339 search results for "certification"

Friday Night Soother

by digby

Some good boys and girls:

In a children’s hospital of Italy – therapeutic dogs are impatiently waiting to see their respective children. pic.twitter.com/sCwPbLTNFI

— Fluff Society (@FluffSociety) April 26, 2017

Need we say more? Happy #NationalSuperheroDay! 🐶 pic.twitter.com/IZEkyC92xS

— Humane Society (@HumaneSociety) April 28, 2017

PERIODIC TABLE DOG #marchforscience #London pic.twitter.com/Hz9E9Jipwo

— Rowan Hooper (@rowhoop) April 22, 2017

Dog lovers the world over know well that their pets help them through all kinds of stressful situations and certainly the loss of a loved one is no exception.In Austin, TX, an 11-month-old puppy is now in training to provide that comfort to families who desperately need it, not to mention those who make their living in the funeral industry.Several months ago, mortician Melissa Unfred adopted Kermit from Fuzzy Friends Rescue in Waco, and he has proved to alleviate quite a bit of her own job stress. While she enjoys helping others through a difficult life situation, it’s a difficult road.“My job is really hard,” Unfred told ABC affiliate KVUE. “We’re faced every day with tragedies and sad situations and it can take a toll on you over time.

”The border collie mix, she says, is a stabilizing force.“He’s very positive in the face of death. He’s even helped me face these type of situations. Every day, I’m dumbfounded that I lucked into such a smart dog.”She realized early on Kermit carried himself differently when he was at the funeral home.“His demeanor would start to fit perfectly with the situation,” Unfred said. “A lot of people have been really surprised that he’s not hyper. You see that as a hand will go out to pet him, it’s like an immediate sigh of relief. I’ve seen it over and over again, whether we’re at a funeral or a nursing home or somebody has just passed away, he is there to be a calm presence.”

Unfred works for Affordable Burial and Cremation Service in Austin. The business’s owner, Robert Falcon, sees the impact Kermit has on the customers.“When he shows up, he calms the room. Kermit has a presence to him,” says Falcon.Falcon added that sometimes, when someone starts to break down in his office, Kermit seems to come in at just the right time.“There have been times …” Falcon said “…when I’m sitting there at the desk with the family going through a tough moment, and he will come up and introduce himself. He will just sit and have a presence. He has a knack to find the person who is hurting the most.”Unfred has also noticed Kermit’s ability to go to the person in the most pain.“He can kind of sense the energy in the room,” Unfred said. “Sometimes I will start to go upstairs and Kermit isn’t behind me. He ended up staying behind and Robert has seen him in action. He just moves himself into the position where he’s closest to the primary griever.”Kermit already has his good citizenship certification, as he is now just a few weeks from turning 1. Once he hits that first birthday, Kermit can be certified as a grief therapy dog, making him the first therapy funeral dog in all of Texas.

He is such a good, sweet boy.

.

A series of mutually “auspicious moments”

by digby

They’re just ignoring the ethics office:

The office tasked with overseeing ethics and conflicts in the federal government struggled to gain access to leaders of the Trump transition team, and warned Trump aides about making decisions on nominees or blind trusts without ethics guidance, according to new emails obtained by MSNBC.

Office of Government Ethics Director Walter Shaub emailed Trump aides in November to lament that despite his office’s repeated outreach, “we seem to have lost contact with the Trump-Pence transition since the election.”

Trump aides may also be risking “embarrassment for the President-elect,” Shaub warned, by “announcing cabinet picks” without letting the ethics office review their financial information in advance.

The perils for White House staff were even more severe, Shaub argued, because they might begin their jobs without crucial ethics guidance, raising a risk of inadvertently breaking federal rules.

“They run the risk of having inadvertently violated the criminal conflicts of interest restriction at 18 USC 208,” Shaub wrote, citing a federal conflicts law in an email to Trump Transition aide Sean Doocey.

“If we don’t get involved early to prevent problems,” he added, “we won’t be able to help them after the fact.”

Shaub also warned that if Trump tried to create his own “blind trust” without the ethics office, the effort could be dead on arrival.

Related: Trump Pushes Back Announcement on Business Conflicts of Interest

The government might decide potential trustees were not independent, he cautioned, if Trump aides talked to them “before consulting” with the ethics office.

In contrast to most proposals floated by the Trump transition team, Shraub added that the ethics office only considers a trust blind if its underlying assets have “been sold off.”

In his public remarks, Trump has mostly focused on who would manage the Trump Organization. He has not suggested he would divest, or sell off its assets.

The emails were obtained through a Freedom of Information Request from MSNBC and The James Madison Project, and represented by the law office of Mark S. Zaid.

But they don;’t care. Read this article in today’s New York Times about Jared Kushner’s selling of the presidency for personal gain. It’s amazing:

On the night of Nov. 16, a group of executives gathered in a private dining room of the restaurant La Chine at the Waldorf Astoria hotel in Midtown Manhattan. The table was laden with Chinese delicacies and $2,100 bottles of Château Lafite Rothschild. At one end sat Wu Xiaohui, the chairman of the Waldorf’s owner, Anbang Insurance Group, a Chinese financial behemoth with estimated assets of $285 billion and an ownership structure shrouded in mystery. Close by sat Jared Kushner, a major New York real estate investor whose father-in-law, Donald J. Trump, had just been elected president of the United States.

It was a mutually auspicious moment.

Mr. Wu and Mr. Kushner — who is married to Mr. Trump’s daughter Ivanka and is one of his closest advisers — were nearing agreement on a joint venture in Manhattan: the redevelopment of 666 Fifth Avenue, the fading crown jewel of the Kushner family real-estate empire. Anbang, which has close ties to the Chinese state, has seen its aggressive efforts to buy up hotels in the United States slowed amid concerns raised by Obama administration officials who review foreign investments for national security risk.

Now, according to two people with knowledge of the get-together, Mr. Wu toasted Mr. Trump and declared his desire to meet the president-elect, whose ascension, he was sure, would be good for global business.

Since the election, intense scrutiny has been trained on Mr. Trump’s company and the potential conflicts of interest he will face. But with Mr. Kushner laying the groundwork for his own White House role, the meeting at the Waldorf shines a light on his family’s multibillion-dollar business, Kushner Companies, and on the ethical thicket he would have to navigate while advising his father-in-law on policy that could affect his bottom line.

Unlike the Trump Organization, which has shifted its focus from acquisition to branding of the Trump name, the Kushner family business, led by Mr. Kushner, is a major real estate investor across the New York area and beyond. The company has participated in roughly $7 billion in acquisitions in the last decade, many of them backed by opaque foreign money, as well as financial institutions Mr. Kushner’s father-in-law will soon have a hand in regulating.

The Anbang talks, which have not previously been reported, began roughly six months ago — “Well before the president-elect’s victory,” Mr. Kushner’s spokeswoman, Risa Heller, noted. That was, however, just as Mr. Trump clinched the Republican nomination. While the talks are far along, representatives for Mr. Kushner said some points remained unresolved. Ms. Heller declined to outline the financial terms under discussion.

