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09/09/2026

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Kyle Mantyla

• Andrea Fuller, Ken Bensinger and Edward Wong @ The New York Times: For Fired DeSantis Campaign Staff Member, a Second Chance at State Dept.

The hiring of Nate Hochman, who lost his job amid an uproar over a video containing a Nazi symbol, underscores the administration’s willingness to overlook past transgressions.

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State Department takes 'full responsibility' after map mislabels every country in Africa

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President Donald Trump's administration recently intervened to help a disgraced far-right YouTube commentator get back into the United States — even though her channel was exposed as a Russian media front.

The Bulwark's Will Sommer reported Monday that Canadian citizen Lauren Chen of Tenet Media reportedly reentered the U.S. over the Christmas holiday, even though her work visa was suspended in 2024 amid an FBI investigation into her YouTube channel. Tenet Media's funders had been linked to the Russia-funded RT network, and were accused of funneling approximately $10 million to Chen's company, which also housed prominent pro-Trump pundits like Tim Pool, Benny Johnson and Dave Rubin.

Sommer noticed a post to Chen's Instagram account on Christmas Day, where she celebrated that she was able to return to Nashville, Tennessee with her husband, Liam Donovan after securing a visa from Trump's State Department. Chen specifically thanked "Joe Rittenhouse at the State Department," along with "the new leadership at the FBI, and the administration for their help making this possible, and for everything they do to keep America safe."

Rittenhouse responded to Chen's post with one of his own, writing on X that he was "happy to help correct the wrongs of the past administration." Sommer reported that Rittenhouse is apparently a fan of far-right YouTubers, and in August posted a photo of his feet on his desk while watching a video by British YouTuber Sargon of Akkad (whose real name is Carl Benjamin).

In September of 2024, the FBI charged RT employees Kostiantyn Kalashnikov and Elena Afanasyeva for conspiracy to violate the Foreign Agents Registration Act and conspiracy to commit money laundering. Then-Attorney General Merrick Garland stated that Kalashnikov and Afanasyeva sought to "create and distribute content to U.S. audiences with hidden Russian government messaging."

"The Justice Department will not tolerate attempts by an authoritarian regime to exploit our country’s free exchange of ideas in order to covertly further its own propaganda efforts, and our investigation into this matter remains ongoing," he added.

Despite the Tenet Media scandal, its personalities have continued to see their platforms flourish. Dave Rubin's YouTube channel has 3.1 million subscribers, Tim Pool has more than 1.5 million subscribers on YouTube and Benny Johnson's channel on Rumble (a platform similar to YouTube popular among the far right) has more than 481,000 followers. Pool maintained at the time that he was tricked into providing content for a media startup and that Russian Vladimir Putin was "a scumbag."

:{:{Click here to read Sommer's full report in The Bulwark.}:

RIGHT-WING MEDIA PERSONALITY Lauren Chen left the United States in July in disgrace. Her Tenet Media YouTube channel, which positioned itself as a sort of MAGA supergroup bringing together such popular commentators as Tim Pool, Benny Johnson, and Dave Rubin, had been exposed in 2024 by the FBI as a Russian media front illicitly taking money from pro-Putin propaganda outlet RT.

The September 2024 indictment from the Southern District of New York targeted Tenet’s FARA-skirting Russian funders, not Chen or her husband, Liam Donovan. But the Canadian couple were clearly described in the indictment as allegedly scheming with RT employees to direct $10 million to Tenet and even create a fictional persona to mislead one pundit about the source of the funding.

In the wake of the indictment, Chen lost her work visa and was forced to leave the country. She also vanished from social media. It seemed unlikely she would return to the United States anytime soon.

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But this holiday season, Chen and her husband were back in Nashville, where she lived while running Tenet. She broke the news herself, by announcing on Instagram and X on Christmas Day that she could now return to the United States, and specifically thanking the State Department’s Joe Rittenhouse, a senior adviser on consular affairs and former Trump presidential campaign worker, for his help.

“The biggest thank you to Joe Rittenhouse at the State Department for moving mountains to ensure we were able to return in time for the holidays!” Chen wrote on Instagram.

Chen also thanked Customs and Border Patrol, the FBI, and “the administration” broadly.

“Also the utmost gratitude to CBP, the new leadership at the FBI, and the administration for their help making this possible, and for everything they do to keep America safe,” she wrote.

Rittenhouse himself confirmed the administration’s effort to help Tenet Media’s founders return to America in a post on X, wishing Chen a “merry Christmas.”

“This Christmas I’m so happy to help correct the wrongs of the past administration,” he wrote. “Being able to bring Lauren and her family back for Christmas would not be possible without new Leadership at the Whitehouse, FBI, CBP, and State Department.”

Rittenhouse does appear to be a fan of right-wing media. In August, he posted a picture with his feet up on a desk in what appeared to be a government office building, watching a video from right-wing British YouTuber “Sargon of Akkad.”

THE IDEA THAT THE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION would assist the foreign founders of an illegally funded media outlet aimed at reaching American audiences with Russian propaganda might seem outlandish. Indeed, it might be the first time the administration has offered assistance to someone from Canada.

But the administration has not shied away from throwing bones to right wing media figures—prioritizing them at White House functions and elevating them at the briefings. As for Russian interests, the president has long been outwardly comfortable associating with them.

The FBI declined to comment. CBP, the White House, and the State Department didn’t respond to requests for comment. Neither did Chen or Rittenhouse.

According to court records, the federal case against Tenet’s funders is still open. But with the Russian operators who allegedly facilitated the money-laundering scheme still at large, the investigation hasn’t gone anywhere in the year since the indictments were filed.

The right-wing commentators who posted on Tenet have maintained their innocence about the nature of the operation, with Johnson, Rubin, and Pool all claiming that they were “victims” of Chen’s company—duped, as it were, by the Russian government into taking tens of thousands of dollars for making a single YouTube video.

By and large, they’ve faced minimal professional repercussions. In fact, their influence and their audiences are far larger now than when Tenet was exposed. The one person who did face some fallout was Chen, whose visa situation with the American government was dire. This past September, she complained that the Biden administration had “nuked my visa” after Tenet’s funding was exposed. In a July statement that marked her return to social media, Chen complained that she couldn’t return to the United States.

“Because my American visa was contingent upon our company, we had no choice but to leave our home and children’s place of birth,” she wrote. “We are doing everything in our power to get a new visa and return home.”

The Trump administration’s intervention on Chen’s behalf comes as it has moved to dramatically restrict visa rules more broadly—even denying visas to activists opposed to disinformation. Rittenhouse himself has briefed the media on the administration’s student-visa revocations.

From my point of view, Trump’s help for Chen and her husband also hurts the realinjured parties: Johnson, Rubin, and Pool. After all, with Chen and her husband on the loose in America once again, is any pro-Trump media star safe from being targeted with the next Tenet-like con?

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[### Trump Brings Putin's Booted Propaganda Goon Back to U.S.

The Daily Beast

https://www.thedailybeast.com › trump-brings-putins-bo...](https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-brings-putins-booted-propaganda-goon-lauren-chen-back-to-us/)

6 hours ago — ... State Department senior adviser Joe Rittenhouse. She credited Rittenhouse with “moving mountains to ensure we were able to return in time ...Read more

...Last week, Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio barred five European campaigners and watchdog leaders from entering the country under a new “free speech” visa policy.

