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Big Oil Takeover 'Now Complete,' Watchdog Warns as ...}:

Common Dreams

https://www.commondreams.org › News › big-oil](https://www.commondreams.org/news/big-oil-takeover-now-complete-watchdog-warns-as-exxon-lawyer-joins-trump-doj)

1 day ago — Robert Levy, who worked at Exxon for 17 years, announced in a recent LinkedIn post that he is departing the company, whose profits surged ...Read more

big Oil Takeover ‘Now Complete,’ Watchdog Warns as Exxon Lawyer Joins Trump DOJ

“The Justice Department that should be fighting to protect clean air and water and avert catastrophic climate change will now work on behalf of polluters to advance the poisoning of people and the planet.”

Jake Johnson

Jul 07, 2026

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The executive counsel at the fossil fuel behemoth ExxonMobil is leaving his role to join the Trump Justice Department’s newly renamed Energy and Natural Resources Division, a move one watchdog organization said shows that “Big Oil’s capture of the US government is now complete.”

Robert Levy, who worked at Exxon for 17 years, announced in a recent LinkedIn post that he is departing the company, whose profits surged amid the Trump administration’s illegal war on Iran. Levy will reportedly serve as senior counsel at the DOJ’s Energy and Natural Resources Division, which the Trump Justice Department renamed last month from the Environment and Natural Resources Division.

Robert Weissman, co-president of Public Citizen, said in a statement Monday that “the new so-called Energy and Natural Resources Division at the Justice Department explicitly aims to abuse emergency powers to drive oil and gas production, override state environmental enforcement, and generally serve at the beck and call of Big Oil.”

“Nothing could make that more clear than the naming of Robert Levy, ExxonMobil’s former executive counsel, a position that had him leading the company’s legal strategy on advocacy and civil justice, to run the division,” said Weissman. “The Justice Department that should be fighting to protect clean air and water and avert catastrophic climate change will now work on behalf of polluters to advance the poisoning of people and the planet.”

US President Donald Trump campaigned in 2024 on delivering massive, climate-destroying wins for the oil and gas industry, which spent hundreds of millions of dollars to support the president’s White House bid and the campaigns of his Republican allies.

Fossil fuel giants have received a significant return on their investment. As Owen Bacskai of the Brennan Center for Justice noted, Trump’s “signature legislative package—which one executive deemed ‘positive for us across all of our top priorities’—gives oil and gas firms $18 billion in tax incentives while rolling back incentives for clean energy alternatives.”

Trump has also “placed fossil fuel allies in charge of the agencies that oversee the industry and fast-tracked drilling projects on public lands,” Bacskai wrote. “In just his first 100 days back in office, Trump took at least 145 actions to undo environmental rules—more than he reversed during his entire first term as president. Before Trump even reentered the White House, the industry was reportedly pre-drafting executive orders for him to issue.”

Perhaps the biggest gift to Big Oil was the Environmental Protection Agency’s decision earlier this year to repeal the “endangerment finding” underpinning climate regulations.

Critics expect more of the same industry-friendly actions from the Trump DOJ’s Energy and Natural Resources Division, which last week touted its role in defending “Trump’s executive orders on unleashing American energy, reinvigorating the clean coal industry, and declaring an energy emergency.”

“The Justice Department that should be fighting to protect clean air and water and avert catastrophic climate change will now work on behalf of polluters to advance the poisoning of people and the planet,” said Weissman of Public Citizen.

Last year, Public Citizen and the Revolving Door Project released an analysis showing that the Trump administration has installed dozens of former fossil fuel industry employees, executives, and lawyers across the federal government, positioning Big Oil allies to advance “the massive expansion of polluting energy, the destruction of public lands, and the sabotage and suppression of renewable energy.”

“This is nothing short of a Texas oil industry takeover of the US government at the expense of consumers, the climate, public health, and public lands and waters,” Alan Zibel, a research director at Public Citizen, said at the time of the report’s release. “To execute his extreme, reckless, backward-looking fossil fuel agenda, Trump has stocked his administration with fossil fuel staffers and ideologues.”

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AN COMMN DR

5 26

Multiple polls and surveys released in recent days have shown US consumer sentiment cratering—and all the while, the US stock market keeps hitting record highs.

The Kobeissi Letter, a financial newsletter, posted a graphic Saturday that matched consumer sentiment as measured by the University of Michigan’s Surveys of Consumers with the performance of the S&P 500 stock index over a 30-year span.

The graphic shows that, up until around 2020, consumer sentiment matched stock market performance closely, although there was a large divergence between the two leading up to the 2008 financial crisis, where stocks briefly outperformed consumer sentiment before crashing downward as the housing bubble burst.

But throughout the last six years, the graphic shows, the S&P 500 has produced an almost continuous upward surge even as consumer sentiment spirals downward.

“Absolutely incredible,” commented Kobeissi Letter. “Over the last six years, the S&P 500 has risen +130% while US Consumer Sentiment has collapsed by -55%, to its lowest since data began in 1952. We are witnessing the formation of the biggest wealth divide in modern history.”

Kobeissi Letter produced the graphic one day after the University of Michigan’s latest survey found consumer sentiment hitting the lowest level on record.

Joanne Hsu, director of the survey, observed that “the cost of living continues to be a first-order concern, with 57% of consumers spontaneously mentioning that high prices were eroding their personal finances, up from 50% last month.”

On the same day, Gallup published new data showing that Americans’ economic confidence has fallen to its lowest level since October 2022, with just 16% of Americans rating the economy as excellent or good, and nearly half describing it as poor.

Axios reported on Saturday that even Republicans have been growing sour on the US economy, citing a recent poll from The Associated Press showing GOP approval of President Donald Trump on the economy to be at around 60%, down from 80% just three months ago.

“The growing GOP gloom could hardly come at a worse time for Trump and the party,” Axios noted, “less than six months out from a midterm election that’s likely to turn on the economy.”

The gap between overall consumer sentiment and stock market performance also lines up with recent consumer spending trends. Data published by The Financial Times earlier this year showed that the top 10% of earners in the US now account for nearly half of all consumer spending, while the bottom 80% of earners now account for less than 40% of all consumer spending.

A February report from TD Economics economist Ksenia Bushmeneva noted that “the economic divide between America’s households at the top of the income spectrum and everyone else continued to widen last year,” as “upper-income households benefited from the still-robust wage growth, strong gains in equity markets, and better access to consumer credit.

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AN COMMON DR 12 25

As workers face slowing wage growth, a worsening cost-of-living crisis, and rising unemployment, the chief executives of top corporate retailers in the United States are reaping huge gains from the tax cuts that US President Donald Trump and congressional Republicans extended over the summer.

An analysis released Friday by the progressive advocacy group Americans for Tax Fairness (ATF) estimates that the CEOs of Amazon, Best Buy, Costco, Home Depot, Lowe’s, Target, TJX, and Walmart have collectively saved close to $35 million on their individual tax returns in the seven years the Trump tax cuts have been in effect.

Thanks to the Trump-GOP tax law, which took effect in 2018, the companies examined in the analysis paid a tax rate of just 17.5% between 2018 and 2024—roughly half what they paid prior to the law’s enactment.

“While at the same time prices have soared for consumers and retail workers remain stuck in low-wage jobs, big-store CEOs and shareholders have reaped higher profits and lower taxes,” David Kass, ATF’s executive director, said in a statement. “If we want a system that alleviates economic stress on average Americans instead of exacerbating it during the holiday season, we need to raise taxes on corporations and the rich, invest in workers and families with expanded public services.”

Workers at the major retailers haven’t fared nearly as well. ATF noted that “the average worker at the eight stores was paid less than $32,000 in 2024.

“Amazon—the world’s largest retailer—refuses to even sit down with its employees who have formed a labor union for better pay, benefits, and working conditions,” the group observed. “If Lowe’s had used the nearly $50 billion it spent on stock buybacks over the seven-year period to instead raise employee wages, its workers would have each been paid almost $200,000 more.”

Across the US economy, workers are seeing wage growth stagnate amid elevated and still-rising prices, which are forcing many to skip meals and ration their medications to make ends meet.

The Labor Department said earlier this week that wage growth decelerated to 3.5% year over year—the slowest pace since before the Covid-19 pandemic. Unemployment, meanwhile, rose in November to the highest level in four years.

The ATF analysis came days after Trump delivered a lie-filled primetime speech defending his handling of the US economy as his approval ratings tanked, with American voters across party lines increasingly furious over the high costs of housing, groceries, healthcare, and other necessities.

During the speech, Trump vowed that Americans would soon “see the results of the largest tax cuts in American history.”

But the richest people in the country are set to reap disproportionate benefits from the tax cuts. As Bloomberg reported earlier this week, “Many filers—particularly those who could most use the financial boost—may soon be disappointed.”

“Wealthy taxpayers in high-tax states like California, New York, and New Jersey are the biggest winners,” the outlet noted.

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comm dr an 9 25

The first nine months of the Trump administration provide ample evidence of how much ground it has covered—or more fittingly, ravaged? We may, in fact, be running out of hyperbole to describe the magnitude of the impact.

Multiple actions, abetted by acquiescence from those who should not be acquiescing, are collectively changing our form of governance, the character of our nation, and our way of life.

Here is a considered top ten. Presenting them all in one blast emphasizes that the challenges we face at this moment are more daunting than anyone could have imagined 10 months ago.

Many of the actions on the list have been noted individually, analyzed and documented at length in various publications. I believe it useful to view them all together and ask whether anything can be done to slow down the juggernaut.

1. Failure of US Congress to serve as a check and balance on President Donald Trump’s overreaches of executive authority;
2. The Supreme Court’s submissiveness in the face of the president’s destruction of major governmental institutions;
3. The Executive’s unchecked attempts to undermine the independence of regulatory entities including the Federal Reserve, the Federal Trade Commission, and the Federal Communications Commission;

5. The president’s arbitrary and capricious downsizing of the civil service, diminishing the federal government’s capacity for competent, ethical, and well-managed operations;
6. The erosion of a viable two-party system in this country, whereby two loosely structured political bodies argue fairly and reasonably about proper courses of action for the nation. We now have one remaining party, the Democrats, faced off against a propagandist machine that hides behind the label “conservative,” but spends most of its energy spouting untruths;

7. The caving of an array of university leaders and media moguls to blackmail schemes foisted on them by an administration that arbitrarily withholds funds allocated by Congress;
8. A series of presidential actions in patent violation of the Constitution, notably trampling citizens’ right of free speech and the constitutional mandate on the separation of church and state;

10. The denigration of the Democrats as the party out of power, compounding the disarray the party has brought upon itself. The result is the lack of clear, cogent, and consistent opposition messaging and coordinated leadership;

12. The realization of the full effects of the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision on the governance of the country, whereby corporate mega contributions distort all efforts aimed at well-reasoned decision-making in service of the common good; and

14. The deprivation of the constitutional rights of thousands of citizens and noncitizens through cruel and unlawful detention and deportation.

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Common to all of these aggressive moves is an ideology based purely on profiteering. In contrast to a diversity of political, social, economic, or religious ideologies motivating governments past and present, the single guiding principle of this administration appears to be how much money can be extracted. Laws, ethics, social welfare concerns, all are set aside. Whether the matter is international trade, foreign citizens’ work visas, or the uses of natural resources, the focus is solely the money. No longer is there even a nod to good will, generosity, conservation, fairness, or citizens’ safety and health.

This conflagration may be impossible to extinguish. Extreme measures are in order, if not too late. As quickly as possible, a nationwide protest vote open to the entire electorate must take place, repudiating the actions of the administration and the failure of others to act in opposition. Simultaneously, a massive national resistance movement must coalesce, one that is well organized, well led, and enduring.

*A footnote: I am befuddled that defenders of the Constitution, such as previous presidents, billionaire philanthropists, and opinion leaders—those with much more agency and resources than I can muster—have not already come together to mount such top-level efforts.

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The one man who's done more to destroy democracy than Donald Trump

AN COMM DR FRED W 9 25

Chief Justice John Roberts is smart and skilled. He will be remembered, however, as a historic failure.

This is not a claim to make lightly, but his record compels it, because Roberts’ legacy will be defined by two catastrophic roles he played.

First, Roberts has played the lead role in destroying indispensable rules of our democracy.

Second, Roberts has played the lead judicial role in serving as the handmaiden to President Trump’s efforts to turn our democracy into an autocracy. This historic failure will be detailed next week in Part II.

Destroying essential rules of democracy

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Roberts has taken the lead in writing a series of opinions that have destroyed essential rules governing our democracy. They deal with:

• The sacred right of every eligible citizen to vote.
• The integrity and honesty of the political system.
• The right of citizens to have an unrigged opportunity to choose their representatives.
• The idea that public officials should not be allowed to sell influence with their office.
• The foundational principle that no person is above the law.

The following opinions, written by Roberts and joined in all but one case only by the Republican-appointed majority on the Court, have done unprecedented harm to our democracy.

• *Shelby County v. Holder

Roberts wrote the majority opinion for a 5–4 decision in Shelby County v. Holder(2013). It declared key sections of the landmark Voting Rights Act of 1965, the most consequential voting rights law ever enacted, to be unconstitutional. The Act was reenacted periodically over decades until the Shelby County decision.

*The Roberts opinion unleashed a wave of regressive and discriminatory voting changes by states and local jurisdictions that disadvantaged minority voters and impeded their voting rights and their ability to fully participate in the democratic process.

• McCutcheon v. Federal Election Commission

Roberts wrote the majority opinion for a 5–4 decision in McCutcheon v. Federal Election Commission (2014) which struck down the aggregate limit on all contributions by a donor in an election cycle, a provision previously held constitutional by the Supreme Court in Buckley v. Valeoin 1976.

InBuckley, the Supreme Court had found that unlimited contributions given to support candidates were inherently corrupt. The McCutcheon *decision, however, eviscerated the limits on individual contributions to candidates by unleashing billionaires, millionaires, and other big money donors to give unlimited, often huge, contributions to Super PACs to benefit specific candidates.

• *Rucho v. Common Cause

Roberts wrote the majority opinion for a 5–4 Court decision in Rucho v. Common Cause(2019),in which the Court decided that it could not act on challenges to partisan redistricting plans. The decision claimed that the Court is incapable of establishing standards for determining when partisan maps become unconstitutional, no matter how extreme.

TheRucho *decision means that there are no constitutional restrictions on partisan gerrymandering, no matter how rigged the plans are. The result is that politicians get to choose their voters rather than voters choosing their representatives.

• *McDonnell v. United States

Roberts wrote the unanimous opinion in McDonnell v. United States, (2016), which vacated the conviction of former Virginia Governor Robert McDonnell for honest services fraud and extortion. In his opinion, Roberts said that McDonnell’s actions did not constitute “official acts” under the applicable laws, including the bribery law.

In its decision, the Court adopted a narrow, unrealistic construction of the term “official act” to exclude various acts of an officeholder that should be covered, even when those acts are done in direct exchange for gifts or other benefits. For all practical purposes, the Court has left the country without effective bribery laws to prevent public officials from selling their office for financial benefits.

• *Trump v. United States

Roberts wrote the opinion for a 6–3 majority in Trump v. United States (2024), which gave Trump presidential criminal immunity.

The decision violated a guiding principle of our Founders that no person is above the law. The Roberts opinion placing Trump above the law and also giving him personal control of the Justice Department and FBI can be seen in such outrageous Trump pronouncements as the statement that he has “The right to do anything I want to. I’m the president of the United States,” and “I run the country and the world.”

*It is unlikely that any Chief Justice in history played more of a role in destroying more of our nation’s democracy rules than Roberts. And that is how he will be remembered.

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AN 525

On April 9, 2025, U.S. President Donald Trump signed Executive Order 14270, blandly titled “Zero-Based Regulatory Budgeting to Unleash American Energy.” Behind that bureaucratic name is a sweeping directive: Dismantle a century of environmental protections.

Every regulation related to the environment, natural resources, or energy, whether it safeguards air, water, species, or public lands, must be rewritten to serve polluters or vanish by default.

Some will claim this is just about efficiency. But no standard review process sets a mass expiration date for protections, regardless of science, impact, or legal mandate. This is not streamlining. It is a countdown to erasure.

While courts deliberate, rules will expire. Enforcement will be suspended. Polluters will act as if the rules are already gone.

The deadline is September 30, 2026. Any rule not revised and reauthorized by then will expire automatically.

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What will remain will not be protection. It will not be science. It will not be law. It will be a hollow shell, stripped of enforcement and public purpose.

This is not reform. It is demolition. It is sabotage by executive order.

They Said It Couldn’t Happen

To everyone who said, “They’d never go that far,” they just did. And the collapse has already begun.

With Executive Order 14270, Donald Trump issued not a policy revision but a regulatory kill order.

The EO mandates that all regulations under energy-related authority—especially those administered by agencies like the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Departments of Interior and Energy—must be reviewed and either revised to align with the administration’s priorities or be automatically terminated by September 30, 2026. While for some agencies the EO does not name specific laws, many foundational protections fall within these agencies’ regulatory domains.

Some may argue this is simply a regulatory reset or a call for modernization. But this is not a review guided by science, need, or public interest. It is a mandate that requires rules to serve industry or disappear by default. There is no neutral path. There is no room for delay. If an agency fails to revise and reauthorize a rule in time, it expires. No matter how vital it is.

Legal experts and environmental attorneys have described similar regulatory strategies by the previous Trump administration as calculated attempts to dismantle environmental protections from within.