Mr. Kushner, who declined to be interviewed for this article, has hired a leading Washington law firm, WilmerHale, to advise him on how to comply with federal ethics laws should he join the White House staff as an adviser to the president. The firm has concluded that one potential sticking point, a federal anti-nepotism law, is not applicable, though not all ethics experts agree. While the law prohibits federal officials from hiring relatives for agencies they lead, Mr. Kushner’s lawyers argue, among other things, that the White House is not an agency and is therefore exempt.

As for conflicts of interest, Mr. Kushner would be required to make limited financial disclosures, which could give the public a clearer picture of his holdings. And, unlike Mr. Trump, who as president will be exempt from conflict-of-interest laws, he would have to recuse himself from decisions with a “direct and predictable effect” on his financial interests.

They’ll find a way around that too.

This is just a free-for-all. I won’t be surprised to learn they’re short-selling before Trump tanks the stock of companies with a tweet. He’s doing that with regularity. But nobody cares.  They aren’t bothering to vet any of the cabinet or their political appointees. Why bother? None of it matters.

The “President Brand” is the most lucrative brand in the world and Trump and his family and cronies are going to milk it for all its worth.

By the way, Vladimir Putin is rumored to be the richest man in the world. I’m guessing Trump sees beating him that way as his goal.

I wrote about Trump’s “ethics” lawyer here. He defended Tom DeLay.

And there’s this on Jared Kushner.

The conflicts are overwhelming. And since they don’t care and members of their party don’t care — indeed, they seem to want to get in on the action — this is just inexorably unfolding before our eyes.

Update:

January 6, 2017

The Honorable Charles E. Schumer
Minority Leader
United States Senate
322 Hart Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510

The Honorable Elizabeth Warren
United States Senator
317 Hart Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510

Dear Senators Schumer and Warren:

I write in response to your letter dated January 5, 2017, requesting information about the
work of the U.S. Office of Government Ethics (OGE) to implement the Ethics in Government
Act in connection with the individuals whom the President-elect has announced he intends to
nominate. 1 This response addresses the issues your letter raises.

As OGE’s Director, the announced hearing schedule for several nominees who have not
completed the ethics review process is of great concern to me. This schedule has created undue
pressure on OGE’s staff and agency ethics officials to rush through these important reviews.
More significantly, it has left some of the nominees with potentially unknown or unresolved
ethics issues shortly before their scheduled hearings. I am not aware of any occasion in the four
decades since OGE was established when the Senate held a confirmation hearing before the
nominee had completed the ethics review process.

The Ethics in Government Act establishes a requirement that covered nominees to
Presidentially-appointed, Senate-confirmed positions must obtain OGE’s certification of their
financial disclosure reports.2 That this certification must be obtained prior to the hearing is
evidenced by the additional requirement that nominees must “make current” their financial
disclosure reports as to earned income by the date of the hearing. 3 Further evidence is found in
the requirement that, “The [OGE] Director shall forward a copy of the report of each nominee to the congressional committee considering the nomination.”4 This timing is significant because the
need for OGE’s certification prior to the hearing creates the leverage necessary to compel
nominees to disclose their assets fully and resolve all conflicts of interest.

The nominee financial disclosure process is complex. It involves assisting nominees to
make complete and accurate disclosure of complex financial holdings and arrangements,
identifying conflicts of interest uncovered through reviews of nominees’ disclosures, and
developing comprehensive written ethics agreements that resolve all identified conflicts of
interest. This work is labor-intensive. As a result, the process is necessarily measured in weeks,
not days. OGE’s staff and agency ethics officials must have adequate opportunities to ensure that
the Senate receives a complete accounting of each nominee’s relevant financial interests and an
explanation of the steps the nominee will take to resolve conflicts of interest. To provide a
window into the complexity of this work, I have enclosed non-exhaustive checklists that we have
developed for financial disclosure reviews, OGE’s Nominee Ethics Guide, the Appendix to the
Nominee Ethics Guide, and a copy of OGE’s Ethics Agreement Guide.5

This normally intensive process has been further complicated by both the Senate hearing
schedule and the announcement of nominees prior to consulting OGE for an evaluation of any
ethics issues. In the past, the ethics work was fully completed prior to the announcement of
nominees in the overwhelming majority of cases.6 Under this traditional process, the names of
nominees were not made public until OGE “precleared” them and, therefore, there was no
opportunity for undue influence on the independent ethics review process.

During this Presidential transition, not all of the nominees presently scheduled for
hearings have completed the ethics review process. In fact, OGE has not received even initial
draft financial disclosure reports for some of the nominees scheduled for hearings. Despite the
challenges current circumstances present, OGE’s staff and agency ethics officials have been
working diligently in an effort to deliver expedited reviews that meet the Senate’s schedule. As a
measure of our success, I note that we have precleared 58% of the financial disclosure reports
that we have received from the President-elect’s Transition Team. By the same date eight years
ago, we had precleared 21 % of the financial disclosure reports that we had received from the
transition team.

We remain committed to completing the ethics work on each nominee as quickly as
possible without compromising the integrity of our ethics work or the nominee’s future activities
on behalf the American public. I am optimistic that we will be able to continue expediting our
ethics reviews of the President-elect’s nominees to meet reasonable timeframes without
sacrificing quality. It would, however, be cause for alarm if the Senate were to go forward with hearings on nominees whose reports OGE has not certified. For as long as I remain Director,
OGE’s staff and agency ethics officials will not succumb to pressure to cut corners and ignore
conflicts of interest.

Sincerely,

Walter M. Shaub, Jr.
Director

.

FAA Restricts Drones Flying Over Pipeline Protests

By Spocko

From the Drone Law Journal November 27, 2016

The FAA has imposed a 4-nautical mile Temporary Flight Restriction, (“TFR”), in airspace up to 3500 feet above sea level, over the Standing Rock Protest in North Dakota. The land in that area sits approximately 1600 feet above sea level, meaning about 1900 feet of the sky above the protest is off limits to any aircraft other than those permitted to fly — namely, aircraft in support of the law enforcement activities.

Neither the mainstream media, nor citizen journalists, nor activist hobbyists may fly in that area to document what law enforcement is doing.

Why is there a TFR over Standing Rock? — Peter Sachs, Esq.

This action will prevent the media or activists from showing shocking footage of water cannons used to spray protesters.

Forbes contributor John Goglia has pointed out that “keeping the media from documenting law enforcement actions is not part of the FAA’s mission. Nor is it a legal basis for issuing flight restrictions.” Yet that is exactly what they did in Ferguson and it appears they are doing the same here.

I reached out to the FAA for more specific information on why the TFR was issued, including whether it was issued because of the reports of drones being shot down. I also requested information on whether drone journalists could get permission to fly through the TFR and, if so, how. Lastly, I asked what the FAA was doing to investigate and prosecute the 8 or more instances of drones being shot down as the agency confirmed to me several months ago that shooting down drones was a felony.

