L A Los Angeles ca

11/17

// CA fox target BS

SEE TARGET, DEMONIZATION MILITARIZATION MASS DEPORT GRT

ANTI-COMMIE NOEM LIBERATE SOCIALIST

mma 3 23

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Welcome to CalMatters, the only nonprofit newsroom devoted solely to covering statewide issues that affect all Californians. Sign up for WeeklyMatters for a Saturday morning digest of the latest news and commentary from the Golden State.

This story is part of California Voices, a commentary forum aiming to broaden our understanding of the state and spotlight Californians directly impacted by policy or its absence. Learn more here.

Guest Commentary written by

John Knefel

John Knefel is a senior writer at Media Matters for America, a progressive research center that monitors the U.S. media.

Right-wing media’s coverage of this June’s Los Angeles mayoral primary election unsurprisingly went heavy on voter fraud conspiracy theories and presented essentially zero real evidence. Their reactions offer a warning of how MAGA is likely to respond if Republicans suffer significant losses in November’s midterms, considering that the Trump administration and its outside allies spent the summer laying groundwork to undermine voting rights using flimsy claims of foreign election interference.

After lining up behind Spencer Pratt for L.A. mayor, conservative pundits began crying foul in June as the votes were still being counted. Challenger and L.A. councilmember Nithya Raman overtook Pratt after an early “red mirage,” triggering outbursts from the right.

On his radio show, Fox’s Sean Hannity said: “President Trump rightly is calling out Democrats, saying they’re probably cheating, trying to steal” the race. MAGA media influencer Benny Johnson said, “You can already see that they’re stealing and they’re cheating.” YouTube streamer Tim Pool alleged that “it appears, with new information coming in, we can now say the Democrats are cheating in the California race.”

As is so often the case, these figures were operating symbiotically with President Donald Trump, who wrote that it was “not possible for Spencer Pratt to have lost the L.A. runoffs after the big lead he had,” decrying “Rigged Elections!”

There was no evidence of voter fraud in the L.A. mayoral primary, and it isn’t surprising in the least that Pratt would lose in a city where former Vice President Kamala Harris won 70% of the vote in 2024. But it is now a matter of faith on the right that, in the words of former Trump adviser Steve Bannon, “if Democrats can’t steal elections, they can’t win.”

My Media Matters colleague Matt Gertz has characterized MAGA’s reaction as a signal that right-wing media are entering a period of “post-proof election denial.” Whereas in the aftermath of 2020, an entire cottage industry arose on the right to produce a simulacra of evidence to allege that allies of former President Joe Biden had rigged the outcome, no similar effort emerged on Pratt’s behalf.

Instead, these figures relied on nothing but vibes, especially olfactory metaphors. “It smells to high heaven,” said radio show host Megyn Kelly. “I don’t like the way any of this smells,” said Fox News co-host Lisa Kennedy Montgomery. “I can tell you it stinks to high heaven when you have a drop of 24,000 votes and Spencer Pratt gets zero,” said Hannity.

These pundits opened up a permission structure for others to make similarly outlandish accusations. Case in point: Two recent guests on Bannon’s “War Room” podcast claimed that New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s victory last November was rife with fraud. (It was not.)

A screenshot of a political streaming show that shows a split screen of two people talking to one another. The screenshot includes lower-third graphic that reads in part, "Real America's Voice" and "Follow us on Social Media."

A segment of Real America’s Voice’s War Room on Aug. 6, 2026. Screenshot via MediaMatters for America

Ubiquitous, reflexive election denial in conservative media presages the MAGA strategy for 2026 and beyond. In early July, I laid out the broad strokes of an emerging plot to subvert the midterms that was hidden in plain view if you knew where to look.

The basics: First, a White House task force that included right-wing media figure John Solomon — who spread misinformation related to Trump’s first impeachment — would declassify documents that purportedly showed China interfered in the 2020 election. Trump undertook this step in a primetime address on July 16, although the released files provided more evidence that Russia — not China — attempted to influence the election to weaken Biden’s campaign, not Trump’s.

The second step would be for the Trump administration to issue a “national emergency” declaration based on the supposed threat posed by China, thereby unlocking “king-like powers” over election systems.

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AN 1026

Trump jokes about Iran destroying Los Angeles and San Diego

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AN 6 25

Just one day after a widely criticized, multimillion-dollar military parade marking both the U.S. Army’s birthday and his own—and amid millions attending thousands of nationwide “No Kings” protests—President Donald Trump announced on Sunday night a new crackdown targeting undocumented immigrants exclusively in Democratic-led strongholds, declaring that blue cities “are the core of the Democrat Power Center.”

Some critics also note that the move comes after a suspect, reportedly a Trump supporter, allegedly assassinated a Democratic Minnesota lawmaker and her spouse and gravely shot and wounded another Democratic lawmaker and his spouse on the same day as the anti-Trump rallies in all 50 states.

In a 400-word Sunday night “order” on social media, President Trump claimed that Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents (ICE) every day face “threats from Radical Democrat Politicians,” as he announced “the single largest Mass Deportation Program in History,” before baselessly claiming voter fraud.

“Every day, the Brave Men and Women of ICE are subjected to violence, harassment, and even threats from Radical Democrat Politicians, but nothing will stop us from executing our mission, and fulfilling our Mandate to the American People. ICE Officers are herewith ordered, by notice of this TRUTH, to do all in their power to achieve the very important goal of delivering the single largest Mass Deportation Program in History,” the President wrote.

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“In order to achieve this, we must expand efforts to detain and deport Illegal Aliens in America’s largest Cities, such as Los Angeles, Chicago, and New York, where Millions upon Millions of Illegal Aliens reside,” Trump continued. “These, and other such Cities, are the core of the Democrat Power Center, where they use Illegal Aliens to expand their Voter Base, cheat in Elections, and grow the Welfare State, robbing good paying Jobs and Benefits from Hardworking American Citizens. These Radical Left Democrats are sick of mind, hate our Country, and actually want to destroy our Inner Cities — And they are doing a good job of it! There is something wrong with them. That is why they believe in Open Borders, Transgender for Everybody, and Men playing in Women’s Sports.”

Critics blasted the President and issued warnings.

“This is illegal on so many levels,” charged John Jackson, a former trial lawyer. “He’s declaring war on specific areas based entirely on their voter registration, which is a form of speech and protected political choice. It’s ‘vote Republican or I will punish you.’ Incredible. Out in the open. Lawless.”

“2 implications of Trump specifically targeting immigrants in Democratic cities: He’s NOT going after immigrants in places where they are least welcome,” observed former Washington Post editor Robert McCartney. “He IS doing what’s most likely to provoke backlash. We conclude that his goal is not to ‘solve’ the problem but to stir chaos.”