Even the rules that survive review will be rewritten, stripped of science and purpose, then repackaged as hollow compliance.

This is not a bureaucratic obstacle. It is a regulatory kill switch.

What that means in practice:

• Endangered Species Act—gone.
• Migratory Bird Treaty Act—gone.
• Marine Mammal Protection Act—gone.
• Anadromous Fish Conservation Act—under threat.
• Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act—gone.

These aren’t just under review. They are all under attack.

Breadth and Scope of the Loss

The laws everyone recognizes, such as the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, and the Endangered Species Act, are just the beginning.

Beneath them lie hundreds of foundational rules that safeguard public health, climate resilience, environmental justice, and disaster readiness. Under Executive Order 14270, they are all at risk.

Supporters may claim the order only targets outdated or burdensome regulations. But the text applies broadly and indiscriminately. It sets no exceptions for essential rules, no protections for high-impact safeguards, and no criteria for public benefit. Unless these rules are rewritten to meet the new standards and reauthorized by September 30, 2026, they will expire. Along with them goes the regulatory backbone of modern environmental protection.

This is not theoretical. These laws will fall unless actively rescued.

Key protections on the chopping block:

Air, Water, and Public Health

• Clean Air Act

• Clean Water Act

• Safe Drinking Water Act

• Toxic Substances Control Act

• Superfund cleanup authority

• Mercury and Air Toxics Standards

Land and Resource Protection

• Resource Conservation and Recovery Act

• Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act

• Wilderness Act

• Antiquities Act

• Wild and Scenic Rivers Act

• Federal Land Policy and Management Act

Energy and Climate

• Energy Policy Act of 2005

• Greenhouse gas endangerment finding

• Energy Star Program

• Oil Pollution Act of 1990

Each of these took years, sometimes decades, of organizing, science, and compromise to create. They were not handed down by elites. They were won by people who refused to accept poisoned air, burning rivers, and dead coastlines.

Now they are being erased in a single executive order. Not one by one. All at once. This is not a rollback. It is erasure.

The Hidden Collapse

Executive Order 14270 does not just target major environmental laws. It dismantles the infrastructure that makes those laws real.

Supporters may argue that the laws remain untouched. But behind every statute, like the Clean Water Act or Endangered Species Act, are thousands of rules, monitoring systems, enforcement protocols, and technical standards. Without them, laws are just words on paper.

Now, all of that must be rewritten to serve polluters. If not, it disappears permanently.

Thousands of environmental regulations administered by agencies such as the EPA and the Department of the Interior could be subject to review and potential termination under Executive Order 14270.

Here is what that collapse looks like:

Public Health Protections

• Air monitoring rules vanish. No alerts for lead, benzene, or ozone.

• Radiation limits are lifted. Safety near nuclear sites erodes.

• Vehicle emissions testing ends. Smog returns to U.S. cities.

Water, Waste, and Pollution

• Stormwater runoff restrictions disappear. Waste floods rivers.

• Hazardous waste transport rules vanish. Disposal turns chaotic.

• Drilling oversight ends. Protected lands are opened to industry.

Climate and Disaster Response

• Energy efficiency rules are revoked. Electric bills rise.

• Fire mitigation programs are defunded. Wildfires grow deadlier.

• Fisheries protections vanish. Coastal economies are destabilized.

This is not just about forests or fish. It is about tap water, asthma medication, grocery prices, and cancer risks.

Betsy Southerland, former EPA director of science and technology for water, has warned that deregulatory approaches of this kind could lead to systemic breakdowns in public health protections.

This order does not trim fat. It guts the public architecture that keeps America safe, functional, and future-ready.

The Economic and Societal Cost

The damage from Executive Order 14270 will not stop with wildlife or wilderness. It will hammer the economy; threaten public health; and unravel industries that depend on clean air, safe water, and protected landscapes.

Some defenders will argue that environmental regulations stifle business, raise costs, or limit innovation. But environmental law in America was not born from ideology. It was forged in crisis, created to prevent economic collapse, mass illness, and ecological ruin. Many of these statutes were passed with overwhelming bipartisan support because Americans knew the cost of doing nothing was greater.

The Clean Air Act passed under former President Richard Nixon. The 1972 Clean Water Act was called “the most comprehensive and expensive environmental legislation in the nation’s history.” These laws did not just protect nature. They helped build the modern economy.

Many of the protections now targeted form the backbone of multibillion-dollar industries:

Wildlife and National Identity

• The Endangered Species Act saved the bald eagle, peregrine falcon, and California condor.

• The Migratory Bird Treaty Act protects ecosystems and supports rural economies across the country.

• The Marine Mammal Protection Act helped build a coastal tourism sector that generates billions.

• Fish conservation laws sustain sport fishing, a major driver in many regional economies.

Outdoor Economies

• Outdoor recreation supports $887 billion in consumer spending and 7.6 million jobs.

• Hiking, hunting, wildlife viewing, and camping all depend on healthy ecosystems.

• Without habitat protections, what is Yellowstone without wolves, or the coast without whales?

The law may speak of species and land. But the stakes are money, jobs, health, and identity.

This executive order guts the systems that protect them all.

The Human Toll and Environmental Injustice

The collapse will not hit everyone equally. It never does.

When environmental protections vanish, the first to suffer are the poor, the marginalized, and the politically powerless.

Some may argue that environmental burdens are shared evenly across society. But the data and history say otherwise. Environmental harm follows lines of poverty, race, and neglect. It hits those with the fewest resources, the least political power, and the highest exposure to toxins.

Without the Clean Water Act and Safe Drinking Water Act, vulnerable communities will lose safeguards against dumping, runoff, and lead contamination. New water crises will erupt in towns already on the edge.

Without the Clean Air Act, toxic smog will return to cities, especially in low-income and minority neighborhoods shaped by redlining and industrial zoning.

Without the National Environmental Policy Act, communities will have no voice in what gets built near their homes: pipelines, refineries, highways, landfills.

Without Superfund enforcement, the most toxic sites in America will be left to rot. Poison will seep into soil, water, and lives.

This is not theory. It is already happening:

• In Louisiana’s Cancer Alley, petrochemical plants poison Black neighborhoods. Cancer rates there are 50 times the national average.

• In West Virginia, abandoned coal towns face toxic water and respiratory illness.

• In Alaska and the Southwest, Indigenous communities still live beside Cold War-era uranium waste.

• Along the Pacific coast, salmon vanish and fishing economies unravel.

These are not isolated stories. They are previews.

The burden will fall hardest on those without lawyers, lobbyists, or local health departments—families already excluded from public hearings, ignored by regulators, and left behind by politics.

Executive Order 14270 turns temporary harm into permanent abandonment.

This is not just inequality. It is environmental apartheid..

Regulatory Collapse Is Guaranteed

This is not hypothetical. It is structural failure, built into the design.

Executive Order 14270 sets an impossible mandate: Every environmental regulation must be reviewed, revised, and reauthorized by September 30, 2026. If not, it will expire automatically.

Some will claim that with enough willpower and coordination, agencies can meet the deadline. But that is a myth. There are not enough staff. There is not enough time. And there is no intention to make it work. The order was built to break the system, not to improve it.

Environmental watchdogs and legal analysts suggest that only a small percentage of rules could realistically be reviewed and reissued before the deadline.

This is not deregulation. It is planned demolition.

Here is what that guarantees:

• Legal protections for ecosystems will collapse.

• Clean air and water rules will disappear.

• Ecotourism and outdoor recreation will suffer.

• Climate policy will be paralyzed.

• Inequality will worsen as states scramble to fill the void.

• Courts will be overwhelmed by lawsuits and confusion.

• Irreversible environmental damage will be locked in for generations.

Even if a future administration tries to reverse the damage, it could take years or even decades to rebuild what was destroyed.

Some things will not survive that long: species, coastlines, forests, ecosystems.

This is not a policy failure. It is policy used as a weapon.

The extinction of environmental protections is not a side effect. It is the goal.

Can This EO Actually Be Enforced?

Technically, yes. Executive Order 14270 can be enforced. But legally and practically, it is a minefield for all concerned.

Agencies can initiate rule reviews and assign expiration dates, especially when leadership supports the administration’s anti-regulatory agenda. But that does not make it lawful.

Under the Administrative Procedure Act, agencies must follow strict procedures before repealing or replacing rules. They must issue public notices, allow comment periods, hold hearings, and provide justifications. They cannot simply say, “The president told us to.”

Some defenders may argue the president has broad authority to manage agencies. But the law is clear: Regulatory repeal must follow legal process. Many of the protections targeted by this order were enacted by Congress. Agencies do not have the authority to let them quietly expire or gut them without breaking the law.

That is why lawsuits are already being filed. Legal challenges will come from environmental groups, state attorneys general, and public interest organizations.

But here is the catch: the damage will not wait.

While courts deliberate, rules will expire. Enforcement will be suspended. Polluters will act as if the rules are already gone.

Even if a judge rules against the administration, the harm will be done:

• Toxic waste released.

• Forests cleared.

• Communities exposed.

And if the White House refuses to comply? There is no enforcement arm of the Administrative Procedure Act. No agency exists to compel federal departments to enforce their own rules.

The only option is to sue, repeatedly, rule by rule, across jurisdictions.

As one Earthjustice attorney put it, “The law doesn’t enforce itself. And this administration knows it.”

Litigation takes money, time, expertise, and legal standing. These are resources many frontline communities do not have.

Environmental lawyers and watchdogs saw this coming. They are already planning for fights across dozens of fronts: air quality, pipelines, species protection, data suppression, and executive action.

But how many lawsuits will it take? 10? 50? 100?

Each one will be slow. Expensive. Uncertain.

This is not incompetence. It is sabotage, carried out with full intent.

And What About the Planet

This executive order is not just a domestic disaster.It is a climate change nuclear bomb.

Executive Order 14270 erases the foundation of nearly every federal climate policy:

• It nullifies the greenhouse gas endangerment finding, the legal trigger for regulating carbon emissions.

• It dismantles efficiency standards for appliances, buildings, and vehicles.

• It undermines the Energy Star Program and other clean energy incentives.

• It guts methane rules, fuel economy standards, and oil spill safeguards.

Some will argue that climate progress can continue without federal policy, through state action or private innovation. But without national coordination, incentives, and legal authority, that progress will slow, fragmented, and ultimately fall short. Federal policy drives investment, enforces accountability, and sets the global tone.

With these tools gone, the United States cannot meet its climate goals. Not nationally. Not globally.

We will miss our Paris agreement targets. We will exceed the 1.5°C warming threshold. And we will pull other nations backward with us.

The damage is not just about emissions. It is about lost leadership. Lost credibility. And a green light to polluters everywhere.

This is not a pause. It is a reversal.

Climate collapse is no longer a distant danger. It is a scheduled event, signed into law by the president.

The Heart of It

This executive order does not repeal environmental laws. It kills the systems that make those laws work.

The Clean Air Act will still exist. But if EPA regulations expire, there will be no enforcement.

The Endangered Species Act will remain on paper. But without specific protections and triggers, no species will be protected.

This is the method: Dismantle implementation. Remove enforcement. Let the law collapse from the inside out.

It is a bureaucratic kill switch, designed to erase a century of environmental progress without ever repealing a statute.

Legal on paper. Lethal in practice.

Once the rules disappear, the laws become theater:

• No enforcement.

• No funding.

• No consequences.

They will still be on the books, but they will no longer matter.

Empty laws. Empty air. Empty rivers. Empty promises.

How We Fight, and Why We Must

There is no silver-bullet lawsuit. No single agency. No shortcut.

This executive order will not be stopped by one clever court challenge. It will take dozens, perhaps hundreds, of battles—rule by rule, agency by agency, ecosystem by ecosystem.

Some will ask, why not file one big lawsuit to stop it all? Because Executive Order 14270 does not repeal a single law. It sets a countdown clock for thousands of regulations to vanish unless reauthorized. That makes it nearly lawsuit-proof by design. Each rule must be challenged individually, and only after harm has occurred. Courts cannot force agencies to act unless Congress explicitly mandates it. And even then, litigation takes time. By the time a ruling arrives, the damage may already be done. The law does not enforce itself. And this executive order exploits that fact.

There is no cavalry. Only us.

So we fight, everywhere:

• File lawsuits, fast and often: Legal action is the first and last line of defense. Every expired rule must be challenged. Every unlawful revision must be contested. Rapid-response legal teams must be ready to sue the EPA, Department of the Interior, and Department of Energy across multiple jurisdictions. Delay means destruction.
• Support legal and watchdog organizations: Groups like Earthjustice, Natural Resources Defense Council, and the Center for Biological Diversity are already fighting. But they are underfunded and overwhelmed. They need staff, experts, and resources. Every donation matters. Every volunteer strengthens the line.
• Pressure elected officials at every level: Demand public hearings. Demand oversight. Call your governor. Write your city council. Make it politically toxic to support this executive order.
• Act locally: States and cities can pass their own clean air and water laws. They can fund conservation, restrict drilling, and sue federal agencies. Join local groups. Attend zoning meetings. Run for water boards and planning commissions. Build resistance into local government.
• Refuse to normalize this: Speak out. Disrupt. Document. This is not politics as usual. Say so. Organize protests. Submit op-eds. Flood comment periods. Call out silence. Expose polluters. Make the truth visible.
• Demand media coverage: Executive Order 14270 should be a daily headline. If it is not, make it one. Share stories. Elevate frontline voices. Hold media outlets accountable. If national media fails, local and independent voices must rise.

This is a regulatory blitz.And resistance must be relentless.

The strategy is simple: flood the system, fracture it, and exhaust the opposition.

While we scramble to save species, lands, and laws, they bulldoze everything else.

This is not a warning. It is a dispatch from the front lines.

They are not debating whether to dismantle environmental protections. They are dismantling them, right now.

If you ever said, “They would never go that far,” They just did.

This is not just bad policy. It is a deliberate attempt to cripple the government’s ability to protect the air we breathe, the water we drink, the climate we depend on, and the living world we love.

It is not a mistake. It is the plan.

The question is no longer what they will do. The question is what we will do about it.

---

an 4 25

GOP unveils plan to give $150B more to Pentagon amid threats of cuts to Social Security

Jake Johnson Common Dreams

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humanity Can No Longer Tolerate Corporations That Exist Almost Entirely to Make Money

Society must make the necessary shift from a society that prioritizes wealth accumulation and economic growth to one that puts personal and societal well-being above profits.

DAVID SUZUKI

Feb 13, 2023Common Dreams

In most countries, it’s left up to business owners, CEOs and boards to decide what their purpose is, and all too often the choice is ultimately based on greed.

In many countries — most notably the U.S. — corporations are considered “persons” under law, enjoying many of the same legal rights and responsibilities as “natural” persons. Judging by the way some corporations operate, you might conclude they’re not very good people.

Defining corporations as “persons” simply means they have a legal identity separate from shareholders and owners. But what is the purpose of a business or corporation? If you look at sectors such as the fossil fuel industry, you might be led to believe the primary aim is to enrich shareholders and CEOs, and maybe create some employment, regardless of the costs to society.

Generating profits and jobs is important in an economic system that relies on those principles, but they shouldn’t be the ultimate goals. The British Academy — the U.K.’s national institution for the humanities and social sciences — concluded from its research on the future of the corporation “that the purpose of business is to solve the problems of people and planet profitably, and not profit from causing problems.”

Generating profits and jobs is important in an economic system that relies on those principles, but they shouldn’t be the ultimate goals.

In most countries, it’s left up to business owners, CEOs and boards to decide what their purpose is, and all too often the choice is ultimately based on greed. That’s why many countries, including France and the U.K., have started incorporating corporate purpose into legal frameworks.

France amended its Civil Code in 2019 to include, “The company is managed in its corporate interest, while taking into account the social and environmental issues related to its activity.” It also introduced a measure, albeit not mandatory, for companies to articulate their reason for being in their “articles of association.”

Although many Canadian companies have vision and mission statements, these often amount to little more than public relations and don’t spell out any legal duties or requirements. The Canada Business Corporations Act doesn’t require a statement of corporate purpose. It’s time to change that, for the good of society and the corporations themselves.

Research shows companies with stated purposes that take into account their impacts on people and the planet often do better than those without. They attract loyal customers willing to advocate for and promote them. And the companies enjoy better reputations and are able to attract good employees who stay longer.

Research shows companies with stated purposes that take into account their impacts on people and the planet often do better than those without

A U.S. study found 60 per cent of Americans would “choose, switch, avoid or boycott a company based on its stand on social issues.” Another found that 66 per cent of people would switch from a product they normally buy to one from a purpose-driven company.

The real bottom line, though, is that the world can no longer afford to support or sustain companies that exist almost entirely to make money. Humanity is reeling under numerous crises brought on by consumer-driven economics based on the fallacy of endless growth in a finite world — from biodiversity loss to gross inequality to climate disruption.

A new David Suzuki Foundation report offers a way for Canada to correct course. “Bringing Corporate Purpose into the Mainstream: Directions for Canadian Law” recommends major changes to the Canada Business Corporations Act to ensure that large companies prioritize people and planet over profit. It’s part of a global movement to shift the focus of economic systems from money-driven consumerism to well-being.

The real bottom line, though, is that the world can no longer afford to support or sustain companies that exist almost entirely to make money

Among its recommendations, the report — by academics from the Faculty of Law at McGill University — calls for the act to be reformed to require corporate boards to have a statement of purpose, to extend the fiduciary duty of directors and officers to pursuing the purpose of the corporation in good faith with a view to its best interests, and to broaden those best interests to include impacts on the community in which it operates.

