex-tillerson-as-secretary-of-state-2514044018.html</a><div class="headline-container" style="margin-top: 10px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><h1 class="headline h1" style="margin: 10px; padding: 0px; position: relative; line-height: 31px;">Fossil Fuels Advocate Mike Pompeo May Replace ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson as Secretary of State</h1></div><div id="utm_campaign" style="margin-top: 10px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div class="body js-expandable clearfix js-listicle-body js-update-url" data-elid="2514044018" data-authors="Climate Nexus" data-headline="Fossil Fuels Advocate Mike Pompeo May Replace ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson as Secretary of State" style="margin: 10px; line-height: 24px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div class="body-description">The White House is readying a plan to push out former ExxonMobil CEO <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tillerson-secretary-state-2188614297.html?fb_comment_id=1308981472493071_1309074865817065&page=2" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Rex Tillerson</a> as Secretary of State in the coming weeks, multiple outlets reported Thursday.Tillerson's troubled tenure at the State Department has been marked by frequent clashes with <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/donald-trump" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">President Trump</a>over policy as well as fierce opposition from career diplomats in the department. CIA director <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/trumps-cabinet-climate-change-denial-2103057287.html" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Mike Pompeo</a> is thought to be the top choice to replace Tillerson. Unlike Tillerson, who paid <a href="https://climatenexus.us4.list-manage.com/track/click?u=d1f5797e59060083034310930&id=1daad45968&e=d462721836" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">some lip service</a> to climate science and occasionally <a href="https://climatenexus.us4.list-manage.com/track/click?u=d1f5797e59060083034310930&id=0514162820&e=d462721836" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">stood at odds</a> with the White House on international action, Pompeo has an extensive record of <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/climate-denier" style="text-decoration-line: none;">climate denial</a>, once calling the assertion that climate change is a national security threat "ignorant, dangerous and absolutely unbelievable."</div></div>According to an investigation by <a href="http://foreignpolicy.com/2017/09/08/more-white-more-male-more-jesus-cia-employees-fear-pompeo-is-quietly-killing-the-agencys-diversity-mandate/" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Foreign Policy</a> into changes in the intelligence community under President Donald Trump, the CIA has set aside plans to diversify and has become more white and more Christian under new director Mike Pompeo.Noting the Pompeo, a former Republican congressman from Kansas,  is a self-professed evangelical, the report states that the new director once claimed, Islamist terrorists will “continue to press against us until we make sure that we pray and stand and fight and make sure that we know that Jesus Christ is our savior is truly the only solution for our world.”Insiders—many of whom are afraid to come forward—say Pompeo’s religious beliefs are becoming part of CIA dogma to the dismay of longtime employees.“According to four sources familiar with the matter, Pompeo, who attends weekly Bible studies held in government buildings, referenced God and Christianity repeatedly in his first all-hands speech and in a recent trip report while traveling overseas,” the report states, adding that since taking over, Pompeo has also set about establishing a chaplaincy on the CIA campus.A spokesperson for the CIA defended the move, saying, “Director Pompeo is a man of faith. The idea that he should not practice his faith because he is Director of CIA is absurd.”According to Michael Weinstein, founder of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, he is being flooded with complaints about the creeping evangelical Christianity that is beginning to pervade the intelligence agency.Weinstein notes that insiders are afraid to speak up, stating, “They don’t typically file formal complaints within the government. But certain things are making them especially uncomfortable, such as officials signing off with the phrase ‘have a blessed day.’ That’s something “straight out of The Handmaid’s Tale.”“In the intelligence community, we see supervisors wanting to hold Bible studies during duty hours [and] inviting lower-ranking individuals to their homes for Bible studies,” Weinstein  continued. “Our clients at CIA feel extremely isolated in a way they have not felt before.”The CIA dismissed complaints about the Christian influence at the agency, saying they are staying true to their mission.“They demonstrate their commitment to the diversity required to achieve that mission in the most important way possible: by living the creed of crushing our adversaries by hiring and training the best spies the world will ever know,” a statement asserted.<div wibbitz="embed-main-player" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div class="bio-new body_story" style="width: 630px; font-style: italic; line-height: 22px; height: auto; border-top: 3px solid rgb(223, 223, 218); clear: both; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div class="author-bio" style="">Tom Boggioni</div></div>=h<a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/176295/tomgram%3A_engelhardt%2C_the_making_of_a_pariah_nation/#more">ttp://www.tomdispatch.com/post/176295/tomgram%3A_engelhardt%2C_the_making_of_a_pariah_nation/#more</a>
big pict status quo:...<p times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" helvetica="helvetica" arial="arial" color="color" rgb="rgb" margin="margin" px="px" padding-top="padding-top" line-height="line-height" background-color="background-color" style="">Meanwhile, at home, despite all that wealth, despite <a href="http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/USA-Update/2014/0303/Forbes-richest-people-number-of-billionaires-up-significantly-video" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">billionaires galore</a>, including the one running for president, despite the transnational corporate heaven inhabited by Google and Facebook and Apple and the rest of the crew, parts of this country and its infrastructure were starting to feel distinctly (to use a word from another universe) Third Worldish.  He sensed that, too.  He regularly <a href="http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/feb/9/donald-trump-vows-overhaul-airports/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">said</a> things like this: “We spent six trillion dollars in the Middle East, we got nothing… And we have an obsolete plane system. We have obsolete airports. We have obsolete trains. We have bad roads. Airports.”  And <a href="http://www.economist.com/blogs/gulliver/2016/09/plane-speaking" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">this</a>: “Our airports are like from a third-world country.”  And on the nation’s <a href="https://www.infrastructurereportcard.org/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">crumbling infrastructure</a>, he couldn’t have been more on the mark.<p times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" helvetica="helvetica" arial="arial" color="color" rgb="rgb" margin="margin" px="px" padding-top="padding-top" line-height="line-height" background-color="background-color" style="">In parts of the U.S., white working-class and <a href="https://newrepublic.com/article/138754/blame-trumps-victory-college-educated-whites-not-working-class" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">middle-class</a> Americans could sense that the future was no longer theirs, that their children would not have a shot at what they had had, that they themselves increasingly didn’t have a shot at what they had had.  The American Dream seemed to be gaining an almost nightmarish sheen, given that the real value of the average wage of a worker <a href="https://www.juancole.com/2017/06/climate-disavowal-capitalism.html" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">hadn’t increased</a> since the 1970s; that the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/grade-point/wp/2016/10/26/college-costs-rising-faster-than-financial-aid-report-says/?utm_term=.7e83fb944579" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">cost</a> of a college education had gone through the roof and the educational <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/student-loan-debt-state-of-the-union-2016-1" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">debt burden</a> for children with dreams of getting ahead was now staggering; that unions were <a href="http://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/316310-union-membership-hits-new-low" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">cratering</a>; that income inequality was at a <a href="https://thinkprogress.org/income-inequality-is-at-the-highest-level-in-american-history-d2c263980be6" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">historic high</a>; and... well, you know the story, really you do.  In essence, for them the famed American Dream seemed ever more like someone else’s trademarked property. <p times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" helvetica="helvetica" arial="arial" color="color" rgb="rgb" margin="margin" px="px" padding-top="padding-top" line-height="line-height" background-color="background-color" style="">Indispensable? Exceptional? This country? Not anymore. Not as they were experiencing it.<a name="more" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" helvetica="helvetica" arial="arial" font-size="font-size" medium="medium" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style=""></a><p times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" helvetica="helvetica" arial="arial" color="color" rgb="rgb" margin="margin" px="px" padding-top="padding-top" line-height="line-height" background-color="background-color" style="">And because of that, Donald Trump won the lottery.  He answered the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The$64,000_Question#The.2464.2C000_Question" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">$64,000 question</a>.  (If you’re not of a certain age, Google it, but believe me it’s a reference in our president’s memory book.)  He entered the Oval Office with <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/hillary-clinton-popular-vote_us_58599647e4b0eb58648446c6" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">almost 50%</a> of the vote and a fervent base of support for his promised program of doing it all over again, <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/176222/tomgram%3A_michael_klare,donald_trump%27s_energy_nostalgia_and_the_path_to_hell/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">1950s-style</a>....Despite the mainstream pieties of the moment about the nature of the system Donald Trump appears to be dismantling in Europe and elsewhere, it was anything but either terribly “liberal” or particularly peaceable.  Wars, invasions, occupations, the undermining or overthrow of governments, brutal acts and conflicts of every sort succeeded one another in the years of American glory.  Past administrations in Washington had a notorious weakness for autocrats, just as Donald Trump does today.  They regularly had less than <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2016/10/13/the-long-history-of-the-u-s-interfering-with-elections-elsewhere/?utm_term=.dff92913d628" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">no respect</a> for democracy if, from Iran to Guatemala to Chile, the will of the people seemed to stand in Washington’s way.  (It is, as Vladimir Putin has been only too happy to point out of late, an irony of our moment that the country that has undermined or overthrown or meddled in <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/the-us-has-been-meddling-in-other-countries-elections-for-a-century-it-doesnt-feel-good_us_57983b85e4b02d5d5ed382bd" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">more electoral systems</a> than any other is in a total snit over the possibility that one of its own elections was meddled with.)  To enforce their global system, Americans never shied away from <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175934/tomgram%3A_rebecca_gordon,the_torture_wars/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">torture</a>, <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2007/08/13/the-black-sites" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">black sites</a>, <a href="https://www.thenation.com/article/time-for-a-us-apology-to-el-salvador/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">death squads</a>, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2003/mar/21/usa.davidpallister" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">assassinations</a>, and other grim practices.  In those years, the U.S. planted its military on close to <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/1181/chalmers_johnson_on_garrisoning_the_planet" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">1,000</a> overseas military bases, garrisoning the planet as no other country ever had. Nonetheless, the cancelling of the Trans Pacific Partnership trade deal, the withdrawal from the Paris climate accord, threats against NAFTA, the undermining of NATO, the promise of <a href="http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2016/jun/21/donald-trump-has-floated-big-tariffs-what-could-im/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">protective tariffs</a> on foreign goods (and the possible trade wars that might go with them) could go a long way toward dismantling the American global system of soft power and economic dominance as it has existed in these last decades.  If such acts and others like them prove effective in the months and years to come, they will leave only one kind of power in the American global quiver: hard military power, and its handmaiden, the kind of covert power Washington, through the CIA in particular, has long specialized in. If America’s alliances crack open and its soft power becomes too angry or edgy to pass for dominant power anymore, its massive machinery of destruction will still be left, including its vast <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/04/us/politics/trump-nuclear-weapons-cost-estimate.html" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">nuclear arsenal</a>.  While, in the Trump era, a drive to cut domestic spending of every sort is evident, <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/176238/tomgram%3A_william_hartung,investing_in_the_military(and_little_else)/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">more money</a> is still slated to go to the military, already funded at levels not reached by <a href="http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2016/jan/13/barack-obama/obama-us-spends-more-military-next-8-nations-combi/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">combinations</a> of other major powers. Given the last 15 years of <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175854/tomgram%3A_engelhardt,a_record_of_unparalleled_failure/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">history</a>, it’s not hard to imagine what’s likely to result from the further elevation of military power: disaster.  This is especially true because Donald Trump has appointed to key positions in his administration a <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/176250/tomgram%3A_william_hartung%2C_the_generals_vs.the_ideologues_or_the_generals_and_the_ide" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">crew of generals</a> who spent the last decade and a half fighting America’s catastrophic wars across the Greater Middle East.  They are not only notoriously incapable of thinking outside the box about the application of military power, but faced with the crisis of failed wars and <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/176094/tomgram%3A_engelhardt,tomorrow%27s_news_today/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">failing states</a>, of spreading terror movements and a growing <a href="http://www.unhcr.org/afr/news/latest/2016/6/5763b65a4/global-forced-displacement-hits-record-high.html" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">refugee crisis</a> across that crucial region, they can evidently only imagine one solution to just about any problem: more of the same.  