It also raises questions about Trump’s friendly behavior toward Russia and its president Vladimir Putin. Even in the past month, Trump—who in 2022 called Putin a “genius”—has described Putin as being “very generous” about Ukraine’s future in a call they had about the war there, prompting visible disbelief from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

Trump Gets Beauty Salon Owner to Decide Who to Ban From U.S.EYEBROW RAISING

Tom Latchem

Trump’s State Department has increasingly been populated with loyalists in roles that control who gets a visa and who gets turned away. Rittenhouse, for instance, is a former actor who became a Trump presidential campaign worker. Over Christmas, it also emerged that Trump had elevated Project 2025 contributor Mora Namdar to run the consular bureau overseeing visa approvals and revocations.

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President Donald Trump has installed an attorney and part-time beauty salon owner to decide which foreigners are allowed to enter the United States.

The State Department announced that Mora Namdar has been promoted from her post working on U.S foreign policy in the Middle East and North Africa to become assistant secretary for consular affairs, overseeing everything from passport issuance to visa approvals and revocations.

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Namdar, who is the daughter of Iranian immigrants, previously did the job on an interim basis during Trump’s first term in 2020.

Mora Namdar, center, photographed with her beauty salon team in 2017.Facebook

Namdar owns a mini-chain of beauty salons called Bam in her native Texas, with locations in the West Village in her hometown of Dallas, as well as in Fort Worth and Plano.

The original salon, she told Voyage Dallas magazine, was intended to be “gorgeous, sophisticated, and evoke dreams of a Parisian heaven in Dallas,” with a 20-foot flower wall, and grew out of her friends asking her to do their makeup at their weddings. “It dawned on me that there is a need for a gorgeous place that treats the styling of women like a form of art,” she said, while she told DMagazine in 2017 that it was “fun and cheeky.” Blowouts start at $45 and professional make-up sessions at $55.

Mora Namdar appeared on Good Morning Texas on WFAA 88 ABC in 2016 to promote her salon.Facebook

The chain has diversified into hair extensions, starting at $325, events, off-site events, including running lash and braid bars for $100-a-person and home visits.

Namdar combined owning the salon with running a one-woman law firm. On Christmas Day, she announced the firm was no longer active.

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She was also one of the contributors to the notorious Project 2025, which has heavily influenced Trump’s second term, writing a section about the U.S. Agency for Global Media (USAGM), according to the Columbia Journalism Review.

In it, Namdar accused USAGM—the federal umbrella for U.S.-funded broadcasters including Voice of America and Radio Free Europe—of serious mismanagement, “espionage-related security risks,” and of using “anti-U.S. talking points to parrot America’s adversaries’ propaganda,” while calling for it to be reformed or closed altogether.

Mora Namdar at the attorney’s office she owns.Instagram

Namdar’s Senate confirmation earlier this month now puts a politically connected operator with media experience in charge of a bureau that can effectively decide who gets to enter the United States—and who gets turned away.

In prepared testimony for her October Senate hearing, she framed visa adjudications as critical to national security, saying she concurred with Rubio’s assessment that if someone “undermine[s] our foreign policy, [then] consular officers have the authority to revoke their visa.”

Mora Namdar’s official government photo from 2020.State Department

Namdar’s record inside government has already drawn scrutiny. Several outlets have reported that her interim leadership in the State Department’s Near Eastern affairs bureau this year triggered internal concerns about management and morale.

She will now be leading moves by the administration to ban people entering the U.S. including actions against citizens of various European countries who the president, 79, and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, 54, announced on Wednesday had been barred from entering the U.S. for what it described as “egregious” censorship of “American viewpoints” on social media platforms, promising more would likely follow.

When reached for comment, the State Department’s Principal Deputy Spokesperson Tommy Pigott told the Daily Beast, “What a shameful, pathetic, and quite frankly sexist way to describe her career. Assistant Secretary Mora Namdar is an accomplished lawyer, business owner, and government official. Americans can be proud that patriotic public servants like her are stepping forward to serve our country and advance our national interests.”

Trump repeatedly sought to distance himself from Project 2025 during the campaign. But by year’s end, PBS reported that outside trackers estimate the administration has implemented roughly half the agenda’s goals, with “personnel is policy” hires—like Namdar, and Federal Communications Commission (FCC) chairman Brendan Carr—singled out as a key mechanism.

The FCC is the independent regulator that oversees broadcast licensing, telecom, and a growing share of the government’s fights over media power and “viewpoint” disputes.

Donald Trump and Brendan Carr pictured chatting in November 2024.Brandon Bell/Getty Images

Trump Pours Water on His FCC Attack Dog’s PlottingLEAD BALLOON

Cameron Adams

Carr, 46, authored Project 2025’s FCC chapter, which argues the agency should take a more aggressive posture toward “Big Tech” and what he calls a “censorship cartel,” while pairing that culture-war agenda with an explicit push to roll back swaths of existing telecom regulation.

Since taking the job, Carr has moved in ways that critics say align with those priorities—steps that have triggered Senate blowback and warnings from former FCC leaders about speech-chilling politicization.

The Daily Beast has also contacted Namdar for comment.

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REF

Inside the Hidden Conservative Network Bankrolling an “Ecosystem” of Right-Wing News – Mother Jones

GFX

“Now more than ever, the world needs an honest newsroom.” With these words, the little-known Informing America Foundation was awarded the $250,000 Gregor G. Peterson Prize in “venture philanthropy” last December for its “high-quality journalism.”

If few had heard of IAF, hinted the nonprofit’s CEO, Debbie Myers, it was by design. “We stay very much under the radar,” she said, accepting the prize at the 2024 annual summit of the American Legislative Exchange Council, the corporate-funded group that works to advance conservative policies at the state level. IAF’s goal, Myers explained, was to create an “ecosystem” of news. The group boasts of funding a network of thousands of platforms that have quietly shaped public opinion by stoking an array of right-wing conspiracy theories, from the alleged corruption of Joe Biden to the supposedly nefarious mission of the US Agency for International Development, along with more recent attacks on critics of President Donald Trump.

Myers, who once led Gingrich 360, Newt Gingrich’s multimedia production firm, is a longtime TV executive who helped produce shows such as Little People, Big World; Talk Soup; and Punkin Chunkin. Her “partner in crime” in launching IAF in 2021, as she described him as he joined her onstage, is John Solomon, a former investigative reporter for the Associated Press and Washington Post and a DC fixture who has drawn criticism for pushing right-wing stories and smearing Democrats with the kind of allegations that a Post ombudsman once described as “‘gotcha’ without a gotcha.”

In 2019, Solomon was at the forefront of efforts to tie Biden to shady dealings in Ukraine on his son Hunter’s behalf, penning a series of columns for The Hill that reported dubious information from Ukrainian prosecutors with an axe to grind. A 2020 review of his work by the paper called its reliability into question, concluding Solomon had “failed to identify important details about key Ukrainian sources, including the fact that they had been indicted or were under investigation.”