“Part of transforming to a society that values our needs, relationships and the natural world is ensuring corporations are held accountable for their actions. Establishing a corporate purpose is one tool to help enable that shift,” said Tara Campbell, David Suzuki Foundation well-being economies specialist.

These reforms won’t transform society by themselves, and would only apply to large corporations that operate under the act, but they’re an important step in the necessary shift from a society that prioritizes wealth accumulation and economic growth to one that puts personal and societal well-being above the pursuit of profit.

===

7 24 corp person tag

Corporate Personhood

yikes wow thom says corp person is fundamental clevAGE

Trump's Far-Right Army Is Threatening Bloodshed. Believe Them.

We must not only resist, but prevail. If we do not, it will be nearly impossible to reverse the course that America’s right-wing billionaires have set us on.

Thom Hartmann

Jul 05, 2024

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OPINION

PROJECT 2025

Trump's Far-Right Army Is Threatening Bloodshed. Believe Them.

We must not only resist, but prevail. If we do not, it will be nearly impossible to reverse the course that America’s right-wing billionaires have set us on.

THOM HARTMANN

Jul 05, 2024Common Dreams

Kevin Roberts, who heads the Heritage Foundation (largely responsible for Project 2025) just implicitly threatened Americans that if we don’t allow him and his hard-right movement to complete their transformation of America from a democratic republic into an authoritarian state, there will be blood in the streets.

“We’re in the process of taking this country back,” he told a TV audience, adding:

“The reason that they are apoplectic right now, the reason that so many anchors on MSNBC, for example, are losing their minds daily is because our side is winning. And so I come full circle on this response and just want to encourage you with some substance that we are in the process of the second American Revolution, which will remain bloodless if the left allows it to be.”

He’s not wrong. America has been changed as a result of a series of corrupt rulings by Republicans (exclusively; not one of these rulings has been joined by a Democratic appointee) which have changed America’s legal and political systems themselves.

As Roberts notes, this is really the largest issue we all face, and our mainstream media are totally failing to either recognize or clearly articulate how radically different our country is now, how far the Republicans on the Court have dragged us away from both our Founder’s vision and the norms and standards of a functioning, modern democratic republic.

These actions — corporate personhood, money as speech, ending the Chevron deference to regulatory agencies, and giving the president life-and-death powers that historically have only been held by kings, shahs, mullahs, dictators, and popes — have fundamentally altered the nature of our nation.

First, in a series of decisions — the first written by that notorious corporatist Lewis Powell (of “Powell Memo” fame) — Republicans on the Court have functionally legalized bribery of politicians and judges by both the morbidly rich and massive corporations.

This started with Powell’s 1978 Bellotti opinion, which opened the door (already cracked a bit) to the idea that corporations are not only “persons” under the Constitution, but, more radically, are entitled to the human rights the Framers wrote into the Bill of Rights (the first ten amendments).

Using that rationale, Powell asserted that corporations, like rich people (from the Buckley decision that preceded Belottiby two years), are entitled to the First Amendment right of free speech. But he took it a radical step farther, ruling that because corporations don’t have mouths they can use to speak with, their use of money to spend supporting politicians or carpet-bombing advertising for a candidate or issue is free speech that can’t be tightly regulated.

Citizens United, another all-Republican decision with Clarence Thomas the deciding vote (after taking millions in bribes), expanded that doctrine for both corporations and rich people, creating new “dark money” systems that wealthy donors and companies can use to hide their involvement in their efforts to get the political/legal/legislative outcomes they seek.

Last week the Republicans on the Court took even that a huge step farther, declaring that when companies or wealthy people give money to politicians in exchange for contracts, legislation, or other favors, as long as the cash is paid out after the deed is done it’s not a bribe but a simple “gratuity.”

So, first off, they’ve overthrown over 240 years of American law and legalized bribery.

Last week they also gutted the ability of federal regulatory agencies to protect average people, voters, employees, and even the environment from corporations that seek to exploit, pollute, or even engage in wage theft. This shifted power across the economic spectrum from a government elected by we the people to the CEOs and boards of directors of some of America’s most predatory and poisonous companies.

Finally, in the Trump immunity case, the Court ruled that presidents are immune from prosecution under criminal law, regardless of the crimes they commit, so long as they assert those crimes are done as part of their “official” responsibilities. And who decides what’s “official”? The six Republicans on the Supreme Court.

These actions — corporate personhood, money as speech, ending the Chevron deference to regulatory agencies, and giving the president life-and-death powers that historically have only been held by kings, shahs, mullahs, dictators, and popes — have fundamentally altered the nature of our nation.

It’s almost impossible to overstate the significance of this, or its consequences. We no longer live in America 1.0; this is a new America, one more closely resembling the old Confederacy, where wealthy families and giant companies make the rules, enforce the rules, and punish those who irritate or try to obstruct them.

In America 2.0, there is no right to vote; governors and secretaries of state can take away your vote without even telling you (although they still must go to court to take away your gun).

They can destroy any politician they choose by simply pouring enough cash into the campaign system (including dark, untraceable cash).

The president can now go much farther than Bush’s torturing and imprisoning innocent people in Gitmo without legal process: he can now shoot a person on Fifth Avenue in plain sight of the world and simply call it a necessary part of his job. Or impoverish or imprison you or me with the thinnest of legal “official” rationales.

We no longer live in America 1.0; this is a new America, one more closely resembling the old Confederacy, where wealthy families and giant companies make the rules, enforce the rules, and punish those who irritate or try to obstruct them.

America 2.0 is not a democracy; it’s an oligarchy, as I wrote about in The Hidden History of American Oligarchy. The South has finally — nearly — won the Civil War.

While it will be months or more likely years before all of these new powers the Republicans on the Court have given the president, rich people, and corporations begin to dawn on most Americans, they will, step-by-step transform this country into something more closely resembling Hungary or Russia than the democracies of Europe and Southeast Asia.

The only remedy at this late stage in this 50+ yearlong campaign to remake America is a massive revolt this fall at the ballot box, turning Congress — by huge majorities — over to Democrats while holding the White House.

If we fail at this, while there will be scattered pockets of resistance for years, it’ll be nearly impossible to reverse the course that America’s rightwing billionaires have set us on.

There has never been a more critical time in the history of our nation outside of the last time rich oligarchs tried to overthrow our democracy, the Civil War. Like then, the stakes are nothing less than the survival of a nation of, by, and for we the people.

---

Protesters hold signs saying, "Corporations are not people" and "Money is not speech."

Let’s Wish Corporate Constitutional Rights a Very Unhappy Birthday

The actual “birth” of corporate constitutional rights, often referred to as “corporate personhood,” wasn’t Citizens United; it dates to May 10, 1886 in the Santa Clara v. Southern Pacific Railroad Company ruling.

Greg Coleridge

Jennie Spanos

May 10, 2024

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OPINION

CORPORATE PERSONHOOD

Global Economy On Precarious Footing Amid High Interest Rates

The Unlimited Campaign Spending by Corporations and Billionaires Has Destroyed Democracy

When corporations use their vast wealth to distort or seize control of the political process, they have ceased to operate within the constraints established at their creation. They are in violation of their own corporate charters and should be shuttered or sold off.

Thom Hartmann

Jun 21, 2023

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COMMON DREAMS

BILLIONAIRES

The Corporate Weaponization of Government

Abolishing all corporate constitutional rights by enacting the We the People Amendment (HJR48), soon to be introduced again by Rep. Pramila Jayapal, is the only strategy to make corporations authentically democratically accountable.

Greg Coleridge

Feb 15, 2023

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OPINION

CORPORATE PERSONHOOD

Corporate board members

Humanity Can No Longer Tolerate Corporations That Exist Almost Entirely to Make Money

Society must make the necessary shift from a society that prioritizes wealth accumulation and economic growth to one that puts personal and societal well-being above profits.

David Suzuki

Feb 13, 2023

KEEP READING

OPINION

CORPORATE PERSONHOOD

Protestors rally against the Supreme Court's Citizens United decision.

The Progenitor of Inequalities—Corporate Personhood vs. Human Beings

The biggest prize of all for the uses of corporate-dominant inequality over real people is the control of the Congress, state legislatures, country boards, city councils, and elections, along with the selection of judges.

Ralph Nader

Feb 05, 2023

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OPINION

INEQUALITY

The Southwest Airlines Meltdown: Capitalism, Climate Change, and Christmas

The Southwest Airlines Meltdown: Capitalism, Climate Change, and Christmas

Unless we make drastic changes to how we live, including how we travel, we will all be stranded, not at airports, but on this, our only, rapidly heating planet.

Amy Goodman

Denis Moynihan

Dec 31, 2022

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OPINION

CLIMATE

Corporations Are the Modern-Day Scrooges

Coca-Cola and Amazon among giants that hand over a fraction of their profits as part of promotional stunts.

Adam Bychawski

Dec 30, 2022

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OPINION

POLITICS

The US Should Follow EU's Steps Toward Global Minimum Tax

The governments of the United States and Europe should stop using tiny British territories as pawns to allow corporations to avoid contributing to fund schools, roads, and public safety.

Joe Hughes

Dec 27, 2022

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OPINION

ECONOMY

corporate-greed-makes-us-sick

Understanding Corporate Power and Inflation

What's become clear over the last two years is that families and workers suffered the consequences--all while big corporations enjoyed windfall profits.

Chris Becker

Dec 16, 2022

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OPINION

As Millions Face Poverty, Global Food Companies Paid Out Nearly 15 Billion to Shareholders

World's biggest food giants made PS20bn in profits--while warning of price rises to come

Adam Bychawski

Dec 03, 2022

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OPINION

taylor_swift

FTX, Ticketmaster, and the Good People Hurt by Greed

It's the same vicious cycle: Corporations achieve monopolies that shaft consumers while pulling in big money, a portion of which is used to bribe politicians to look the other way.

Robert Reich

Nov 22, 2022

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OPINION

corporate_tax_reform

It's the Corporate Greed, Stupid

Big corporations continuing to raise their prices above their rising costs (including their labor costs). Why? Because they can.

Robert Reich

Nov 05, 2022

OPINION

truck

The Media Frenzy Over High Gas Prices Obscures an Inconvenient Truth

Many Americans seek a villain, but they forgot to look in the mirror.

Mike Lofgren

Nov 04, 2022

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OPINION

healthcare-insulin-protest

I'm A Doctor. Here's Why We Need Universal Healthcare

From each vantage point--as a patient, a provider, and a small business owner--I see everyday how for-profit corporations fail to provide adequate access and coverage for vital health care services.

Dr. Belinda Mcintosh

Nov 01, 2022

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OPINION

RIGHTS & JUSTICE

baltimore_sun

Journalism's Bad Bargain

U.S. legislation that lets media cartels collude is the wrong way to foster public-interest journalism.

Tim Karr

Sanjay Jolly

Oct 21, 2022

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OPINION

RIGHTS & JUSTICE

Raise Corporate Taxes--Not Interest Rates--to Protect Working Families

Instead of just relying on job-killing interest rate hikes, policymakers should directly address the problem of price gouging.

Sarah Baron

Oct 07, 2022

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OPINION

amazon-workers

How the Public Purse Can Address Huge Pay Gaps for Low-Wage Workers at US Corporations

New federal contracting standards could incentivize corporations to narrow the economic divides that undermine employee morale and business effectiveness.

Sarah Anderson

Brian Wakamo

Aug 17, 2022

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OPINION

off_fossil_fuels

What's Blocking Real Climate Action? Corporate Greed

We know that corporate special interests are the main impediment to taking the action we need. We just need the political will to fix it.

David Segal

Aug 16, 2022

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OPINION

POLITICS

people_over_profit

This American For-Profit Healthcare System Would Just as Soon Kill You as Look at You

To this system, it doesn't matter whether a person lives or dies as long as it gets paid. That's why our healthcare costs are so high, even though our life expectancy is so low.

Richard Eskow

Aug 03, 2022

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OPINION

RIGHTS & JUSTICE

starbucks-union

Steps Biden Should Take to Rein in Excessive CEO Pay

The president has the power to use federal contracting standards to encourage pay equity and respect for labor rights at companies like Amazon.

Sarah Anderson

Jul 31, 2022

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OPINION

capitol_awash_in_cash

Behold: The Big Business Plot to Overthrow Democratic Rule

Is it really possible that our largest corporations and their leaders are ripping us all off and jacking up inflation on an ongoing basis just to stick it to the Democrats and hand the GOP the reins of power in 2022 and 2024?

Thom Hartmann

Jul 15, 2022

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OPINION

POLITICS

trade_rights

The Continuing Damages From Corporate-Managed So-Called Free Trade

"There is a growing perception that the global 'free market' economy is inherently an enemy to the natural world, to human health, and freedom to industrial workers."

Ralph Nader

Jun 25, 2022

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OPINION

wall_street_election

Low-Wage American Taxpayers Spent Billions Inflating CEO Pay Through Stock Buybacks

President Biden has the power to crack down on executive excess by imposing new CEO pay and buyback restrictions on federal contractors.

Sarah Anderson

Jun 07, 2022

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OPINION

food_market

Blame Profit-Hungry Corporations Milking Consumers for Inflation

It turns out that inflation is a boon for monopolies, for it gives them cover to flash their pricing power.

Jim Hightower

May 04, 2022

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OPINION

union_rights

Amazon Workers' Historic Win and Corporate America's Ongoing Greed

If it can't fight off unions directly, it will do so indirectly by blaming inflation on wage increases, and then cheer on the Fed as it slows the economy just enough to eliminate American workers' new bargaining clout.

Robert Reich

Apr 04, 2022

OPINION

food-bank

This Pandemic Should Teach Us That Grotesque Inequality Was a Pre-Existing Condition

And we should not go back to that kind of "normal."

Domenica Ghanem

Mar 24, 2022

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OPINION

RIGHTS & JUSTICE

Raytheon

War Is (Still) A Racket: Corporate Power and the Russian Invasion of Ukraine

This is more than a political war. It's a resource war.

Greg Coleridge

Mar 09, 2022

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OPINION

wage_theft-2

In a Single Year, $1.78 Trillion Was Stolen From the Working Class

The wealth workers should have received, had wages kept up with productivity, was instead given to shareholders.

Colleen Boyle

Eric Dirnbach

Feb 03, 2022

OPINION

merrick_garland

Time for AG Garland to Create Corporate Crime Database

To properly face the major threats posed by corporate crime, it is important that the Department have more specific and timely ways to measure the incidence and severity of corporate crime.

Ralph Nader

Jan 15, 2022

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OPINION

RIGHTS & JUSTICE

ExxonKnew-NYC

The Murderous Corporate Psychopaths Who Never Go to Prison

In America if you kill your spouse you'll end up in prison—but if you kill millions of people, you can laugh at the law and buy a new yacht.

Thom Hartmann

Jan 10, 2022

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OPINION

RIGHTS & JUSTICE

Child Tax Credit Ends, But Corporate Giveaways Continue

Corporate power—not public assistance or wage gains—is causing price increases.

Robert Reich

Jan 06, 2022

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OPINION

Corporations Are Selling Out Democracy for Political Influence

One year after January 6, corporations are once again filling the campaign coffers of politicians who tried to overthrow the last election.

Kyle Herrig

Jan 06, 2022

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OPINION

POLITICS

male_reading_book-2

Ralph Nader's Holiday Season Top Reading Recommendations

The following recent books connect us to the grim reality, pulling us back from myths and virtual reality escapes to the societal mirror we all must face for the common good of today and tomorrow.

Ralph Nader

Dec 22, 2021

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OPINION

RIGHTS & JUSTICE

wall_street_sign

The Plan to Tax Stock Buybacks From Corporations With Record Breaking Profits

As corporations blow record sums repurchasing their stock to inflate CEO pay, Congress is advancing a tax aimed at curbing this harmful practice.

Porter Mcconnell

Mandla Deskins

Dec 15, 2021

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OPINION

inflation-2.

The Warped Politics of Inflation

Inflation is a result of corporate decisions to protect profits by raising prices.

Thomas Meisenhelder

Dec 14, 2021

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OPINION

starbucks

The First Corporate-Owned Starbucks in the Country to Unionize?

Baristas in Buffalo are mounting the coffee giant's most significant union challenge yet.

Sam Pizzigati

Dec 06, 2021

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OPINION

kroger-1

Money-Hungry Corporations to Blame for Inflation

The truth is big corporations and their ultra-rich CEOs are exploiting consumers.

Sarah Baron

Dec 03, 2021

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OPINION

POLITICS

Chobani Yogurt

It's International Food Workers Week--Support Organizing That Centers Those Who Feed Us

There's a long history of over-exploiting and under paying the people who do the vital, yet too often unseen, work that keeps grocery stores stocked with food.

Anna Canning

Nov 23, 2021

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OPINION

BIG FOOD

cigarettes

How 'Low Carbon' Energy Became the New 'Low Tar' Cigarette

What are these low carbon solutions? Largely natural gas, which as science has repeatedly shown, is roughly as bad for the climate as coal when methane leaks and total emissions are added to the equation.

Richard Wiles

Nov 16, 2021

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OPINION

congo_bigoil

Missing From the Climate Talks: Corporate Powers to Sue Governments That Limit Pollution

Allowing extractive industries to file expensive lawsuits over environmental regulations could undermine whatever agreements might be reached at COP26 in Glasgow.