More <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/checkpoint/wp/2017/03/15/u-s-military-probably-sending-as-many-as-1000-more-ground-troops-into-syria-ahead-of-raqqa-offensive-officials-say/?utm_term=.5bd20d11226c" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">troops</a>, more <a href="http://www.militarytimes.com/articles/us-troops-afghanistan-donald-trump" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">mini-surges</a>, more military trainers and advisers, more <a href="http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/airstrikes-are-on-the-rise-in-afghanistan-but-you-probably-havent-heard-about-it/article/2617792" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">air strikes</a>, more <a href="https://www.cfr.org/blog-post/not-so-peaceful-transition-power-trumps-drone-strikes-outpace-obama" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">drone strikes</a>... <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/176279/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">more</a>.After a decade and a half of such thinking we already know perfectly well where this ends -- in further failure, more chaos and suffering, but above all in an inability of the U.S. to effectively apply its hard power anywhere in any way that doesn’t make matters worse.  Since, in addition, the Trump administration is filled with Iranophobes, including a president who has only recently fused himself to the Saudi royal family in an attempt to further isolate and undermine Iran, the possibility that a military-first version of American foreign policy will spread further is only <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/176289/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">growing</a>.    Such “more” thinking is typical as well of much of the rest of the cast of characters now in key positions in the Trump administration. Take the CIA, for instance.  Under its new director, Mike Pompeo (distinctly a “more” kind of guy and an <a href="http://www.haaretz.com/us-news/.premium-1.767122" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Iranophobe</a> of the first order), two key positions have reportedly been filled: a new chief of counterterrorism and a new head of Iran operations (recently identified as Michael D’Andrea, an Agency hardliner with the nickname “the Dark Prince”).  Here’s how Matthew Rosenberg and Adam Goldman of the New York Times <a href="https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/06/02/world/middleeast/cia-iran-dark-prince-michael-dandrea.html" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">recently described</a> their similar approaches to their jobs (my emphasis added):<blockquote style="padding: 0px 20px 0px 0px; line-height: 21px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">“Mr. D’Andrea’s new role is one of a number of moves inside the spy agency that signal a more muscular approach to covert operations under the leadership of Mike Pompeo, the conservative Republican and former congressman, the officials said. The agency also recently named a new chief of counterterrorism, who has begun pushing for greater latitude to strike militants.”</blockquote>In other words, more! ...missle and MOAB press cheers; wikileake assange Jeff sessions pompeo...= https://www.democracynow.org/2017/4/21/headlines/cnn_trump_administration_seeks_to_arrest_wikileakss_julian_assangeCNN is reporting the Trump administration has prepared an arrest warrant for WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. At a Thursday news conference, Attorney General Jeff Sessions confirmed that the Justice Department is seeking to put Assange in jail.
Attorney General Jeff Sessions: "We have professionals that have been in the security business of the United States for many years that are shocked by the number of leaks. And some of them are quite serious. So, yes, it is a priority. We’ve already begun to step up our efforts. And whenever a case can be made, we will seek to put people in jail."Last week, CIA chief Mike Pompeo blasted WikiLeaks as a "hostile intelligence service," calling Julian Assange and his supporters "demons." That’s despite Pompeo’s praise for WikiLeaks on Twitter last year and despite this comment from Donald Trump on the campaign trail last October.
Donald Trump: "This just came out. This just came out. WikiLeaks! I love WikiLeaks!"We’ll have more on the Trump administration’s plans to seek the arrest of Julian Assange after headlines. We’ll speak with Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Glenn Greenwald, co-founder of The Intercept.<a href="http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/meet-mike-pompeo-far-right-christian-zealot-who-will-lead-trumps-cia">http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/meet-mike-pompeo-far-right-christian-zealot-who-will-lead-trumps-cia</a>One of the many side stories that has been lost in the chaos of the Trump transition is the fact that <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://thinkprogress.org/gaffney-trump-transition-5efdbf5bcd35%23.wly15i7sf&source=gmail&ust=1484397206196000&usg=AFQjCNHdIjYt-RRZxNBJ0b4UUuOwtctrWQ" href="https://thinkprogress.org/gaffney-trump-transition-5efdbf5bcd35#.wly15i7sf" target="blank" style="text-decoration: none;">far-right Islamophobe Frank Gaffney</a> has been serving as a foreign policy adviser. Considering President-elect Donald Trump’s views about Muslims, this isn’t too surprising.Trump’s shallow understanding of the issue of Islamist extremism has obviously been gleaned from the right-wing fever swamps and Gaffney owns that end of the bog. (The Southern Poverty Law Center has <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/extremist-files/individual/frank-gaffney-jr&source=gmail&ust=1484397206196000&usg=AFQjCNE8AdJ79DlStQOfOXNEw5DCyipUyA" href="https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/extremist-files/individual/frank-gaffney-jr" target="blank" style="text-decoration: none;">posted</a> a full Gaffney dossier.)But with all the excitement over Trump’s various mounting scandals, Gaffney’s influence has flown under the radar, at least until this week. That’s when one of his close associates went to Capitol Hill to testify at his CIA director confirmation hearing. That’s right, Trump’s nominee to run the Central Intelligence Agency, Rep. Mike Pompeo of Kansas, is a Gaffney guy.<a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2017/01/mike_pompeo_trump_s_pick_for_the_cia_wants_a_holy_war.html&source=gmail&ust=1484397206196000&usg=AFQjCNH-ACKTcmkGpP7XFY1qFawlkk75sA" href="http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2017/01/mike_pompeo_trump_s_pick_for_the_cia_wants_a_holy_war.html" target="blank" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration: none;">Michelle Goldberg in Slate</a> delved into Pompeo’s ultra-conservative religious beliefs, which clearly inform his ideas about Islam. And it led him to an alliance with Gaffney, who is so extreme that <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/03/05/frank-gaffney_n_4905219.html&source=gmail&ust=1484397206196000&usg=AFQjCNH5OOBH0LPcAj0DusVhes9BulWEyA" href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/03/05/frank-gaffney_n_4905219.html" target="blank" style="text-decoration: none;">he believes Grover Norquist is a member of the Muslim Brotherhood</a> who has <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2015/03/16/nra_investigates_grover_norquist_as_glenn_beck_says_he_is_a_muslim_brotherhood.html&source=gmail&ust=1484397206196000&usg=AFQjCNH721tIBYrVWEUTU6Aue0eZKVZz5g" href="http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2015/03/16/nra_investigates_grover_norquist_as_glenn_beck_says_he_is_a_muslim_brotherhood.html" target="blank" style="text-decoration: none;">infiltrated the National Rifle Association</a>. Gaffney is so far out there that he was banned from the Conservative Political Action Conference for insisting that <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://thinkprogress.org/exclusive-frank-gaffney-was-barred-from-participating-in-cpac-so-he-invented-a-reason-to-boycott-it-238091cda296%23.5py3ew3mn&source=gmail&ust=1484397206196000&usg=AFQjCNFDpP_bKriqsBPX9aMBaW0RZqZf_Q" href="https://thinkprogress.org/exclusive-frank-gaffney-was-barred-from-participating-in-cpac-so-he-invented-a-reason-to-boycott-it-238091cda296#.5py3ew3mn" target="blank" style="text-decoration: none;">its board was similarly tainted.</a> According to Goldberg, Trump’s CIA director nominee appears frequently on Pompeo’s radio show:<blockquote style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Gaffney once called Pompeo “one of the most intelligent men I know in public life,” and the two see the world similarly. In February 2015, they spoke about President Obama’s use of the term “violent extremism” instead of “radical Islam,” a linguistic choice that some on the right see as a secret message of solidarity with jihad. Gaffney suggested that Obama might be conveying “an affinity” for ISIS’s cause, if not all its tactics: “the raising up of the Muslim Ummah, a grand rebalancing of America’s role in the world.” Pompeo relied, “Frank, every place you stare at the president’s policies and statements, you see what you just described . . .  every policy of this administration has treated America as if we are the problem and not the solution.”</blockquote>While we have no word on Pompeo’s position about Grover Norquist, Pompeo has told Gaffney on his show that he believes “there are organizations and networks here in the United States tied to radical Islam in deep and fundamental ways. They’re not just in places like Libya and Syria and Iraq, but in places like Coldwater, Kansas, and small towns all throughout America.”Pompeo is a deeply conservative evangelical Christian who has <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v%3DsO0opXYM52w&source=gmail&ust=1484397206196000&usg=AFQjCNFauNARGqropQcYZN4JED5vmUx2OQ" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sO0opXYM52w" target="blank" style="text-decoration: none;">said,</a> “America had worshipped other Gods and called it multiculturalism. We’d endorsed perversion and called it an alternative lifestyle.” He believes politics is “a never-ending struggle . . . until the rapture.”He does not sound like the type of person one normally associates with the intelligence community. But this is Trump’s administration, and Trump has promised to shake things up. An apocalyptic Islamophobic fanatic at the head of CIA will no doubt bring change to the agency.Before the hearings began on Thursday, I had assumed that one of the main attractions for Trump of having Pompeo fill the job must have been his enthusiastic support for CIA torture. Pompeo was on the record after the Senate Select Intelligence Committee’s  report as being <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/politics-government/election/article115635853.html%23storylink%3Dcpy&source=gmail&ust=1484397206196000&usg=AFQjCNFPe-YJ-9xFkWMufREckUIrV7f3tw" href="http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/politics-government/election/article115635853.html#storylink=cpy" target="blank" style="text-decoration: none;">fully supportive of the program:</a><blockquote style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">“Our men and women who were tasked to keep us safe in the aftermath of 9/11 — our military and our intelligence warriors — are heroes, not pawns in some liberal game being played by the ACLU and Senator Feinstein,” Pompeo said in a statement on Dec. 9, 2014. “These men and women are not torturers, they are patriots. The programs being used were within the law, within the constitution, and conducted with the full knowledge [of] Senator Feinstein. If any individual did operate outside of the program’s legal framework, I would expect them to be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.”</blockquote>They were done under secret legal findings and were not within the Constitution, but that’s another story. The fact is that Pompeo has clearly been an advocate of torture and his new boss, Donald Trump, <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=http://dailycaller.com/2016/04/20/trump-on-waterboarding-i-love-it-i-think-its-great-video/&source=gmail&ust=1484397206196000&usg=AFQjCNECyaYHRionr0Oxr-4_9QJAQymmTA" href="http://dailycaller.com/2016/04/20/trump-on-waterboarding-i-love-it-i-think-its-great-video/" target="blank" style="text-decoration: none;">is ecstatic about it</a>, as his statements indicate:<blockquote style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">“They asked me, What do you think about waterboarding, Mr. Trump?’ I said I love it. I love it, I think it’s great. And I said the only thing is, we should make it much tougher than waterboarding, and if you don’t think it works folks, you’re wrong.”</blockquote>Trump has also declared that his presidential orders to torture suspected terrorists <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.salon.com/2016/02/08/donald_trump_endorses_beheading_robotic_marco_rubio_self_implodes_and_the_gop_insanity_only_gets_wilder/&source=gmail&ust=1484397206196000&usg=AFQjCNHVbHok-sI4g34z66cDwcDuwuWMBQ" href="https://www.salon.com/2016/02/08/donald_trump_endorses_beheading_robotic_marco_rubio_self_implodes_and_the_gop_insanity_only_gets_wilder/" target="blank" style="text-decoration: none;">would not be refused</a> by those under him. When told that torture is illegal, he simply said he would change the law because we “have to get tougher.”Pompeo surprised the committee when he said he would not comply with an order to torture and that he couldn’t imagine that Trump would ask him to do it. He insisted he would always comply with the law. Of course, he also has said the Bush administration’s torture regime was legal, so that’s not entirely reassuring. Still, Pompeo’s testimony was widely interpreted as distancing him from Trump’s stated position.And Pompeo also seemed to come down hard on the Russian hacking allegations, which was again seen as diverting from the Trump party line.But then it was pointed out that Pompeo had <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://twitter.com/RepMikePompeo/status/757253079922270208&source=gmail&ust=1484397206196000&usg=AFQjCNGUFF6cm_t12eL8L1XGrnVxvfPsyw" href="https://twitter.com/RepMikePompeo/status/757253079922270208" target="blank" style="text-decoration: none;">enthusiastically tweeted about the Democratic National Committee hacking</a>, and he stumbled badly under questioning by Sen. Angus King of Maine. King asked Pompeo if he consider WikiLeaks a reliable source, and Pompeo said he did not. Then King inquired why Pompeo had cited WikiLeaks as “proof” that “the fix was in.” Pompeo hemmed and hawed and finally said he’d have to go back and look at it. But that tweet shows that Pompeo has the temperament of a right-wing political activist, not the sober and mature temperament required for the CIA director job.<a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/trump-cabinet-nominees-disagree_us_5877d7c7e4b0c42cb1759f27?section%3Dpolitics&source=gmail&ust=1484397206196000&usg=AFQjCNEnNIgJHtJ5Q9ZgWsecX66_6zjcnA" href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/trump-cabinet-nominees-disagree_us_5877d7c7e4b0c42cb1759f27?section=politics" target="_blank" style="text-decoration: none;">Like many of Trump’s nominees,</a> Pompeo has deviated just enough from the boss’s craziest pronouncements and policies to give the impression that he will serve as a moderating force in the administration. This seems odd, considering Trump’s domineering personality. It is more likely that Trump and his team are telling the nominees to say whatever they need to say to be confirmed.Maybe Trump isn’t listening to what his nominees say on the Hill or just doesn’t care. Whatever the case, it doesn’t matter. Trump will be the president and they will either do as he says or will have to resign. Judging from Pompeo’s past comments and his apocalyptic worldview, if Trump orders actions against “radical Islamic terrorists” or demands the torturing of suspects, Pompeo will probably have no problem following orders. Indeed, he will likely be eager to do so. ==