“This is the politicization of law enforcement. It’s not about ‘immigration,’ it’s about demonizing cities, harming political enemies and winning elections,” declared The Atlantic’s Anne Applebaum. “Also, those are the cities that had the biggest No Kings protests.”

Pointing to Trump’s full screed, political strategist Rachel Bitecofer noted, “Please go study how the Nazis talked about the Jews to whip the public up into accepting restricting them from society, deporting them, and ultimately murdering them. It will sound a lot like this.”

“Trump is going after Blue cities based on nothing more than the crazy, conspiratorial voices in his head,” wrote Melanie D’Arrigo, executive director of the Campaign for New York Health. “He’s already violating our 1st, 4th, 5th & 14th Amendments, and deploying the U.S. military against citizens in L.A. This is what authoritarianism looks like.”

“He’s openly admitting that he’s politicizing law enforcement,” observed Chuck Todd, the former NBC News Chief Political Analyst and “Meet the Press” moderator. “This will not help ICE’s image because he’s asking them to perform a political task. Throw in the decision to shield the red states from law enforcement and he’s clearly hoping to provoke an angry response. At a moment when we need a president to de-escalate, he does the opposite.”

“Trump’s ugly plan is clear: Incite violence in blue cities & blue states only, and then put the military on the streets in those blue cities & blue states only,” warned former Tea Party GOP Congressman Joe Walsh, now a Democrat and political commentator. “Everything he does is meant to divide us. He is the absolute worst of us.”

“This sort of dehumanizing language about political opponents is exactly what leads to the horrific shootings we saw yesterday, wrote MeidasTouch News. “Disgraceful and dangerous.”

“One of his crazed supporters just assassinated a Democrat and he continues to instigate division and hatred, noted Arizona Democratic state Senator Analise Ortiz. “We need an adult in the White House, not a dictator hell bent on escalating tensions and political violence.”

Progressive media outlet The Tennessee Holler wrote that “the president posting that Dems are ‘sick of mind’ and ‘hate our country’ immediately after 2 Dem lawmakers and their spouses were shot in their homes is the opposite of leadership. Gas on the fire.”

“A US president is supposed to be the president of all the people,” wrote retired Professor of Law Anne Arbor. “This man instead foments hatred of his own political party against his political opponents. This statement verges on a declaration of civil war against half the country.”

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trump mentioned? LA mayor (and newsome?) to troops who booed w/o prompt? call N attn seeker

trump says w/ nat g la wd burn, but problems handled the day bef they arrived. b roll fox wayo burn, mex flags

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an 6 25

Despite President Donald Trump sanctioning ongoing immigration raids nationwide and deploying U.S. troops to the second-largest city in the United States, it still might not be enough to please his base, according to a recent analysis.

In a Tuesday article for anti-Trump conservative news outlet The Bulwark, journalist Will Sommer argued that there was a "vicious MAGA feedback loop" that is dictating the administration's latest actions, and that it's showing no sign of slowing down. In fact, Sommer suggested that even Trump circumventing California Governor Gavin Newsom (D) in calling up the California National Guard (the first time a president went around a governor to call National Guardsmen since 1965) and sending roughly 700 U.S. Marines to Los Angeles may still not be enough to give his MAGA supporters what they want.

"It is a thrilling way to show the Trump faithful that the administration is really doing something," Sommer wrote. "It also underscores one of the most underappreciated elements of what is currently happening in Los Angeles and elsewhere: Much of it is being driven by a feedback loop between the Trump administration and online MAGA-world, each urging the other on to more cruelty."

Sommer pointed to a recent report showing that MAGA was turning on even the most vociferously pro-Trump officials within the administration. One recent example is FBI deputy director Dan Bongino, who faced MAGA's wrath after he conceded that convicted child predator Jeffrey Epstein did indeed take his own life in prison — shooting down a conspiracy theory he himself promoted in the recent past.

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"In a similar vein, Trump world figures like Noem and White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller have spent years telling followers that the world around them was a horrifying hellhole — with millions of illegal immigrants terrorizing the country and threatening the very fabric of our civilization," Sommer wrote.

"But while Bongino can’t really cook up a fake Jeffrey Epstein murder plot to win back his fans, Noem and Miller definitely can ramp up deportations," he added. "And they can do so while bringing the MAGA media ecosystem along for the ride."

The Bulwark writer went on to observe that many on the far right were calling for the administration to follow through on its threat to arrest Gov. Newsom after Trump floated the idea earlier this week (Newsom has also dared Trump to arrest him). While Trump administration immigration advisor Tom Homan has said that Newsom hasn't done anything to merit arrest, Sommer posited that "law and due process seem to matter little to MAGA die-hards who want the blood, detentions, and incarcerations they were promised."

Click here to read Sommer's full article in the Bulwark.

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afp

Los Angeles fires spark 'smart city' conspiracy theories

:{Published on January 21, 2025

{By Daniel Patrick GALGANO, AFP USA}:

As a string of wildfires hit Los Angeles County, social media users spread claims that authorities purposefully set the blazes to encourage the development of so-called "smart cities." While America's second-largest city does have long-term plans to implement digital technologies to improve services, experts say the claims have no merit and that razing neighborhoods would not accomplish these goals.

"And then I find this document and it all begins to connect the dots. You have a fire, things burn down, you rebuild it and you make it a smart city," says a January 9, 2025 X post with thousands of interactions.

"And you have the government, the insurance agents and the electric companies all into it together."

Image

Screenshot from X taken January 16, 2025

The same claim has circulated elsewhere on X, Facebook, Instagram, Threads, TikTok, Bluesky, Rumble and Gettr.

The posts are the latest describing conspiracy theories linking natural disasters to smart city plans that frequently crop up in the United States and Canada.

Several wildfires near Los Angeles have claimed more than two dozen lives and billions of dollars in property damage. The largest of the two, which have enveloped neighborhoods in the Palisades and the nearby city of Pasadena, were spurred on by destructive high winds as firefighters attempted to limit their spread.

The posts claim officials and investors set the fires to make room for a "smart city," an urban planning concept that uses a wide range of technology to monitor traffic patterns, electricity and utility consumption and criminal activity to improve public services and cut greenhouse gas emissions.

Other users conflate smart cities with "15-minute cities," a different philosophy that involves rezoning cities to place most day-to-day amenities, such as shops, parks, medical services and schools, within walking distance of residential areas.

SmartLA 2028

In December 2020, city officials announced an infrastructure investment plan called SmartLA 2028, which proposes using technology to monitor electricity usage, integrating city services onto a mobile app and installing sensors that can alert emergency services to potential crimes and housefires (archived here).

Los Angeles is due to host the Summer Olympics and Paralympics in 2028, spurring hopes that the city will be able to ease its notoriously dense traffic, reduce greenhouse gas emissions and improve emergency services.