– Flight Restrictions Over Standing Rock: Is The FAA Effectively Taking Sides In Pipeline Dispute? Forbes, John Goglia

Here was their response to the first two questions:

The Federal Aviation Administration carefully considers requests from law enforcement and other entities before establishing Temporary Flight Restrictions (TFR) in U.S. airspace. The TFR currently over the pipeline protest was approved to ensure the safety of aircraft in support of law enforcement and the safety of people on the ground.

The TFR includes provisions for media to operate aircraft – both traditional and unmanned – inside the TFR, provided that operators comply with the language of the Notice to Airmen. In the case of unmanned aircraft, operators must also comply with the requirements of Part 107 and coordinate beforehand with the FAA. We’ve had no requests from media who meet those requirements.

The first answer doesn’t really address the question. The FAA is saying “We were told it was unsafe by law enforcement and other entities, we believed them.”

Law enforcement has learned from the Ferguson flight restrictions to not say their intentions out loud. Now when they want to block the media drones they say it’s about safety, not limiting access, “We are worried all those drones will fall out of the sky and hurt the people on the ground. Drones might fly up and hit the law enforcement aircraft that are in the restricted zone.”

The second answer is very important. It’s saying the media CAN operate in the restricted flight zone, but they have to show they have certified training (Part 107) and they have to coordinate with the FAA.

What is Part 107? It’s a long list of requirements a remote operator must have. It’s fairly new (August 29, 2016) and it was put into place partly because of jackholes who were flying their drones around during emergencies getting in the way of fire fighters.

I don’t know how hard it is to get this certificate or if any of the media in place have them. But because the FAA says that no one has asked yet, that means ALL DRONES flying during the TFR are flying illegally.

If someone is not certified, but they operate anyway, they would be subject to “all applicable federal criminal and civil penalties.” BTW, it’s $1,100 for each incident.

Here’s the deal, law enforcement can’t arrest people for taking a photo, but they can arrest them for taking the photo from a drone in the TFR.

Law enforcement now has a new federal law to use to arrest people who break it.

Here is the FAA’s answer to drones being shot down:

Although the FAA is aware of anecdotal reports of drones being shot down, the agency has received only one official report. On Oct. 23, a drone was shot down with bean bags after allegedly being flown in a threatening manner near a law enforcement helicopter. That incident is still under investigation.

The agency also is investigating several incidents in which protestors have allegedly flown their drones in violation of the provisions of the TFR.

This is the ol’ “It was coming right at me!” trick used to justify shootings. Now, because there are no certified remote media drone operators, all drones seen are violating the FAA flight restrictions. This language will also be used to justify police shooting down drones.
http://www.spockosbrain.com/wp-content/uploads/14843645_1315084278504480_1203959275295080448_n.mp4

I’ve included a video above of one of the drones being shot at. This happened in October, before the TFR, but after the August 2016 rules were passed. I don’t know the background of the operator they might have a certificate. In which case they should file a complaint with the FAA about the police shooting at the drone.

The FAA mentions they have only seen one official report. Who filed it?

When the FAA says, “official reports” that usually means from law enforcement, and we know who usually wins in these cases. The good news is that at least in the case of the drone video, there is proof of the incident.

Passing laws that limit the media or just a media tool?

If we step back from this FAA announcement, I can see ways around it using a different tool, “Want a shot from a height? Put a GoPro on a helium balloon. It’s not an aircraft. Don’t have any helium? Attach a camera to a kite. No wind? Get a really long selfie stick.” But that’s my inner MacGyver talking

This is an important issue because of its use of the government, the FAA, to restrict the media’s use of a new tool. They are doing it using an accepted method to make it stick–safety.

When officials lie about what is “safe” when using drones in order to restrict the media, they need to be called on it. We know from the Ferguson transcript officials asked for the TFR just to block the media, they didn’t care about safety.

The other issue to bring up is the use of a certification and permission. One of the ways that the media is contained by government is the issue of credentials, or “press passes.” Making sure the media has drone certification allows the government to keep an eye on them. It’s not embedding, but it does allows the government some control over those given special access.

With all this talk about drones and regulations I don’t want to miss the point of WHY it is so important for people to see what is happening. If the media can’t do it, then we need to. The idea is that when people see what is happening they will be outraged and demand it stop.

While reading about the Birmingham campaign I was curious about who issued the orders to turn the hoses on children and bystanders. I was also wondered who had the authority to tell them to stop.

Obama is still the President. He has the video of what is happening. He has the authority to tell the locals to stop turning high-pressure water hoses on people. Why hasn’t he?

By hook or by crook
by Tom Sullivan

Outgoing NC Gov. Pat McCrory, via NCDOT Communications.

North Carolina did not see a Karl Rove-like meltdown on election night when results showed Gov. Pat McCrory losing his reelection bid to Attorney General Roy Cooper by 5,000 votes. The meltdown has been more of a slow burn. McCrory as refused to concede, even as absentee and provisional vote tallies show the margin against him widening.

Civitas, the Art Pope-funded think tank, as filed suit in federal court to delay final certification of results while the state verifies the addresses of over 90,000 same-day registrants.

McCrory’s team, meanwhile, is alleging widespread voting irregularities:

Rather than throwing in the towel, McCrory is instead throwing around wild and unsubstantiated allegations of widespread voter fraud across the state. The governor is claiming that results in half of North Carolina’s 100 counties were tainted by irregularities, but some of those claims have already been dismissed by county election boards. The result is close enough to trigger a recount, which McCrory officially requested today, but past recounts in close North Carolina elections have not produced any significant changes in vote tallies.

Nonetheless, McCrory’s team is accusing Cooper of winning by illicit means and trying to cover up evidence of a supposedly fraudulent victory. “Why is Roy Cooper so insistent on circumventing the electoral process and counting the votes of dead people and felons?” one McCrory flack said in a statement. “It may be because he needs those fraudulent votes to count in order to win.”

Salon’s Simon Malloy notes that in the same election, Donald Trump won North Carolina by 4 points and Republican Sen. Richard Burr won reelection by 6 points. Being “champion of the country’s most notorious anti-LGBTQ law” had nothing to do with McCrory’s loss, of course. But if Roy Cooper’s team somehow managed to manipulate results to take out McCrory alone, now that’s some targeting. I’d want to hire them.

McCroy’s end game, rumor has it, may be to sow enough doubt long enough to create a legitimacy crisis that would trigger the involvement of the GOP-controlled legislature in settling the election. The News and Observer says it’s not that simple:

Yes, N.C. lawmakers can declare a winner, a power given to them both by the N.C. Constitution, which says the General Assembly can settle “contested” state races, but also a 2005 law cited by the New York Times and Slate that says losers in Council of State races can appeal the results to the legislature.

[…]

As for whether such a decision now could be reviewed by courts, here’s what that 2005 N.C. statute actually says: “The decision of the General Assembly in determining the contest of the election pursuant to this section may not be reviewed by the General Court of Justice.” According to the state’s Administrative Office of the Courts, the “General Court of Justice” is the entire N.C. court system, which includes Appellate, Superior and District courts.