In the wake of the controversy, he set up the independent outlet Just the News and launched a podcast, John Solomon Reports. In an email, Solomon defended his Hill reporting’s accuracy and claimed he has no formal role at IAF, while confirming he provides it an office at the same K Street address as Just the News and another Solomon enterprise, Bentley Media Group. In 2021, Myers and Solomon also formed the Affinity Media Exchange, an advertising business that soon inked a deal with Trump’s Truth Social to be one of the platform’s ad representatives.

IAF’s tax filings, which say its mission is funding “investigative, explanatory, data-driven and multimedia journalism,” show it brought in close to $8 million in contributions during its first year, with the largest nonprofit donation coming from the family foundation of Diana Davis Spencer, whose late father, an investment banker, once chaired the Heritage Foundation. In subsequent years, millions have flowed to IAF through donor-advised charities that do not disclose the source of their initial contributions.

IAF, in turn, has doled out funds to an array of right-leaning outlets, including Just the News and Off the Press, run by Joseph Curl, a veteran of Drudge Report and the Washington Times. ADN América, aimed at Spanish speakers, received more than $1 million from IAF in the site’s first three years of operation. The foundation sent another million-plus to Performance One Media, which owns Real America’s Voice, the right-wing network best known for carrying Steve Bannon’s War Room. Real America’s Voice gave Solomon his own nightly show in 2022, which he has used to promote IAF allies.

IAF has also directed more than $1.7 million to Star News Digital Media, a conglomerate of 12 mostly battleground state sites whose names suggest a local focus but that actually push pro-GOP partisan news. Star News’ Tennessee Star, for instance, featured a section called “KamaLawfare” prior to the 2024 presidential election that highlighted incidents from Kamala Harris’ prosecutorial tenure in California, but seemed to ignore top news events in the state. One day this past June, the homepages of Star News outlets in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Georgia, and Virginia looked almost identical, all covering transgender youth health care in California, New York City’s mayoral race, and a Florida sheriff’s threats against anti-Trump protesters.

Media observers have dubbed such agenda-driven news sites “pink slime”—so named for by-products added as filler to ground beef. Pink slime news is a growing phenomenon, according to University of Cincinnati journalism professor Jeffrey Blevins, rising as partisan interests take advantage of the devastated newspaper market. “We saw these news deserts popping up,” he says. “It was very cheap to put in a website and say, ‘Okay, we’re doing local news.’ Local news is always seen as being more credible.” Sites like the Tennessee Star, he explains, use that perception to push “poor-quality” coverage “funded by some outside political interest.”

In 2023, the most recent year tax records are available, filings show IAF’s largest contribution—more than $1 million—went to the Institute for Citizen Focused Service, a secretive nonprofit set up by Interior Department officials from Trump’s first term. In turn, ICFS has funneled money to Pipeline Advisors, which holds a portfolio of local outlets—including the Midland Times, Austin Journal, Federal Newswire, and others—that have also been described as pink slime. All told, IAF says its news “ecosystem” includes “more than 2,000 hyperlocal platforms and 10 national platforms” reaching an audience of more than 50 million people.

One hallmark of IAF-connected organizations is that they often promote the same allegations and storylines. This is no accident: At the award ceremony last December, Myers provided a glimpse into how IAF works, explaining that each morning, the team gathers on a call to choose the stories they believe the mainstream media is ignoring. After hanging up, “we amplify each other,” she said, “and get it to the hands of the American people.”

Star News outlets regularly repackage Just theNews articles. Just the News writes stories based on Off the Press coverage and vice versa. They do not disclose their financial links. For example, Just the News covered the 2021 launch of Off the Press without noting that either organization was funded by IAF.

The network’s thousands of platforms have quietly shaped public opinion by stoking an array of right-wing conspiracy theories.

Solomon’s podcast often features guests from the broader IAF universe, including Mike Benz, a right-wing influencer and former Trump State Department official whose attacks targeting USAID as a “censorship octopus” helped fuel Elon Musk’s crusade to feed the agency to the “wood chipper.” Benz, a onetime alt-right Twitter troll, has appeared on Solomon’s show to rail against social media censorship and US foreign aid. In such appearances, he’s been identified as the executive director of the Foundation for Freedom Online—which is not a foundation, but which launched as a project of an organization called Empower Oversight that has also been heavily funded by IAF. An Empower Oversight spokesperson said the group served as FFO’s fiscal sponsor through February 2023. That year, Benz was paid $253,889 by ICFS.

In 2022, Benz began issuing reports from his one-man think tank positing a conspiracy to silence conservatives online. IAF-funded outlets have presented a drumbeat of interviews with him, in which he argued that outfits battling online disinformation—from media watchdogs like NewsGuard to the US military and Big Tech—were actually undertaking a project to suppress conservative voices. The interviews presented Benz as an independent expert—“Mike Benz exposes State Department’s use of USAID as an ‘intelligence cloak,’” said one Just the News headline—without revealing that his think tank was little more than a website whose existence seems to have been made possible by IAF. The interviews got repackaged as news by other outlets in the IAF stable, expanding their reach.

Empower Oversight, the organization that originally backed Benz, was formed in Virginia in 2021, just one day before IAF was registered in Washington, DC. IAF supplied Empower Oversight with the sole grant it received that year, a $400,000 allocation whose purpose, according to tax filings, was to “develop an infrastructure to cultivate, protect and work with whistleblowers.” Since its founding, Empower Oversight has focused heavily on typical MAGA obsessions, including the Russian collusion probe, purported FBI involvement in January 6, and Hunter Biden.

Empower Oversight is headed by Jason Foster—a longtime aide to Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley—whom ProPublica exposed in 2018 as an inflammatory blogger who wrote under the handle “Extremist.” According to ProPublica, Foster, a “partisan combatant” known for his “conspiratorial thinking,” was the main force behind the Senate Judiciary Committee’s scrutiny of research firm Fusion GPS and ex–British spy Christopher Steele, author of the 2016 memos alleging collusion between Trump and Russia.

Empower Oversight, which continues to receive most of its funding from IAF, represented Gary Shapley, an IRS criminal investigator who alleged that the Biden administration sandbagged a tax fraud investigation into Hunter Biden. (Earlier this year, Shapley briefly served as Trump’s IRS director.) Shapley’s allegations were heavily promoted by members of the IAF network, including Just the News, the Tennessee Star, and other Star News outlets such as the Pennsylvania Daily Star and the Arizona Sun Times.

During the Biden years, Empower Oversight’s work followed a familiar formula: First, it would file a battery of Freedom of Information Act requests to a federal agency, usually related to some right-wing intrigue or a query Grassley’s Senate office had submitted to that department. Empower Oversight then would frequently follow up with a lawsuit alleging deficiencies in the agency’s response. With the help of Solomon’s Just the News, it turned routine records requests and civil complaints into a PR bonanza, while fueling a narrative that the Biden administration and its supposed deep state allies were suppressing information.

While Benz did not respond to our requests for comment—and hung up when we called—he’s arguably delivered the most impact for IAF’s supporters. In April, the State Department shuttered its Global Engagement Center, which focused on combating foreign disinformation but which Benz had alleged was a government tool of anti-conservative censorship.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio rewarded Benz with an exclusive interview announcing the move. The next day, Just the News announced that the “censorship nerve center” had been shut down, and multiple Star News platforms dutifully signal-boosted the news. All cited Benz as merely a “former State official.”