The plan does not call for razing entire neighborhoods or rebuilding portions of the city from scratch. Instead it focuses on efforts including installing devices to monitor traffic patterns and gathering data on air quality, crime, road conditions and other things to help improve local services.

"Technology enables the City of Los Angeles to efficiently and ethically improve the quality of life for our residents, businesses, and visitors," Ted Ross, chief information officer for the City of Los Angeles, says in a explaining the strategy (archived here). vid]

The SmartLA 2028 plan also only applies to the City of Los Angeles and does not outline a scheme for the rest of the county, which includes other fire-affected cities such as Pasadena.

AFP reached out to Ross for further information, but a response was not forthcoming.

Disaster recovery is expensive

Susan Winter, the associate dean of research at the University of Maryland (archived here), said causing destruction is not a "rational way to approach urban planning."

The cost to the government to rebuild areas devastated by fires could quickly surpass the economic benefits of adding smart technology to those regions, she noted.

Winter added that city planners have worked to address some public concerns about smart technology infringing on residents' privacy by anonymizing gathered data and restricting where information is stored to reduce the risk of a breach.

"There's nothing in that city of Los Angeles plan that looks at all shady or nefarious to me," she said on January 13.

Several home and fire insurance companies have scaled down or entirely withdrawn their operations in California amid concerns over the frequency of climate change-fueled disasters in the region, reportedly leaving thousands of Los Angeles residents without private home insurance ahead of the fires. The State of California created an insurance carrier of last resort for homeowners unable to secure private insurance that offers more limited coverage options.

The carrier reportedly could face losses of as much as $24 billion due to the Los Angeles fires, while total property damage could surpass $250 billion.

Image

Homes smolder near the Pacific Palisades neighborhood of Los Angeles, California on January 9, 2025 (AFP / JOSH EDELSON)

Hussam Mahmoud, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at the Colorado State University (archived here), said US cities have been investing in systems designed to spot wildfires early to prevent them from spreading too widely.

"I highly doubt that anyone would say, 'let's wipe the area by doing this,'" he said on January 14.

Investigators are still attempting to uncover what caused the fires. Lawsuits have placed some blame for the Eaton fire on Southern California Edison for failing to de-energize its equipment. However, there is no evidence government agencies deliberately sparked the infernos.

AFP has debunked other claims about the Los Angeles fires.

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omg // maui fire BS? MMA

### Jesse Watters says “there’s a good chance the homeless started” the California fires

01/09/25 6:21 PM EST

### On CNN, Rep. Jasmine Crockett pushes back on baseless right-wing media claims that DEI has hindered the LAFD wildfire response

01/09/25 1:46 PM EST

### Charlie Kirk says Donald Trump should threaten to withhold federal assistance to California

01/09/25

january 9, 2025, edition of The Charlie Kirk Show, streamed on Rumble

CHARLIE KIRK (HOST): And when California, in a couple of weeks, comes crawling back for federal assistance, Trump should say, listen, I'm not gonna give you a dime unless you fire the lesbian Kristens. You mandate the proper forest management and stop controlled burns that Newsom has stopped. You cut it out with California's failed diversity, equity, inclusion homeless spending. You require water capture instead of flushing it into the ocean. We're not gonna pay for this anymore. This is your own making.

When Florida gets hurt by a hurricane — hit by a hurricane, FPL, Florida Power and Light, has power coming back in a couple days. They also build their homes in a certain way to be hurricane proof. California, they're so left-wing, they're so liberal, they're so out of touch, they're so earth worshiping, and now entire neighborhoods are gone as if an atomic bomb was dropped. In 2020, Pacific Palisades voted 70% for Joe Biden. So it's 70-30.

This looks like Ukraine, not our own country. Oh, but it's funny you mentioned that. Because Joe Biden and Senate Republicans have sent a lot of money to Ukraine. A lot. In fact, we just we spent $250 billion to Ukraine. This is the current ruling class regime. And just oh, by the way, didn't didn't you know this? The Los Angeles Fire Department just donated surplus supplies to Ukraine.

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### Charlie Kirk says California Democrats are “living in the tragedy of your own making”

01/09/25

January 9, 2025, edition of The Charlie Kirk Show, streamed on Rumble

CHARLIE KIRK (HOST): And I do not wish harm on anybody because of their politics. I don't. However, for every person that has advocated, raised money, bundled, and donated to Democrats, you are living in the tragedy of your own making. And you guys were told by The New York Times, The Washington Post, right-wing people like Elon Musk and right-wing people like Charlie Kirk are making it seem like woke ideologies doesn't harm you, and now you don't have a driveway. And now everything you own is gone. We were fearmongering.

We were pouncing. Republicans pounce. We're too divisive. Turns out we were right. It turns out all of you in this audience were right. It turns out that every single one of us. And I gotta be honest though, there's a lot of America First and Patriots that no longer have homes too. I know of fifteen conservative people, some of which that work on our team that I mentioned yesterday, their entire home is gone. And again, I do not take delight in anybody's suffering. I do not take joy in people's misery. But the Democrat Party has been wanting America to commit suicide over the last decade. And now they don't have a home. And I do feel sorry for them.

But I hope some of these Democrats, that now everything they own is gone — look at that. So, and look, I don't wanna overly politicize this. Blake, can you pull up the precinct map of how Pacific Palisades voted? Let's just go straight at the third rail of this whole thing. It's 80-20 Democrat. Am I right? Let get the precinct map. Let's make sure we get it right. I want The New York Times precinct map. No one deserves to suffer because of their politics.

However, if you have voted a certain way, this is what you wanted. This used to be a conservative area back in the 1950s. Eight out of ten of those houses you're seeing are left-wing Democrats. Eight out of ten. And that's a tragedy. They don't deserve it. They're American citizens. They deserve help. But they advocated for this. They donated for to Joe Biden. They raised money for Kamala Harris. And this is why politics matters.

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Charlie Kirk: “I sure hope that Pam Bondi and President Trump open a robust criminal investigation into Gavin Newsom and Mayor Bass”

01/09/25

January 9, 2025, edition of The Charlie Kirk Show, streamed on Rumble

CHARLIE KIRK (HOST): So you have this kind of perfect storm of wokeism, and that is what you're seeing. Let's see more b-roll, by the way, of all the burning. What you are seeing right there is a perfect storm of wokeism. We can't take the water because of the Delta smelt. We can't clean up the brush because of the grasshoppers. We can't put out the fire because guess what? When you start to prioritize diversity and sexuality over merit, things tend to not go well. This is exactly what we have been warning about as conservatives.

For, as conservatives, we've been warning about this for years. Hey, when a tragedy strikes, it doesn't matter how many diversity points you have. Remember Pete Buttigieg trying to figure out the flight crisis, that disaster? And what is the response from Gavin Newsom? The same thing that they'll say anytime that there is a police killing.