<span style="font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 300; letter-spacing: 0.5px; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); float: none; display: inline !important;"> The Washington Post is reporting that Donald Trump has chosen Kansas Congressmember Mike Pompeo as <span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 300; letter-spacing: 0.5px; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">CIA<span style="font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 300; letter-spacing: 0.5px; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); float: none; display: inline !important;"> director. Pompeo has opposed closing Guantánamo Bay prison. In 2013, he visited the notorious U.S. prison and said of the prisoners who were on hunger strike, "It looked to me like a lot of them had put on weight." He’s also a vocal opponent of the Iran nuclear deal.

==

</div>

<div style="">http://www.independentsciencenews.org/science-media/the-gmo-dark-act-cannot-survive-the-light/</div>

<div style="">pompeo</div>

==

<a href="http://www.innovationfiles.org/the-dark-side-loses-another-one-with-house-passage-of-state-labeling-preemption-bill/">http://www.innovationfiles.org/the-dark-side-loses-another-one-with-house-passage-of-state-labeling-preemption-bill/</a>

giddings

==

5/15

Recently introduced legislation (H.R.1599) would prohibit any state efforts to require labeling of genetically engineered foods (GMOs), overruling legislation already passed in Maine, Vermont and Connecticut as well as bills moving in many other states.1

That's why I started a petition to the U.S. House of Representatives, which says:

<div class="yiv2343914190header-smaller-button" id="yui_3_16_0_1_1432137493279_68064" style="margin: 1em 0px; padding: 1em; border: 1px solid rgb(239, 239, 239);">I urge you to reject Representative Mike Pompeo's "Safe and Accurate Food Labeling Act" (H.R.1599), which would prohibit states from requiring the labeling of genetically engineered foods, or GMOs.