Manuel Perez Rocha

Nov 06, 2021

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OPINION

apple_car-1

Big Tech Wants to Take the Wheel

If you want to see where things are headed and the risks ahead, just look at the trajectory of the automotive industry as it transitions to the electric and autonomous vehicles likely to dominate the market in the future.

Sarah Roth-Gaudette

Nov 05, 2021

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OPINION

GettyImages-1235661617-sinema-manchin

To Govern and Win Elections, Democrats Must Defeat Corporate Lobby--Not Surrender to It

The corporate lobbies have been waging a relentless and largely successful battle against higher taxes on the corporations and the rich, even though the public supports increasing taxation.

Jeffrey D. Sachs

Nov 05, 2021

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OPINION

POLITICS

grocery_store-1

America's Killer Diet

Our food is increasingly implicated in such major killers as heart disease, diabetes, obesity, high blood pressure, stroke, and certain cancers.

Frances Moore Lappé

Oct 29, 2021

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OPINION

FOOD

campfire-climate-crisis

Wildfires: Heartbreaks and Healing Places

We will fight Wall Street locally as we deal with damages of climate change in our community, made worse by Wall Street real estate developers preying on hard-hit communities after fires.

Mary Kay Benson

Oct 26, 2021

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OPINION

gettyimages-9011346261_forest

Why Nature-Based Solutions Won't Solve the Climate Crisis--They'll Just Make Rich People Even Richer

These so-called 'solutions' are, overwhelmingly, empty promises that will lead to massive violations of Indigenous rights, while failing to solve the climate crisis.

Fiore Longo

Oct 13, 2021

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OPINION

GettyImages-1233382009-Free-Donziger-1

Steven Donziger and the Judicial Executioners of the Corporate State

Imprisoning the David to Chevron's Goliath is the latest outrage by a US judiciary now engineered to always favor the interests of capital.

Chris Hedges

Oct 06, 2021

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OPINION

Social-Media

It's the Algorithm, Stupid!

How what started out as a pleasant view of Aunt Sally's summer vacation ends up with a bloody police officer on the floor of the US Capitol and a democracy in flames.

Thom Hartmann

Oct 06, 2021

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OPINION

POLITICS

GettyImages-84709618-mcdonalds

'We Don't Have 30 More Years': McDonald's Rebuked for Greenwashing Climate Pledge

"Net-zero is not a climate solution, it's an accounting trick."

Jenna Mcguire

Oct 04, 2021

A prominent climate group accused the McDonald's corporation of another greenwashing stunt on Monday after the burger giant announced it would cut global greenhouse gas emissions to net-zero by 2050.

"This is another stunt in a long line of greenwashing trends from McDonalds," said Jennifer Molidor, senior food campaigner at the Center for Biological Diversity, in a statement. "Net zero is not a climate solution, it's an accounting trick. The company's beef footprint alone produces more than 22 million metric tons of greenhouse gases annually. If McDonald's changed its menu immediately it would make a big difference but waiting until 2050 is insufficient to avoid climate catastrophe. We don't have 30 more years to get this right."

The company's 2050 net-zero target includes everything from its beef production to the light bulbs in its restaurants.

The fast-food chain also revealed it is working with the nonprofit Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi) to improve its existing climate targets and aims to lower total emissions by about a third for both its suppliers and its nearly 40,000 company-run and franchised restaurants around the world by 2030.

"We're trying to send a signal to our partners, to our investors, to our suppliers, to other brands in the global community, to policymakers, that we share that vision for 2050," McDonald's chief sustainability officer Jenny McColloch told Reuters in an interview.

McDonald's is one of the largest beef purchasers in the world--and the vast majority of its total emissions are produced by its supply chain, which includes beef, chicken, dairy, and other proteins.

The company's announcement comes as environmentalists continue to warn about the dire impacts of animal agriculture, including a September report published in Nature Food that detailed how global food production accounts for more than a third of all greenhouse gas emissions, with meat and dairy responsible for twice as much planet-heating carbon pollution as plant-based foods.

As reported in Common Dreams, according to the study, beef production contributes 25% of all food-based greenhouse gas emissions--by far the biggest culprit, followed by cow's milk, pork, and chicken.

A 2019 special report on climate change and land by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) recommended plant-based diets as a major opportunity for mitigating and adapting to the climate crisis--and included a policy recommendation to reduce meat consumption.

NEWS

reagan

2022 Must Be the Year We Defeat All the Political Corporate Grifters

Can the anti-grift Democrats pick up enough energy & votes to save America from a total descent into Trump’s GOP-corporate-funded Hungary-style grift?

Thom Hartmann

Oct 01, 2021

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OPINION

POLITICS

buildbackbetter

Corporate Lobbyists Are Going to War Against the Build Back Better Plan

The administration’s jobs and infrastructure package is very popular, but big money is fighting it tooth and nail.

Sondra Youdelman

Sep 29, 2021

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OPINION

POLITICS

classroom

Please Teach Your Children About Corporate Criminals

Today's school children are engulfed by corporate apps, software, and textbooks biased toward the corporate definitions of an economy and myths about "free markets."

Ralph Nader

Sep 25, 2021

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OPINION

Shell-greenwashing

Avoiding Real Change: The Myth of Green Capitalism

Capitalism’s DNA makes it unfit to cope with the fallout from climate change, which in no small part is the product of capitalism itself.

Katharina Pistor

Sep 21, 2021

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OPINION

coca_cola-3600x1885

Are Crazed Commies Running American Corporations?

If we agree that economic justice is a defining issue for socialism, then complaining that CEOs and business owners have made an abrupt left-turn is patently ludicrous.

Carl Rhodes

Jun 10, 2021

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OPINION

Common Cause Response to AT&T/Discovery Merger to Unwind WarnerMedia

Newswire Editor

May 17, 2021

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NEWSWIRE

Who Funds the Climate Crisis?

For fossil fuel companies, what drives their profit is ownership of carbon in the ground. That's why they have spent billions of dollars stoking the climate denial industry and fighting regulations.

Cynthia Kaufman

May 14, 2021

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OPINION

On the TRIPS Waiver, Personnel Was, and Will Continue to Be, Policy

On the TRIPS Waiver, Personnel Was, and Will Continue to Be, Policy

Biden must pick leaders who capitalize on this political opportunity rather than undermining it.

Jeff Hauser

May 12, 2021

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OPINION

Congress Introduces Corporate Tax Transparency Legislation to Support Informed Investor Decisions

FACT coalition applauds disclosure of tax havens and offshoring act backed by investors with close to $2.9 trillion in assets under management.

Newswire Editor

May 11, 2021

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NEWSWIRE

New Report Exposing Corporate Donors of Attacks on Voting Rights and Peaceful Protest

"It is now more urgent than ever to build a just transition away from fossil fuels AND fight off attacks against protest and our freedom to vote, so that we can have a planet our communities can thrive on."

Newswire Editor

May 10, 2021

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NEWSWIRE

Media Evasions on Racism and the Role of Derek Chauvin

Although it's acknowledged that Black people and other people of color are consistently at the bottom of the caste system, there's no examination of the powerful interests that put them there.

Jeff Cohen

Apr 26, 2021

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OPINION

The Collapse of the American Empire

The Collapse of the American Empire

U.S. leadership has stumbled from one military debacle to another, a trajectory mirroring the sad finales of other historical imperial powers.

Chris Hedges

Apr 19, 2021

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OPINION

Statement to CEOs: If You Really Want to Stop Voter Suppression, Support the For the People Act

Newswire Editor

Apr 14, 2021

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NEWSWIRE

The Message from the Amazon Union Defeat in Alabama Is Clear: Keep Organizing

The Message from the Amazon Union Defeat in Alabama Is Clear: Keep Organizing

The union's loss in Bessemer shows urgent need for labor law reform and organizing at a mass scale.

Rand Wilson

Peter Olney

Apr 14, 2021

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OPINION

It's Time for Corporations to Pay America What They Owe

It's Time for Corporations to Pay America What They Owe

Biden and Yellen are taking on the herculean job of cleaning the Augean stables after decades of rampant and growing tax abuse.

Jeffrey D. Sachs

Apr 13, 2021

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as the Midwestern and Eastern U.S. braced for what could be the longest heatwave in decades for some locations, a wildfire near Los Angeles forced more than 1,000 people to evacuate over Father's Day weekend.

The climate crisis caused primarily by the burning of fossil fuels is making both heatwaves and wildfires more frequent and extreme, and politicians and environmental advocates pointed out the role that state and national policy can play in fueling extreme weather.

"Each of the last 12 months have been the hottest on record," Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) wrote on social media on Sunday. "This week, cities across the country will see record-high temperatures. A vote for Donald Trump is a vote to surrender the fight against the devastation of climate change. We cannot let that happen."

"Politicians making bad policy decisions (like killing congestion pricing) is the number one cause of climate change, which makes heatwaves like this one worse."

Former U.S. President Donald Trump reportedly told oil and gas executives this spring that donating $1 billion to his campaign would be a "deal" for them because he would dismantle the Biden administration's climate regulations.

Sanders' remarks came as the National Weather Service (NWS) Weather Prediction Center forecast that "record-breaking heat" would "expand from the Midwest and Great Lakes to the Northeast this week, potentially lingering through early next week."

NWS said the heatwave would be the "first significant" heatwave of the season and could break daily temperature records and some monthly June temperature records for the portion of the country stretching from the Ohio Valley to the Northeast between Monday and next Saturday.

"The longevity of dangerous heat forecasted for some locations has not been experienced in decades," NWS said.

The heat index could come close to 105°F in many places, and nighttime temperatures of around 75°F mean that those without cooling infrastructure will see "little to no relief."

The high temperatures could impact millions of people from Michigan to Maine. As of Saturday, 22.6 million people were under extreme heat warnings, watches, or advisories, according toThe New York Times.

University of California, Los Angeles, climate scientist Daniel Swain told the Timesthat the heat would "affect a bunch of highly populated areas where there hasn't been quite as many stories about extreme heat recently," adding, "Now, it's New England's turn."

The NWS warned, "With the intense heat and high humidity it is important to take precautions to protect one's health, particularly those without effective cooling and/or adequate hydration."

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul issued a warning on social media on Saturday, pointing out that extreme heat is the leading weather-related cause of death in the U.S.

However, climate advocates criticized Hochul for exacerbating the root cause of more extreme heatwaves with her last-minute cancellation of a New York City congestion pricing plan earlier this month.

"Politicians making bad policy decisions (like killing congestion pricing) is the number one cause of climate change, which makes heatwaves like this one worse," the Sunrise Movement wrote in response to Hochul's post.

Long-time climate advocate and author Bill McKibben said: "This governor just blocked congestion pricing, one of the most important climate policy advances possible. She's redefining trolling."

Climate Central noted that, "while heatwaves are common in summer, this early season excessive, likely record-breaking heat is made as much as two times to five times MORE likely to occur in mid-June due to human-caused climate change (particularly overnight warmth)."

Meanwhile, on the West Coast, the Post Fire ignited at around 1:45 pm on Saturday local time in Los Angeles County, California, about 65 miles from downtown Los Angeles, The Washington Postreported.

As of Sunday afternoon, it had spread 12,265 acres and was 2% contained, according to California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (Cal Fire). Fire officials said the blaze was fanned by heat, low humidity, and wind and had damaged two structures.

"Currently crews are working to construct perimeter fire lines around the flakes of the fire. Aircraft are working to stop forward progress but have limited visibility," Cal Fire wrote on Sunday, adding that "the fire is pushing up into Hungry Valley Park. California State Park Services have evacuated 1,200 people from Hungry Valley Park. Pyramid Lake is closed because of the threat of the Post Fire."

One of those evacuated was 33-year-old Oscar Flores, who was visiting Hungry Valley Park with his 12-year-old son on Saturday.

"It looked like it was the last day of the world," Flores told the Los Angeles Times. "People were loading quickly and merging out, driving fast. The ranger said you have 10 minutes [to get] whatever you can pack."

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A top U.S. House Democrat announced Tuesday that he is demanding answers from fossil fuel executives after Washington Post reporting revealed last week that former Republican President Donald Trump recently told industry leaders he would gut climate regulations if they raised $1 billion for his 2024 presidential campaign.

Maryland Congressman Jamie Raskin, ranking member of the Committee on Oversight and Accountability, on Monday wrote to the heads of the American Petroleum Institute (API) and eight companies: Cheniere Energy, Chesapeake Energy, Chevron, Continental Resources, EQT Corporation, ExxonMobil, Occidental Petroleum, and Venture Global LNG.

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Raskin's letters note that the executives "appear to have attended" Trump's fundraising dinner at Mar-a-Lago in Florida last month and "media reports raise significant potential ethical, campaign finance, and legal issues that would flow from the effective sale of American energy and regulatory policy to commercial interests in return for large campaign contributions."

"Mr. Trump's unvarnished quid pro quo offer is especially troubling evidence in light of recent accounts that the 'U.S. oil industry is drawing up ready-to-sign executive orders for Donald Trump aimed at pushing natural gas exports, cutting drilling costs, and increasing offshore oil leases in case he wins a second term,'" he wrote, citing Politico. "These preparatory actions suggest that certain oil and gas companies, which have a track record of using deceitful tactics to undermine effective climate policy, may have already accepted or facilitated Mr. Trump's explicit corrupt bargain."

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Raskin also highlighted findings from a January Oversight Committee Democrats staff report, which shows that "when Mr. Trump was in office, he accepted at least $7.8 million from kings, princes, and foreign states, including the People's Republic of China and Saudi Arabia, in blatant violation of the Constitution's foreign emoluments clause, and rendered a sequence of foreign policy favors to his patrons."

The congressman—and constitutional scholar—asked the executives to respond to questions and document requests by May 27. He is seeking the names of employees who attended the April 11 fundraiser, copies of materials distributed during the event, descriptions of all policy proposals and related campaign contributions discussed, and draft executive orders or policy paperwork prepared by members of the companies.

"The Committee on Oversight and Accountability is the principal oversight committee of the House of Representatives and has broad authority to investigate 'any matter' at 'any time,'" Raskin explained. "The requested information is needed to investigate and legislate on matters related to presidential and presidential-candidate ethics and to continue to address the major ethics crisis created by Donald Trump's efforts to profit off the presidency."

As Raskin released the letters on Tuesday, Media Matters for America's Allison Fisher pointed out that "unfortunately, over a four-day period, TV news broadcast and cable networks—with the exception of MSNBC—did not cover Trump's proposition to oil executives."

However, Trump has made his policy plans clear. Even before the fundraiser, he publicly pledged to "drill, baby, drill" if he beats Democratic President Joe Biden in November. One March analysis found that a second Trump term would lead to the release of 4 billion more tons of planet-heating carbon dioxide—the combined annual emissions of the European Union and Japan—by 2030 than if Biden were reelected.

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The letters aren't the first time Raskin has taken aim at the fossil fuel industry this month. At the beginning of May, he testified before the U.S. Senate Budget Committee about a nearly three-year investigation into "Big Oil's campaign of deception and distraction," which he said "undermines the efforts we need to mobilize our people and government to save our climate, our habitat, and our species."

"Unless the deception ends, and until the industry is held accountable," the congressman warned, "we are unlikely ever to be able to muster the national political will to effectively tackle climate change."

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fueled by right-wing politicians and the powerful gun lobby, nearly three-quarters of firearm owners in the United States believe the enduring myth that a gun at the ready will keep them safer—but a new analysis offers the latest hard evidence that guns simply make life more dangerous and deadly for everyone.

The Center for American Progress (CAP) joined gun violence research group GVPedia to release an issue brief debunking the falsehoods pushed by the National Rifle Association (NRA) and other pro-gun groups, which, looking to "counter the horrors of everyday gun violence in America... masterfully constructed a narrative based on the myth of a 'good guy with a gun' using their weapon defensively to stop an armed assailant before harm can be done."

Listening to former NRA CEO Wayne LaPierre and the right-wing lawmakers who count on the gun lobby's endorsements, one could hardly be blamed for conjuring an image of a "good guy with a gun"who frequently stops a violent attack from happening—but the analysis shows how faulty research in the 1990s underpinned such claims.

Surveys at the time, including a widely-cited study by Gary Kleck and Matt Gertz, estimated that between 760,000 and 2.5 million defensive gun uses (DGU) occurred annually.

But the Harvard Injury Control Research Center found two years later that fewer than 550,000 burglaries occurred in gun owners' homes annually, while Kleck and Gertz had estimated that "guns were used for self-defense during burglaries approximately 845,000 times."

"Burglary victims would have needed to use their gun defensively in more than 100% of cases, which is, of course, impossible," the issue brief reads.

Until the myth of the "good guy with the gun" is defeated,said Devin Hughes, founder and president of GVPedia, "Americans will continue buying firearms in the mistaken belief that those guns will make them safer, and gun violence will continue unabated."

"Accurate information is critically important in fighting America’s epidemic of gun violence. Just as important, however, is countering inaccurate information," Hughes added.

CAP also analyzed data on DGU from the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS), which estimated just 70,000 such instances per year.

The group found that nine times as many people report being victimized by a person with a gun than being protected by a firearm. Respondents to two Harvard surveys taken in 1996 and 1999 were three times as likely to report being threatened or victimized with a gun than having used one to protect themselves.

In addition to putting a household at higher risk of an accidental gun injury or death, gun ownership also is not "the safest means of self-protection," CAP found.

NCVS data from 2007-11 showed that of the 14,145 crime incidents in which a victim was present, less than 1% involved DGU.