That wouldn’t stop the federal courts from jumping in, says Rick Hasen (Election Law Blog):

If there is clear evidence both that Roy Cooper got more votes in North Carolina, with no plausible basis to claim that fraud infected the result (and by all indications so far, both of these facts are true), it could well be both a Due Process and Equal Protection Clause violation for the North Carolina legislature on a partisan basis to consider a “contest” and overturn the results and hand them to Pat McCrory. There are cases where federal courts have gotten involved in these kinds of ugly election disputes (think Roe v. Alabama, Bush v. Gore). But a brazen power grab without a plausible basis for overturning the results of a democratically conducted election? I expect the federal courts would take a very close look at such a thing.

McCrory doesn’t have to be Catholic to throw a Hail Mary.

McCrory's first priority after installation will I guess be the No More Elections Act https://t.co/FNe12oXdQX— David Dayen (@ddayen) November 21, 2016

Trump’s Top Ten
by Tom Sullivan

As Bruce Banner said in The Avengers, “So, this all seems … horrible.” Donald Trump’s immigration speech in Phoenix last night fits that description. We will have analyses of that speech coming out our bleeding ears for weeks. All in all, the picture Trump painted of an America under Barack Obama and a prospective Hillary Clinton administration looked more like The Road Warrior. Strangely enough, you’d think that might have a certain appeal to Trump’s alt-right supporters.

For those who missed it, a quick summary of the lowlights.

Top Ten Things That Will Never Happen Under A Trump Administration That Will Never Happen

Via transcript by the Los Angeles Times:

#1

We will build a great wall along the southern border.

And Mexico will pay for the wall.

One hundred percent. Buh-leeve him. (Pay no attention to Mexico’s president.)

#2

Under my administration, anyone who illegally crosses the border will be detained until they are removed out of our country and back to the country from which they came.

Trump referenced Eisenhower’s Operation Wetback, which simply dumped Mexicans across the border. Not under Trump. Trump will fly them far from the border and back to their countries of origin. Of course, he’ll need a Trump family-owned airline (Trump Air?) to contract for that work.

#3

Zero tolerance for criminal aliens. Zero. Zero.

Zero. They don’t come in here. They don’t come in here.

According to federal data, there are at least 2 million, 2 million, think of it, criminal aliens now inside of our country, 2 million people criminal aliens. We will begin moving them out day one. As soon as I take office. Day one. In joint operation with local, state, and federal law enforcement.

Break out your flags, charge up your cameras, and crank up the Lee Greenwood. He’ll make us proud to be Americans again.

Moving forward. We will issue detainers for illegal immigrants who are arrested for any crime whatsoever, and they will be placed into immediate removal proceedings if we even have to do that.

We don’t need no stinking due process.

#4

Block funding for sanctuary cities. We block the funding. No more funds.

“Cities that refuse to cooperate” with us will lose federal funding. Cities that assist us we will consider our friends.

#5

Cancel unconstitutional executive orders and enforce all immigration laws.

Because the Kenyan Usurper and Crooked Hillary.

#6

Suspend the issuance of visas to any place where adequate screening cannot occur.

[…]

I call it extreme vetting right? Extreme vetting. I want extreme. It’s going to be so tough …

Another reform, involves new screening tests for all applicants that include, and this is so important, especially if you get the right people. And we will get the right people. An ideological certification to make sure that those we are admitting to our country share our values and love our people.

What could be more American than requiring ideological certification for entry? Certification that the rest of us are a Real Americans comes next.

#7

We will insure that other countries take their people back when they order them deported.

Trump Air will violate foreign countries’ air spaces and bomb them with their own citizens if necessary. (But to what country could he send U.S. citizens not certified Real Americans?)

#8

We will finally complete the biometric entry-exit visa tracking system which we need desperately.

And if that’s not tough enough, supplemented by ankle bracelets for tourists?

#9

We will turn off the jobs and benefits magnet.

And take no action against employers [cough Trump] who hire illegals.

#10

Within just a few years immigration as a share of national population is set to break all historical records. The time has come for a new immigration commission to develop a new set of reforms to our legal immigration system in order to achieve the following goals.

To keep immigration levels measured by population share within historical norms. To select immigrants based on their likelihood of success in U.S. society and their ability to be financially self-sufficient.

We take anybody. Come on in, anybody. Just come on in. Not anymore.

You know, folks, it’s called a two-way street. It is a two-way street, right? We need a system that serves our needs, not the needs of others. Remember, under a Trump administration it’s called America first. Remember that.

Your refugees fleeing starvation and oppression. Screw ’em if they can’t carry their weight.

“Give me your tired, your poor,

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,

I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

With Trump in control of the golden door, that lamp goes dark.

Finally, if you wondered what Sarah Palin was doing lately to support The Donald.

Rudy Giuliani & Sen. Jeff Sessions wear "Make Mexico Great Again Also" hat prior to Trump #immigration speech. pic.twitter.com/mzvFqiR3zt— CSPAN (@cspan) September 1, 2016

Portland Police Chief Shoots Friend In Back, Calls It ‘Self Inflicted.’ Is Placed On Leave


by Spocko

On a hunting trip April 21, Portland Police Chief Larry O’Dea shot his friend in the back, then suggested that the wounded man accidentally shot himself.
Portland police chief misled investigator about hunting accident, sheriff says

Larry O’Dea, pictured at the Police Bureau  in October when Mayor Charlie Hales announced he had selected O’Dea to succeed retiring  Chief Mike Reese. Beth Nakamura/The Oregonian

Portland Police Chief Larry O’Dea On Leave Amid Probe He Covered Up Shooting NBC News May 25 2016, 10:15 AM ET

Wow. That’s some serious hubris. O’Dea thought that the police would back him up when he said the gun shot wound in the guy’s back was “self inflicted.” Who did he think he was, Dick Cheney?

Too bad O’Dea didn’t have a friend like Harry Whittington. After Cheney shot him in the face Whittington apologized. I still remember thinking what an amazing display of power that was.

“My family and I are deeply sorry for all that Vice President Cheney and his family have had to go through this past week. We send our love and respect to them as they deal with situations that are much more serious than we have had to deal with this week.

We hope that he will continue to come to Texas and seek the relaxation that he deserves.”

   — Whittington apologizing for getting in the way of Cheney’s        shotgun pellets. YouTube 

Not everyone can get away with this level of blame acceptance. At least Whittington had knowingly put himself in that situation, but what of tens of thousands of people who were injured by gun accidents who don’t?

What if they were just minding their business in a store when an incompetent guy with a gun accidently shot them?

When there is a gun accident the gun lovers want people to say,

I mean nobody would let incompetent people with guns into their business, unless they trusted them, or the state certified their worthiness to carry a gun, right? He didn’t intend to shoot anyone, so he’s not a bad guy. I guess there is no one to blame for an honest gun accident.”

This is the logic customers are using now if they go into stores that allow guns. This is illogical and dangerous.

The first mistake people make is believing the gun lovers when they lie about how much safer people are with guns as “protection.”