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'Shameful': Trump State Dept Official Fired After Efforts to Denounce Ethnic Cleansing, Killing of Journalists | Common Dreams

aug 21

Human rights advocates and critics of the Trump administration are denouncing the US State Department's firing of a top media relations official who reportedly recommended "expressing condolences" for journalists killed by Israeli forces in Gaza and drafted a statement articulating US government opposition to what amounts to ethnic cleansing in the besieged enclave.

According to the Washington Post, Shahed Ghoreishi, the department's lead press officer on Israeli-Palestinian affairs, was fired Monday after a series of internal debates over how to characterize aspects of White House policy regarding Gaza, including over the release of a statement which simply said: "We do not support forced displacement of Palestinians in Gaza."...

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an 1119

https://www.alternet.org/2019/11/keystone-pipeline-springs-a-massive-leak-and-dumps-at-least-383000-gallons-of-oil-in-north-dakota/

n o lnx

Keystone pipeline springs a massive leak and dumps at least 383,000 gallons of oil in North Dakota

Written by Jake Johnson / Common Dreams November 1, 2019

Environmentalists were outraged but not at all surprised to learn Thursday that the Keystone pipeline sprung yet another massive leak, this time spilling 383,000 gallons of crude oil in North Dakota.

“I wish I could say I was shocked, but a major spill from the Keystone pipeline is exactly what multiple experts predicted would happen,” Greenpeace USA senior research specialist Tim Donaghy said in a statement. “In fact, this is the fourth significant spill from the Keystone pipeline in less than ten years of operation. History has shown us time and again that there is no safe way to transport fossil fuels, and pipelines are no exception.”

As 350.org founder Bill McKibben tweeted in response to the leak, “It happens over and over and over and over and over.”

The latest Keystone spill was first detected Tuesday night by TC Energy, the pipeline’s owner, and the extent of the damage to the surrounding areas is not yet known to the public. According to Greenpeace, the leak “is already the eighth-largest pipeline oil spill of the last decade.”

Greenpeace USA

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@greenpeaceusa

The Keystone pipeline just spilled AGAIN** — and is now the 8th largest pipeline oil spill in the past decade. ????

**Brought to you by the corporation that wants to build the much larger #KXL pipeline and have it cut right through the Midwest... https://nyti.ms/2oxONNq  #NoKXL

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11:15 AM - Oct 31, 2019

Twitter Ads info and privacy

127 people are talking about this

The Keystone pipeline just spilled AGAIN** — and is now the 8th largest pipeline oil spill in the past decade. ????

**Brought to you by the corporation that wants to build the much larger #KXL pipeline and have it cut right through the Midwest… https://t.co/gHXxIC12Sw #NoKXL

— Greenpeace USA (@greenpeaceusa) October 31, 2019

Brent Nelson, emergency manager for Walsh County, North Dakota, told the local Grand Forks Herald that the cleanup process could take months.

“The roads around the spill area have been closed to assist with the cleanup,” the Herald reported. “Walsh County Sheriff Ronald Jurgens asks the public to avoid the area so the cleanup process can proceed. On-site security will stop and fine any driver ignoring the closed road signs.”

TC Energy, previously known as TransCanada, denied that the spill had any impact on drinking water, a claim that was met with skepticism.

@RuthH_Hopkins

Keystone Pipeline leak spills oil in northeastern North Dakota

Corp says the oil hasn’t contaminated any drinking water & they’re cleaning it up butanyone who drives to the site will be fined by their security so who knows what’s going on. #NOKXL https://www.grandforksherald.com/news/4746575-Keystone-Pipeline-leak-spills-oil-in-northeastern-North-Dakota …

Keystone Pipeline leak spills oil in northeastern North Dakota

Corp says the oil hasn’t contaminated any drinking water & they’re cleaning it up but anyone who drives to the site will be fined by their security so who knows what’s going on. #NOKXL https://t.co/7H6Dcz4bsm

— Ruth Hopkins (@RuthH_Hopkins) October 31, 2019

Catherine Collentine, associate director of Sierra Club’s Beyond Dirty Fuels initiative, said “this is not the first time this pipeline has spilled toxic tar sands, and it won’t be the last.”

“We’ve always said it’s not a question of whether a pipeline will spill, but when,” said Collentine, “and once again TC Energy has made our case for us.”

Keystone’s leak in North Dakota was detected just hours after the U.S. State Department held a public hearing in Billings, Montana to solicit comments on the department’s new analysis (pdf) of the potential environmental impact of the Keystone XL project.

The Trump administration has worked hard to approve and accelerate the project over the protests and legal challenges of indigenous rights organizations and green groups.

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Joye Braun, frontline community organizer with the Indigenous Environmental Network, said the State Department meeting on Keystone XL “seemed more like an industry showcase rather than public comment hearing.”

“We stand firm in opposing this project as the latest spill is further evidence of just how dangerous pipelines are,” said Braun.

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new

fire disloyal, in line for bolton gig?

https://www.alternet.org/2019/09/trump-official-expected-to-get-slammed-and-recommended-for-discipline-in-new-ig-investigation-report/

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new 919

https://www.alternet.org/2019/09/the-right-wings-massive-free-speech-hypocrisy-bret-stephens-and-mo-brooks-are-the-tip-of-the-iceberg/

no lnx

The right-wing’s massive free-speech hypocrisy: Bret Stephens and Mo Brooks are the tip of the iceberg

Written by Sophia Tesfaye / Salon September 1, 2019

Last week’s embarrassing “bedbug” saga, in which a harmless joke finally drove New York Times columnist Bret Stephens off Twitter, is a perfect example of the incredibly thin skin possessed by most of the vocal “free speech warriors” who have used fear-mongering over the supposed silencing of discourse on college campus to leapfrog from the right wing into the mainstream. The hilarious anecdote also usefully breaks down the false premise upon which this particular battle in the culture wars is built on.

After it was reported this week that the New York Times headquarters has a bedbug infestation, David Karpf, an associate professor at George Washington University, tweeted: “The bedbugs are a metaphor. The bedbugs are Bret Stephens.”

Without even being tagged in a tweet that had initially garnered zero retweets, Stephens noticed. He then wrote an email to Karpf to bemoan his lack of civility, sending a copy to the provost of Karpf’s university.

“I’m often amazed about the things supposedly decent people are prepared to say about other people — people they’ve never met — on Twitter,” Stephens wrote in a now-infamous email to Karpf. “I would welcome the opportunity for you to come to my home, meet my wife and kids, talk to us for a few minutes, and then call me a ‘bedbug’ to my face.”

Stephens later explained on MSNBC that he snitched to Karpf’s boss not in an effort to get him fired, but because “managers should know” about their employee’s private speech. This is the same Bret Stephens who has warned against trigger warnings in the classroom: “If you can’t speak freely, you’ll quickly lose the ability to think clearly.”

A day before Stephens’ Twitter-induced meltdown, aright-wing Republican congressman called for a university professor to be fired for his speech.