Eleven percent of victims who did not use a gun defensively reported being injured during the altercation; almost the same amount, 10.9%, reported injuries in cases of the victim using a gun.

More than 38% of victims who used a gun defensively reported property loss, while less than 35% who defended themselves with a different weapon reported that property was stolen during the incident.

"The idea that one is not safe unless they are carrying a gun is perhaps the most personal and insidious myth constructed by the gun lobby," said CAP. "What does improve safety is stronger gun laws, improved clearance rates, and investments in community violence intervention programming."

The brief noted that people who intend to use their guns defensively are more likely to keep them "unlocked, readily accessible, and loaded, substantially increasing the risk of unauthorized access by a minor"—suggesting that a parent with a gun for self-protective purposes is unlikely to successfully use it for self-defense, and is actively endangering family members by having the gun.

"Similar to adult cohabitants, children living in a home with a firearm are at a greater risk for unintentional injury and death, homicide, and suicide," said CAP. "Moreover, their unauthorized access to household firearms can put those outside the home at risk, with more than 74% of firearms used in school shooting incidents obtained from the student's home or from the home of a relative or family friend."

Citing a number of examples of people in states with so-called "Stand Your Ground" laws, which say that gun owners have a right to use their firearms if they believe they are being threatened, CAP and GVPedia showed how, contrary to the narrative about the "good guy with a gun," most DGU cases "are harmful to society" and involve innocent people being killed due to the presence of a firearm.

"Emboldened by a 'shoot first, ask questions later' culture, too many armed individuals have used deadly force as a first response, rather than a last resort," said CAP. "More concerning, gun homicides in which white shooters invoked SYG after killing Black victims were determined justifiable by the legal system five times more often than when the situation was reversed, indicating serious racial disparities in the defensive use of firearm."

The group's research showed how the gun industry and its backers have used "the manipulation of fear, perversion of self-defense, and falsified statistics" to weaken "the public's ability to properly inform themselves of the risks associated with gun ownership," said Allison Jordan, research associate for gun violence prevention at CAP.

"In untangling the myth of defensive gun use, one thing is abundantly clear," said Jordan. "If safety is the goal, guns are not the answer."

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two new reports published Tuesday by the Roosevelt Institute argue that robust corporate taxation is key to creating a strong economy and improving the well-being of families and children—objectives that have been undermined in the decades since the Reagan era by regressive tax cuts enacted on the false premise that benefits would "trickle down" to the rest of society.

The first report, A Mapping of the Full Potential of U.S. Corporate Taxation to Enhance Child and Family Well-Being, examines what the authors describe as the understudied notion that "increasing corporate taxation will necessarily help children and families by providing additional revenue for essential public services."

That perspective runs counter to what the Roosevelt Institute's second report calls "a 'cut-to-grow' mentality" that rose to prominence in the 1970s and was enthusiastically embraced by the administration of President Ronald Reagan.

"Under this view, the thinking went, it was necessary to reduce the corporate tax rate to grow the economy—and that this growth would allow gains to eventually 'trickle down' from the rich shareholders to the middle class," the report states. "During this time, the corporate tax rate was gradually reduced to 35% before it was dramatically cut to 21% in 2017. These cuts resulted in corporate tax revenues falling to less than 10% of total federal revenues."

"Perhaps more than any other, President Ronald Reagan leveraged mounting backlash to taxation and government spending to dramatically reduce both, regardless of the consequences to American families," the report observes.

"Corporate tax policy since Reagan has been driven by the trickle-down economics narrative that cutting the taxes on 'job creators' will benefit less wealthy U.S. taxpayers."

The decades-long decline in corporate tax rates has severely undermined the federal government's ability to finance critical public goods, from education to childcare.

"Since regressive corporate tax cuts don't significantly increase earnings for working families (through either wage or employment increases), but they do reduce the government's ability to fund family income and care supports, childcare costs—which are already rising—can become a relatively more expensive line item in working parents' household budgets," reads the Roosevelt Institute's first report, authored by Emily DiVito and Niko Lusiani.

"When they can't afford childcare," they added, "parents face the difficult choice of having to cut costs in other places—often on the basic necessities that allow children to thrive, like food, clothing, and enrichment activities—or taking on additional caregiving duties themselves."

At the state and local levels, DiVito and Lusiani noted, "corporations' successful efforts to avoid their full property tax liability devastate public school budgets."

DiVito, deputy director for the corporate power program at the Roosevelt Institute, said Tuesday that "we have a false idea in the U.S. that corporate tax policy is unrelated to equitable social reforms."

"However, strong corporate tax policy is vital to all aspects of a thriving economy," she argued. "And the failing to reimagine a more ambitious and comprehensive use of corporate tax policy prevents us from achieving a more equitable, sustainable, and democratic economy and society for all families."

The new reports come a week after a bipartisan pair of House and Senate negotiators announced a deal to expand the child tax credit (CTC) for three years in exchange for a series of corporate tax cuts. The American Prospect's David Dayen estimated that "in the time period when all the tax credits are actually in place, the business tax changes are five times more costly than the CTC changes."

"Who knows if this deal can pass in time to take effect in the upcoming 2023 tax season, if ever. Sen. Mike Crapo (R-Idaho), the ranking Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, is already asking for changes to make it even more generous to businesses. That's in part a function of the dissembling that there is 'parity' in the deal. The truth is that this is not an equal trade. And it may extend that inequity well into the future."

That warning is in line with the Roosevelt Institute's new research, which argues that a corporate tax code generous to big business fuels inequality by "benefiting capital interests (i.e., business owners, partners, and shareholders) at the expense of workers and their families."

"When corporations enjoy low taxes on their profits, they face a trade-off for how to otherwise disperse them: make investments in the workforce and productive capacity (e.g., raise wages, hire more workers, and/or upgrade buildings, equipment, or technology) or distribute them to shareholders (i.e., pay out dividends and buy back stock to inflate prices). Data shows that executives typically choose the latter."

Reuven S. Avi-Yonah, a professor of law at the University of Michigan and the lead author of the new report on "cut to grow" ideology, said in a statement that "corporate tax policy since Reagan has been driven by the trickle-down economics narrative that cutting the taxes on 'job creators' will benefit less wealthy U.S. taxpayers."

"Such an idea is often offered in tandem with the notion that this is the only way tax policy can help American families," said Avi-Yonah. "But this just isn't true. In fact, this false 'cut-to-grow' narrative has made it very difficult to argue for a more expansive, progressive vision of corporate tax reform—contributing to a decades-long stalemate in efforts toward real comprehensive corporate tax reform."

"Now is the time," he added, "to reverse this trend with a more historically grounded support of the corporate tax."

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Why Americans should fear the prospect of a first US trillionaire: 'Patriotic Millionaires' senior analyst

Bob Lordand Common Dreams May 29, 2023

It’s been a full decade now since I first predicted — warned, to be a bit more precise — that America would have its first trillionaire before 2040.

I stand by that warning today. Unfortunately, everything I said ten years ago has aged well. Too well. I explained back then how tax policy was supercharging the accumulation of obscene fortunes in America. Policymakers, I noted, had lifted the lid on wealth accumulation by decreasing taxes on inheritances and income from capital. That policy failure would go on to become substantially worse in 2017 with the passage of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.

Others would see this same ominous trend. In an interview with CNBC, several experts recognized the distinct possibility the world would have its first trillionaire by 2039, the year CNBC would turn 50. They offered various explanations for how that would happen, with most of them agreeing it would “take several Bill Gates-like successes from one individual to reach the trillion-dollar mark.”

I saw things differently, telling CNBC: “It might take the founder of five of today’s Microsofts to reach a trillion, but we’re going to see larger and larger Microsofts.”

More recently, the idea that a larger Microsoft would deliver our first billionaire has gained traction. Three years ago, USA Today reported on predictions that Amazon would raise Jeff Bezos’ wealth to trillionaire level as early as 2026.

Those predictions have turned out to be a bit aggressive — Bezos’ wealth climb has leveled off — but they may have been beneficial in an odd way. Historically, far too many Americans have looked at billionaire wealth the way they look at sports, as I noted in 2014:

The super-rich are setting new records, $10 billion, $50 billion, and soon enough $100 billion. Rather than objecting, our nation celebrates the increasingly obscene fortunes of the super-rich as we do athletes breaking sports records.

Reaching $1 trillion will be what hitting 73 home runs was before we knew Barry Bonds cheated to get there.

Will our first trillion-dollar fortune also be tainted by misdeeds of the achiever? Could that be what finally wakes us from our slumber?

In 2020, with Americans dying in large numbers from the pandemic, Bezos had become to billionaire wealth hoarding what Barry Bonds had become to home run records. As noted by USA Today, the reporting on Bezos becoming the first trillionaire occurred when Amazon workers were publicly protesting over safety issues.

Which caused the appropriate response to his predicted trillionaire status — anger — at least on Twitter. One tweet disdainfully noted: “Jeff Bezos will sometime in the near future have more money than the Netherlands. Totally normal. Nothing out of order here.” Another considered a headline announcing Bezos’ impending trillionaire status the most “disgusting and disturbing” he’d seen.

The reaction to trillionaire talk three years ago, unfortunately, may have been an anomaly, not the turning point I hoped it would be.

A case in point: The Motley Fool, a financial and investing advice company, has recently been promoting investment in a corporation it suggests could be as large as 17 Amazons, with a market capitalization of $17 trillion, an accumulation that would create the world’s first trillionaire. The promotional material doesn’t give the name of the corporation. To find it, you’d at least need to provide an email address, which would mean lots of unwanted promotional emails. Apparently, this corporation has technology that could supercharge artificial intelligence, or AI.

But the identity of that corporation — or the founder who stands to become the first trillionaire — isn’t the point here. After all, absent significant reform of America’s tax policy, we will see our first trillionaire, probably not much more than a decade from now.

Worse, too many folks may think that would be a good thing. In its promotional ad, Motley Fool gushes over how excited the prospect of a $17 trillion corporation headed by a trillionaire has investors, as if the super-rich becoming richer rates as a good thing in and of itself.

Most troubling: Motley Fool is using the prospect of someone achieving a net worth over $1 trillion as a selling point. This sort of advertising works because we have millions of investors out there who emulate the billionaire class.

Which brings us back to tax policy. Halting, then reversing, the obscene concentration of wealth in America will require Americans in overwhelming numbers demanding real tax reform. Without that tax reform, the concentration of wealth will worsen and, before we know it, we’ll see the arrival of our first trillionaire. And as our concentration of wealth worsens, the political power of billionaires will only continue to increase.

We’ll never have the collective mentality, as a nation, to take on the ultra-rich if millions of Americans identify with them and see the chase to become the first trillionaire the same way they see a football team’s pursuit of an undefeated season. We see this same identification in the response of everyday Americans to estate tax reform. In large numbers, many Americans oppose the estate tax because they think it will apply to them one day.

To be sure, many Americans do understand the perils of concentrated wealth. But to make real progress on tax reform, we need more than a bare majority of Americans opposing extreme wealth concentration and supporting higher taxation of the rich. We need to reach the point where for every average American citizen who sees billionaires as role models, another ten see them as the wealth hoarders they are.

Which means we should be fearing, not cheering, the prospect of an American trillionaire.

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millions of people in the United States have little to nothing in retirement savings, a consequence of low-wage jobs that give workers minimal room to stash money away.

Meanwhile, at the end of 2021, the nation's top CEOs held an estimated $9 billion in rapidly growing special retirement accounts that aren't available to their employees—a double standard established by the U.S. tax code.

That double standard is the subject of A Tale of Two Retirements, a new report published Thursday by the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS) and Jobs With Justice. The report says that while "ordinary employees with access to 401(k) plans face strict limits on the amounts they can set aside, tax-free, for their golden years,"highly paid executives of major corporations "have unlimited tax-deferred compensation accounts" known as top hat plans.

"The sections of the U.S. tax code related to employer-provided, tax-deferred retirement accounts impose one set of strict rules on ordinary workers and another set of far more flexible rules for corporate top brass," the report notes. "Employees with 401(k) plans face hard caps on the amounts they can set aside in these accounts every year. By contrast, Section 409A of the tax code allows top corporate executives to place unlimited amounts in special 'non-qualified tax-deferred compensation' accounts."

The funds in such plans are only taxed when they are withdrawn, allowing executives to reap the benefits of years of investment returns tax-free.

The new analysis shows that "at more than 20 low-wage employers, executives have sufficient deferred compensation funds to generate monthly retirement checks larger than their workers' median annual pay," pointing specifically to Walmart CEO Doug McMillon (who held over $169 million in his deferred compensation account at the end of last year) and former Home Depot CEO and current board chair Craig Menear (who has nearly $15 million in a deferred compensation account).

Home Depot employees aren't nearly as well-positioned for retirement. According to the researchers behind the new report, 53% of those eligible to participate in Home Depot's 401(k) plan have zero balances. Menear's top hat account balance is "enough to generate a monthly retirement check three times larger than the company’s median worker pay of just $30,100," the report notes.

The executive with the largest top hat account among S&P 500 company heads is Paul Saville, CEO of the homebuilding giant NVR, Inc. At the end of 2022, Saville held $488 million in his deferred compensation account—which could yield $3 million a month in retirement checks for the rest of his life.

"That's 1,513 times as much as a typical American retiree could expect to receive in monthly Social Security and 401(k) benefits," IPS and Jobs With Justice note.

Sarah Anderson, global economy director at IPS and a co-author of the new report, said that "there's no rational argument for allowing wealthy executives to shelter unlimited amounts of compensation from taxes while ordinary workers have strict limits on their annual 401(k) contributions."

"Nothing but the power of corporate leaders to rig rules in their favor can explain this double standard," Anderson argued.

For workers under the age of 50, the annual 401(k) contribution limit is $22,500 in 2023—a ceiling that the overwhelming majority of workers with access to a 401(k) won't hit.

"Nationwide, just 35% of working-age adults have tax-deferred 401(k)-type defined contribution plans through their employer and another 13% have defined benefit or cash balance plans. Some 42% of Americans age 56-64 have zero retirement account savings, according to the U.S. Census Bureau," the new report observes. "Americans who are unable to save for retirement need to rely on Social Security, which pays an average monthly benefit of $1,784, as of March 2023."

The report adds that while companies "often match a portion of employee 401(k) contributions," that benefit is "meaningless for the many low-wage workers who cannot afford to set aside any of their wages."

Furthermore, roughly halfof U.S. workers in the private sector have no access to an employer-provided retirement plan.

"For decades now, large U.S. corporations have been making workers' retirement futures less secure by abandoning traditional pensions in favor of 401(k) plans," the report points out. "In 1984, more than 30 million Americans had defined benefit pensions through which employers bore the financial risks for their workers' retirement security. By 2020, that number had declined to just 12 million, and private sector workers were approximately 3.5 times as likely to have a defined contribution plan as a traditional pension."

IPS and Jobs With Justice highlight a number of potential policy changes that could help combat the stark and worsening retirement divide between ordinary workers—who are facing a full-fledged retirement income crisis—and executives, including changes to the tax provisions that let rich executives shelter their compensation.

"Perhaps most importantly, we need to expand Social Security, the key pillar for retirement security for most Americans, particularly low- and moderate-income families who receive little to no tax benefits," the report states. "Funding for expansion could come from lifting the wage cap on payroll taxes so that CEOs and other high earners pay roughly the same share of their total income into the Social Security fund as ordinary workers."

Scott Klinger, report co-author and senior equitable development specialist at Jobs With Justice, said that "rather than giving corporate CEOs unfair special retirement tax benefits not available to those they employ, Congress should eliminate the cap on payroll taxes paid by corporate executives so that Social Security benefits can be strengthened, especially for the 40% of American workers for whom Social Security is their sole retirement income."

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ahead of former President Donald Trump's Wednesday visit to East Palestine, Ohio—where a Norfolk Southern-owned train transporting carcinogenic chemicals derailed on February 3, prompting a mass evacuation and release of pollutants—progressive critics highlighted the key role his administration played in making the fiery crash and its toxic aftermath more likely.

During his speech, Trump—considered a leading GOP presidential candidate for 2024 despite spearheading a deadly coup attempt following his 2020 loss—criticized how President Joe Biden's administration has responded to the environmental and public health disaster unfolding in East Palestine, a poor rural town of about 4,700 people located a few miles west of the Pennsylvania border.

But as critics noted beforehand, the Trump administration's gutting of train safety rules at the behest of railroad industry lobbyists was instrumental in creating the conditions for the derailment and ensuing chemical spill and burnoff, which has provoked fears of groundwater contamination and air pollution.

"He should be apologizing to that community for his administration rolling back rail regulations," progressive stalwart Nina Turner, a former Ohio state senator, tweeted prior to Trump's address.

philadelphia Inquirer columnist Will Bunch made a similar point in an opinion piece published earlier this week.

"If residents of East Palestine—a**modern news desertof downsized or disappeared news sources, which allows misinformation to fester—truly knew the reality, a delegation of townsfolk would likely greet Trump with tiki torches and pitchforks," Bunch wrote, comparing the former president's visit to "the tendency of a criminal to return to the scene of his crime."

Bunch noted that "Trump acted specifically to sabotage a nascent government effortto protect citizens from the growing threat posed by derailments of outdated, poorly equipped, and undermanned freight trains that were increasingly shipping both highly flammable crude oil from the U.S. fracking boom as well as toxic chemicals like the ones that would derail in East Palestine."