This bill, which is being promoted by the Grocery Manufacturers Association, would prevent states from requiring GMO labels at any time. In fact, this bill is so anti-consumer it is commonly referred to as the "Deny Americans the Right to Know (or DARK) Act." </div>

<div class="yiv2343914190header-smaller-button" id="yui_3_16_0_1_1432137493279_68064" style="margin: 1em 0px; padding: 1em; border: 1px solid rgb(239, 239, 239);"><a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/114th-congress/house-bill/1599/cosponsors" style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">https://www.congress.gov/bill/114th-congress/house-bill/1599/cosponsors</a></div>

==

FIRST ELECTED:2010

Leadership PAC (1):

CavPAC

Career Fundraising

2009 - 2014 Total Receipts: $6,174,807

2009 - 2014 Total Spent: $4,496,029

Debts: $0

Last Report: Wednesday, July 16, 2014

Top 5 Contributors, 2009 - 2014

Contributor Total Indivs PACs

Koch Industries $295,850 $265,850 $30,000

Textron Inc $57,200 $27,200 $30,000

Mull Drilling $54,300 $54,300 $0

McCoy Petroleum $44,850 $44,850 $0

Ritchie Exploration $42,954 $42,954 $0

<table style=""><tbody><tr class="odd" style="font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 24px; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(240, 243, 246);"><td style="padding: 4px; text-align: left; vertical-align: top; background-color: rgb(240, 240, 246);">Intrust Bank</td><td class="number" style="padding: 4px; text-align: right; vertical-align: top; background-color: rgb(240, 240, 246);">$37,450</td><td class="number" style="padding: 4px; text-align: right; vertical-align: top; background-color: rgb(240, 240, 246);">$37,450</td><td class="number" style="padding: 4px; text-align: right; vertical-align: top; background-color: rgb(240, 240, 246);">$0</td></tr><tr class="even" style="font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 24px; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(224, 230, 236);"><td style="padding: 4px; text-align: left; vertical-align: top; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Onex Corp</td><td class="number" style="padding: 4px; text-align: right; vertical-align: top; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">$36,900</td><td class="number" style="padding: 4px; text-align: right; vertical-align: top; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">$20,400</td><td class="number" style="padding: 4px; text-align: right; vertical-align: top; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">$16,500</td></tr><tr class="odd" style="font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 24px; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(240, 243, 246);"><td style="padding: 4px; text-align: left; vertical-align: top; background-color: rgb(240, 240, 246);">Emprise Bank</td><td class="number" style="padding: 4px; text-align: right; vertical-align: top; background-color: rgb(240, 240, 246);">$36,455</td><td class="number" style="padding: 4px; text-align: right; vertical-align: top; background-color: rgb(240, 240, 246);">$36,455</td><td class="number" style="padding: 4px; text-align: right; vertical-align: top; background-color: rgb(240, 240, 246);">$0</td></tr><tr class="even" style="font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 24px; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(224, 230, 236);"><td style="padding: 4px; text-align: left; vertical-align: top; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Poet LLC</td><td class="number" style="padding: 4px; text-align: right; vertical-align: top; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">$33,500</td><td class="number" style="padding: 4px; text-align: right; vertical-align: top; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">$32,500</td><td class="number" style="padding: 4px; text-align: right; vertical-align: top; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">$1,000</td></tr><tr class="odd" style="font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 24px; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(240, 243, 246);"><td style="padding: 4px; text-align: left; vertical-align: top; background-color: rgb(240, 240, 246);">Beechcraft Corp</td><td class="number" style="padding: 4px; text-align: right; vertical-align: top; background-color: rgb(240, 240, 246);">$33,000</td><td class="number" style="padding: 4px; text-align: right; vertical-align: top; background-color: rgb(240, 240, 246);">$8,000</td><td class="number" style="padding: 4px; text-align: right; vertical-align: top; background-color: rgb(240, 240, 246);">$25,000</td></tr><tr class="even" style="font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 24px; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(224, 230, 236);"><td style="padding: 4px; text-align: left; vertical-align: top; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">USAA</td><td class="number" style="padding: 4px; text-align: right; vertical-align: top; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">$32,000</td><td class="number" style="padding: 4px; text-align: right; vertical-align: top; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">$12,000</td><td class="number" style="padding: 4px; text-align: right; vertical-align: top; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">$20,000</td></tr><tr class="odd" style="font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 24px; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(240, 243, 246);"><td style="padding: 4px; text-align: left; vertical-align: top; background-color: rgb(240, 240, 246);">American Bankers Assn</td><td class="number" style="padding: 4px; text-align: right; vertical-align: top; background-color: rgb(240, 240, 246);">$28,000</td><td class="number" style="padding: 4px; text-align: right; vertical-align: top; background-color: rgb(240, 240, 246);">$0</td><td class="number" style="padding: 4px; text-align: right; vertical-align: top; background-color: rgb(240, 240, 246);">$28,000</td></tr><tr class="even" style="font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 24px; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(224, 230, 236);"><td style="padding: 4px; text-align: left; vertical-align: top; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Cox Enterprises</td><td class="number" style="padding: 4px; text-align: right; vertical-align: top; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">$26,300</td><td class="number" style="padding: 4px; text-align: right; vertical-align: top; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">$15,300</td><td class="number" style="padding: 4px; text-align: right; vertical-align: top; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">$11,000</td></tr><tr class="odd" style="font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 24px; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(240, 243, 246);"><td style="padding: 4px; text-align: left; vertical-align: top; background-color: rgb(240, 240, 246);">JP Weigand & Sons</td><td class="number" style="padding: 4px; text-align: right; vertical-align: top; background-color: rgb(240, 240, 246);">$25,600</td><td class="number" style="padding: 4px; text-align: right; vertical-align: top; background-color: rgb(240, 240, 246);">$25,600</td><td class="number" style="padding: 4px; text-align: right; vertical-align: top; background-color: rgb(240, 240, 246);">$0</td></tr><tr class="even" style="font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 24px; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(224, 230, 236);"><td style="padding: 4px; text-align: left; vertical-align: top; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Berry Companies</td><td class="number" style="padding: 4px; text-align: right; vertical-align: top; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">$25,350</td><td class="number" style="padding: 4px; text-align: right; vertical-align: top; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">$25,350</td><td class="number" style="padding: 4px; text-align: right; vertical-align: top; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">$0</td></tr><tr class="odd" style="font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 24px; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(240, 243, 246);"><td style="padding: 4px; text-align: left; vertical-align: top; background-color: rgb(240, 240, 246);">AT&T Inc</td><td class="number" style="padding: 4px; text-align: right; vertical-align: top; background-color: rgb(240, 240, 246);">$25,250</td><td class="number" style="padding: 4px; text-align: right; vertical-align: top; background-color: rgb(240, 240, 246);">$250</td><td class="number" style="padding: 4px; text-align: right; vertical-align: top; background-color: rgb(240, 240, 246);">$25,000</td></tr><tr class="even" style="font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 24px; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(224, 230, 236);"><td style="padding: 4px; text-align: left; vertical-align: top; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">National Assn of Home Builders</td><td class="number" style="padding: 4px; text-align: right; vertical-align: top; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">$25,000</td><td class="number" style="padding: 4px; text-align: right; vertical-align: top; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">$0</td><td class="number" style="padding: 4px; text-align: right; vertical-align: top; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">$25,000</td></tr><tr class="odd" style="font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 24px; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(240, 243, 246);"><td style="padding: 4px; text-align: left; vertical-align: top; background-color: rgb(240, 240, 246);">Boeing Co</td><td class="number" style="padding: 4px; text-align: right; vertical-align: top; background-color: rgb(240, 240, 246);">$22,950</td><td class="number" style="padding: 4px; text-align: right; vertical-align: top; background-color: rgb(240, 240, 246);">$5,450</td><td class="number" style="padding: 4px; text-align: right; vertical-align: top; background-color: rgb(240, 240, 246);">$17,500</td></tr><tr class="even" style="font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 24px; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(224, 230, 236);"><td style="padding: 4px; text-align: left; vertical-align: top; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Berexco Inc</td><td class="number" style="padding: 4px; text-align: right; vertical-align: top; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">$22,700</td><td class="number" style="padding: 4px; text-align: right; vertical-align: top; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">$22,700</td><td class="number" style="padding: 4px; text-align: right; vertical-align: top; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">$0</td></tr><tr class="odd" style="font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 24px; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(240, 243, 246);"><td style="padding: 4px; text-align: left; vertical-align: top; background-color: rgb(240, 240, 246);">Bartlit, Beck et al</td><td class="number" style="padding: 4px; text-align: right; vertical-align: top; background-color: rgb(240, 240, 246);">$20,250</td><td class="number" style="padding: 4px; text-align: right; vertical-align: top; background-color: rgb(240, 240, 246);">$20,250</td><td class="number" style="padding: 4px; text-align: right; vertical-align: top; background-color: rgb(240, 240, 246);">$0</td></tr></tbody></table>

...view more data

Top 5 Industries, 2009 - 2014

Industry Total Indivs PACs

Oil & Gas $857,160 $626,160 $231,000

Health Professionals $287,770 $138,770 $149,000

Retired $242,392 $242,392 $0

Air Transport $192,329 $74,250 $118,079

Lawyers/Law Firms $178,515 $149,915 $28,600

...view more data

==

<span style="font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 21px; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; float: none; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); display: inline !important;">By Carey Gillam<br style="box-sizing: border-box; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 21px; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" />

<span style="font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 21px; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; float: none; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); display: inline !important;">The expenditures by food and biotechnology companies come as the group pushes for passage of a bill introduced in April by<span style=" font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 21px; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; float: none; display: inline !important; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> U.S. Representative Mike Pompeo <span style="font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 21px; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; float: none; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); display: inline !important;">that would<span style="font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 21px; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; float: none; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); display: inline !important;"> block state laws that require GMO labeling on food packages.<br style="box-sizing: border-box; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 21px; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" />

===

As Congress dithers for the umpteenth time over extending a key subsidy for wind energy, the industry once again is up in the air. Called the <a href="http://www.ucsusa.org/clean_energy/smart-energy-solutions/increase-renewables/production-tax-credit-for.html" target="_hplink" style="list-style: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; text-decoration: none;">production tax credit</a> (PTC), the subsidy helps level the playing field between wind and fossil fuels and has proven to be critical for financing new projects, helping to make wind one of the fastest growing electricity sources in the country. Given the planet needs to transition as quickly as possible away from coal and natural gas to carbon-free energy to avoid the worst consequences of climate change, who would be against renewing wind's tax credit?