Oh, systemic racism.

They just say climate change. Define the term, Gavin Newsom. Define the term. What do you mean by climate change exactly? Was it climate change that put the trio of lesbian Kristins in charge of the fire department? Was it climate change that decided not to capture the water and put it into a reservoir? Was it climate change that decided not to clean up the brush? Or no, instead it was the opposite. It was the cult of earth worshiping environmentalism. Your ideology is why your people are suffering. This is a choice. This is not an act of God. It is an act of man.

And Gavin Newsom, you better preserve your documents because I sure hope that Pam Bondi and President Trump open a robust criminal investigation into Gavin Newsom and Mayor Bass. Because in 10 days and 23 hours, you might be facing a very serious federal criminal investigation because you deserve it. This is beyond gross negligence. You might be complicit for the murder and arson of your own citizens. So preserve your documents, Gavin Newsom.

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Right-wing media figures baselessly claim LA wildfires are burning out of control because the fire chief is an LGBTQ woman who supports DEI

01/09/25

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in the March 9 edition of the Los Angeles Times weekly newsletter Boiling Point, reporter Sammy Roth wrote about a recent peer-reviewed study which found that minority communities in Los Angeles face higher levels of vehicular pollution than their white counterparts. The study’s abstract sums up the findings as follows:

Commuters from majority-White tracts disproportionately drive through non-White tracts, compared to the inverse. Decades of racially-motivated freeway infrastructure planning and residential segregation shape today’s disparities in who produces vehicular air pollution and who is exposed to it.

These findings are entirely uncontroversial. For example, studies looking at vehicular pollution in other cities have found similar results. There is a vast body of research showing that lower-income and minority communities in the U.S. face disproportionately higher levels of pollution than whiter and more affluent communities. There is also a well-documented history of racism in urban planning, with highways purposefully built through minority communities.

The study received little fanfare when it was published in February. A March 7 LA Times write-up of the study also received “normal levels of engagement,” per the author of the study. It wasn’t until March 9, when Roth offered some of his personal feelings about the topics of the study — noting that he “benefited from the region’s sordid history” and that he contributed “to the inequitable air pollution that Boeing’s study describes” — that Fox launched its attack on both Roth and the paper.

The following day, Fox News devoted at least 5 segments to attacking Roth and the LA Times

In the early morning hours of March 10, Foxnews.com published an article titled “LA Times writer says ‘White’ drivers are ‘polluting the air’ breathed by LA’s ‘people of color.’” The article listed some of Roth’s claims, gave a brief overview of the study, and then linked to some tweets by right-wing media personalities lambasting the article (none of which actually addressed any data or evidence presented in the study).

The Fox News TV segments on March 10 followed similar framing — making Roth or the LA Times the main targets of their vitriol and acting outraged over the mere notion of environmental racism.

On Outnumbered, co-host Emily Compagno began the segment by claiming that “if you are white and a driver in Los Angeles, then the liberal media thinks that you are racist.” A chyron mentioned the L.A. Times and an image included Roth’s name. Fox News’ liberal political commentator Marie Harf mentioned the study and broadly defended some of the points it made, including the fact that city highways are often built in lower-income areas and that many members of these communities don’t have cars and rely on public transport, though she said she “wouldn’t use the r-word; I wouldn’t use the ‘racist’ word about white people driving on highways.” Harf’s points about the study were generally dismissed by other guests, who instead focused on attacking the idea of environmental racism. For example, Jason Chaffetz scoffed at the idea that “driving on a freeway is somehow a racist act.”

Later that evening on The Five, co-host Brian Kilmeade called the L.A. Times piece “ridiculous,” mocking the idea that “driving can be racist.” A chyron and image again mentioned the L.A. Times and Roth by name, and the study was mentioned only in passing. Co-host Dana Perino tried to reframe the issue, stating that if she was ”in a minority community,” she “would say why are you giving subsidies to rich white people for electric vehicles.” Co-host Jesse Watters then dismissed the idea of racism in this story after saying that “the Chinese are the ones polluting everybody. They are the most racist, statistically.”

On Tucker Carlson Tonight, Carlson went into a tirade over the L.A. Times piece and mocked Roth’s own background. Carlson did not mention that Roth was reporting on a study. Carlson took an absurd position on the piece, insinuating that Roth wrote “that just by breathing, white people are hurting others.” Carlson also claimed that white people are victims of “Rwanda-style race hatred” pushed by the media.

on The Ingraham Angle, Laura Ingraham did mention the study, but her opening monologue centered on attacking both Roth and the L.A. Times. She downplayed the very idea of environmental racism in general, saying, “Making people live near landfills? We're making people live next to polluting facilities? Well, that's obviously ridiculous.” She also dismissed the well-established fact that highways were purposefully built through low-income and minority communities, stating that “what this is really all about is control.” A chyron read “This is all about eliminating your freedoms.”

In the very next segment, guest Chris Bedford stated that the money going toward environmental justice initiatives is useless and that it’s a “completely insane thing” to call carbon a pollutant anyway. Meanwhile, guest Vincent Edward Ellison called Democrats “the evilest people that have ever walked the face of this earth,” adding that “they don't care that these people are suffering.”

On *Fox News at Nigh*t (airing during the midnight hour of March 11), Trace Gallagher began a segment by stating, “Driving is racist. Says so right in the LA Times, which ran a headline reading, quoting, ‘How white and affluent drivers are polluting the air breathed by L.A.’s people of color.’” He also dismissed the idea of the disproportionate impacts of minority pollution, claiming, “The study says air quality is worse a few blocks from a freeway and common sense says, it's L.A. Almost everyone lives a few blocks from the freeway.”

For his part in writing about a study and simply expressing his own feelings on racist highway practices, Roth was barraged with right-wing and antisemitic hate mail.

Fox News has a history of attacking environmental justice issues

In the aftermath of 2022’s Hurricane Ian, Vice President Kamala Harris correctly pointed out that it’s typically lower-income communities and communities of color that suffer the most from extreme weather events. Fox News personalities lambasted her over this claim, acting outraged that race was brought up at all. Some also falsely accused the administration of planning to deny hurricane aid to white communities. More recently, Fox attacked environmental justice initiatives and pushed racial grievance narratives in the wake of the Ohio train derailment.

In addition to mocking environmental justice initiatives, right-wing media will also downright ignore them, as they did when covering the Jackson, Mississippi, water crisis in 2022.

In addition to these examples, Fox also worked up a storm over environmental justice initiatives in the 2021 version of Biden’s Build Back Better bill, crying foul over modest attempts to rectify decades of racist building practices. At the time, Media Matters wrote that “Fox’s coverage of these programs has not attempted to describe what they entail or what they would accomplish for hundreds of communities. Rather, they have been used as punchlines or set up for cheap shots that reflect Fox’s racist ethos and climate denial.”