"Trump had been in office for less than a year when he moved to killthe 2015 rule change initiated by the Obama administration that would have required freight trains to upgrade the current braking technologythat was developed in the 19th century for state-of-the-art electronic systems," wrote Bunch, who pointed out that this came after Norfolk Southern and other rail carriers donated more than $6 million to Republican candidates in 2016 and spent millions more on lobbying.

"With the investigation into the East Palestine wreck still in its early phases, it's not clear if the modern brakes—originally required for installation by 2021—could have prevented the toxic derailment or whether the specific Obama rule would have applied," Bunch continued. "But experts do believe the new brakes could have mitigated the wreckage—and thus the release of so many hazardous chemicals."

"The rule reversal wasn't the only time that Team Trump sided with Big Rail over the forgotten Americans who live on the wrong side of their tracks," he added. "In 2019, for example, the Trump administration moved to not strengthen but relax regulations on shipping fracked natural gas through communities like East Palestine. The same year, Trump's White House also killed an Obama-era proposal that would have required two crew members in freight-train locomotives."

Ahead of Trump's visit,More Perfect Union also argued on social media that the ex-president's "attempt to portray himself as a friend of the town and as someone who would have stood up to Norfolk Southern... couldn't be further from the truth."

As the progressive media outlet observed, the Trump administration "withdrew multiple rail safety recommendations and moved toward a 'self-regulatory approach' where rail companies could do as they pleased."

"It's no surprise that the Trump years were filled with dangerous deregulation," More Perfect Union asserted, describing his decision to nominate top rail industry executives to lead the Federal Railroad Administration and the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration as "a prime example of the revolving door between business and government."

"The Trump approach to the rail industry was to let the companies do what they wanted, which was to avoid regulations, slash jobs, and extract profit," the outlet continued. "This approach, and rail companies' greed, has led to over 1,000 derailments each year. Some are massive catastrophes like East Palestine. But every single one is harmful. And if the industry isn't regulated and forced to change, we'll soon be seeing more disasters."

When Trump "pretends to care about rail workers, or the people of East Palestine, we can't believe him," More Perfect Union added. "His record tells a very different story, the story of his own role in creating this problem in the first place."

Even some conservative critics of Trump have questioned the sincerity of his visit.

"It's clear that it's a political stunt," Ray LaHood, a Republican ex-member of Congress who led the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) during former President Barack Obama's first term, told Politico on Wednesday. "If he wants to visit, he's a citizen. But clearly his regulations and the elimination of them, and no emphasis on safety, is going to be pointed out."

Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) wasted little time in doing exactly that, calling the GOP's indignation "fake" soon after Trump announced his travel plans.

Bunch acknowledged that "it's beyond hypocritical for Trump to bring his Harold Hill-huckster shtick to East Palestine when residents are still experiencing headaches and breathing foul air from the kind of catastrophe he didn't lift a finger to stop from the Resolute Desk."

"But also it's a bit baffling why Biden or his Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg—who seems to be channelinghis inner McKinsey & Co**. these days—haven't gone to Ohio," he argued. "Especially when Trump and any other Republicans hoping to make political hay off of East Palestine's misery are coming to town empty-handed."

"None of the anti-Biden critics on this issue have offered a solution, because they can't," wrote Bunch. "The only fix for the kind of runaway abuses of modern capitalism that cause these environmental catastrophes isgovernment regulation, aided by empowering worker safety with strong unions—two things that the Trump-led GOP has opposed at every turn."

Even in the wake of the disaster, Republican lawmakers have refused to demand stronger regulations, as HuffPost reported:

:{:{Rep. Bill Johnson (R-Ohio), a vocal Biden critic who represents East Palestine, on Tuesday dismissed immediate calls for stricter rail regulations, saying actions toward accountability will hinge on the findings of a National Transportation Safety Board [NTSB] investigation into the derailment}::{.}:

'That will dictate whether there are laws, regulations that need to be changed, whether there were rules that were violated,' he said during a news conference in East Palestine. 'We don't know any of that yet, and we won't know that until NTSB releases its report.'}:

Hours before Trump spoke, Buttigieg announced that he plans to travel to East Palestine on Thursday. His visit is expected to coincide with the publication of the NTSB's preliminary report about its ongoing probe into the crash.

On Tuesday, Buttigieg unveiled DOT's recommendations for improving the safety of the nation's rail system, though an inter-union alliance of rail workers immediately criticized the plan as inadequate.

Given the scale of the problems—and in light of the transportation secretary's ongoing refusal to exercise his authority to reinstate previously gutted rules along with his consideration of an industry-backed proposal to further weaken the regulation of train braking systems—union leaders have called for nationalizing the railways and implementing their proposed solutions.

Turner, for her part, emphasized that she has "been outspoken about the two years the Biden administration had [to] fix these problems."

"The Trump administration is at fault, as is the Obama administration," Turner contended, referring to the fact that the latter's regulations were also watered down in response to industry pressure.

"The Ohio GOP is to blame as well," she added, echoing recent reporting on Norfolk Southern's campaign to influence state-level lawmakers and officials. "Failure at every level of government and multiple administrations led to this."

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https://www.alternet.org/2022/11/clarence-thomas/

an comm dr 11 22

no lnx twt

A long-standing call for U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas to face impeachment proceedings was renewed Monday after the right-wing judge indicated in an unsigned dissent that he would have blocked enforcement of the House January 6 panel's subpoena for the communications records of Arizona Republican Party Chair Kelli Ward.

The House committee investigating the deadly January 6 insurrection "is seeking Ward's records related to her role in former President Donald Trump's effort to steal the 2020 election as a fake elector casting ballots in the Electoral College for Trump," HuffPost reported.

In a 7-2 vote, the Supreme Court on Monday paved the way for the panel to obtain Ward's phone records, rejecting the Arizona GOP chair's appeal. Right-wing Justice Samuel Alito joined Thomas in dissenting.

This marked the second time Thomas has tried to hinder the committee's probe of the Trump-led effort to remain in office despite his 2020 election loss—a plot in which Thomas' wife, right-wing activist Ginni Thomas, played a major role.

Thomas in January was the only justice to vote against the release of White House records to the panel.Two months later, text messages between former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows and Ginni Thomas showed that she had been in communication with Trump's team about efforts to overturn President Joe Biden's electoral victory.

Weeks later, it was revealed that Ginni Thomas had lobbied Republican lawmakers in Arizona and other states to reject Biden's electors and appoint fake ones who would support Trump. Since late March, congressional Democrats have called on Clarence Thomas to recuse himself, resign, or be impeached for apparently trying to shield his wife's anti-democratic political activities from scrutiny.

"His wife, Ginni Thomas, pressured Arizona officials to illegally overturn Trump's loss," Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), a D.C.-based watchdog, noted Monday. "It's absurd that Thomas did not recuse."

"Justice Thomas must face an impeachment inquiry," the pro-democracy advocacy group Free Speech for People tweeted.

A petition calling for the impeachment of Clarence Thomas has garnered more than 1.2 million signatures since details about Ginni Thomas' direct participation in Trump's failed coup were first made publi

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https://www.commondreams.org/news/2022/06/10/new-revelations-show-ginni-thomas-very-much-part-seditious-conspiracy

bowers rusty email: https://twitter.com/mjs_DC/status/1535295098191241217/photo/1

jULIA CONLEY

June 10, 2022

Ginni Thomas, the right-wing activist and wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, lobbied far more Arizona state lawmakers than previously known to try to overturn the state's 2020 election results—a revelation that reignited calls on Friday for Justice Thomas to recuse himself from cases related to the election.

In addition to emailing two state representatives in November and December 2020, calling on them to "choose" electors who would grant former President Donald Trump a victory in the state, Thomas used a platform called FreeRoots.com to call on 27 other state lawmakers to put aside President Joe Biden's victory. TheWashington Post, which first reported the news,

["Never before in our nation's history have our elections been so threatened by fraud and unconstitutional procedures," Thomas wrote.< [twt doc]hen the letters to two lawmakers were reported by the Postlast month, U.S. Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) was among the critics who](https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/2022/06/10/ginni-thomas-election-arizona-lawmakers/

On%20November%209,%20as%20part%20of%20a%20campaign%20organized%20by%20Every%20Legal%20Vote—a%20group%20that%20has%20supported%20Trump's)said Thomas's efforts to keep Trump in office represented a "conflict of interest."

Thomas's husband was thesaidFriday, "As obvious as the symmetry between Clarence and Ginni Thomas' work was three weeks ago, it's even more glaring now."

Thomas's lobbying of 29 state lawmakers to overrule the will of Arizona voters represented "a completely egregious attack on democracy by the wife of a sitting SCOTUS justice," tweeted Rep. Jared Huffman (D-Calif.)[twt]

friday's revelations come two-and-a-half months after the Postand CBS News obtained text messages that Thomas sent to former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows in the weeks following the election, calling on him to "save us from the left taking America down."

Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) issued a "friendly reminder that Ginni Thomas has a government position and absolutely should not," referring to her position on the Library of Congress Trust Fund Board, to which Trump appointed her.

"Her egregious actions to push the White House Chief of Staff and others to overturn a free and fair election make her a threat to democracy and should disqualify her for any role of public trust at the Library of Congress or anywhere else in government," saidCREW in April.

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'Payoff for 40 Years of Dark Money': Supreme Court Delivers for Corporate America (commondreams.org)

over the past several decades, corporate lawyers, right-wing activists, Republican officials, and dark money groups with deep pockets have been laying the groundwork for a far-reaching legal assault on the federal government's ability to regulate U.S. industry—including the oil and gas sector threatening the planet.

On Thursday, their investments bore major fruit.

In a 6-3 decision along ideological lines, a Supreme Court packed with right-wing judges handpicked and boosted by some of the same forces leading the yearslong crusade against the power of regulatory agencies—which conservatives often dub the "administrative state"—dramatically restricted the Environmental Protection Agency's authority to rein in greenhouse gas pollution from power plants.

On its face, the ruling in West Virginia v. EPAappears limited in scope, pertaining to a specific section of the 1970 Clean Air Act and zeroing in on the reach of a single government agency.

But experts saw in the decision, authored by Chief Justice John Roberts, an ominous warning that the Supreme Court is ramping up its assault on the federal government's capacity to act on matters ranging from environmental protection to workplace safety to public health to consumer protection.

Lawrence Gostin, a professor at Georgetown Law, argued that the high court's right-wing majority wasn't really concerned with the Clean Power Plan, an Obama-era zombie regulation at the center of West Virginia that never even took effect.

"It was the conservative court's larger agenda to gut the regulatory state and decimate executive powers to protect Americans' health and safety," wrote Gostin, who contended that "the ripple effects of West Virginia v. EPA are profound" and could hinder other key federal agencies such as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Food and Drug Administration, and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration.

"Congress doesn't have a magic crystal ball that can predict every future health hazard," Gostin added. "Nor does Congress have the expertise. That's why Congress has delegated wide powers to health and safety agencies. They have the expertise and flexibility to safeguard the public from major threats."

William Boyd, an environmental law professor at the University of California Los Angeles, agreed with Gostin's analysis, telling Voxthat he believes the West Virginiaruling "can be seen as part of a larger trend directed at restricting the ability of EPA and other agencies to protect health, safety, and the environment."

"This starts at the top with the Supreme Court," he noted, "but it will ripple through the federal judiciary as decisions accumulate and the jurisprudence that has taken over the last half-century to accommodate the regulatory state is diminished and hollowed out."

The West Virginia ruling was a long time in the making, the product of coordinated efforts by GOP attorneys general, the fossil fuel industry, and shadowy organizations such as the Federalist Society.

For years, the industry-backed legal group has been building up a pipeline of far-right judges that Republican politicians have dutifully attached to the nation's judiciary, pumping young, often under-qualified, and business-friendly judges into district courts, appeals courts, and the highest court in the land. (All six sitting conservative Supreme Court justices have ties to the Federalist Society.)

Among the organization's donors is Koch Industries, the multinational oil and gas behemoth whose current billionaire leader, Charles Koch, and his late brother David have financed a vast apparatus of think tanks and advocacy organizations that've grown so influential that they frequently write entire laws for GOP legislatures to rubber stamp.

As The Lever's Andrew Perez reported earlier this year, groups linked to the Koch network took a serious interest in the West Virginia case, which was led by a group of Republican attorneys general and major coal companies. The Supreme Court agreed to take up the case last October.

"Koch's Americans for Prosperity Foundation filed an amicus brief in the case arguing that the EPA should not be permitted to 'impose its will on the nation through regulatory diktat,'" Perez observed. "Several more Koch-funded dark money groups have filed similar amicus briefs in the case. That includes the Cato Institute, the New Civil Liberties Alliance, the Competitive Enterprise Institute, and the Mountain States Legal Foundation."

"The New Civil Liberties Alliance also received $1 million from the 85 Fund, a charitable foundation steered by Trump judicial adviser Leonard Leo," Perez added. "A longtime executive at the Federalist Society, a conservative lawyers group, Leo also helps direct the Judicial Crisis Network, a dark money group that spent tens of millions leading the confirmation campaigns for Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Barrett."

As Jane Mayer, the award-winning investigative journalist and author of Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right, put it Thursday, the West Virginiadecision is "payoff for 40 years of dark money from some of the planet's biggest polluters."

Top Republican officials and lawmakers responded enthusiastically to Thursday's ruling, which is likely to have global consequences given the United States' status as the largest historical emitter of carbon dioxide.

"Today, the court made the correct decision to rein in the EPA, an unelected bureaucracy," West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey, who spearheaded the case.

"And we're not done," he added. "My office will continue to fight for the rights of West Virginians when those in Washington try to go too far in asserting broad powers without the people’s support."

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), who is hoping to take back the upper chamber's gavel in the upcoming midterms, hailed the majority's opinion and warned "other overeager bureaucrats" to "take notice."

In the decision itself, the court's conservatives defined West Virginia v. EPAas a "major questions case," invoking an obscure and novel legal doctrine that insists federal agencies must have explicit and specific congressional authorization to act on matters deemed politically or economically significant.

As Bloomberg's Noah Feldman explains, "the major questions doctrine appears to take a very large bite out of" the so-called Chevron doctrine, which states that "the courts must defer to agencies' reasonable interpretation of laws passed by Congress."

The implications of the major questions doctrine's emergence as a guiding principle for the court are vast. In her dissent in West Virginia, liberal Justice Elena Kagan observed that "the court has never even used the term 'major questions doctrine' before."

"Let's say the obvious: The stakes here are high," Kagan wrote. "Yet the court today prevents congressionally authorized agency action to curb power plants' carbon dioxide emissions. The court appoints itself—instead of Congress or the expert agency—the decisionmaker on climate policy. I cannot think of many things more frightening."

Jenny Breen, associate professor at the Syracuse University College of Law, similarly argued in an email to Common Dreams that the court's West Virginia ruling "relies on judicial overreaching to undermine public policy and the legitimacy of government more broadly."

"The majority did not like the agency's approach to regulating power plants," Breen wrote. "But only in this new universe of governance-by-judicial-fiat should any of us care what John Roberts thinks is the best approach to regulating power plants. Congress gave that job to the EPA, not the Supreme Court."

"In taking that decision for itself," Breen added, "the court deals yet another blow to the ability of the United States to democratically govern in the face of severe public policy crises."

While the conservative-dominated court may not have overtly wielded the major questions doctrine against the federal government's regulatory powers in previous cases, Mekela Panditharatne and Martha Kinsella of the Brennan Center for Justice note that it has "obliquely" relied on the doctrine to "strike down the Centers for Disease Control and Preven­tion's evic­tion morator­ium and block the Occu­pa­tional Health and Safety Admin­is­tra­tion's mandate that large employ­ers ensure their work­ers are vaccin­ated or frequently tested for Covid-19."

"In Thursday's case, the court embraced the doctrine in a full-blown way, making clear that it views a wide range of agency protec­tions as poten­tial targets for abol­i­tion," they warned. "By gutting regu­lat­ory agen­cies' abil­ity to use exist­ing stat­utory author­ity to respond to contem­por­ary soci­etal needs, the court places the onus on Congress to amend count­less laws to expressly author­ize agen­cies to 'make decisions of vast economic and polit­ical signi­fic­ance,' whatever that means."

"The sugges­tion that Congress just needs to pass more expli­cit instruc­tions to agen­cies in order for the govern­ment to perform core func­tions is easier said than done," Panditharatne and a Kinsella added. "For his part, Justice Gorsuch in concur­rence, alarm­ingly, raises the specter that agency action without express congres­sional author­iz­a­tion could be deemed to viol­ate the Consti­tu­tion, a posi­tion the dissent vehe­mently rejects."

The institutional obstacles for Congress to step into the void created by the court's ruling are enormous, including but not limited to the Senate's 60-vote legislative filibuster. Corporate-friendly Democrats and the Republican Party—made up of industry-funded lawmakers wedded to mass deregulation—are also sure to stonewall any congressional attempts to make regulatory agencies' statutory authority to fight the climate emergency and other crises more explicit.

The ultimate result, observers fear, could be the sweeping defanging of the federal government that corporate America and the conservative movement have sought for decades.

"These politicians in black robes know full well that, with Mitch McConnell in a leadership position doing the bidding of Koch and the oil and gas industry, this Congress will not pass any substantial climate change mitigation legislation," Lisa Graves, the executive director of True North Research, told The Intercept.

In a series of tweets on Thursday, the Green New Deal Network asked Americans to "imagine a future where the USDA can't regulate what chemicals are in your food."