After Allen Frances, former chair of the Duke University department of psychiatry, appeared on CNN last weekend, Rep. Mo Brooks, R-Ala., took to Twitter to call for his firing. Brooks objected to Frances’ argument that “Trump is as destructive a person in this century as Hitler, Stalin and Mao were in the last century.”

Brooks, who has previously compared Democrats and the media to Hitler, declared in a recent press release: “I support freedom and free enterprise. I oppose free speech suppression and Socialism.”

Both calls for suppression of speech from prominent voices on the right come about a week after a targeted campaign by right-wing media resulted in a professor actually losing his job because of political speech and association.

Conservative websites piled on Jeff Klinzman, an adjunct English professor at Kirkwood Community College in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, over a post on a Facebook page named“Iowa Antifa.”After someone shared a tweet in which Trump referred to antifa protesters as “Radical Left Wack Jobs who go around hitting … people over the heads with baseball bats,” Klinzman commented, “Yeah, I know who I’d clock with a bat,” ABC affiliate KCRG reported.

Trump said in July that his administration was considering designating anti-fascists as a terrorist organization after GOP Sens. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana and Ted Cruz of Texas introduced a non-binding resolution to label members of antifa groups as “domestic terrorists.”

Klinzman was forced to resign from his teaching position following the national outcry.

Few so-called free speech advocates came to Klinzman’s defense. Not New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman, who once wrote, “Political correctness on college campuses has run ridiculously riot,” or his colleague Ross Douthat, who complained about the “fainting-couch politics of recent campus and online progressivism.”

Even fewer have taken up the cause of Ismail B. Ajjawi,a 17-year-old Palestinian student recently detained at Boston’s Logan Airport on his way to Harvard University. The Harvard Crimson reported that U.S. officials interrogated Ajjawi, who was arriving to begin his freshman year at Harvard on a full scholarship, for eight hours. After searching his phone and computer, authorities eventually revoked his visa and sent him home to Lebanon, where he had lived as a refugee. Ajjawi’s visa cancellation came just days before the U.S. State Department removed Palestine from its official list of countries.

According to a written statement by Ajjawi, an immigration officer claimed she “found people posting political points of view that oppose the U.S.,” though she discovered nothing Ajjawi had posted himself.

Not enough details are available on Ajjawi’s case to know whether any of his friends’ offensive posts were threatening in nature. But since there was no official boasting about having stopped a potential terrorist, it seems highly unlikely there was any imminent threat or any apparent history of radicalism. Indeed, Ajjawi is not even being punished for something he said — but for something his friends apparently said.

And his case comes the same week an inspector general released a report on political targeting within the State Department.

That investigation was launched following media reports of political retribution and the administering of a sort ofloyalty test after Donald Trump’s inauguration. The State Department inspector general’s office found a pattern of inappropriate actions by Kevin Moley, assistant secretary of state for the department’s Bureau of International Organization Affairs, and his senior adviser, Mari Stull.

According to Foreign Policy,Stull’s job had been to “scour the social media accounts of employees, diplomatic staffers, and employees of international organizations connected to the US, to determine if they’re devoted and dutiful to Trump and his agenda.”

Moley and Stull were also accused of deciding not to fill a bureau role that dealt with human rights because they did not like the leading candidate for the role, possibly because of the person’s relationship with the LGBTQ community.The person’s past work with a UN agency that deals with Palestinian refugees was also said to have bothered Stull, who felt the agency was anti-Semitic.

The IG’s report found that Stull had referred to her colleagues in the IO Bureau as the “swamp” on her personal Twitter account. On the allegation that Stull retaliated against career officials perceived as politically disloyal, the inspector general “found evidence of leadership and management deficiencies and mistreatment of career employees in the Bureau of International Organization Affairs.”

The majority of the employees the inspector general’s office interviewed, the report stated, “either directly experienced hostile treatment or witnessed such treatment directed at others.”Many of the bureau’s staffers said Stull “made positive or negative comments about employees based on perceived political views,” including referring to career employees as “‘Obama holdovers,’ ‘traitors,’ or ‘disloyal.’”

Stull told Foreign Policy that the inspector general’s “report is politically motivated paybackfor my efforts to implement President Trump’s agenda over the resistance of Deep State bureaucrats who opposed his reform agenda.”

Free speech is just a tool for conservatives, who have no serious commitment to the First Amendment or any other doctrine of basic human rights. The moment such freedom doesn’t further their ideology, it magically disappears.

==

Tony Perkins, president of the anti-LGBTQ Religious Right organization Family Research Council, was invited to speak at an event hosted by the State Department this week, where he has been rubbing elbows with some of the Trump administration’s top brass, who have been dropping by his radio studio for exclusive interviews on his show, Washington Watch.

The State Department is hosting a three-day Ministerial to Advance Religious Freedom in Washington, where a bipartisan lineup of high-ranking officials is discussing threats to religious liberty across the world. Perkins spoke at the event yesterday, and broadcast his weekday radio program from the State Department.

In addition to his role at Family Research Council, Perkins chairs the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, to which he was appointed on the recommendation of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell despite the fact that Perkins’ group was identified as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center for its attacks against the LGBTQ community and brings with it a well-documented track record of anti-Muslim rhetoric.

On Monday, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was a guest on Perkins’ show, there to hype the State Department’s event to Perkins’ Religious Right audience. The following day, Mark Green, administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), joined Perkins on his radio show to talk about the importance of USAID pairing with religious groups to fulfill their missions abroad.

“For us at USAID, around the world, we are far more effective when we partner with the community of faith,” Green said. “The community of faith, faith-based organizations, help us to reach corners that we could not reach in this world through the government.”

Perkins agreed, praising the Trump administration for its work with religious groups, adding, “Together we can do so much more than if we try to do it alone.” At the end of the interview, Green told Perkins, who has a troubled history regarding racism: “I’m honored to be with you.”

That affirming message is in stark contrast to the elements of Perkins’ public record that raised concerns about his appointment to the USCIRF. As Right Wing Watch’s Peter Montgomery noted after Perkins’ election to USCIRF chair in June:

As recently as 2015, Perkins claimed that Islam “is incompatible with the Constitution.”  That same year, he defended calls to restrict the immigration of Muslims by declaring that “only 16 percent of Islam is a religion.” The year before, he suggested that Christians who support legal equality for LGBTQ people don’t have the same legal protections as more conservative Christians, because a “true religious freedom” has to be “based on orthodox religious viewpoints.”

It’s also worth noting that the Family Research Council is one of the Religious Right groups that have eagerly worked with the most religiously oppressive regimes—those classified by the USCIRF as among the worst for religious liberty—in order to resist international recognition for the rights of LGBTQ people and to defend governments’ right to enforce “traditional” religious views on gender, sexuality, and family.

Scholars have argued that religious intolerance at home undermines the United States’ ability to advocate for human rights overseas.

Tags: Mark GreenMike PompeoTony PerkinsAnti-LGBTReligious RightFamily Research CouncilU.S. State DepartmentUSAID

==

Top Trump official face-plants at House hearing after being asked a simple question about Russia

written by Tana Ganeva / Raw Story July 11, 2019

On Wednesday, the House Appropriations Committee held a hearing titled, “United States Efforts to Counter Russian Disinformation and Malign Influence.”