This exactly sums up Fox’s coverage of the vehicular pollution study and the resulting L.A. Times report on it. The network downplayed the facts and data surrounding disproportionate minority pollution, and instead loudly complained that it’s all a hoax or that it's actually white people who are being unfairly treated. Boeing, the author of the study, made the same point: Responding on Twitter to the right-wing anger toward his work, he stated that there wasn’t much for him to comment on because “there was no critical engagement with our data or statistical analysis whatsoever, all of which was peer reviewed.”

Promoting climate denial, protecting the wealthy fossil fuel industry, and downplaying the U.S.’ long and sordid history of racism are key themes of Fox News’ right-wing programming. Inconvenient facts like those pointed out in the study — that decades of racist urban planning have contributed to minority populations breathing in more polluted and dangerous air coming from vehicles driven by more affluent people living in other communities — would run up against Fox’s pro-fossil fuel and racial grievance agenda. It thus works for the network to aggressively deny environmental justice issues and reframe the discussion by attacking and manufacturing a backlash in an attempt to intimidate those who even dare to report on them. In this case, the intimidation did not succeed: Roth’s story ended up appearing in theMarch 13 print edition of the L.A. Times.

morano control BS?

Fox News is returning to its pro-COVID-19 stance by attacking Los Angeles, California, for considering an indoor mask mandate as infections in the county skyrocket. The right-wing propaganda channel, which has long spewed pandemic-related misinformation, is again lying about the efficacy of masks for slowing the spread of the disease.

The Los Angeles Times reported that LA County’s case rate “has been increasing since late October and is now triple what it was in the autumn low,” and is currently 188 weekly cases per 100,000 residents, with a case rate of 100 or more being considered high. The LA Times also reported that the county is suffering about 60 deaths from COVID-19 each week. According to City News Service, the county’s COVID-19 hospitalization rate already exceeds one of the two thresholds that County Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer said would trigger a universal indoor masking mandate.

Fox’s response to this news is to return to its history of killing its viewers by spreading medical misinformation that has contributed to the staggering national COVID-19 death toll exceeding 1 million people. In particular, Fox has spread lies about the usefulness of face masks in slowing the spread of COVID-19. Some Fox personalities have bizarrely claimed that wearing masks makes people crazy, while others simply told lies about their effectiveness. Fox as a whole worked very hard to incorporate masking into their deranged culture war, even though at least one Fox prime time host early in the pandemic repeatedly gushed about their potential in keeping people safe. (Fox also for a time required staffers to wear masks at the workplace.) Besides attacking face masks during a respiratory disease pandemic, Fox has also urged its viewers to distrust public health officials.

And with the possibility of a mask mandate coming back to LA, Fox personalities reacted with incredulity, pretending that masking is ineffective and attacking the county public health director as “power hungry.”

:{Fox & Friends First:(style="box-sizing:border-box"):}: co-host Todd Piro asked, “Have we learned no lessons from the … failure of masks?” He added, “These people, Barbara Ferrer, that you saw there, the entireestablishmentthat is pushing more masking, more lockdowns, they are power hungry. And they refuse to acknowledge that COVID is something we cannot prevent at this point, but something we have to deal with.”
:{Fox & Friends:(style="box-sizing:border-box"):}: co-host:{ Brian Kilmeade:(style="background-color:#ffff66;"):}: said: “Masks don’t work. … What is wrong with these people?”
Later in the program, Kilmeade portrayed a masking mandate as intentional sabotage on people’s lives and children’s schooling, saying: “The problem is too many people enjoying their lives going back to normal. Let's try to screw them up again.”
Fox’s :{America’s Newsroom:(style="box-sizing:border-box"):}: interviewed **Fox contributor Caitlyn Jenner** for her inexpert opinion on the efficacy of face masks. During the interview, Jenner said: “I don’t think they work very well.” She later added: “I think our public health director is kind of like a little mini [NIAID Director Dr. Anthony] Fauci, wanting the control that they have.”
Fox Business host Steve Hilton claimed that masks “make practically no differencein the preventing of the transmission of this virus,” then ranted: “Can you believe we're back here again, yet again? You have these lunatics, these bureaucrats, totally unaccountable – Barbara Ferrer, the half a million dollar a year woman who runs public health in Los Angeles – not a medical doctor, parading these totally bogus metrics, right, about cases and whatever. How does she know what the cases are? People are testing on their own at home privately. It's not reported. It's complete BS. The whole thing is total BS, and I hope nobody pays any attention to it at all.”
On Twitter, Hilton also urged LA residents to “rise up and say enough is enough.”

https://www.alternet.org/2021/07/la-county-sheriff/

not enforce mask

Los Angeles County Sheriff Alex Villanueva is refusing to enforce a mask mandate because he claims it is "not backed by science." On Friday, July 16, Villanueva released a statement pushing back against the proposed mandate as he offered specifics about why he opposes masks for certain people, according to Axios.

"Forcing the vaccinated and those who already contracted COVID-19 to wear masks indoors is not backed by science and contradicts the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) guidelines," Villanueva**said in the stateme**nt.

While he did admit that the L.A. County Public Health Department does have the authority to enforce the measure, he made it clear his "underfunded/defunded" law enforcement agency will not be following suit.

"The Los Angeles County Department of Public Health (DPH) has authority to enforce the order, but the underfunded/defunded Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department will not expend our limited resourcesand instead ask for voluntary compliance,"the statement continued. "We encourage the DPH to work collaboratively with the Board of Supervisors and law enforcement to establish mandates that are both achievable and supported by science."

The county mask mandate comes as COVID-19 cases continue to rise in the area. As of Thursday, July 15, the county's seven-day COVID case average jumped to 1,077. The New York Times also reported that "between Dec. 7 and June 7, the unvaccinated accounted for 99.6% of the county's coronavirus cases, 98.7% of COVID-19 hospitalizations and 99.8% of deaths."