"Imagine a reality where the FDIC can't protect your money from greedy bankers and investors. And imagine a world where the FDA can't prevent pharmacies from stocking up with literal poisons," the group added. "This is the endgame."

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report

https://www.commondreams.org/news**/2022/03**/30/despite-splashy-net-zero-vows-big-banks-dumping-trillions-fossil-fuels

despite 'Splashy' Net-Zero Vows, Big Banks Dumping Trillions Into Fossil Fuels

"With Wall Street banks leading the charge, these financial institutions are directly complicit in undermining a climate-stable future for us all."

JAKE JOHNSON

March 30, 2022

Flouting their public vows to put themselves and their clients on a path to net-zero greenhouse gas emissions, the world's 60 largest private banks have provided a total of $4.6 trillion in financing for the fossil fuel industry since the Paris Agreement entered into force in 2016.

That's according to the latest edition of Banking on Climate Chaos, an annual report that tracks the banking industry's funding of oil and gas initiatives that are threatening global hopes of reining in carbon pollution and averting climate disaster.

In 2021 alone, the report finds, the world's biggest private-sector banks financed oil and gas to the tune of $742 billion. That year, the 60 banks featured in the new analysis poured $185.5 billion into the 100 companies doing the most to expand the fossil-fuel sector worldwide through offshore drilling, fracking, coal mining, liquefied natural gas infrastructure, and more.  Authored by Oil Change International, the Rainforest Action Network, the Indigenous Environmental Network, and other groups and endorsed by hundreds of organizations from around the world, the report published Wednesday spotlights the marked contrast between banks' public commitments to net-zero emissions targets and their actions, which reflect a continued stake in fossil fuel development.

The worst offenders in the banking industry, according to the report, are the U.S. financial behemoths JPMorgan Chase, Citi, Wells Fargo, and Bank of America,which together accounted for 25% of all fossil fuel financing identified over the past six years.

The report highlights a number of specific projects, including the Mountain Valley Pipeline (funded by JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo, and Bank of America), drilling in offshore Guyana (funded by JPMorgan Chase, Citi, and Bank of America), and the Line 3 Pipeline (funded by TD, Scotiabank, and the Bank of Montreal), efforts that have drawn fierce resistance from Indigenous communities.

"Indigenous peoples have long been leading the fight for the sacredness of the land, water, and Earth," Mea Johnson, divestment campaign coordinator with the Indigenous Environmental Network, said in a statement Wednesday. "Mother Earth has always given us what we need to thrive. We will not back down until our natural balance is restored and anyone helping fund the extractive destruction of our communities will be held accountable."

Alison Kirsch, research and policy manager at the Rainforest Action Network, added that "any further expansion of fossil fuels risks locking humanity into generations of climate catastrophe, yet the top fossil clients of the world's largest banks are still being showered with tens of billions of dollars even as they actively expand drilling, mining, fracking, and other fossil fuel development unabated."

"With Wall Street banks leading the charge," Kirsch added, "these financial institutions are directly complicit in undermining a climate-stable future for us all and must immediately end their support of any further fossil fuel infrastructure expansion."

The banks' financing decisions fly in the face of their own pledges to bring their policies into line with critical climate goals, such as achieving net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, a benchmark that 44 of the 60 banks profiled in the new report have backed.

"But global banks have massively supported the companies doing the most to open new oil and gas fields," notes the new report. "Banks with net-zero commitments last year... financed the top 20 upstream oil and gas expansion companies, potentially helping to lock the planet into decades of climate-warming emissions."  According to the International Energy Agency, reaching net-zero emissions by 2050 would mean ensuring "no new oil and gas fields."

Adele Shraiman, a representative for theSierra Club's Fossil-Free Finance campaign, said Wednesday that the analysis "makes it clear that banks must clean up their act and stop funding the expansion of dirty fossil fuel projects like fracked gas exports, tar sands pipelines, and offshore drilling in order to align with what the science demands and what their own commitments require."

"Despite their splashy climate pledges, big banks have largely continued with business-as-usual and actually increased their overall fossil fuel financing since the Paris Agreement," said Shraiman. "As we look ahead to shareholder season, we'll be keeping up the pressure on the banks and their investors to take these critical reforms seriously and stop bankrolling the fossil fuel industry's reckless expansion plans."

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aha/hmnn/yikes  slide to fascism means kicking out props/norms, but it gets easier b/c fewer ctr-forces?!

comm dr

Liz Cheney's removal from House GOP leadership over her rejection of Trump's election lies and Republican senators' blocking of a bipartisan proposal to create an independent panel that would investigate the Capitol siege reveal in stark terms at least two things: (a) that Republicans have built a cult of personality around Trump, and (b) that they are now at the mercy of the proto-fascist mob that their Dear Leader energized and nurtured during his four-year tenure in the White House.

Either way, the fact of the matter is that, for purposes of political expediency, the GOP has opted to become a dark political force, relying almost entirely on lies and deception—while at the same time waging a coordinated onslaught on voting rights—as its governing techniques. As such, it represents a real threat to the stability of the republic.

Following Trump's defeat, the strategic objective of the Republican Party is not simply to engage in obstructionism, but to continue dividing the nation and radicalizing the American public against the democratic system. This is the only way that the Republican Party can hope to stay in the game in the political, economic, social, and cultural landscape that defines 21st century America.

Always the party of Big Business and the rich, the Republican Party has oscillated from conservatism to reactionism pretty much throughout the twentieth century and the early part of the twenty-first centuries, but today's GOP has gone so far toward abandoning basic democratic norms that it now belongs firmly in the political universe of parties and movements that make up the far-right. In fact, it is considered to be more extreme that Le Pen's National Rally, according to findings based on data collected from the Manifesto Project.

The political identity of today's GOP reflects a decades-long transformation. It begins to take form sometimes during the early 2010s, a decade that historian Andrew Bacevich characterized as an era of "venomous division." Driven primarily by fear of losing power in an increasingly diverse United States, the GOP made a dramatic shift towards extremism as a way of mobilizing white working-class voters, who experienced income stagnation and felt deep economic insecurity thanks to 40 years of brutal neoliberal capitalist policies, and scaring the hell out of the petty bourgeoisie with visions of chaos and disorder brought about by radical forces bent on destroying America and its traditional values and way of life.

Indeed, well before Trump threw his hat in the ring for Presidency, a 2013 survey of local party leaders found that, in contrast to Democrats who preferred more extreme candidates to more moderate candidates by a 2-to-1 margin, Republicans did so by 10-to-1.

Of course, it is Trump himself who solidifies the shift towards extremism. Fully cognizant of the mood both inside the Republican Party and the country as a whole, especially with a large segment of disenchanted and angry white voters seeing equal opportunity as a zero-sum game for them, Trump embarks on the complete transformation of the GOP into an extremist political party by lurching towards reactionary nationalism and diving deeply into nativism with his MAGA campaign slogan and inflammatory rhetoric about immigrants, Muslims, and African-Americans, respectively.

Trump also breaks with elite bipartisan consensus on a broad range of other issues, including trade and foreign policy, in order to secure his image as a unique figure in American politics, while falsehoods and outright lies become indispensable weapons on his performative proto-fascist march towards power.

To be sure, this was a bid for power with a strong resemblance to the political strategy that authoritarian parties have long adopted in many parts of the world, including that of the Nazi Party between 1919-1933. An unmistakable sign of Trump's"performative proto-fascism" was also his dalliance with armed militias—undoubtedly as grave a threat to democracy as were Hitler's brown shirts.

Trump's tenure in office ended on the same note as his rise to power—namely, with another act of "performative proto-fascism." His rejection of the 2020 election as "the big lie" was intended to cement in the minds of his fanatical base the idea of a "deep state" conspiracy and, subsequently, undermine democratic procedures. A movement built on lies, deception, and sheer propaganda can only be maintained by the very same tactics that energized it. There is no other way around it.

The reason that Republicans have opted to continue down the path charted by Trump is because this is now the only way to maintain the support of the proto-fascist base. Without that support, the GOP will have to reinvent its political identity—no small task for a party that has made a remarkable transition from conservatism to reactionism and finally to neoliberal proto-fascism—or cease to exist.

However, the paradox that Republicans face in the post-Trump era is that they cannot sustain a movement built around the cult of personality without the presence of a charismatic leader in its midst. In this sense, the Republicans can continue with Trumpist shenanigans as long as Trump is still around and politically active, but sooner or later they would have to look for an appropriate replacement—and perhaps an authentic fascist—otherwise the proto-fascist base may gradually begin to wither away.

What the future holds for the American republic is impossible to predict. However, what is abundantly clear right now is that with its delusional attachment to Trump, the GOP is methodically dragging the country into the abyss of instability, chaos, and proto-fascism.

C.J. Polychroniou is a political economist/political scientist who has taught and worked in numerous universities and research centers in Europe and the United States. He has published scores of books and his articles have appeared in a variety of journals, magazines, newspapers, and popular news websites. His latest books are Optimism Over Despair: Noam Chomsky On Capitalism, Empire, and Social Change, an anthology of interviews with Chomsky originally published at Truthout and collected by Haymarket Books; Climate Crisis and the Global Green New Deal: The Political Economy of Saving the Planet (with Noam Chomsky and Robert Pollin as primary authors); and The Precipice: Neoliberalism, the Pandemic, and the Urgent Need for Radical Change, an anthology of interviews with Chomsky originally published at Truthout_{ and collected by Haymarket Books (scheduled for publication in June 2021).}_

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commm dr

this is what you shall do... stand up for the stupid and crazy...

— Walt Whitman, Preface to the first edition of Leaves of Grass

A number of readers wondered whether, following my recent piece on The Triplets in the House of Representatives, I was being unfair to the United States Senate, a body that includes at least two people deserving recognition as much as the triplets in the House. I can only acknowledge my oversight with a mea culpa and make amends by directing the readers' attention to two Senators who, with each utterance, warm the cockles of the trumpian heart and the hearts of all who love and miss the trump.

The two Senators are Senators Ron Johnson of Wisconsin and Josh Hawley of Missouri. Great minds can differ on which of the two men is the dumbest man in the Senate. NBC's Joe Scarborough bestowed the label on Josh, calling him the dumbest guy in the Senate, but I prefer to bestow that honor on Wisconsin's Ron Johnson. Ron does not have the academic credentials of Josh. Josh attended Stanford, and Yale law school. The lack of those credentials does not, however, deprive him of the right to being first, not second, in the competition.

Ron has served in the Senate since 2010. During that time ample opportunities for him to show his stupidity have presented themselves, and he has rarely failed to take advantage of them. In 2021, however, he has taken positions that in the opinion of this writer give him an insurmountable lead over Josh Hawley. Among his most memorable demonstrations were his comments on the rioters who stormed the United States Capitol as Ron and his colleague took refuge in a safe space in the Capitol building. Ron said of his time being sequestered in a safe space in the Capitol that: "I never felt threatened I didn't foresee this. They made up their own standards in terms of incitement. The first question was 'Was this predictable? Was it foreseeable? And the answer was no, it wasn't. I don't know any Trump supporters who would do that."

In an interview in March he said of the rioters that: "I know those were people who love this country, that truly respect law enforcement, would never do anything to break the law, so I wasn't concerned." He went on to say that had the rioters been members of the Black Lives Matter crowd he would have been more concerned for his safety. He did not explain why he joined his colleagues in being taken to a refuge where they were protected from the people showing their love for the country by storming its capitol nor has he explained why more than 400 of them have been criminally indicted for trying to prove their love of country.

Ron's observations about the good intentions of the rioters by themselves, would perhaps not earn him the distinction I have granted him. It is also his expertise on the Covid-19 vaccine. He has repeatedly downplayed the need for people to get vaccinated against the virus. In an interview with Vicky McKenna on April 23 he explained that if a person had the vaccine he or she didn't need to worry about whether anyone else got the vaccine. As he explained: "So if you have a vaccine, quite honestly, what do you care if your neighbor has one or not. I mean, what is it to you?... So why this big push to make sure everybody gets vaccinated?" The more than 570,000 American who have died could explain why taking the vaccine is important. Anthony Fauci responded to Johnson's comments saying they were nonsense. He said we have very effective vaccines and it makes no sense to take the Johnson position that if he's been vaccinated no one else needs to take the vaccine.

Johnson's competitor is Josh Hawley. Josh is better credentialed than Ron. Josh received his undergraduate degree from Stanford University and his law degree from Yale Law School. Both of his degrees have served him in poor stead proving, as a president of Harvard once said, the mere fact that you graduate from a great university does not mean you are an educated person. On December 30, 2020, Josh announced by means of a trump like tweet, that he would refuse to certify the vote that Joe Biden had been elected president. "I cannot vote to certify the Electoral College results on January 6 without raising the fact that some states, particularly Pennsylvania, failed to follow their own state election laws." Not content to express his unwillingness to certify the electoral college results, as the rioters gathered on January 6 preparing to launch their attack on the Capitol, Josh walked by them pumping his fist in the air in a gesture of support. What happened next is history.

Commenting on Josh's tweets and conduct, John Danforth, a former Missouri Senator said: "Supporting Josh Hawley. . . was the worst decision I've ever made in my life. He has consciously appealed to the worst. He has attempted to drive us apart and he has undermined public belief in our democracy. And that's great damage." Senator Danforth got that right. Josh Hawley is a national disgrace. So is Ron Johnson. The nut jobs in the House of Representatives have not upstaged the ones in the Senate. The electorate has made sure there are enough to go around.

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NICE BIG PICT ANALYSIS

https://www.alternet.org/2021/04/republican-frat-boy/

HE BROKE AMERICA? DEMOC?

common dr 421

...Oh, for a simpler, saner time – and I don't mean that white American idyll that never was, a rightwing fever dream in which all is falsely remembered as sunshine, jellybeans and petroleum products burnt without a care. Rather, as columnist Frida Ghitis notes, "It wasn't very long ago that the country had two reality-based, generally centrist parties. Democrats and Republicans, with different philosophies, debated the merits of their ideas, in search of a workable compromise.

But then, bit by bit, the GOP started veering in a different direction. By the time Trump became president, the maximalist, nativist, conspiracy-driven, scandal-manufacturing, hate-stoking wing was already ascendant, propelled by the engines of Fox News and other far-right provocateurs. Trump's victory was the coup that toppled the old GOP and turned it into the extremist MAGA machine.

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And now, what's left? A handful of old-fashioned, conservative Republicans in Congress and their supporters who apparently still believe in some semblance of democracy and the republic that gave their party its name. But they're overwhelmed by a crowd of fanatics and sycophants: men and women, in Frida Ghitis' words, busily "promoting the delegitimization of America's duly elected president, people who are endorsing or refusing to rectify dangerous lies."

You know who they are: Cruz, Hawley, Graham, Jordan, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Lauren Boebert, et al. They include, of course, Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida, "rewarded by recklessness," to use campaign strategist Rick Wilson's phrase, and as of this moment still standing, despite more and more evidence of his misogyny and possible abusive behavior, sexual and otherwise.

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Like so many among these ranks, Trump fanboy Gaetz is one of the smarmy, privileged, attenuated frat boys who refuse to believe that rules and norms apply to them – much like the man who was their president and would be forever more if the rest of us become indifferent and lower our guard. Gaetz cares about his job title only as far as it gets him booked on talk shows and the lecture circuit – so far, he has failed to sponsor a single piece of significant legislation.

In his new memoir, former Republican House Speaker John Boehner describes these types of Republican rabblerousers as "the chaos caucus," not caring about the country but only about their power base and appearances on Fox News and right wing talk radio: "They didn't really want legislative victories," Boehner writes. "They wanted wedge issues and conspiracies and crusades."

Not that Boehner is blameless. He and so many Republican colleagues let themselves be bullied, then acquiesced to our current dilemma, yielding to those pledged to lunacy and a lemming-like fealty to a president as bereft of thought and feeling as they are. You see the results: a shattered party not of ideas and programs, but only insults and bogus intrigues. No wonder the Biden infrastructure proposals infuriate them; they have nothing to offer in return.(Remember Trump's Infrastructure Week, always imminent but never occurring over the whole four years of his presidency?)

They fear any and all success during Biden's first term. Think back to 1993, when now anti-Trumpist conservative Bill Kristol advised Republicans to shun any healthcare plan from Bill and Hillary Clinton. In a memo—Kristol was then head of the Project for the Republican Future—he warned his colleagues, "It will revive the reputation of the party that spends and regulates, the Democrats, as the generous protector of middle-class interests. And it will at the same time strike a punishing blow against Republican claims to defend the middle class by restraining government."...

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This is a really, really big deal': Michigan Gov. moves to shut down Line 5 pipeline

Jessica Corbett Common Dreams

November 14, 2020

Environmental and Indigenous activists celebrated Friday after Democratic Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer took action to shut down the decades-old Enbridge Line 5 oil and natural gas pipelines that run under the Straits of Mackinac, narrow waterways that connect Lake Huron and Lake Michigan—two of the Great Lakes.

Citing the threat to the Great Lakes as well as "persistent and incurable violations" by Enbridge, Whitmer and Michigan Department of Natural Resources (DNR) Director Dan Eichinger informed the Canadian fossil fuel giant that a 1953 easement allowing it to operate the pipelines is being revoked and terminated.

The move, which Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel asked the Ingham County Circuit Court to validate, gives Enbridge until May 2021 to stop operating the twin pipelines, "allowing for an orderly transition that protects Michigan's energy needs over the coming months," according to a statement from the governor's office.