The Koch brothers, that's who.

Charles G. and David H. Koch -- the billionaire owners of the coal, oil and gas Koch Industries conglomerate -- have enlisted their extensive network of think tanks, advocacy groups and friends on Capitol Hill to spearhead a campaign to pull the plug on the PTC. Never mind the fact that the oil and gas industry has averaged four times what the wind tax credit is worth in federal tax breaks and subsidies annually for the last 95 years.

The Koch network is fighting the wind industry on a number of fronts. Last month, Koch-funded Congressman Mike Pompeo (R-Kansas) sent a <a href="http://pompeo.house.gov/uploadedfiles/windptc2013letter.pdf" target="hplink" style="list-style: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; text-decoration: none;">letter</a> signed by 52 House members to the chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, urging him to let the PTC expire. Meanwhile, a coalition of some 100 national and local groups organized by the Koch-founded Americans for Prosperity sent a <a href="http://americanenergyalliance.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/WindPTC_letter.pdf" target="hplink" style="list-style: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; text-decoration: none;">letter</a> to each member of Congress asking them to do the same. And earlier this month, the Koch-funded Institute for Energy Research launched an anti-PTC ad campaign and released a report claiming that only a handful of states actually benefit from the subsidy.

Malcolm Gladwell didn't include this battle in his new book David and Goliath because, given the odds, it's more like Bambi versus Godzilla.

The Kochs' Man in Congress

The fact that Kansas Rep. Mike Pompeo is the Kochs' point man to scuttle the PTC in the House is a bit ironic given his state is a <a href="http://awea.rd.net/Resources/state.aspx?ItemNumber=5223" target="_hplink" style="list-style: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; text-decoration: none;">wind energy leader</a>. Kansas has the second highest wind potential in the country, it has already attracted more than $5 billion in wind industry investment, and last year wind generated 11.4 percent of its electricity. With stats like that, the industry has broad bipartisan support. Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback and Sens. Jerry Moran and Pat Roberts -- all Republicans -- are big fans.

Pompeo, who has been in Congress since only 2011, would argue that he's against all energy tax credits. For the second year in a row, he has introduced a <a href="http://freebeacon.com/cut-the-credits/" target="_hplink" style="list-style: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; text-decoration: none;">bill</a> that would eliminate tax breaks that benefit oil, natural gas, coal, nuclear, electric vehicles, alternative fuels, solar and wind, including the PTC, which gives wind developers a tax credit of 2.3 cents for each kilowatt-hour of electricity they produce.

But there's a catch. Although it appears evenhanded, Pompeo's bill would severely hamper wind and solar but preserve a number of oil, gas and coal subsidies, including the percentage depletion allowance, the ability to expense the costs of exploration, and the accelerated depreciation of certain kinds of "geologic property." These and other tax breaks he left out of his bill would be worth about $12.5 billion to the oil and gas industry from 2011 through 2015, according to a March 2012 Congressional Research Service <a href="http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R41769.pdf" target="_hplink" style=" list-style: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; text-decoration: none;">report</a>.

Why is Pompeo so down on wind? Perhaps it's because Koch Industries is headquartered in Wichita, smack-dab in the middle of his district -- and the fact that the company is by far and away his biggest campaign contributor. Since 2010, Koch Industries has given him $200,000, more than four times what his second highest contributor kicked in. Besides Koch Industries, three other oil companies are among Pompeo's top five contributors -- McCoy Petroleum, Mull Drilling and Richie Exploration -- and they're also based in Wichita.

What about the other 51 House members who signed Pompeo's letter? As it turns out, 65 percent of them received contributions from Koch Industries during the last two or three campaign cycles, according to Federal Election Commission <a href="http://www.opensecrets.org/" target="_hplink" style="list-style: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; text-decoration: none;">data</a> compiled by the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics. A quarter of them, meanwhile, cashed checks from ExxonMobil. And except for two congressmen who didn't take any energy industry money, the signatories received sizable contributions from a number of other corporations that compete with wind, including coal barons Arch Coal and Alpha Natural Resources; oil and gas giants Chesapeake Energy, Chevron, ConocoPhillips and Valero Energy; and Exelon, which owns the most nuclear reactors in the country.

Americans for (Koch) Prosperity Weighs In

Pompeo's letter came on the heels of a <a href="http://americanenergyalliance.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/WindPTC_letter.pdf" target="_hplink" style="list-style: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; text-decoration: none;">letter</a> from the Kochs' flagship advocacy group, Americans for Prosperity, calling for Congress to kill the PTC. AFP's letter, which was signed by 102 organizations, claims that "the wind industry has very little to show after 20 years of preferential tax treatment" and declares that "Americans deserve energy solutions that can make it on their own in the marketplace -- not ones that need to be propped up by government indefinitely."

Is that right? Little to show? Preferential tax treatment?

In fact, until Congress left the wind industry hanging late last year, it had been doing quite well. Even with a deep recession and slow recovery, over the previous five years -- with the help of the PTC, stimulus spending and state renewable electricity standards -- the industry doubled its electricity output, employment and private investment. In 2012, domestic manufacturers <a href="http://energy.gov/articles/energy-dept-reports-us-wind-energy-production-and-manufacturing-reaches-record-highs" target="_hplink" style="list-style: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; text-decoration: none;">produced</a> roughly 72 percent of the wind turbine equipment erected across the country -- nearly triple the percentage in 2006 -- and more than 13,000 megawatts of new wind generation capacity was installed. By the end of last year, there were enough wind turbines to power 15 million typical American homes -- without toxic pollutants or carbon emissions.

But AFP's complaint that the wind industry has been on the dole far too long is even more galling. What about the oil and gas industry? It's been feeding at the federal trough since 1918! On average, the industry has benefited from $4.86 billion in tax breaks and subsidies in today's dollars every year since then, according to a 2011 <a href="http://www.dblinvestors.com/documents/What-Would-Jefferson-Do-Final-Version.pdf" target="_hplink" style="list-style: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; text-decoration: none;">study</a> by DBL Investors, a venture capital firm. Renewable energy technologies, meanwhile, averaged only $370 million a year in subsidies between 1994 and 2009. The 2009 stimulus package did provide $21 billion for wind, solar and other renewables, but that support barely begins to balance the scales that have tilted toward nuclear power for more than 50 years, oil and gas for 95 years, and coal for more than two centuries.

So who signed the AFP letter? About half of the signatories are local tea party affiliates and anti-wind NIMBY groups of indeterminate size and funding. The other half are, for the most part, relatively obscure national groups, but there are a few that have attracted<a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/elliott-negin/unreliable-sources-how-th_1_b_3367567.html" target="_hplink" style="list-style: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; text-decoration: none;">attention</a> over the years for their contrarian views on climate science and renewable energy. Like AFP, those groups are awash in petrodollars. The American Energy Alliance (and its parent, the Institute for Energy Research), Competitive Enterprise Institute, Freedom Works, Frontiers of Freedom and Heritage Action (and its parent, the Heritage Foundation) collectively have received millions of dollars from Koch family foundations, ExxonMobil and the American Petroleum Institute, the oil and gas industry's premier trade association.

The Institute for Energy Research's Questionable Research

On December 3, the <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/elliott-negin/koch-funded-climate-contr_b_3620727.html" target="_hplink" style="list-style: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; text-decoration: none;">Institute for Energy Research</a> and its political arm, the American Energy Alliance, sponsored what they dubbed the "wind welfare" summit in Washington, D.C., featuring IER founder and CEO Robert Bradley Jr., a Koch network veteran. AEA announced it would spend $40,000 on print and digital ads calling for an end to the PTC and is flying in anti-PTC advocates for meetings on Capitol Hill.

Bradley presumably highlighted the findings of a <a href="http://www.instituteforenergyresearch.org/2013/12/02/study-majority-of-states-losing-millions-to-big-wind/" target="_hplink" style="list-style: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; text-decoration: none;">report</a> IER released the day before claiming that a small number of states with wind resources -- Iowa, North Dakota, Oklahoma and Texas -- are reaping the benefits of the PTC while 30 states and the District of Columbia are "losing millions" to fund it.

The report's findings, however, don't hold up to scrutiny. Mike Jacobs, a senior energy analyst at the Union of Concerned Scientists, pointed out in a recent <a href="http://blog.ucsusa.org/misleading-institute-for-energy-research-wind-power-report-326" target="_hplink" style="list-style: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; text-decoration: none;">blog</a> that IER ignored the fact that a number of the states it identified as "net payers" are home to wind industry manufacturing facilities. There are 62 companies in Ohio making turbine components, for example, 40 in Michigan and 21 in California. Jacobs also discovered that IER downplayed the fact that "the PTC benefits consumers where wind-generated electricity adds to the supply and lowers the price of electricity, landowners who receive lease payments from the wind turbines, and local communities that collect tax payments on installed wind farms."

Jeff Spross, blogging on the Center for American Progress' ThinkProgress website, also<a href="http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2013/12/02/3009401/tax-credits-wind-welfare/" target="_hplink" style="list-style: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; text-decoration: none;">chided</a> IER, pointing out that most industries are not equally distributed across the country. "The oil and gas industries, for instance, benefit from a wealth of federal tax carve-outs," he wrote, "but the economic activity they generate is concentrated in just a few key states."