FROM YOUR SITE ARTICLES

United States[

At the local level dozens of ordinances with rights of nature provisions have been passed as of 2019 throughout the United States, and in tribal lands located within the U.S. boundaries.^{[99][135][136]} Most were passed in reaction to a specific threat to local well-being, such as threats posed by hydrofracking, groundwater extraction, gravel mining, and fossil fuel extraction. For example, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania passed an anti-fracking law that included the following provision to buttress protections: "Natural communities and ecosystems... possess inalienable and fundamental rights to exist and flourish." The ordinance continues that "Residents... shall possess legal standing to enforce those rights."^{[137][138][40]}

Santa Monica State Beach - in 2013 the city adopted a "Sustainability Rights Ordinance",^[139] recognizing the "fundamental and inalienable rights"^[139] of "natural communities and ecosystems"^[139][21]

Residents in Santa Monica, California proactively sought to recognize nature's rights in local law after the U.S. Supreme Court's expansion of corporate rights in Citizens United v. FEC. In 2013 the Santa Monica City Council adopted a "Sustainability Rights Ordinance",^[139] recognizing the "fundamental and inalienable rights"^[139] of "natural communities and ecosystems"^[139]in the city to "exist and flourish".^[139] The ordinance emphasized that "[c]orporate entities... do not enjoy special privileges or powers under the law that subordinate the community's rights to their private interests".^[139] It specifically defined "natural communities and ecosystems" to include "groundwater aquifers, atmospheric systems, marine waters, and native species".^[139][21] Santa Monica updated its Sustainable City Plan in 2014 to reinforce its codified commitment to nature's rights. In 2018, the city council adopted a Sustainable Groundwater Management Ordinance that specifically referenced the inherent rights of the local aquifer to flourish.^[21]

1020 tom d records 121 degrees LA 130 deaTH VLY

In an all-too-literal fashion, The Donald is indeed proving to be history's "fire and fury" president.

And don't for a moment think that there was no warning about the over-the-top burning now underway in this country. After all, in 2019, parts of Australia were singed to a crisp in a way never before seen, killing at least 25 humans and possibly more than a billion animals. And that country, too, was headed by a climate-change denier, a man who once brought a piece of coal to parliament and handed it around while soothingly telling other legislators, "Don't be afraid, don't be scared."

https://yyy.theguardian.com/australia-news/2017/feb/09/scott-morrison-brings-coal-to-question-time-what-fresh-idiocy-is-this

In addition, in recent years, the Arctic (of all places) has been smoking and burning in an unprecedented fashion, heating its permafrost and releasing staggering amounts of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. Oh, and this June, the temperature in a small town in Siberia crossed the 100-degree mark for the first time.

By the way, Russia, too, is run by a leader who until recently was a climate denier.I mean, what is it about the urge of so many of us in such a crisis to support those dedicated to quite literally destroying this planet as a livable place for... well, us? (Hey there, Jair Bolsonaro!)

https://insideclimatenews.org/news/08042020/science-denial-coronavirus-covid-climate-change

American science denialism, deployed for years against climate change and, most recently, the coronavirus, can be traced back to the early 1950s during the fight over smog in Los Angeles.

When a Cal-Tech biochemist fingered nitrogen oxide emissions and uncombusted hydrocarbons from automobiles and refineries as the cause of the thick smog that often blanketed the city, the American Petroleum Institute counter-attacked by highlighting the alleged uncertainty of his science.The tactic was a test run for the fossil fuel industry's assault 40 years later on climate science.

Decades of climate denial now appear to have paved the way for denial of Covid-19 by many on the right, according to experts on climate politics. After the fossil fuel industry spent hundreds of millions of dollars attacking climate scientists and accentuating the supposed uncertainty of climate science, it isn't hard to understand how that happened.

President Trump, who denies climate change, has brushed off Covid-19's seriousness until recently by relying on many of the same arguments he uses to dismiss global warming, such as ignoring government scientists or blaming China. ...

California Lagged in Capping Century-old Oil Wells Leaking Under Homes of LA Residents Plagued by Illness and Odors

Electric Vehicles for Uber and Lyft? Los Angeles Might Require It, Mayor Says.

:{BY: LESLIE HOOK, FINANCIAL TIMES

L.A. has big plans for cutting greenhouse gas emissions, but requiring EVs for rideshare services would also radically change the economics of the business. Read More}:

https://www.alternet.org/2019/10/can-uber-and-lyft-survive-if-californias-worker-protections-go-nationwide/

passage of California’s Assembly Bill 5 (AB5), the landmark state law that reclassifies contract rideshare drivers as employees, marked a historic win for gig economy drivers demanding better working conditions. Now Los Angeles is taking the first step toward securing a $30 minimum wage for Uber, Lyft, and other rideshare drivers in the city.

On Tuesday, the Los Angeles City Council voted to proceed with an independent study on the average wages and business expenses of the city’s rideshare drivers, and review policies around the country. The motion also asked the city attorney to draft an ordinance that would set the minimum wage to $30, suggesting that drivers will need an additional $15 per hour to pay for business expenses like gas. Currently, the city’s minimum wage for most businesses is $14.25, but will be raised to $15 citywide by 2021. In the state of California, the minimum wage is $12 an hour, and will reach $15 by January 2023....

https://www.commondreams.org/views/2019/07/11/quake-make-los-angeles-radioactive-dead-zone

Had Friday’s 7.1 earthquake and other ongoing seismic shocks hit less than 200 miles northwest of Ridgecrest/China Lake, ten million people in Los Angeles would now be under an apocalyptic cloud, their lives and those of the state and nation in radioactive ruin.

The likely human death toll would be in the millions. The likely property loss would be in the trillions. The forever damage to our species’ food supply, ecological support systems, and longterm economy would be very far beyond any meaningful calculation. The threat to the ability of the human race to survive on this planet would be extremely significant.

The threat to the ability of the human race to survive on this planet would be extremely significant.The two cracked, embrittled, under-maintained, unregulated, uninsured, and un-inspected atomic reactors at Diablo Canyon, near San Luis Obispo, would be a seething radioactive ruin.

Their cores would be melting into the ground. Hydrogen explosions would be blasting the site to deadly dust. One or both melted cores would have burned into the earth and hit ground or ocean water, causing massive steam explosions with physical impacts in the range of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The huge clouds would send murderous radioactive isotopes into the atmosphere that would permanently poison the land, the oceans, the air … and circle the globe again and again, and yet again, filling the lungs of billions of living things with the most potent poisons humans have ever created.

In 2010, badly maintained gas pipes run by Pacific Gas & Electric blew up a neighborhood in San Bruno, killing eight people. PG&E’s badly maintained power lines have helped torch much of northern California, killing 80 people and incinerating more than 10,000 structures.

Now in bankruptcy, with its third president in two years, PG&Eis utterly unqualified to run two large, old, obsolete, crumbling atomic reactors which are surrounded by earthquake faults. At least a dozen faults have been identified within a small radius around the reactors.The reactor cores are less than fifty miles from the San Andreas fault, less than half the distance that Fukushima Daiichi was from the epicenter that destroyed four reactors there.

Diablo cannot withstand an earthquake of the magnitude now hitting less than 200 miles away. In 2014, the Associated Press reported that Dr. Michael Peck,the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s site inspector at Diablo, had warned that the two reactors should be shut because they can’t withstand a seismic shock like the one that has just hit so close. The NRC tried to bury Peck’s report. They attacked his findings, then shipped him to Tennessee. He’s no longer with the Commission.

All major reactor disasters have come with early warnings. A 1978 accident at Ohio’s Davis-Besse reactor presaged the 1979 disaster at Three Mile Island. The realities were hidden, and TMI spewed radiation that killed local people and animals in droves.