When Rep. Lois Frankel (D-FL) questioned Lea Gabrielle — a top State department official under Trump — for examples of Russian disinformation campaigns around the world she replied with a drawn-out “Ummm,” ABC reports.

“It is clear that the Kremlin has been attempting to damage America’s credibility among our allies and our partners, undermine trans-Atlantic unity, and to sow discord in target societies,” Gabrielle testified. “They covertly plant false stories.”

Frankel wanted her to name concrete examples.

“What are the tales that they are telling, their fake news. What do you see?” Frankel wanted to know. “Give me a couple of examples of fake stories. Because we’ve been talking in generalities, I’d like to know what kind of information they’re spreading. What are they saying, for example?”

“Well, it really depends on the country,” Gabrielle said.

Frankel pressed her for an example.

“Well, just give me an example,” Frankel said. “Pick a country and give me an example.”

“Um,” Gabrielle said.

“Anybody can help her,” Frankel said.

That’s when another official was forced to step in and chronicle all the recent instances of Russian propaganda, ranging from a false narrative about NATO exercises, political unrest in Venezuela and the poisoning of British citizens.

Gabrielle is a former Fox News correspondent, according to ABC.

In a report released last October, the Brookings institute warned that although Russia’s goals and strategies aren’t new, the Kremlin is increasingly mastering digital tools to sow division and distrust by blending the line between fiction and fact.

“Over the next few months we are going to see more disinformation campaigns, including fake websites that work together as a network to spread disinformation, fake personalities and entities on Twitter and Facebook, and manipulation of social media networks’ algorithms, including Google, YouTube, and others,” the report concluded.

“And we’re not really paying enough attention to algorithmic manipulation.”

And as artificial intelligence becomes more sophisticated, so will Russia’s propaganda campaigns.

“Right now, humans control and produce online entities like bots and trolls,” the report notes.

“But soon, disinformation campaigns will become more automated, smarter, and more difficult to detect. AI driven disinformation will be better targeted to specific audiences; AI driven online entities will be able to predict and manipulate human responses; At some point very soon, we won’t be able to tell the difference between automated accounts and human entities.”

WATCH:

==

new, basically sci suppr

https://www.desmogblog.com/2019/06/10/rod-schoonover-trump-attempted-suppress-state-dept-analyst-testimony-climate-crisis

The Trump administration issued one of its most blatant attacks on climate science this past week when it tried to stop a State Department employee from testifying on the climate crisis, reports showed on Saturday.

As the Washington Post reported, intelligence analyst Rod Schoonover's testimony was submitted to the White House for approval ahead of his planned appearance before the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. His remarks focused on the national security risks posed by the climate crisis.

The Trump administration refused to approve the testimony for entry into the congressional record, noting that the data Schoonover planned to present—drawing from top government scientists' research and peer-reviewed scientific reports—did not align with the executive branch's views.

[pix]

National Security Council advisers wrote a number of comments on Schoonover's draft, saying the testimony was “not objective.”

The testimony “includes lots of climate alarm propaganda that is not science at all,” wrote William Happer,a senior member of the National Security Council who has sought to create a federal task force to challenge the consensus reached by 97 percentof peer-reviewed climate scientists who say humans are contributing to the climate crisis.

“I am embarrassed to have this go out on behalf of the executive branch of the federal government,” Happer added, noting a particular objection to Schoonover's use of the term “tipping point” in reference to possible devastating, irreversible effects of the climate crisis.

“'Tipping points' is a propaganda slogan for the scientifically illiterate,” Happer wrote.

Related: Get the background from DeSmog on climate science denier William Happer, and read: Physicist William Happer, the 'Unmoored' Climate Science Denier Heading a White House Climate Probe

Schoonover was ultimately permitted to testify before the committee, but his testimony was not submitted into the record because, the Office of Legislative Affairs said, it did not “jibe” with the Trump administration's views on the climate.

President Donald Trump and many of his appointeesdenythat human activity like the extraction of fossil fuels are contributing to the warming of the globe, which scientists warn is already causing extreme weather events like hurricanes and wildfires, rising sea levels, and melting glaciers. As Schoonover mentioned in his testimony, the last five years have been the warmest on record according to NASA.

Although Schoonover was able to testify, climate action advocates decried the White House's attempt to stifle the information he eventually shared with the committee.

“Any attempt to suppress information on the security risks of climate change threatens to leave the American public vulnerable and unsafe,” Francesco Femia, chief executive of the Council on Strategic Risks and co-founder of the Center for Climate and Security, told the Post.

...

==

Trump State Dept. Attempts 'Shortcut' to Build KXL Pipeline, Groups Say

Environmentalists spoke out against President Donald Trump's State Department after it found "no significant environmental impacts" in its review of TransCanada's long-gestating Keystone XL (KXL) pipeline.

The alternative route approved by Nebraska regulators in November would have "minor to moderate" impacts from its construction and operation, according to the 300-page draft report released Monday. It said the route would not have a major impact on the state's water resources, soils or wildlife. It may cause minor impacts on cultural resources such as Native American graves.

==

Andrew Veprek

https://www.alternet.org/donald-trumps-startling-global-agenda-taking-white-supremacy-worldwide

Trump is engaged in a systematic effort to make the United States less powerful and less respected around the world. America is too great a country to be defeated and brought down by an outside power. Such damage can likely only be inflicted from within at the hands of a dangerous president, a feckless political party and their tens of millions of authoritarian followers.

President Barack Obama warned about this threat in his farewell address:

But protecting our way of life, that's not just the job of our military. Democracy can buckle when it gives in to fear. So, just as we, as citizens, must remain vigilant against external aggression, we must guard against a weakening of the values that make us who we are. ... So let's be vigilant, but not afraid. ISIL will try to kill innocent people. But they cannot defeat America unless we betray our Constitution and our principles in the fight. Rivals like Russia or China cannot match our influence around the world -- unless we give up what we stand for and turn ourselves into just another big country that bullies smaller neighbors. Which brings me to my final point: Our democracy is threatened whenever we take it for granted.  Examples of the ways Trump is weakening America's global position are numerous: He has threatened to withdraw the United States from NATO, nearly broke apart the G7 alliance at the recent Quebec summit, has effectively surrendered economic leadership across the Pacific region to China by withdrawing from the Trans-Pacific Partnership and has withdrawn from both the Iran nuclear deal and the Paris Climate Agreement.

Donald Trump's administration has also shown a clear and obvious disdain for human rights. To that end, he has gone so far as to withdraw the United States from the U.N. Human Rights Council.

Donald Trump's hostility to human rights and human dignity does not stop there. In an underreported but important story, several weeks ago the Trump administration launched an effort to remove any language from standard United Nations documents condemning racism as a threat to democracy.

Donald Trump's white supremacist agenda is not limited to the United States. It is international.