In other words, it's disingenuous to single out the wind industry.

Twisting in the Wind

While Congress has generously provided the fossil-fuel and nuclear-energy industries a number of permanent subsidies, it has typically granted the wind industry the PTC on a short-term basis and then wavered over renewing it. Last year the PTC expired on December 31, but as part of the "fiscal cliff" budget deal the next day, Congress extended it for the seventh time since it debuted in 1992 -- for only one year.

This uncertainty over the PTC's status has put wind developers at a distinct disadvantage, making it difficult to attract investors and plan ahead. Last year's cliffhanger, for example, definitely did a number on the industry. Wind farm construction has fallen off dramatically compared with 2012: Only one utility-scale wind turbine was installed in the first six months of this year. Business picked up somewhat in the third quarter, with 68.3 megawatts installed, <a href="http://www.awea.org/3Q2013?RDtoken=18040&userID=" target="_hplink" style="list-style: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; text-decoration: none;">according to</a> the American Wind Energy Association, but that's far below the average of more than 1,000 megawatts that the industry constructed in most quarters in recent years.

Given that it takes years to plan, finance and construct a wind farm, Congress is again undermining the industry's potential by slow-walking the PTC extension this year. And that potential is tremendous. Wind currently generates about 4 percent of U.S. electricity, but by 2030 it could produce more than 20 percent, <a href="http://20percentwind.org/" target="hplink" style="list-style: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; text-decoration: none;">according to</a> the U.S. Department of Energy. The DOE's National Renewable Energy Laboratory also is bullish on wind and renewables writ large. Last year, it published a <a href="http://www.nrel.gov/analysis/re_futures/" target="hplink" style="list-style: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; text-decoration: none;">report</a> that concluded today's commercially available renewable technologies could easily generate 80 percent of U.S. electricity by 2050, with nearly half coming from wind. If the Koch brothers and their allies have their way, however, it likely will take a lot longer to get there -- and it will cost a hell of a lot more.

Elliott Negin is the director of news and commentary at the Union of Concerned Scientists.

<a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/elliott-negin/the-koch-brothers-are-sti_b_4396033.html">http://www.huffingtonpost.com/elliott-negin/the-koch-brothers-are-sti_b_4396033.html</a>

===

===

<h1 class="title-news" style="list-style: none; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 20px 0px 0px; border: 0px; overflow: visible; line-height: 36px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">House Republicans Have Passed 3 Bills To Help The Natural Gas Industry Just This Week</h1>

Posted: 11/21/2013 5:33 pm EST  |  Updated: 11/21/2013 5:51 pm EST

</div>

WASHINGTON -- Republicans in the House have been busy this week, passing three pieces of legislation that would help the natural gas industry by circumventing environmental regulations and making it easier to drill for and transport fossil fuels.

President Barack Obama has issued a <a href="http://thehill.com/blogs/e2-wire/e2-wire/190703-white-house-waves-veto-pen-at-gop-fracking-energy-bills" target="_hplink" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: 0px; list-style: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; overflow: visible; text-indent: 0px !important;">veto threat</a> for all three bills, and they are unlikely to make it through the Senate.

The bills, should they became law, would benefit the thriving domestic oil and gas industry. The sector is growing largely as a result of hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, a process that involves injecting wells with a mix of water, sand and chemicals to release oil and gas trapped in rock. But many Democrats and environmentalists worry that the bills help the energy industry at the expense of the environment.

The House approved the first bill on Wednesday, a measure to <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/11/20/house-oil-and-gas-bill_n_4312118.html?utm_hp_ref=green" target="hplink" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: 0px; list-style: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; overflow: visible; text-indent: 0px !important;">expedite permitting</a> for oil and gas drilling. Later in the day, the House also voted to prevent the Department of the Interior from implementing proposed rules that would require full disclosure of fracking chemicals, and would govern<a href="http://thehill.com/blogs/floor-action/votes/190977-house-votes-to-block-federal-fracking-rules" target="hplink" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: 0px; list-style: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; overflow: visible; text-indent: 0px !important;">hydraulic fracturing</a> on public lands. Both bills garnered <a href="http://grist.org/news/the-three-anti-environmental-bills-that-are-wasting-congress-time/#.Uo4fQzwtqMc.twitter" target="_hplink" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: 0px; list-style: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; overflow: visible; text-indent: 0px !important;">around 10 Democratic votes</a>.

Rep. Bill Flores (R-Texas) sponsored Wednesday's bill to block the Interior Department's rules for fracking on federal and Native American lands. The bill's supporters say the rules are unnecessary, as states often have their own fracking regulations or guidelines. Rep. Doc Hastings (R-Wash.), chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee and a co-sponsor of the bill, <a href="http://naturalresources.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=362363" target="_hplink" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: 0px; list-style: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; overflow: visible; text-indent: 0px !important;">argued</a> that "imposing a 'one-size-fits-all' federal regulatory structure, as the Obama Administration is attempting to do, is both unnecessary and simply will not work."

The bill's critics say that many state regulations are too weak, and that strong federal regulations should take precedence. Courtney Abrams, federal clean water program director for advocacy group Environment America, called the bill "reckless" in a statement, arguing that the bill "puts our special places and the communities that rely on them for drinking water and recreation at risk from fracking."

House Science Committee Chairman Lamar Smith (R-Texas) also attached a provision to the Flores bill that would modify the Environmental Protection Agency's ongoing study of fracking's effects on drinking water. "In its zeal to regulate, the EPA too often has rushed to link water contamination to hydraulic fracturing," <a href="http://science.house.gov/press-release/house-passes-science-committee-bill-improve-epa-s-hydraulic-fracturing-study" target="_hplink" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: 0px; list-style: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; overflow: visible; text-indent: 0px !important;">Smith said</a> in a statement after the bill passed, adding that the "legislation holds the EPA accountable by requiring the agency to provide context for any identified risks."

The other bill passed Wednesday came from Rep. Doug Lamborn (R-Colo.), and would speed up permitting for oil and gas drilling. Lamborn said the bill was meant to expand the domestic energy boom beyond state and private lands. "The only reason we haven't seen that same dynamic growth on federal lands is because of excess regulations," Lamborn told the <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/11/20/house-oil-and-gas-bill_n_4312118.html?utm_hp_ref=green" target="_hplink" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: 0px; list-style: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; overflow: visible; text-indent: 0px !important;">Associated Press</a>, in reference to energy development already underway in North Dakota, Montana, Pennsylvania, Ohio and West Virginia.

The third bill, passed mid-day Thursday, was the <a href="http://energycommerce.house.gov/fact-sheet/hr-1900-natural-gas-pipeline-permitting-reform-act" target="hplink" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: 0px; list-style: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; overflow: visible; text-indent: 0px !important;">Natural Gas Pipeline Permitting Reform Act</a>, from Rep. Mike Pompeo (R-Kan.). The bill would compel regulators to issue rulings on natural gas <a href="http://www.kansas.com/2013/05/09/2796060/pompeo-co-sponsors-bill-to-speed.html" target="hplink" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: 0px; list-style: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; overflow: visible; text-indent: 0px !important;">pipeline permits</a> more promptly. That bill passed with 26 Democratic votes, many from oil- and gas-producing states.

<a href="http://thehill.com/blogs/floor-action/votes/190935-house-advances-third-energy-bill" target="_hplink" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: 0px; list-style: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; overflow: visible; text-indent: 0px !important;">The Hill</a> reports that Rep. James McGovern (D-Mass.) expressed concern that the pipeline permitting bill "may result in truncated or inadequate environmental analysis, which threatens the health and safety of communities these potentially hazardous pipelines run through."

The White House also expressed skepticism of the measure. "The bill's requirements could force agencies to make decisions based on incomplete information or information that may not be available within the stringent deadlines, and to deny applications that otherwise would have been approved, but for lack of sufficient review time," the White House said in a <a href="http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/omb/legislative/sap/113/saphr1900r_20131119.pdf" target="_hplink" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: 0px; list-style: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; overflow: visible; text-indent: 0px !important;">statement</a>.

</div>

==

ultra donor;

<table class="tablesorter" style=""><tbody><tr class="odd"><td><a href="http://www.opensecrets.org/resources/learn/anomalies.php?type=P&id=N00030744">Mike Pompeo (R)</a></td><td>KS</td><td><a href="http://www.opensecrets.org/resources/learn/anomalies.php?type=O&id=Koch+Industries">Koch Industries</a></td><td class="number">$110,000</td></tr></tbody></table>

===

Twelve members of Congress want to make a bad situation even worse, sponsoring the industry-backed General Duty Clarification Act; its banal title hiding that, <a href="http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/04/how-chemical-lobby%E2%80%99s-friends-congress-fought-keep-regulators-its-back">as reported by Tim Murphy</a> at Mother Jones magazine, “The bill is designed to sap the Environmental Protection Agency of its powers to regulate safety and security at major chemical sites, as prescribed by the Clean Air Act.”

“‘We call that the Koch brothers bill,’ Greenpeace legislative director Rick Hind says, because the bill’s sponsor, GOP Rep. Mike Pompeo, represents the conservative megadonors’ home city of Wichita, Kansas. (The sponsor of the sister legislation in the senate, GOP Sen. Pat Roberts, represents the Kochs’ home state of Kansas.) The brothers have huge investments in fertilizer production, and Hind thinks they’ll ultimately get what they want, whether or not the bill becomes law.”