Soviet officials knew the emergency shut-down mechanism at Chernobyl could cause an explosion — but kept it secret. Unit Four exploded the instant the rods meant to shut it down were deployed.

Decades before disaster struck at Fukushima Daiichi, millions of Japanese citizens marched to demand atomic reactors NOT be built in a zone riddled by fault lines, washed by tsunamis.

In California, ten thousand citizens were arrested demanding the same. Diablo’s owners hid the existence of the Hosgri Fault just three miles from the site. A dozen more nearby fault lines have since been found, capable in tandem of delivering shocks like the ones shaking Ridgecrest. No significant structural improvements have been made to deal with the newfound fault lines.

The truly horrifying HBO series on Chernobyl currently topping all historic viewership charts shows just a small sample of the ghastly death and destruction that can be caused by official corruption and neglect.

Like Soviet apparatchiks, the state of California has refused to conduct independent investigations on the physical status of the two Diablo reactors. It has refused to hold public hearings on Dr. Peck’s warnings that they can’t withstand seismic shocks like the ones now being experienced so dangerously nearby. If there are realistic plans to evacuate Los Angeles and other downwind areas during reactor melt-downs/explosions, hearings on them have yet to be held.

In the wake of the 2011 explosions at Fukushima, the NRC staff compiled critical reforms for American reactors, including Diablo. But the Commission killed the proposed regulations. So nothing significant has been done to improve safety at two coastal reactors upwind of ten million people that are surrounded by earthquake faults in a tsunami zone like the one where the four Fukushima reactors have already exploded.

There are no excuses. These seismic shocks will never stop. Diablo is scheduled to shut in 2024 and 2025. But massive advances in wind, solar, batteries and efficiency have already rendered the nukes’ power unnecessary. A petition demanding Governor Newsom and the state independently investigate Diablo’s ability to operate safely is at www.solartopia.org.

That petition began circulating before these latest quakes. The continued operation of these two reactors has now gone to a whole new level of apocalyptic insanity.

City of Angels Funds Some Hellish Fossil Fuel Projects

By Doug Norlen

This month the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released a startling report, which finds that severe impacts of climate change are happening much sooner than previously expected, and that countries must take far more aggressive actions to avoid the most catastrophic impacts. The report finds that the burning of fossil fuels must be curbed sharply.

The harmful role Wall Street banks play in propping up fossil projects around the world is increasingly known. Yet there is much less awareness of the role major cities play when they place billions of dollars of their public funds into these same Wall Street banks. According to L.A. city records, as of July 2018, Los Angeles had banking and/or investment relationships with several Wall Street banks, many of which are notorious for their financing of fossil fuel and human rights debacles around the world, including JP Morgan Chase, Citi, Bank of America and Wells Fargo.

According to Banking on Climate Change, a fossil fuel finance report card, between 2015 and 2017 these Wall Street banks collectively provided over $50 billion in financing for tar sands, ultra-deep water drilling, coal mining, coal power and liquid natural gas projects around the world. These projects contribute vast amounts of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, and many of them have severe local environmental, social and human rights impacts as well.

But in 2018, cities have more ethical options. Rather than investing the public's money in environmental and human destruction, cities can establish public banks. When properly structured and operated, public banks can prohibit the use of their funds for fossil fuel and other harmful projects. Instead, they can fund renewable energyand other green enterprises, affordable housing, education and low-cost loans to job-creating entrepreneurs—all while avoiding paying hundreds of millions of dollars in exorbitant fees to Wall Street banks.

The movement to establish public banks is growing nationwide. California is at the forefront, with efforts to pass state-wide legislation allowing establishment of municipal banks as well as campaigns to establish public banks in San Francisco, Oakland and other East Bay cities, Los Angeles and other municipalities.

When Los Angeles voters go to the polls next week, they will decide whether to approve Charter Amendment B, which amends the city's charter to enable it to take affirmative steps to establish a public bank. And Los Angeles is a great case study on the need for public banks. According to Public Bank L.A., the city maintains bank accounts with between $4 billion and $12 billion in cash, and manages up to $45 billion in investments through large commercial banks.

The enormous sum of public funds that L.A. entrusts to fossil fuel banks undercuts the climate leadership of city officials. For example, this past August L.A. Mayor Eric Garcetti joined a coalition of hundreds of mayors across the country to condemn Donald Trump's plans to weaken vehicle efficiency standards and rescind California's waiver right to set stronger greenhouse gas regulations. In December 2016, Garcetti joined other mayors to denounce Trump's decision to walk away from the Paris agreement. The city council has shown progressive streaks on banking issues as well. In December 2017, the Council unanimously voted to enforce both federal and state Community Reinvestment Act ratings disqualifying Wells Fargo from submitting a Request for Proposal for the city's commercial banking services. And yet, the city still banks with Wells Fargo.

If L.A. voters approve Charter Amendment B, the city will be one step closer to creating a municipal bank and redirecting its billions of dollars of public funds to environmentally sound, fiscally smart, sustainable community needs. In doing so, L.A. will serve as a beacon of progress to inspire the larger national movement to establish public banks.

For a sense of why Los Angeles so badly needs to approve Charter Amendment B, we've included descriptions of just a handful of the harmful projects Los Angeles is currently supporting by keeping its money in fossil fuel banks (based on publicly available information). Here is a sample of some of the projects that LA's banks support:

Dakota Access Pipeline (United States):

Citi — $235 million in project finance
MUFG — $235 million in project finance
Wells Fargo — $120 million in project finance

The Dakota Access Pipeline, or DAPL, extends over 1,000 miles across several U.S. states, damaging Native American ancestral lands and water. Passing within just a half-mile of the Standing Rock Indian Reservation, the pipeline has destroyed sacred sites and threatens the tribe's drinking water with potential oil spills. Beginning in 2016, Native American water protectors, including Standing Rock Sioux tribal elders and members, led opposition to DAPL. Supported by thousands of allies, this grew into one of the largest and most iconic movements in the world to halt fossil fuel pipelines. In response to peaceful, prayerful resistance, police from several states and agencies, members of the U.S. National Guard and armed private security forces used military equipment and tactics, including attack dogs, to intimidate, assault, arrest and otherwise commit grievous human rights abuses against water protectors and their allies. Opposition to the pipeline expanded far beyond the project site and supercharged the growing global movement against financial institutions that support fossil fuel projects.