You know what will protect you from a gun shot? A bullet proof vest, a ballistic helmet and body armor. The guns everywhere crowd want the gun for its retaliatory features.  You don’t hear guys bragging about their COOLMAX® Bullet & Stab Proof Vest.

At $210 you could buy two for the price of one Glock.

When long time professionals trained in guns and gun safety have accidents, what does that mean for the people who aren’t trained? This week West Virginia removed any requirements for people carrying concealed weapons to get a permit or training. I’m sure that they will take this responsibility seriously…yeah right.

When people without training have an “accident” that is really negligence, that incident needs to be pushed in the faces of the people who got rid of training and certification. Each toddler death, each dropped gun in a store needs to be tweeted at the legislators. 

Some of the, “I gotta have my gun with me everywhere” people are going to screw up. If we are lucky they will only hurt themselves, but we aren’t always lucky. So far this year 951 haven’t been. 

I wouldn’t choose to go hunting with these people, so I sure as hell wouldn’t choose to go shopping with them. It’s not the “bad guys with guns” I’m afraid of, it’s the incompetent guys with a guns.

No businesses should take their word for their competence either. Hell, the one thing these businesses could point to was the line, “Well, they had a permit.” They were hoping that it meant some level of competence. Now even that is gone.

Why should I trust untrained, uncertified people roaming the aisles with deadly weapons?

We get understandably pissed off over mass shootings. They make the national news. We should also get pissed off over multiple gun accidents every single day.

I see 3-5 every day and those are just the ones that make the news. Link to Gun Violence Archive West Virginia incidents the last two years.

 I’m tired of people, especially police, making excuses for negligent behavior when it comes to storing, handling and transporting weapons. Maybe they are thinking “There but for the grace of God go I.” since they know more stories like Chief O’Dea’s.

 No, police chief Tyler Brewer, it’s not a “knucklehead situation” when a 37 year old man playing with the gun in his sock shoots someone during graduation ceremonies at Augusta High School in Kansas. (BTW, Kansas is another state where no concealed carry permit is required.)



If states are changing laws to make what was illegal, legal so there is no criminal case following someone’s gun negligence, then we need to make it a civil case.

Of course the NRA is already preparing for this. They just convinced the Tennessee legislation to make the public universities immune from any liability now that teachers can carry guns on campus. And they didn’t require the teachers to have any training or extra insurance. The Tennessee NRA people aren’t stupid, but the legislators who believed there wouldn’t be any problem with guns on campus are.

What is also astonishing to me is that these “no permit, no training” changes were passed against the wishes of the majority of the people in the state.

More guns in the hands of more people with no training and no certification is a bad idea. 

Laws can be changed that make negligence an “accident” so no criminal charges are filed. But criminal law isn’t the only area to look at. When all those untrained, unlicensed “responsible” gun owners screw up it’s time to make them pay up.

 Maybe start with the Oregon police chief. Do you know how much the helicopter ride from the remote town of Fields, Oregon to Boise Idaho’s hospital to help his injured buddy was? Between $35,000 and $55,000. Do you think that is going to come out of his $153,605 yearly salary?

GOP suffering from Koch withdrawal


by digby

I wrote about the Koch’s latest shocker for Salon this morning:

Over the past few years the wealthiest and most famous political activists in the world have been a couple of multi-billionaires by the name of Charles and David Koch, who most people just refer to as a single entity “the Koch brothers”.  Their names became a household word as they poured hundreds of millions into initiatives all over the country, helped finance the Tea Party takeover of the GOP. They were the most important Republicans in America.

A year ago it was assumed that the Kochs would be spending massive sums in the presidential election as well as down-ballot. However, as Yahoo news reported at the time, there were signs of strain as the brothers exerted more and more influence on Republican party functions and the party didn’t know how to respond:

The Republican National Committee’s data arm last year called it a “historic” occasion when it struck a deal to share voter information with the Koch brothers’ rapidly expanding political empire. 

It was an uneasy détente between the party committee, which views itself as the rightful standard-bearer for the GOP, and the behemoth funded by Charles and David Koch, which is free of the campaign finance restrictions that bind the RNC and plans to spend almost $900 million in the 2016 election cycle to elect a Republican to the White House.
Party leaders, including the current chief digital officer for the RNC, hailed the deal as an important step forward in the GOP’s attempt to modernize itself. 

But after the fall midterm elections, the deal was allowed to expire without being renewed. Since then, relations between the two sides have soured, turning into what one Republican operative described as “all-out war.” Interviews with more than three dozen people, including top decision-makers in both camps, have revealed that the Kochs’ i360 platform for managing voter contacts — which is viewed by many as a superior, easier-to-use interface than what’s on offer from the RNC — is becoming increasingly popular among Republican campaigns. 

The RNC is now openly arguing, however, that the Kochs’ political operation is trying to control the Republican Party’s master voter file, and to gain influence over — some even say control of — the GOP.

Jane Mayer’s book “The Dark Side” came out shortly thereafter and validated what many had assumed; it appeared at the time that the brothers were making a play to create a parallel party in order to control the agenda from the top down.

Mayer’s book laid out the story of how the Kochs, having spent decades funding think tanks like the Cato Institute to educate elites and the public about their libertarian philosophy had made a shift to electoral politics in the 2000s and it was paying off. By 2008 their secretive yearly seminars attracted billionaires by the dozens ready to bankroll any project the Kochs endorsed to stop Barack Obama’s nefarious leftist agenda. The mid-term of 2010 turned  over the congress and ushered in the era of hostage taking and government shutdowns. 2012 was a disappointment but once again the 2014 midterms were a right wing triumph. They were the Kings of the GOP, hated by liberals and loved by Republican politicians.

And then came Trump. Throughout this bizarre primary campaign people have been wondering where in the world the Kochs and their massive electoral apparatus, Americans for Prosperity, were. It seemed ridiculous that these master strategists weren’t doing anything to stop this populist demagogue. It had been assumed early on that they’d back one of the usual suspects —  Scott Walker or Marco Rubio were mentioned most often. But after an early feint toward Walker which had to be quickly walked back when the Wisconsin neophyte committed a final clumsy gaffe endorsing a ban on all legal immigration. From that point forward they continued to invite candidates to audition but never showed their hand.

Yesterday the world found out why when the National Review published a blockbuster scoop revealing that the Kochs have decided to withdraw from national politics. The 900 million dollars they’d planned to spend in this election cycle has been reduced to around 40 million on “educational” campaigns. They will continue their work at the state and local level (which is significant) but they are no longer much interested in electoral campaigns on the federal level. (There was some indication they plan to remain engaged in certain congressional campaigns although the scope of it was unclear.)
Evidently, this first came to light last February when a group from Americans For Prosperity went to the Wichita headquarters to present a Stop Trump plan. They were greeted by the brothers and representatives from the corporate side of Kochs empire who put the kibosh on the project. Apparently, the suits have been worried for quite some time about the toll the high political profile has been taking on the company’s prestige. At the same time, the Koch brothers themselves have come to believe that their own legacy is in danger. They have devoted many decades to philanthropy and charitable work and have never thought of their political work as being extreme, even though it is.