No coincidence, perhaps, that the sponsors of the House bill and Senator Roberts, Public Campaign reports, “have collectively taken over $670,000 from the chemical manufacturing industry over their careers.” Since 2011, the industry has spent $85.1 million lobbying.

Congress quietly acquiesces as the regulations meant for our safety are whittled away. The progressive website <a href="http://thinkprogress.org/health/2013/02/20/1601231/meat-industry-horsemeat/">ThinkProgress</a> notes that even though food related infections — which kill 3,000 and sicken 48 million Americans each year — rose last year, congressional and White House budget cuts may mean up to 600 fewer food inspectors at meat and poultry plants, leaving it up to the industry to police itself. That rot you’re smelling isn’t just some bad hamburger....

<a href="http://billmoyers.com/2013/04/26/do-nothing-congress-gives-inertia-a-bad-name/">http://billmoyers.com/2013/04/26/do-nothing-congress-gives-inertia-a-bad-name/</a>

===

lowdown 9/11

How about sheltering children from dangerous toys? Just a few years ago, marketers like Mattel had to pull made-in-China toys, cribs, etc... off the shelves because they contained lead, toxic paint, and other dangers. Responding to public outrage, a bipartisan congressional majority voted in 2008 to beef up the staffing and authority of the then-dormant Consumer Product Safety Commission, giving it a firm mandate to protect our children. In one excellent reform, CPSC set up an easily accessible database so parents themselves can report product hazards or read injury reports. Great--it's effective, consumer-driven, and in-expensive! Kill it, squawked industry lobbyists this year, calling it a government intrusion into the marketplace. <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/02/27/AR2011022702967.html" target="_blank">The tea party's Mike Pompeo of Kansas sponsored an amendment to cut all funding for CPSC's database</a>. Not for nothing is Pompeo called the "Congressman from Koch." His Wichita business was financed by a Koch Industries subsidiary, he was a trustee for a Koch think tank in Kansas, the Koch PAC was his campaign's top donor (by far) last year, David Koch's own front group (Americans For Prosperity) organized and mobilized tea party support for Pompeo, and a Koch lobbyist is now Pompeo's chief of staff in Washington. Mike's amendment passed 234 to 187, enjoying full tea party support.

---

LAST:

Rep. Mike Pompeo (R-Kan.), who represents Koch

Industries' home district, launched an aerospace company

with investment help from a Koch subsidiary. He sold the

company last year. His chief of staff is Mark Chenoweth,

a former Koch Industries lawyer.

Cross-posted from the <a href="http://wonkroom.thinkprogress.org/2011/02/17/pompeo-koch-amendment/">Wonk Room</a>.

<a href="http://www.grist.org/article/2011-02-17-mike-pompeo-r-koch-gets-to-work-slashing-epa-funding">http://www.grist.org/article/2011-02-17-mike-pompeo-r-koch-gets-to-work-slashing-epa-funding</a><a href="http://www.grist.org/article/2011-02-17-mike-pompeo-r-koch-gets-to-work-slashing-epa-funding"> </a>

Last night, Rep. Mike Pompeo (R-Kan.) <a href="http://www.gop.gov/bill/112/1/hr1amendments">proposed</a> an amendment to the <a href="http://wonkroom.thinkprogress.org/2011/02/16/energy-enviro-amendments/">Continuing Resolution</a> that would "<a href="http://thehill.com/blogs/e2-wire/677-e2-wire/144737-house-slashes-funding-for-epa-greenhouse-gas-registry">sharply cut</a> funding for an Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) program that collects data on industrial greenhouse gas emissions." The $8.4 million cut would leave funding for the registry at $3.2 million, unless the EPA shifts funds from another program to the registry.

Toeing a fine line between conspiracy theorist and <a href="http://articles.latimes.com/2011/feb/06/nation/la-na-koch-brothers-20110206">Koch Industries profit</a> protector, Pompeo took the house floor where "he called the registry part of an <a href="http://thehill.com/blogs/e2-wire/677-e2-wire/144737-house-slashes-funding-for-epa-greenhouse-gas-registry">EPA plot to destroy U.S. jobs</a>":

EPA would, I am sure, tell you that they are simply collecting a little bit of data on greenhouse gases, that this registry is simply a very innocent effort to learn a little bit more about who is emitting greenhouse gases -- who or what.

But this data is the very foundation of the EPA's effort to pursue its radical anti-jobs agenda. Indeed, continuing the greenhouse gas registry at currently funded levels will permit the EPA regulatory nose inside the job-destroying tent. We cannot head down this path.

</blockquote>

The amendment passed in a <a href="http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2011/roll064.xml">239-185</a> vote.

Despite the <a href="http://wonkroom.thinkprogress.org/2010/11/27/afp-pollution-plan/">Koch-approved rhetoric</a>, even fellow Republicans found the bill to be poorly crafted. Rep. Mike Simpson (R-Idaho) -- who apparently is incredibly <a href="http://thehill.com/blogs/e2-wire/677-e2-wire/136723-republican-appropriator-takes-quick-aim-at-scary-epa">frightened</a> by the EPA's quest to keep our air clean -- originally supported the amendment, but after talking to businesses, decided to vote nay, because the business community "<a href="http://eenews.net/EEDaily/2011/02/17/2/">told him</a> the greenhouse gas registry was a useful compliance tool for them."

Pompeo is the congressman "spawned by ‘<a href="http://thinkprogress.org/2010/09/21/koch-mike-pompeo/">Kochtopus</a>‘" and "essentially a subsidiary of <a href="http://thehill.com/blogs/e2-wire/677-e2-wire/144737-house-slashes-funding-for-epa-greenhouse-gas-registry">the Koch brothers' business empire</a>." He made his <a href="http://thinkprogress.org/2010/09/21/koch-mike-pompeo/">fortune</a> off of a Koch backed company, <a href="http://thinkprogress.org/2010/09/21/koch-mike-pompeo/">sidled</a> up to Koch-backed Americans for Prosperity in his 2010 campaign, signed the AFP anti-climate change <a href="http://www.americansforprosperity.org/080410-kansas-no-climate-tax-pledge-signers-advance-general-election">pledge</a>, took more <a href="http://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/recips.php?id=D000000186&type=P&state=&sort=A&cycle=2010">campaign contributions</a> from Koch Industries than any other candidate in 2010, and <a href="http://thinkprogress.org/2010/12/09/gop-freshmen-lobbyist-cos/">hired</a> on an ex-Koch <a href="http://articles.latimes.com/print/2011/feb/06/nation/la-na-koch-brothers-20110206">lobbyist</a> to be his chief of staff. In fact, Koch Industries even ranked at top of Pompeo's campaign contribution list, outpacing the second top contributor by <a href="http://www.opensecrets.org/politicians%20/contrib.php?cycle=2010&cid=N00030744&newMem=Y&type=I">$60,000</a>.

So it's no surprise that the representative from Koch took to the House floor to champion one of Koch Industries' top <a href="http://articles.latimes.com/2011/feb/06/nation/la-na-koch-brothers-20110206">causes</a> -- stripping the EPA's ability to regulate greenhouse gases. Pompeo earned a plush position on the House Energy and Commerce <a href="http://www.americanprogressaction.org/issues/2011/02/pdf/epa_hill_brief.pdf">Committee From Koch</a>, and quickly went to work to do the big <a href="http://wonkroom.thinkprogress.org/2011/01/30/koch-carbon-footprint/">polluter's</a> bidding.

</div>

<div id="author_bio">Kristen Bartoloni is a researcher at Center for American Progress.</div>

</div>

<a href="http://thinkprogress.org/2010/09/21/koch-mike-pompeo/">http://thinkprogress.org/2010/09/21/koch-mike-pompeo/</a>

<h2 class="title" style=""><a href="http://thinkprogress.org/2010/09/21/koch-mike-pompeo/" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent link to 'Meet Mike Pompeo: The Congressional Candidate Spawned By The ‘Kochtopus’'">Meet Mike Pompeo: The Congressional Candidate Spawned By The ‘Kochtopus’</a></h2>

<img src="/7e8f5cfd-3bef-5888-be0b-ac4ff5950a28.jpg"/>Over the weekend, the Kansas City Star <a href="http://www.kansascity.com/2010/09/18/v-print/2233422/democrats-fear-koch-industries.html">published</a> a lengthy article explaining how Sen. Sam Brownback (R-KS), the Republican gubernatorial candidate in Kansas, has for years maintained a symbiotic relationship with the right-wing oil plutocrats David and Charles Koch and their <a href="http://www.observer.com/2010/daily-transom/how-libertarian-koch-bros-benefit-corporate-welfare">conglomerate</a> Koch Industries. Alongside Brownback in the Senate, Koch Industries, which is based in Wichita, has counted outgoing Wichita Rep. Todd Tiahrt (R-KS) as one of its <a href="http://projects.publicintegrity.org/oil//report.aspx?aid=347">closest</a> <a href="http://nl.newsbank.com/nl-search/we/Archives?p_product=WE&s_site=kansas&p_multi=WE&p_theme=realcities&p_action=search&p_maxdocs=200&p_topdoc=1&p_text_direct-0=0EADB70F1606D000&p_field_direct-0=document_id&p_perpage=10&p_sort=YMD_date:D&s_trackval=GooglePM">allies</a> in the House of Representatives.