The Great Lakes collectively contain about a fifth of the world's surface fresh water. As Whitmer explained Friday, "Here in Michigan, the Great Lakes define our borders, but they also define who we are as people."

"Enbridge has routinely refused to take action to protect our Great Lakes and the millions of Americans who depend on them for clean drinking water and good jobs," the governor said. "They have repeatedly violated the terms of the 1953 easement by ignoring structural problems that put our Great Lakes and our families at risk."

"Most importantly, Enbridge has imposed on the people of Michigan an unacceptable risk of a catastrophic oil spill in the Great Lakes that could devastate our economy and way of life," she added. "That's why we're taking action now, and why I will continue to hold accountable anyone who threatens our Great Lakes and fresh water."

MLive noted that the state attorney general's new filing "is in addition to Nessel's lawsuit filed in 2019 seeking the shutdown of Line 5, which remains pending in the same court." Nessel said Friday that Whitmer and Eichinger "are making another clear statement that Line 5 poses a great risk to our state, and it must be removed from our public waterways."

The "bombshell news," as one Michigan reporter called it, elicited applause from environmentalists and Indigenous leaders within and beyond the state.

"This is a brave and just decision for the Great Lakes," Mike Shriberg, the National Wildlife Federation's regional executive director for the Great Lakes, told MLive. "It's going to benefit the Great Lakes by removing what is probably the single biggest threat to water quality in the region."

As the Detroit Free Press detailed Friday:

Enbridge was responsible for one of the largest inland oil spills in U.S. history—a major leak on one of its large oil transmission lines near Marshall in July 2010. That spill fouled more than 38 miles of the Kalamazoo River and took four years and more than $1 billion to clean up. Enbridge in 2016 agreed to a $177-million settlementwith the U.S. Justice Department and Environmental Protection Agency, including $62 million in penalties, over the Marshall spill and a 2010 spill on another of its pipelines in Romeoville, Illinois.

A similar spill disaster on Line 5 in the Straits would devastate the Great Lakes shoreline communities and the Michigan economy, critics of the pipeline have long contended. Enbridge officials have countered that Line 5 is safe.

"Line 5 should have never been built in the first place," Shriberg told the Free Press. "Gov. Whitmer is now bravely, and correctly, standing up for the Great Lakes."

"This is a legacy-defining action by the governor," he added. "She is standing on the side not only of clean water, but clean energy and the jobs that go along with the transition to a renewable energy economy."

Dallas Goldtooth, Keep It In The Ground Campaign organizer for the Indigenous Environmental Network, welcomed the "huge news" in a series of tweets that acknowledged the years of campaigning by tribal nations against the Line 5:

"We are thrilled and thankful for Gov. Whitmer's decision to revoke the easement for Enbridge's pipeline to run beneath the Straits," Bryan Newland, president of the Bay Mills Indian Community, said in a statement from Earthjustice. "Enbridge has consistently shown that it only cares about its profits and not about the communities of the Great Lakes. This is a monumental first step in rectifying the harm that the company has already inflicted upon Bay Mills and other tribal nations for decades."

The shutdown notice is "an enormous victory for the climate, and for incredible organizers who have fought for many years!" declared activist and author Bill McKibben, who co-founded 350.org. After thanking both Whitmer and "the indefatigable organizers," he added that "it's not often enough we Shut Stuff Down!"

Sen. Gary Peters (D-Mich.) also welcomed the development in a statement Friday. Peters, who secured a narrow reelection victory last week, is a member of the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee, which oversees the federal agency responsible for pipeline safety.

"There's no question an oil spill in the Straits of Mackinac would have catastrophic and long-term consequences to the economic and environmental health of Michigan and the Great Lakes," Peters said. "Unfortunately here in Michigan, we already know from the Enbridge pipeline leak in the Kalamazoo River just how devastating and costly spills are to our state."

"Given the structural integrity and age concerns around Line 5—particularly in recent years—and Enbridge's failures and inability to be transparent with Michiganders, it's clear that Line 5 poses too serious of a threat and must be removed in the coming months," the congressman continued, vowing to work with the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) and the State of Michigan "to swiftly evaluate alternatives to Line 5 while continuing to hold Enbridge accountable."

RELATED ARTICLES AROUND THE WEB

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https://www.alternet.org/2020/04/the-gop-has-become-a-death-cult

no lnx

The GOP has become a death cult

March 4, 2017

// About 700 people gathered at the Minnesota capitol building to show support for Republican President Donald Trump. This was part of "March 4 Trump events around the country. Around 100 people were also there protesting against Donald Trump. // This man was yelling, "TRUMP! TRUMP! TRUMP! TRUMP! TRUMMMMMP!" // 2017-03-04 ]

Written by Mike Lofgren / Common Dreams April 17, 2020

A decade ago, in my first public writing since leaving Capitol Hill, I warned that the Republican Party, in its evolution towards an extremist conservative movement allied with extremist Christian fundamentalism, was becoming like “one of the intensely ideological authoritarian parties of 20th century Europe.” After Donald Trump’s enthronement as the decider of our fate, I analyzed the GOP’s descent into a nihilism that belied every one of its supposed “values.” They value only absolute power or ruin.

It is now long past time to cast off highfalutin’ Latinisms and simply call the Republicans and their religious and secular conservative allies what they are, and in unadorned English: a death cult. As the country reels from the coronavirus pandemic, our national government might just as well be run by the infamous People’s Temple of Jonestown.

By now we are benumbed by the all-pervasive arguments over relaxing workplace shutdowns and stay-at-home orders due to coronavirus. In any sane society, the issue would be how to institute the most efficient measures to defeat the pandemic in the shortest time and with the lowest loss of life. Instead, Trump and his merry band of lunatics have hijacked the national debate into a faux-serious discussion of when, oh, please, how soon, can we “reopen the economy?” Naturally, the media gamely continue to play along with this calculated bit of dezinformatsiya.

This has led to extreme callousness, like that shown by Texas lieutenant governor Dan Patrick, who opined that grams and gramps should be eager to shuffle off this mortal coil for the sake of their grandchildren.

There is abundant empirical evidence against this notion: voters in Florida, known as “God’s waiting room” for its geriatric population, are notoriously averse to paying one cent in state income tax to fund education or child health, let alone lay down their lives. In any case, the 69-year-old Patrick, who claims he’s willing to die for his proposition, did not relinquish the burdens of his office to volunteer as an emergency room orderly.

There’s also Congressman Trey Hollingsworth of Indiana, who put a patriotic gloss on his Malthusianism, decreeing that “it is always the American government’s position to say, in the choice between the loss of our way of life as Americans and the loss of life, of American lives, we have to always choose the latter.”

Then, striking the pose of the Serious Adult in the Room correcting mischievous children, he intoned: “It is policymakers’ decision to put on our big boy and big girl pants and say it is the lesser of these two evils.” This encapsulates the stereotype of the economic conservative: Dickens’s Thomas Gradgrind, the rigid, condescending, and heartless pedagogue.

But some pronouncements from the Trump coalition offer more ethereal rationalizations than the mere pursuit of lucre. The news is replete with stories about evangelical ministers packing their megachurches like sardine cans in defiance of state orders for social distancing, as well as contempt for common sense.

We all know about that harebrained medicine man in Louisiana, Tony Spell, already arrested for violating the state’s prohibition of large gatherings, who continues his antics nonstop. Spell, who sounds as socially responsible as a blood tick, is proclaiming his parishioners ought to choose death: “Like any revolutionary, or like any zealot, or like any pure religious person, death looks to them like a welcome friend. True Christians do not mind dying. They fear living in fear.”

So much for fundamentalists’ vaunted “culture of life,” a slogan which the prestige media never presume to critique.

For a more socially upscale version of this sentiment, let us turn to First Things, a pretentious journal of alleged theology that dresses up its non-stop shilling for the GOP with high-toned words like “numinous” and references to the philosopher Erasmus.

Last month, its editor, R.R. Reno, wrote a piece called, “Say No to Death’s Dominion.” It is an extraordinary performance. Contrary to the title, he actually argues that death should be embraced. He does this by weaving an imbecilic theology that includes falsifying the history of the 1918 flu epidemic to make his basic point:

“In our simple-minded picture of things, we imagine a powerful fear of death arises because of the brutal deeds of cruel dictators and bloodthirsty executioners. But in truth,Satan prefers sentimental humanists. We resent the hard boot of oppression on our necks, and given a chance, most will resist. How much better, therefore, to spread fear of death under moralistic pretexts.”

Oh, I get it! So Mother Teresa and Dorothy Day were more depraved than Josef Stalin! Reno ends with this:

“Fear of death and causing death is pervasive—stoked by a materialistic view of survival at any price and unchecked by Christian leaders who in all likelihood secretly accept the materialist assumptions of our age. “

This insane rant against materialism would seem to contradict the crassly materialistic assumptions underlying economic conservatives’ advocacy for letting a deadly virus “wash over” the population, as Trump would say. But these views, at first sight blatantly opposed, can be reconciled.

And who better to reconcile God and Mammon than a grifter like Jerry Falwell, Jr., ringmaster of Liberty University and testifier to Donald Trump’s status as an emissary of the Almighty? Not only has Falwell continued the school year, virtually alone among American universities, and despite pleading from students and parents to close, he has now been sued for failing to refund fees for student activities that have been suspended.

Fundamentalist preachers’ love of money is no secret: it is only by packing churches that the collection plate will yield a bounteous harvest so that their missionary work can continue – perhaps logistically aided by the purchase of a$65-million Gulfstream executive jet.And why not? It would upstage Pat Robertson, who had a mere Learjet, and a rental at that.

Political observers often wonder about the bizarre conservative coalition of plutocrats and theocrats, believing it to be unstable. But the intersection of the heartless pecuniary motives of religious and economic conservatives is no coincidence. And beneath the Ebenezer Scrooge façade of economic conservatives is the same kind of perverted idealism that we see in Tony Spell or R.R. Reno.

The most cost-efficient industrial process is one that wastes the fewest resource inputs. Likewise, internal combustion engines have evolved to get better mileage even as they pollute less. And electric motors are even more fuel efficient and less polluting.

So how do we explain conservatives’ perverse hatred of the environment, even when there are no profits at stake, as well as their tenacious denial of climate change in the face of irrefutable data? Is it not much the same as the Bible thumper who bitterly condemns stewardship of the environment as Gaia worship?

There are other similarities. Since the 1970s, oil shocks (and coincident with the rise of the New Right) an abiding feature on the American scene has been the survivalist, hoping for the national Götterdämmerung that will vindicate his having stockpiled 10,000 rounds of ammunition and a horde of Krugerrands. This dovetails with fundamentalists’ weird enthusiasm for the prospect of world annihilation that animates belief in the Rapture, the only difference being the technique by which the elect avoid the mass slaughter.

Firearms fetishism and a fascination with violence, war, and armed insurrection are also mainstays of right-wing ideology, hardly distinguishable from Jerry Falwell Sr.’s, proclamation that God is Pro-War.And how about the Ultimate Fighting Jesus? The NRA neatly intersects with “muscular Christianity,” revealing both ideological kinship and some very embarrassing gender insecurities that frequently irrupt in misogyny and homosexual panic.

There is no longer the slightest doubt in any sane person’s mind that not only are the GOP’s fundamentalist-extremist religious allies a death cult disguised as 501(c)3 tax-exempt charitable organizations. The whole extremely well-funded edifice of “economic conservatism” is equally a death cult, worshiping Mammon so fervently that it is eager to make human sacrifice upon its altar, just like the Mayans and Carthaginians.

“¡Viva la Muerte!”

“Long live death!” That was the defiant cry of José Millán-Astray y Terreros, a general in Francisco Franco’s fascist army during the Spanish civil war.It could just as well suit Trump’s foot soldiers.

Mike Lofgren is a former congressional staff memberwho served on both the House and Senate budget committees. His books include: “The Deep State: The Fall of the Constitution and the Rise of a Shadow Government” and “The Party is Over: How Republicans Went Crazy, Democrats Became Useless, and the Middle Class Got Shafted.”

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A red-flag warning’: Scientists alarmed by mass death of 1 million seabirds from a hot ocean ‘blob’Jessica Corbett / Common Dr

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no lnx many pix

If there were any lingering hopes that the corporate media learned from its role in perpetuating the lies that led to the 2003 invasion of Iraq and would never again help start a Middle East war on the basis of false or flimsy evidence, the headlines that blared across the front pages of major U.S. news websites Thursday night indicated that such hopes were badly misplaced.

The U.S. military late Thursday released blurry, black-and-white video footage that it claimed—without any underlying analysis or further details—showed an Iranian patrol boat removing an unexploded limpet mine from the Japanese-owned Kokuka Courageous, one of the oil tankers damaged in attacks in the Gulf of Oman.

Here’s how CNN presented the U.S. military’s video:

Iran has denied any involvement in the attacks, and Yutaka Katada—the owner of the Kokuka Courageous—contradicted the Trump administration’s account during a press conference on Friday.

“Our crew said that the ship was attacked by a flying object,” Katada said. “I do not think there was a time bomb or an object attached to the side of the ship.”

Independent critics were quick to call for extreme skepticism in the face of U.S. government claims, given the quality of the “evidence” and the warmongering track records of those presenting it.

Trita Parsi

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@tparsi

A serial liar is President.

A warmonger and a serial fabricator who helped get us into the disastrous Iraq war and who has sabotaged numerous attempts at diplomacy is the NatSec Advisor.

But go ahead, Media, treat Pompeo's accusations as "evidence"...#OilTanker #GulfOfOman

405

12:33 PM - Jun 13, 2019

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But the media displayed no such caution.

Just taking a random sample of screenshots after the news broke Thursday night, major outlets largely did the Pentagon’s dirty work by posting uncritical headlines that took the claims at face value.

The Washington Post used the word “purported” in its headline, but erroneously reported that the video was taken “before” the explosion on the vessel, not after. The headline was later changed, but was made no more critical of the military’s claim:

The U.K.-based Guardian also offered a simple “U.S. says” headline construction:

In the New York Times rendition—which appeared prominently on their homepage—the claim of what the U.S. military intelligence “believed” the video to show was framed with the more objective-sounding and vague phrase “what analysts believed”:

Like the Guardian, Politico made no attempt to go beyond the “U.S. says” framework:

Fox News, of course, went further than most by characterizing the Pentagon video as a “major clue” to who was behind the alleged attack:

CNN, meanwhile—specifically in the subhead of the headline story that appeared at the top of their page late Thursday night—took the military’s claim of what the video showed as actual fact:

The Hill‘s version, similar to the error made by the Post, reported that the video was taken before the explosion—a detail likely to leave readers much more suspicious of Iran’s involvement than if one of its vessels had approached the ship in the wake of the incident:

Though no single headline could be construed as explicit pro-Pentagon propaganda on its own, the uncritical nature of the coverage and ensuing echo chamber effect—or what is sometimes referred to as “propaganda reinforcement”—is one of the ways that the U.S. government and its intelligence agencies are empowered to turn a flimsy claim into a pervasive and widely-accepted fact.

Media Lens

@medialens

Classic BBC propaganda reinforcement:

'The footage released by the US on Thursday is rather more convincing...'

And ascribe doubts *solely* to the accused 'Bad Guys':

'There will likely be doubts in Tehran as to whether this video is genuine.' https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-48633016 …

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3:51 AM - Jun 14, 2019

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Iran's Isna news agency published an unverified image of what it said was a burning tanker in the Gulf of Oman

US footage shows 'Iran removing unexploded mine'

Iran has strongly denied the US allegation that it was behind attacks on tankers in the Gulf of Oman on Thursday.

bbc.com

107 people are talking about this

In a blog post on Friday, historian and Middle East expert Juan Cole wrote that the Trump administration’s narrative that Iranians were removing an unexploded mine from the damaged oil tanker “doesn’t make any sense at all” and said the video footage released by the U.S. “needs to be carefully analyzed” before any conclusions are drawn.

“[Secretary of State Mike] Pompeo alleged that only the Iranians had the expertise to deploy these mines,” Cole wrote. “We heard this crock for 8.5 years in Iraq—all shaped charges had to be Iran-backed, even those of al-Qaeda, because Iraqis didn’t have the expertise…. Sure. Had to be Iran, helping those hyper-Sunni al-Qaeda. Very likely story.”

On Twitter, Sina Toossi, research associate at the National Iranian American Council, echoed Cole’s call for skepticism and an investigation.

“What we need is an impartial investigation,” Toossi wrote, “and to be highly skeptical of claims and intel assessments from Bolton/Pompeo.”

Sina Toossi

@SinaToossi

Head of the tanker says two drones caused the damaged, contradicting this “dozen men on a boat” narrative.

What we need is an impartial investigation & to be highly skeptical of claims & intel assessments from Bolton/Pompeo.

Bloomberg

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@business

American officials released images they said show that Iran was involved in an attack on an oil tanker near the entrance to the Persian Gulf on Thursday https://bloom.bg/2IdpiIh

Embedded video

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4:26 AM - Jun 14, 2019

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In a column published last month as the U.S. aggressively escalated military tensions with Iran and pushed the two nations to the brink of all-out war, The Intercept‘s Mehdi Hasan asked a straightforward question that remains relevant in the present: “Do U.S. reporters, anchors, and editors really want more Middle Eastern blood on their hands?”

“If not,” Hasan wrote, “they need to fix their rather credulous and increasingly hawkish coverage of Iran and the Trump administration—and fix it fast.”

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