TNR reports that they took this very seriously:

The brothers had been warned about this image problem as early as January 2014, when they brought on a new public-relations team led by long-time communications guru Steve Lombardo. There were mounting concerns about damage to the Kochs’ corporate brand, and soon after Lombardo’s hire, Harry Reid took to the Senate floor to call them “un-American.” The brothers didn’t need much convincing that a rebranding effort was necessary.  Pained by the attacks hurled at them, and upset by the revelation in their post-2012 autopsy that Americans viewed wealthy conservatives as uncaring for the poor, they set out to soften their image. 

The immediate result was “We are Koch,” a multi-million-dollar advertising campaign featuring smiling minority employees and cinematic sequences of Americana. But the seeds had been planted for bigger changes. Employees have devoted more and more time to social-welfare projects in the two years since. AFP has increasingly steered resources to its “foundation” wing, and in particular to the Bridge to Wellbeing program, which organizes free instructional seminars on everything from proper nutrition to personal budgeting to time management. In May alone, nearly two dozen such seminars were held across three states. The LIBRE initiative, meanwhile, regularly holds free classes on English proficiency, tax preparation, and GED certification. It handed out free turkeys in Florida last Thanksgiving. (Naturally, all of these efforts come with a dash of free-market evangelism.)

But this isn’t just a PR effort. They have reorganized the whole political operation. Top executives have left and they have shuttered some of their most important political divisions. The radical chopping of the budget is the most important signal of all. This move away from national electoral politics is real.

But the story reveals something else about their motivation for doing it. It’s not just that they are worried about their legacy, although that’s undoubtedly part of it.  They are getting on in years and one can imagine a sort of panic at becoming a nationally known villain that late in life. But this observation shows what’s really behind the move:

Charles Koch provided a window into his own thinking in an interview last month with ABC’s Jonathan Karl.  

“When you look back over the years, over the last several cycles, hundreds of millions of dollars in electoral politics, what have you gotten for that?” Karl asked. “What’s been the return on that investment?”  

“Well, I’ve gotten a lot of abuse out of it,” Koch said. “What have we gotten for it? Well, I think there have been some good things, particularly at the state and local level.”  

“At the federal level,” he added, shaking his head, “we haven’t in any way changed the trajectory of the country.”  

Karl suggested it hasn’t been a very good investment. “No, no it hasn’t,” Koch replied. “It’s been disappointing.”

He sounds like one of those sad Tea Partyers you see complaining that their congressman didn’t unilaterally repeal Obamacare.

As Theda Skocpol’s work has shown, the Tea Party was as much a bottom up as a top down movement. The Kochs certainly helped out with logistical help, and were as motivated by the election of President Obama (and in particular the passage of the health care reforms) as any activist wearing a tricorn hat and waving around the Gadsdan flag. And like so many other Tea Party activists, Charles Koch is deeply disappointed that his congressional victories in 2010 and 2014 didn’t result in his agenda being enacted immediately.

It’s unsurprising that the first time activists inspired by their horror at Obama’s election didn’t understand that a couple of mid-term congressional victories were unlikely to “change the trajectory” of the country. But who would have guessed that someone as mature and experienced as Charles Koch could be so naive?

Skocpol’s research showed that the Tea Party wasn’t made up of the kind of conservative “reformers” the Kochs probably thought they were anyway:

[T]he views of both grassroots Tea Party activists and of many other Republican-leaning voters who have sympathized with this label do not align with free-market dogmas. Research by political scientist Christopher Parker at the University of Washington reinforces our conclusion that ordinary Tea Party activists and sympathizers are worried about sociocultural changes in the United States, angry and fearful about immigration, freaked out by the presence in the White House of a black liberal with a Muslim middle name, and fiercely opposed to what they view as out of control “welfare spending” on the poor, minorities, and young people. Many Tea Partiers benefit from Social Security, Medicare, and military veterans’ programs, and do not want them to be cut or privatized. About half of Tea Party activists or sympathizers are also Christian conservatives intensely concerned with banning abortion and repealing gay marriage.

They sound an awful lot like Trump voters, do they not?

So perhaps we can be grateful that the Kochs are true doctrinaire libertarians and are taking their billions and going home rather than following the constitution loving Tea Partiers into to their new phase as right wing populist Trumpies. Not that their efforts at the state and local levels are benign by any means.  But at least they won’t be helping a crazy man get a hold of the nuclear codes. That makes them patriots by today’s Republican standards.

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Ripe for the fleecing
by Tom Sullivan

The New Age movement was in full flower when I arrived in what was then touted as “a New Age Mecca.” It seemed every other person I met was a seeker — seeking ways to monetize their spiritual journey. I theorized that there was actually only $50 in circulation, and it went from massage therapist to jewelry maker to energy healer and back. I marveled at all the “internationally recognized” healers sporting an alphabet soup of certifications for this and that who put up workshop flyers at health food stores around town. Having only university degrees myself, being out of work, and with time on my hands, just for grins I created and posted a few flyers of my own. See the modest example above. The first, actually, was for a transformational trepanation workshop offered by Dr. Berndt Synapse. The collection eventually found its way into an unpublished, faux New Age business magazine I titled Mantra-preneur from Barnum Was Right! productions.

“Let the record reflect: the American people are a bunch of suckers,” author Ben Fountain begins this morning in the Guardian. He looks at Americans’ propensity to fall for hucksters of the political kind. He offers a few not-so-exemplary specimens, writing:

In the arsenal of the phony, the politics of God is one of the deadliest punches to the sweet spot of the American mind. Citizens capable of the most acute analysis in other areas of their lives – regarding finance, say, or electronics, or the infinitely complex variables of fantasy sports leagues – are reduced to blithering dupes when exposed to the Christian pitch. Something spooky happens to that excellent American mind that brought us moon landings and the silicon chip and the wonderful stuff that saves our kids from polio. No matter if the candidate has had three or four wives or fired thousands of workers or dropped biblical plagues of bombs on rice farmers and sheep herders, merely saying the magic words makes it so. Christian values. Strong for Jesus. In God we trust, and all the rest. Incantations that render large chunks of the electorate as dazed and vulnerable as pre-contact tribesmen from the deepest Amazon hearing a transistor radio for the first time.

Needless to say, like Fox Mulder we still want to believe. Fountain’s piece on American suckers and phonies, like Richard Hofstadter’s on America’s paranoid style, is the kind of people ought to read periodically as a refresher just to make sure they are not slipping. He concludes:

If 2016 is any indication, it seems fair to say that the phony, like the rich, will always be with us in American politics. Hairstyles and clothes may have changed, and the enemy goes by a different name, and technology has pushed the political message system into every crease and capillary of waking life, but the schtick remains the same. The celebrity, the man of God, and the national security bully are still at it, trying to separate us from our brains and our better angels.