Atlantic Coast Pipeline (United States):

Bank of America — $673.5 million in corporate loans (13)
Citi — $673.5 million in corporate loans (14)
JP Morgan Chase — $648 million in corporate loans (15)
MUFG — $1.182 billion in corporate loans (16)
Wells Fargo — $673.5 million in corporate loans (17)

The proposed 600-mile Atlantic Coast Pipeline, running from West Virginia through North Carolina, is the third longest gas pipeline in production or in some phase of development over the past 20 years in the U.S. Trees have been cleared along the pipeline route and infrastructure development has begun. Although two lawsuits against the pipeline are now pending in federal and North Carolina courts, federal law allows pipelines to be constructed prior to the resolution of all litigation. The ACP was the only oil or gas pipeline to be on Donald Trump's list of 50 Priority National Security Projects prior to his election.

According to published reports, the central purpose of the ACP is to enter South Carolina and eventually reach Elba Island, Georgia where gas will be exported from a liquid natural gas facility now under construction. This recognition raises serious concerns regarding the use of eminent domain to take privately owned property for private gain instead of public use.

The ACP threatens the livelihood of more than 30,000 indigenous peoples that live along the pipeline route. In May 2018, an alliance of community, statewide and national groups filed a complaint to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Civil Rights Compliance Office, alleging that the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality discriminated on the basis of race and color in issuing permits and certifications to the ACP as part of the permitting process. In September 2018, environmental groups filed legal challenges in an appeals court against federal permitting agencies.

Kusile Power Station (South Africa):

Bank of America — financial advisor
JP Morgan Chase — financial advisor
MUFG — part of 705 million euro corporate loan to South Africa's state power company, Eskom, to purchase boilers from Hitachi Power Europe for the Kusile coal power plant

Once completed, the 4,800-megawatt Kusile coal plant in South Africa will be one of the largest coal plants in the world. The estimated annual greenhouse gas equivalent emissions of the plant—30 million tons—would increase South African energy sector emissions by 12.8 percent and the country's total contribution to climate change by 9.7 percent. South Africa already has the distinction of being among the top global greenhouse gas emitters per capita. The Kusile project area already exceeds permitted ambient levels of hazardous air pollutants that create soot and smog, which cause harm to respiratory, cardiovascular and nervous systems, leading to heart disease, cancer, stroke and chronic lower respiratory diseases, according to Physicians for Social Responsibility. If completed, Kusile will increase the cost of electricity for the poor and household consumers to compensate for Apartheid-era "special pricing agreements" that give large industrial users, which consume most of South Africa's electricity, guaranteed rates that are among the lowest in the world. The cost of Kusile, which in 2007 was estimated by Eskom to be 80 billion rand, had more than doubled to 172 billion rand by 2016. It is "expected to further strain Eskom's financial resources, and place upward pressure on Eskom's electricity price trajectory in the years ahead." In 2015 the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission charged Hitachi with violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act in connection with contracts to build Kusile and Medupi (another enormous coal plant in South Africa), resulting in a $19 million settlement.

Long Phu-1 Coal Plant (Vietnam):

MUFG and JP Morgan Chase — among the lead financial arrangers, with potential combined $650 million in finance

Long Phu-1 in Vietnam would emit an estimated 6.3 million tonnes of CO2 per year. As a "supercritical" coal power plant, Long Phu-1 is prohibited from being financed by most official government export credit agencies (ECA), including the U.S. Export-Import Bank. However, the former director of the EPA's Air Enforcement Division, Bruce Buckheit, revealed that the project consulting firm Environmental Resources Management doctored the coal plant's greenhouse gas emissions estimates to make Long Phu-1 appear to be a more efficient "ultra-supercritical" plant, which would be allowed under ECA coal financing restrictions. Analysis of Long Phu-1 by Friends of the Earth U.S. reveals that the project violates other international policies, including requirements to analyze alternatives, identify cumulative and associated risks and impacts, evaluate labor and working conditions, prevent pollution, protect community health, provide safety and security, and ensure biodiversity conservation. In February 2018, the New York Times reported that U.S. Export-Import Bank financing for Long Phu-1 had collapsed after it was revealed that project financiers included Vnesheconombank, a Russian bank that is on the U.S. government's sanctions list and is part of a federal investigation into possible collusion between the Russian government and the Trump presidential campaign. It was also reported that a top Long Phu-1 project official had been sentenced to prison for corruption. MUFG and JP Morgan Chase, like the U.S. Export-Import Bank, must also comply with U.S. sanctions. However, it remains unclear whether these banks continue to be potential financiers of Long Phu-1.

https://www.ecowatch.com/stormwater-projects-los-angeles-2610232126.html

https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/eric-garcetti-climate-summit-724265/

https://www.ecowatch.com/nestle-water-california-2582073595.html

U.S. Allows Nestlé to Keep Piping Water From Drought-Ridden Southern California

The U.S. Forest Service offered Nestlé a three-year permit on Wednesday to keep taking millions of gallons of water from the San Bernardino National Forest in California, the Associated Press reported.

The offer has certain restrictions. Nestlé, which sells bottled water under the Arrowhead brand, can continue piping from the Strawberry Creek watershed "when there is water available consistent with the forest's Land Management Plan," according to the AP, citing the Forest Service offer. The watershed is currently rated as "impaired."

...California has suffered from years of recurring drought. Last year's record-breaking rains in the state's north brought some relief, but large swaths of the south—where the forest is located—remain in "severe" drought, according to the latest data from the U.S. Drought Monitor.

Nestlé has 60 days to decide whether to accept the terms of the offer.

The Swiss food and beverage giant has been criticized by environmentalists for depriving the region's plants and animals of water. Additonally, the company had only paid an annual $524 permit fee to siphon off as much as 162 million gallons of water a year from Strawberry Creek and sell it back to the public in plastic bottles. Furthermore, that permit expired in 1988.

In 2015, the Forest Service was sued by environmental and public interest groups, who accused Nestlé of being allowed to operate its Strawberry Creek pipeline on a permit that expired 30 years ago.

The case was settled earlier this month, and required the agency to decide in 30 days whether or not to issue a new permit for the water pipeline and the company's associated activities in the San Bernardino National Forest.

Nestlé spokeswoman Alix Dunn told the AP the company provided 70 environmental studies during the application process and will "carefully review" the Forest Service offer.

"Californians are passionate about water and so are we," she added. "We take our responsibility as a California water steward seriously and Arrowhead's successful operations for more than a century point to our commitment to long-term sustainability."

40K homeless

https://www.alternet.org/aclu-speaks-out-against-rules-shut-down-criticism-against-lapd

Los Angeles Police Department has apparently been arresting residents for speaking 20 seconds longer than their allotted time at public city hearings. Now the ACLU of Southern California is fighting an ordinance that could make it even harder for residents to speak out—especially those who dissent against the practices of the LAPD. If passed, the ordinance will make it "an arrestable offense to violate any posted rules of public facilities” and would empower law enforcement to make criminal trespass charges, tighten restrictions on speaking time and shut down criticism at meetings.

Pushing back on the proposed restrictions, the ACLU is circulating a petition targeted at councilmembers and tweeted out a call to action Wednesday morning:

...