Writing at CNN, Michelle Kosinski explains this extraordinary event, when a career foreign service officer named Andrew Veprek, who was rapidly promoted by the Trump administration to a senior State Department post, "disputed the idea that leaders have a 'duty to condemn hate speech and incitement, and repeatedly rejected use of the words nationalism, populism, and xenophobia":

Rob Berschinski, a former deputy assistant secretary of state for human rights under Obama, told CNN that Veprek's changes seemed to reflect a feeling that "the UN language is targeted at the Trump administration, when it mentions racism in political circles. ... Clearly, he is making these edits to reduce the power of the resolution, as relates to racism in politics.""The drafters say 'populism and nationalism' as if these are dirty words," wrote Andrew Veprek, the deputy assistant secretary for refugees and migration, in documents obtained exclusively by CNN. "There are millions of Americans who likely would describe themselves as adhering to these concepts. (Maybe even the President.). So are we looking to here condemn our fellow-citizens, those who pay our salaries?" ...

Veprek also pushed to soften language about fighting racism and about racism in politics in his proposed amendments to a UN Human Rights Council resolutiontitled "The Incompatibility between Democracy and Racism" that is adopted without a vote, with much of the same language, every few years.

In response to one section that says national leaders have a responsibility to condemn hate speech, Veprek writes, "'[d]uty to condemn' goes too far. Our public figures can't be obliged to police every intolerant thought out their [sic] at the risk of being condemned for intolerance themselves."

Veprek apparently also objected to language that said the UN remained "alarmed at the rise of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance in political circles."

There are several serious problems with the Trump administration's effort to whitewash the UN language about racism and its relationship to human rights and healthy societies. First, as is common with Trump's administration and the American right more generally, there is a deep disdain for empirical reality. This is especially true in discussions of the color line."To refer to the 'rise' of racism resumes [sic] (1) there was some more innocent time when racism didn't exist in the world; or (2) racism is increasing over some unspecified previous time," Veprek wrote, as quoted by CNN. "Is there evidence for either of these assertions?"

Contrary to Veprek's claims, there is considerable evidence that racism is increasing in the U.S. specifically and throughout the West more generally. Most notably, as evidenced by the election of openly racist candidates like Donald Trump to high office.

Structural violence persists and has expanded, with increasingly draconian and often punitive state-sponsored harassment directed against nonwhite immigrants and refugees throughout the Western world.

In the United States, police continue to kill assault, and harass innocent and unarmed black and brown people at disproportionate rates, as compared to whites. The racial wealth gap persists, and depending on how it is measured, is actually growing. It has been suggested that by 2053 the average net worth of African-American families will be zero.

There is also a coordinated effort by the Trump administration and the Republican Party in general to prevent black Americans and other nonwhites from voting, This is both part of a broader assault on civil rights and a means of locking down political power.

Trump and the Republican Party's assault on the social safety will also disproportionately harm nonwhites. This too is a type of structural violence and racism.

Right-wing authoritarian movements based upon racism and nativism are threatening democracies around the world. In Europe and the United States this global movement has overtones of violence and views the Other -- in particular, nonwhites and Muslims -- as the enemy.

Public opinion and other research also shows a shift in mass opinion in Europe and America (especially among white conservatives and less educated people) toward more intolerant attitudes regarding nonwhites, immigrants and Muslims.

The UN has issued several reports calling attention to structural and interpersonal racism and other forms of social inequality in the United States.

After the horrors of World War II and the Holocaust the United States assumed a global leadership role in advancing the cause of human rights. This was complicated by the harsh reality that the United States was a society where discrimination against African-Americans and other nonwhites remained commonplace. In the context of the Cold War and the global struggle against Soviet power and influence, Jim Crow American apartheid was a mark of shame which the Soviets exploited to their advantage to build alliances with revolutionary movements in Africa, Asia and Latin America.

The foot soldiers and leaders in the black freedom struggle also highlighted this gross hypocrisy: How could a country that fought against Nazism and condemned the horrors of the Holocaust allow lynchings, racial violence and discrimination against its own citizens?

Mary Dudziak explores this theme in her book "Cold War Civil Rights: Race and the Image of American Democracy":

The lesson of this story was always that American democracy was a form of government that made the achievement of social justice possible, and that democratic change, however slow and gradual, was superior to dictatorial imposition. The story of race in America, used to compare democracy and communism, became an important Cold War narrative.

Former Secretary of State Dean Acheson once observed that “the existence of discrimination against minority groups in this country has an adverse effect upon our relations with other countries. We are reminded over and over by some foreign newspapers and spokesmen, that our treatment of various minorities leaves much to be desired. … We will have better international relations when those reasons for suspicion and resentment have been removed.”

America's more forward-thinking elites understood that if the United States was to defeat the Soviet Union and Communism abroad it would have to confront Jim and Jane Crow and other forms of white supremacy at home. Winning the Cold War, expanding and maintaining American hegemony required it.

Trump and his allies and supporters reject this legacy of American leadership. Their policies seek to undermine human rights both globally and within the United States. In all, the Trump presidency and Republican Party are overtly hostile to nonwhites around the world.

The United States (ostensibly) defended human and civil rights both abroad and at home as a means of defeating the Soviet Union. Now, some three decades after the Cold War ended, Donald Trump has embraced the Christian nationalism and racial authoritarianism of Vladimir Putin's Russia. It appears that Trump does not want the United States to be the world's preeminent power but rather a country (and people) in the orbit of Russia. History repeats itself, first as tragedy and then as farce -- and in the case of Trump's America, as tragedy once again.

==

APRIL 23, 2018

War on Peace

Ronan Farrow talks about the role of the State Department and American diplomacy in the world today.

https://www.c-span.org/video/?444249-2/war-peace

https://www.ecowatch.com/keystone-xl-approval-2538558599.html

Inside the Trump Admin's Fight to Keep the Keystone XL Approval Process Secret

By Steve Horn

At a Feb. 21 hearing, a U.S. District Court judge ruled that the Trump administration must either fork over documents showing how the U.S. Department of State reversed an earlier decision and ultimately came to approve the Keystone XL pipeline, or else provide a substantial legal reason for continuing to withhold them. The federal government has an order to deliver the goods, one way or the other, by March 21.

DeSmog has reviewed the court evidence from the environmental groups bringing the case, records which help illuminate their argument that the government is, in fact, withholding such documents. The judge will decide if those documents, legally, should be made public.

The case, which began in March 2017, pits the Indigenous Environmental Network and the North Coast River Alliance against the State Department, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the U.S. Department of interior and TransCanada, the owner of Keystone XL. During his first week in office, Donald Trump signed a memorandumcalling for the State Department to perform an expedited 60-day permit review of the pipeline. Two months later, the State Department gave Keystone XL the permit it needed to cross the U.S.-Canada border.

Under the Obama administration, the Keystone XL pipeline, which would carry oil from Alberta's tar sands, underwent a years-long environmental review process which culminated in President Barack Obama nixing it in November 2015. For the better part of the past decade, the pipeline has served as a central mobilizing force for the environmental movement.

Dispute Over Records

At the center of this case is a dispute over the administrative records of federal agencies, which in other lawsuits are routinely made public as part of the pre-trial process.

Generally, releasing such documents gives a snapshot of the full deliberative process behind federal agencies' decisions. DeSmog, in fact, published a story on such documents in 2015 related to a different tar sands pipeline project, which involved Enbridge's Alberta Clipper (also known as Line 67), part of a broader pipeline system DeSmog calls the "Keystone XLClone."