It’s Saturday. Here’s another flyer, just for fun:

Heads up: Drone protester jailed as drones drop from the sky
by Tom Sullivan

Graphic from Remotely Operated Aircraft Operations
in the National Airspace System, FAA website

Bill Moyers reports that Grady Flores, a 59-year-old peace activist in New York state, has begun serving a six-month prison sentence:

And what exactly did Grady Flores do to warrant spending the next six months in jail? She photographed a peaceful protest outside Hancock Field Air National Guard Base near Syracuse, New York. The base is where the US trains pilots to launch drone strikes in the Middle East, particularly in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Yemen. It wasn’t a crime for her to be taking pictures of the demonstration, but when she briefly and unintentionally — yes, unintentionally — stepped onto a road that belongs to the base, she violated what authorities called “an order of protection,” which had been issued in 2012 to forbid protesters from approaching the home or workplace of Col. Earl Evans, a commander of the 174th Attack Wing of the Air National Guard. She had never met Evans, never threatened him, never showed any intention of harming him.

Nonetheless, a town justice, David Gideon, issued the order to “protect” the Colonel from the activists. That’s right — the commander of a major military operation, piloting drones on lethal missions half-way around the world, requested a court order of protection against a group of mostly gray-haired demonstrators whom he had never met. In stepping briefly on the roadway at the base, Grady Flores violated that order, despite the fact that, as she says, “We weren’t at the security gate. We were out at the roadway.”

Now get this: The order issued by Judge Gideon was of the sort commonly used against victims of sexual or domestic abuse. “The legal terms ‘victim’ and ‘witness’ have been expanded in this case in a way that’s new and unique in the state of New York,” said attorney Lance Salisbury at a press conference yesterday before Grady Flores was hauled off to jail.

It was not Flores’ first protest. The Upstate Coalition to Ground the Drones and End the Wars has been protesting the drone program since 2010.

President Obama and the Pentagon insist that using drones in pursuit of terrorists causes minimal civilian casualties and protects American troops, but Grady Flores takes issue with that justification. She told us she had been moved, in particular, by reports of the staggering numbers of civilians killed by US drones, and she says her fears were confirmed by documents recently leaked to journalists at The Intercept revealing that during one five-month stretch, 90 percent of those killed in one part of Northeastern Afghanistan were not the intended target.

Begone, before somebody drops a house on you, too!

Sad to say, but accidentally dropping ordnance on foreigners is not liable to get the attention of most Americans. If a woman picking okra in North Waziristan looks like a terrorist to a drone flying at 20,000 feet as seen on a computer monitor half a world away, lobbing a Hellfire missile at her is no big deal to many Americans. Better safe than sorry. They felt the same way about abusing prisoners at Abu Ghraib.

But what if those same drones started dropping like Dorothy’s house into American neighborhoods? To meet “a virtually insatiable appetite” for new drones and new drone pilots, the military is looking to expand training operations in U.S. airspace, like the missions flown out of Hancock Field, or Grand Forks Air Force Base, ND, or Creech Air Force Base in Nevada. They are even hiring private contractors to meet the demand. What could go worng?

Coincidentally, drone crashes were back in the news this week:

A record number of Air Force drones crashed in major accidents last year, documents show, straining the U.S. military’s fleet of robotic aircraft when it is in more demand than ever for counterterrorism missions in an expanding array of war zones.

[…]

The Reaper has been bedeviled by a rash of sudden electrical failures that have caused the 2 1/2-ton drone to lose power and drop from the sky, according to accident-investigation documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act. Investigators have traced the problem to a faulty starter-generator, but have been unable to pinpoint why it goes haywire or devise a permanent fix.

The Washington Post reports this week that “all but one of the 20 Air Force drone accidents last year occurred overseas.” These included the Reaper operated from Corpus Christi by U.S. Customs and Border Protection that went haywire and had to ditch off the coast of California. Then there was that Global Hawk flown out of Naval Air Station Patuxent River that crashed in Maryland in 2012. The reported cause was mechanical failure. “We have reliability challenges with this block of aircraft,” Capt. James B. Hoke told reporters.

And the Predator out of Hancock Air Base that crashed into Lake Ontario in November 2014. And the Predator that crashed near Creech Air Force Base in 2013. It was just one of 12 that crashed in Nevada between 2002 and 2013. Another crashed there last April due to pilot error … and wind.

So maybe it is a good thing that the FAA seems to have missed its Dec. 31, 2015 date for issuing rules for commingling military drones with your Aunt Millie’s flight to Cleveland.

SEC. 334. PUBLIC UNMANNED AIRCRAFT SYSTEMS.

(b) STANDARDS FOR OPERATION AND CERTIFICATION.—Not later than December 31, 2015, the Administrator shall develop and implement operational and certification requirements for the operation of public unmanned aircraft systems in the national airspace system.

“Public” in this context means government/police/military (civil aviation is covered under Section 332). The Air Force and Air National Guard plan to operate a fleet of large UAVs out of 144 or more locations nationwide. Just for reference, the Air Force’s Global Hawk has a wingspan exceeding that of a Boeing 737.

But just so you know it’s safety first in Washington, the FAA announced a record $1.9 million fine in October against aerial photography firm SkyPan for allegedly conducting 65 flights of its small drones around New York City and Chicago without the required authorization, thus “endangering the safety of our airspace.” SkyPan now boasts a Section 333 UAS exemption.

A RICO Exxon lawsuit — a “slam dunk” to win, a threat to investors, and a possible threat to execs

by Gaius Publius

Sorry about the long title, but all three pieces of it — the “slam dunk,” the threat to investors, the threat to executives — are important.

Your background. Bernie Sanders and Sheldon Whitehouse in the Senate, and Ted Lieu and Mark DeSaulnier in the House, have called on the Department of Justice to investigate ExxonMobil for possibly perpetrating fraud, and if warranted, launch a RICO investigation of the company (and other fossil fuel companies) similar to the tobacco industry lawsuit it launched, and won, more than a decade ago. In addition, four House members including Ted Lieu have also called on the SEC to investigate Exxon for fraud, perhaps under the Sarbanes-Oxley law.

From Sen. Sanders’ letter (quoted here):

“I am writing regarding a potential instance of corporate fraud – behavior that may qualify as a violation of federal law.”

I’ve written about this a number of times, as have others, notably Bill McKibben. Here I want to look at what a set of investigations might mean. My source is this piece from Seeking Alpha, an investor-oriented site. At the end, I’ve appended a request for our Democratic candidates for president in the form of a speech I’d like one of them to give.

A “Slam Dunk” to Win

The first point from my headline is this: So many damaging Exxon documents have already been made public, that according to Seeking Alpha, a Department of Justice lawsuit would be a “slam dunk” to win. Duane Bair at Seeking Alpha:

On October 20, 2015, Vermont Senator Bernard Sanders sent a letter to Attorney General Loretta Lynch asking the Department of Justice to investigate allegations made public through an in-depth expose by InsideClimate News. The Pulitzer Prize winning group is dedicated to providing objective facts regarding the debate around energy and climate change. The reporters spoke with hundreds of former Exxon scientists and executives, combed through thousands of pages of scientific studies and thousands of in-house memos. Their findings are astonishing. […]

Here Bair details why those findings are “astonishing.” I urge you to click through if you want a fast summary of the extend of the wrong done by Exxon executives, and how far back that wrong-doing goes.