Former Rep. Dan Glickman (D-KS), who was defeated by Tiahrt in 1994, <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/08/30/100830fa_fact_mayer?currentPage=all#ixzz106OV57KX">said</a> that Koch Industries funneled resources — including its employees and funds — to oppose him. Now, with an open seat in Koch Industries’ backyard, the massive “<a href="http://thinkprogress.org/2010/08/25/lee-on-kochs/">Kochtopus</a>” network of Koch money and front groups is working to elect a new right-wing Republican to fill the seat: Mike Pompeo. Pompeo isn’t just another Wall Street-<a href="http://thinkprogress.org/2010/06/26/clubforgrowth-radical-sucess/">friendly</a>, pro-polluter GOP radical (his initial response to the BP oil disaster was to say that he “<a href="http://thinkprogress.org/2010/06/26/clubforgrowth-radical-sucess/">fervently</a>” hoped the government wouldn’t “overreact”), he is essentially a subsidiary of the Koch brothers’ business empire:

– Pompeo developed much of his wealth from a firm he founded, Thayer Aerospace, which he ran with investment funds from Koch Industries. According to a December 11, 1998 article in the Wichita Business Journal, “[Pompeo's] company’s capital base is drawn in part from Wichita’s Koch Venture Capital, a division of Koch Industries.” Pompeo sold Thayer in 2006.

– Pompeo still relies on Koch for his private wealth. After the sale of Thayer, Pompeo became the President of Sentry International, a business specializing in the manufacture and sale of equipment used in oilfields. Sentry International is a <a href="http://www.gtfrepresentacoes.com.br/representacao.html">partner to Koch Industries</a> through its <a href="http://www.sentryinternational.net/locations_s_america.html?height=450&width=708">Brazilian subsidiary</a>, GTF Representacoes & Consultoria.

– Pompeo won his Republican primary largely with the support of Koch Industries’ PAC, which gave him one of his <a href="http://wichita.bizjournals.com/wichita/stories/2010/03/29/daily10.html">largest endorsements</a> in March. Despite the fact that Koch Industries is the recipient of <a href="http://www.usaspending.gov/search?query=&searchtype=&formFields=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">tens of millions</a> in federal contracts, Pompeo boasted about the endorsement: “The employees of the Koch Companies have jobs here in the Wichita because of their own hard work and creativity, not because a federal agency deemed it to be so.”

– With <a href="http://www.opensecrets.org/races/contrib.php?cycle=2010&id=KS04">$31,400</a> in contributions from KOCHPAC, Koch Industries is by far the greatest contributor to Pompeo’s campaign. The second largest contributor, the law firm Bartlit Beck LLP, gave $7,200 to the campaign. As ThinkProgress first <a href="http://thinkprogress.org/2009/08/27/ahip-lobbying-publicoption/">uncovered</a>, Koch Industries also works with Democracy Data & Communications, a firm specializing in helping major corporations to activate their employees politically.

– Pompeo has leaned on Americans for Prosperity (AFP), the right-wing Tea Party group founded and financed by David Koch. On August 28, 2009, Pompeo spoke at a large Tea Party rally organized by AFP, and AFP has used its <a href="http://www.afphq.org/about/staff">extensive</a> Kansas-based staff to <a href="http://www.afphq.org/040510-kansas-tax-day-tea-parties">mobilize</a> dozens of other right-wing events in and around the 4th Congressional District. In addition to the rallies and Tea Party events, AFP has <a href="http://www.americansforprosperity.org/080410-kansas-no-climate-tax-pledge-signers-advance-general-election">touted</a> Pompeo for signing onto its pledge to ignore climate change. The Kansas chapter of AFP was previously run by Alan Cobb, who once served as a <a href="http://www.americansforprosperity.org/about/staff/alan-cobb">chief lobbyist</a> for Koch Industries. Cobb is now coordinating state efforts nationwide for AFP.

– According to his campaign biography, Pompeo’s only substantive political experience appears to be his stint as a trustee of the Flint Hills Center for Public Policy, a Koch-organized front formerly known as the Kansas Policy Institute. The Flint Hills Center for Public Policy is staffed primarily with Koch-funded operatives and economists, like <a href="http://www.domeontherange.org/2010/02/art-hall-just-one-part-of-kochs-wide.html">Art Hall</a>. Until recently, George Pearson — a libertarian activist who began working for the Koch brothers in the <a href="http://atlasnetwork.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/2008_winter_highlights.pdf">early seventies</a> — chaired the board of the Center. In an <a href="http://www.kansas.com/2010/07/23/1415735/pompeo-hopes-varied-background.html#ixzz101BxqYkj">interview</a> with the Wichita Eagle, Pompeo said he supports Social Security privatization and explained that his ideas for health reform came from Koch’s Flint Hills Center.

</blockquote>

The Koch brothers have historically leaned on their home state Republican members of Congress for lobbying assistance. For instance, Business Week <a href="http://www.businessweek.com/archives/1996/b3469090.arc.htm">reported</a> on how Koch Industries used then-Sen. Bob Dole (R-KS) to try to suppress an investigation into Koch Industries’ massive theft of oil from Indian reservations. In another case, Koch Industries faced a $55 million civil suit for causing more than 300 oil spills over a five-year period. Again, Dole, a major recipient of Koch money and support, <a href="http://www.businessweek.com/archives/1996/b3469090.arc.htm">sponsored</a> a bill that would allow Koch to <a href="http://projects.publicintegrity.org/oil//report.aspx?aid=347">easily defend</a> itself from the oil spill charges. Investigative reporter Robert Parry <a href="http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0602/S00156.htm">found</a> that David Koch “also helped Dole achieve majority leader status through his checkbook, contributed mightily to a Dole foundation and even turned his Gatsbyish estate in Southampton, New York, into the site for celebrating Dole’s 72nd birthday in July 1995, raising $150,000 for his campaign.”

Recently, Koch Industries has lobbied <a href="http://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/billsum.php?id=113886&lname=H.R.4213">aggressively</a> against clean energy jobs legislation and against <a href="http://waysandmeans.house.gov/press/PRArticle.aspx?NewsID=11185">H.R. 4213</a>, a law closing tax loopholes for companies that ship jobs overseas.

While much attention has been paid to Koch’s role in <a href="http://thinkprogress.org/2010/08/23/david-charles-koch/">funding the organizers</a> of the Tea Party movement and its supporting institutions, it should be noted that the right-wing conglomerate is also sponsoring its own candidate for election this November.

<a href="http://www.whorunsgov.com/Profiles/Michael_Pompeo">http://www.whorunsgov.com/Profiles/Michael_Pompeo</a>

A longtime businessman, lawyer and Army officer, Pompeo became the new conservative voice of Kansas' 4th district, winning in the <a rel="internal" href="http://www.whorunsgov.com/Elections/2010_Elections">2010 elections</a> with 59 percent of the vote.

At the time, he was the  Republican National Committeeman for Kansas and earned endorsements from  <a rel="internal" href="http://www.whorunsgov.com/Profiles/Pat_Roberts">Sen. Pat Roberts </a>(R-Kan.), former Sen. Bob Dole (R-Kan.), and chairman and CEO of Koch Industries, Charles Koch.<a class="external" title="http://www.pompeoforcongress.com/endorsements/?subsec=0&id=22" rel="external" href="http://www.pompeoforcongress.com/endorsements/?subsec=0&id=22" target="blank">Pompeo for Congress</a>, Endorsements.(1)<a class="external" title="http://www.pompeoforcongress.com/endorsements/?subsec=0&id=22" rel="external" href="http://www.pompeoforcongress.com/endorsements/?subsec=0&id=22" target="blank">Pompeo for Congress</a>, Endorsements.

In 2010, Pompeo bid against Democrat Raj Goyle to replace <a rel="internal" href="http://www.whorunsgov.com/Profiles/Todd_Tiahrt"> Rep. Todd Tiahrt</a> (R), who vacated his seat to run for the Senate post held by 2010 gubernatorial candidate and <a rel="internal" href="http://www.whorunsgov.com/Sen.Sam_Brownback" class="new ">Sen. Sam Brownback </a>(R-Kan.).Shane D'Aprile, <a class="external" title="http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/house-races/112553-pompeo-wins-gop-primary-in-rep-tiahrts-district" rel="nofollow" href="http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/house-races/112553-pompeo-wins-gop-primary-in-rep-tiahrts-district" target="blank">"Pompeo Wins GOP Primary in Rep. Tiahrt's District"</a>, The Hill, August 4, 2010.(2)Shane D'Aprile, <a class="external" title="http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/house-races/112553-pompeo-wins-gop-primary-in-rep-tiahrts-district" rel="nofollow" href="http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/house-races/112553-pompeo-wins-gop-primary-in-rep-tiahrts-district" target="_blank">"Pompeo Wins GOP Primary in Rep. Tiahrt's District"</a>, The Hill, August 4, 2010.  Tiahrt lost in the primary election against<a rel="internal" href="http://www.whorunsgov.com/Profiles/Jerry_Moran"> Rep. Jerry Moran</a> (R)

Campaigning on limited government and reducing public spending, Pompeo built on his many years of experience as a businessman. He founded Thayer Aerospace (now Nex-Tech Aoerospace) and is currently president of Sentry International, an oil-field services company. <a class="external" title="http://www.pompeoforcongress.com/meet_Mike/" rel="external" href="http://www.pompeoforcongress.com/meet_Mike/" target="_blank">Pompeo for Congress</a>, Meet Mike(3)

</div></div></div></div></div>

Pompeo, M Rep

Attachments