In the TransCanada case, the State Department has argued for keeping these pre-trial records sealed while the plaintiffs, the environmental groups, have argued they should be made public. These documents, which might include emails and memos, would offer the plaintiffs and the general public an idea of how the Trump administration decided to approve the Keystone XL.

The plaintiffs say that not all of those records have been turned over.

"Federal Defendants have wrongly omitted an unknown number of emails and other internal communications considered by the agencies during their review of the Keystone XL pipeline," the plaintiffs in the case argued in court documents on Jan. 8.

In an affidavit exhibited as part of that filing, Cecilia Segal, an attorney for one of the plaintiffs, cited a Dec. 19 phone call she had with the federal defendants, in which they said that agency emails and other records do not need to be disclosed as part of the case.

Another letter exhibited as part of the Jan. 8 filing, written on Nov. 30 by attorneys for the Center for Biological Diversity, further complained that the documents already handed over were not adequately comprehensive or organized in a manner useful for the case. And many documents, they allege, seem to be missing entirely and without explanation.

"We are concerned that both the State Department and Service have withheld records as privileged without identifying and certifying them on a privilege log," wrote the attorneys.

==

https://theintercept.com/2017/04/24/trumps-new-state-department-spokesperson-spread-anti-muslim-hate-as-fox-anchor/

Nauert is the second Fox journalist to jump to the State Department.

Jonathan Wachtel, who served as a producer for the network's United Nations beat, was named spokesman for the U.S. mission to the U.N. on Feb. 25.

==

trans team dhs: Michael Dougherty, CEO of the Secure Identity and Biometrics Association and former ombudsman at U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services

--

trumpistas:

==

The entire senior level of management officials at the State Department exited en masseThursday, according to a new report from the Washington Post.

The move comes on the heels of the Senate committee's approval of Rex Tillerson for secretary of state and a new executive order to freeze all federal hiring. The Trump administration had been narrowing its search for its No. 2 and three officials at the time of the announcement. Departing members of state include Assistant Secretary of State for Administration Joyce Anne Barr, Assistant Secretary of State for Consular Affairs Michele Bond and Ambassador Gentry O. Smith, director of the Office of Foreign Missions. Undersecretary for Management Patrick Kennedy, who had served in the department for nine years and had been working with the Trump transition team, abruptly quit as well.

"It's the single biggest simultaneous departure of institutional memory that anyone can remember, and that's incredibly difficult to replicate," said David Wade, the State Department chief of staff under John Kerry. "Department expertise in security, management, administrative and consular positions in particular are very difficult to replicate and particularly difficult to find in the private sector."

Wade further highlighted the dangers implicit in such a move, especially with Trump left to fill those positions.

"Diplomatic security, consular affairs, there's just not a corollary that exists outside the department, and you can least afford a learning curve in these areas where issues can quickly become matters of life and death," he told the Washington Post. "The muscle memory is critical. These retirements are a big loss. They leave a void. These are very difficult people to replace."

The new administration has yet to comment on the resignations. Donald Trump has been in office for a total of six days.

UPDATE: CNN confirms that senior management at the State Department was removed as part of a larger White House effort to "clean house." All four career officials reportedly submitted letters of resignation shortly after Trump's inauguration.

==

occupy: 

On Thursday we found out via Inside Climate News and Brad Johnson over at Grist that the environmental impact statement the State Department just released on the Keystone XL pipeline was written by a private consulting firm being paid by the pipeline’s owner.

This obviously raises concerns about conflicts of interest with the report itself, but it also highlights the problems with turning government work and analysis over to private firms with possible financial ties to other private entities who may be affected by that work and analysis — a phenomenon that’s been underway since the 1990s.

State’s report, which found that the pipeline was “unlikely to have a substantial impact on the rate of development in the oil sands,” and will “not likely result in significant adverse environmental effects,” was written by Environmental Resources Management (ERM).

Several years ago, Cardno Entrix, another private consultancy, was contracted by TransCanada to handle the State Department’s initial draft of the environmental impact statement, the Department’s hearings on the pipeline, and even its Keystone XL website.

As Johnson reported, ERM was paid “an undisclosed amount under contract to TransCanada” for the assessment:

The documents from the ERM-TransCanada agreement are on the State Department’s website, but payment amounts and other clients and past work of ERM are redacted. In the contract documents, ERM partner Steven J. Koster certifies that his company has no conflicts of interest. He also certifies that ERM has no business relationship with TransCanada or “any business entity that could be affected in any way by the proposed work” (notwithstanding the impact statement contract itself). In a cover letter, Koster promises State Department NEPA Coordinator Genevieve Walker that ERM understands “the need for an efficient and expedited process to meet the demands of the desired project schedule.” An investigation by Inside Climate News finds that ERM’s report draws from work done by other oil industry contractors, Ensys Energy and ICF International.

According to State’s report, the department “directed the preparation,” but the project’s manager is the only government official actually listed on the cover page.

Inside Climate News reported Ensys has worked with ExxonMobil, BP and Koch Industries, though Ensys president Martin Tallet emphasized the consulting firm has also worked with the Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of Energy, and the World Bank.

“We don’t do advocacy,” Tallett told Inside Climate News, pointing out that EnSys employees acted as expert witnesses for various state water agencies and against the oil industry in court cases on groundwater contamination from MBTE, a gasoline additive. “If we were the pet of government agencies or oil companies, the other side wouldn’t come to us.”

ICF International declined to comment on the Keystone report.

According to both David Driesen, a law professor at Syracuse University and a former attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Council, and Joel A. Mintz, a law professor at Florida’s Nova Southeastern University, conflicts of interest can be difficult to avoid in practice, whatever the official statements:

“I think the question of conflict of interest is a legitimate one,” Driesen said. If consulting firms are “used to working for industry clients, it’s possible they would subtly orient their analysis in a certain way, and that could be reflected” in the document. “The marketplace and ethics sometimes collide,” said Mintz, who is a member scholar at the Center for Progressive Reform, which favors green policies. “If their livelihood comes from consulting for the oil and gas industry, I think it would be expected they’d be sympathetic to their future and past clients. They’ll want to keep consulting.”

As Inside Climate News points out, State’s Keystone report is actually part of a larger trend, spanning more than a decade, of government farming out work it used to do in-house to private contractors.

While the Defense Department has driven the majority of the contracting the United States government does with private firms, the practice ramped up in other departments significantly in the 1990s with the arrival of then-Vice President Al Gore’s “Reinventing Government” initiative. Since then, the federal workforce has shrunk as the contractor workforce has grown.

According to a report by the Center for Public Integrity, the government was spending $200 billion a year on private contractors as of 2003. A scholar at the Brookings Institution named Paul Light called this workforce the “shadow government,” estimating its size in 1999 at 5.6 million.

Government agencies now routinely outsource reports like State’s environmental impact statement because they don’t have the staff or resources to handle the work in-house, and given the ubiquity of consulting firms’ work with industry, it’s difficult to find a company that doesn’t have industry ties.

Kathleen Clark — a practicing lawyer and law professor at Washington University in St. Louis, and an expert on government ethics — told Inside Climate News that, “In general, the government has rather strict standards for conflict of interest for its own employees, and in general when it outsources work to contractors, it doesn’t outsource those standards.”