After detailing the many ways this lawsuit would be identical to the tobacco case — the comparison, as Bair lays it out, is striking — he then concludes (my emphasis):

If the DOJ opts to take up the case, as Senator Sanders and several members of Congress have suggested they do, it would appear to be a slam dunk case for the Justice Department.

At this point, it would be almost corrupt (though not in the money sense) for the Justice Department not to investigate.

A Threat to Investors

My second point from the headline is this: As much as a RICO lawsuit would threaten the reputation of all fossil fuel companies (and it would) — and be a true game-changer in the climate debate (it would be that too) — a RICO suit could also destroy the companies’ stock valuations. If that’s not a threat to investors, I don’t know what is.

Now remember the rule about collapses — once they start, they often happen quickly. In addition to the four charts at the top of this piece, I could have shown any number of stock market collapses. In 1933, you could have bought a typical S&P stock for pennies on the dollar, but then you’d have to wait until after Eisenhower was elected president, a full generation, for the price to recover.

The problem with a stock collapse in the carbon industry is that prices may never recover. After all, carbon extraction is a doomed industry. Yes, we’ll need carbon for energy for a while, but that while needs to be as short as possible. One of the consequences of a RICO investigation would be that while the suit is going on, its investors are looking at loss of value.

Bair again:

For investors, this [a RICO lawsuit] is a material concern. The cost of defending against a federal investigation will weigh down earnings, distract management and cause public outcry. In the light of a presidential campaign, the intense media attention should be taken seriously. Despite the remaining wide use of tobacco products, American tobacco companies have never recovered from the years of litigation and class action lawsuits. That industry is in a slow decline. If Bernie Sanders has his way, the same fate is imminent for Exxon Mobil.

Three points here:

1. Would you invest in a stock whose price was declining over a protracted period, or collapsing, even if that decline or collapse was deemed temporary? If you wouldn’t, who would? Investors in cases like these won’t reenter a market until they think the price has found a bottom.
    
2. What kind of turmoil would the fossil fuel industry find itself in, if it could not finance its operations, even if its product was deemed necessary? Would this turmoil itself not accelerate a stock price collapse?
    
3. If investors won’t put new money into an industry they deem temporarily toxic, even one as (currently) vital as carbon extraction, wouldn’t that accelerate investment in a promising and necessary replacement industry, like renewables?

If investors won’t risk their money buying carbon stock; if the industry’s stock prices fall precipitously; if there’s an accelerated demand for a replacement (again, renewables) whose investment price is deemed likely to rise — how is any of that not good?

And if that weren’t enough of an incentive to force this legal action, there’s more.

A Threat to Executives

A final point, one that’s not made by the Seeking Alpha article but that has to be considered. The Sarbanes-Oxley law makes corporate executives personally and criminally liable for fraudulent statements on annual and quarterly reports that go out under their signature. The value of corporate assets — including, in the case of the carbon industry, its oil, gas and coal reserves — is part of every annual statement. If a corporation knows, for example, that climate change will inevitably “strand” (render valueless) a large percentages of those assets, and yet misdeclares and knowingly overvalues those assets … well, that sounds like investor fraud to me.

Once a Sarbanes-Oxley investigate starts, especially in the roiling climate of a RICO investigation, you may see not just price chaos, but CEO chaos as well — by which I mean the chaos of CEOs mounting their corporate jets for Switzerland, family and numbered bank accounts in hand.

It’s Going To Take Force

It’s going to take force, not discussion, to end the death grip of the carbon industry, and lawsuits are force. Just ask the tobacco industry.

Look, this business has to die, selling carbon as fuel, and at the fastest possible rate. To ensure the best possible future for ourselves and our children, we need to switch to 100% renewable energy starting now and at a WWII “wartime production” pace. Yet this industry is so wealthy and so “connected” — after all, both Obama and Clinton have supported more extraction, even while speaking against it — that its executives will not stand down, will not stop, until they are forced to.

This is the crucial question, isn’t it? Are we willing to force them to stand down? Many of us are; perhaps many of you are as well. If so, god and the U.S. criminal code has given us an incredibly powerful tool. The tool is, in fact, so powerful that on consideration, I fully understand why Loretta Lynch and Barack Obama may be afraid to use it. Given what’s been revealed about Exxon already, a RICO suit against the big carbon companies would be a slam dunk.

I’d bet money that the government is afraid to use it … precisely because it would work.

A Call to Democratic Presidential Candidates

So I make this appeal. If any pro-climate Democratic presidential candidate makes the following statement, she or he would be greeted as a hero by the large majority of the country that is actually starting to see the problem clearly. Here’s the statement, as plainly as I can write it, as a series of easy-to-digest bullet points:

▪ If I am elected, I will immediately appoint an Attorney General who will open a RICO investigation into the fossil fuel industry. I do not need Congress to give me permission. Investigating fraud under the U.S. criminal code is the job of the Justice Department, and I will appoint only someone who will do that job, starting on day one.

▪ In addition, if I am elected, and if it is determined that the fossil fuel industry has violated the corporate fraud law known as Sarbanes-Oxley, I will see that law enforced, even against the executives themselves, to the extent the law provides.

▪ Why will I do this? Because as president I’m sworn to enforce the law. It is my duty, and if you elect me to this office, I will do the duties of the office, all of them, in a responsible manner.

▪ But there’s more. I am also doing this because I have children and grandchildren. Many of you have children and grandchildren as well. Almost every climate scientist on earth is telling us that we are facing an emergency unlike any our species has ever encountered. Many of you, a great many of you, are coming to that realization as well. It’s a simple fact. We see it every day. This planet, our home, is becoming less and less habitable. That degradation has to stop, and it will only stop when we stop emitting carbon into the air. It’s that simple … that easy.

▪ So I am doing my part, and I will do more. I have a duty, we all have a duty, to our children and grandchildren, to leave the planet as habitable as it was when we, your generation and my generation, were born into it.

▪ That is also the duty and the goal of your government, to protect our common inheritance, and I will aggressively pursue that goal with every tool of the executive branch.

You have my word.

It’s a simple thing to say, grounded in both simple truths and simple next-step actions. Giving some form of the above speech is almost a no-brainer, assuming a presidential candidate who “gets it” about carbon and the climate. Here’s what our future looks like if we don’t act.

Mr. Sanders, Mr. O’Malley, Ms. Clinton — are you ready to defend the future of our children? Feel free to make this speech on the first day it makes sense to do so.

If you would like to add your name to a “Prosecute Exxon” petition, click here. Blue America has endorsed Bernie Sanders for president. If you like, you can help him here; adjust the split any way you wish at the link.

(A version of this piece appeared at Down With Tyranny. GP article archive here.)

GP

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