Author Archives: YolandaFoust

Bush Brother Joins Ted Cruz’s Finance Team

by YolandaFoust Posted on March 8, 2016

Mother Jones

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While the political world speculates on whether Jeb Bush will endorse his onetime protege Marco Rubio ahead of the Florida primary, another Bush brother has thrown his support to Rubio’s rival, Ted Cruz. According to the Cruz campaign, Neil Bush, Jeb and George W.’s younger brother, has signed on as member of its national finance team.

Neil has a colorful business background, dating back to his role in the spectacular collapse of the Silverado Savings and Loan in 1988. Bush, who served on the bank’s board of directors, was singled out by regulators for engaging “in unsafe and unsound practices involving multiple conflicts of interest,” according to an administrative law judge (who nonetheless recommended mild disciplinary action against the Bush brother). Neil, who denied any wrongdoing, allegedly failed to mention to other board members that two of the bank’s biggest borrowers were also his business associates. Bush’s partners ultimately defaulted on more than $100 million in loans, helping to sink the bank, whose implosion cost taxpayers more than $1.3 billion. Bush and the other directors of the bank were later personally sued for “gross negligence” by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation; he settled his portion of the case for $50,000.

Here’s a quick summary of Bush’s alleged involvement:

At the center of the allegations against Bush were his relationships with two Colorado developers, Bill L. Walters and Kenneth M. Good. The two developers ultimately defaulted on more than $100 million in loans from Silverado, which helped bring about its collapse, according to regulators.

The regulators charged that Neil Bush failed to disclose adequately to his fellow directors that he had extensive business dealings with the developers at a time that they were receiving loans from Silverado.

According to the charges, Neil Bush violated his duties by voting to approve loans to Walters without disclosing the extent of his business deals with Walters and he personally arranged for Walters to receive a $900,000 line of credit from Silverado.

The regulators also accused Bush of failing to tell his fellow directors that Good was preparing to invest $3 million in Bush’s oil drilling firm at a time Good told Silverado he was broke and could not make his loan payments. Good also loaned Bush $100,000 that was never repaid.

While Cruz has won Neil Bush’s backing, his brother George, whose 2000 campaign Cruz worked for, doesn’t seem likely to throw his support to the Texas senator. “I just don’t like that guy,” he told donors last year.

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Bush Brother Joins Ted Cruz’s Finance Team

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"Lawless and Radical": What the 2016 Candidates Think of Obama’s New Climate Change Plan

by YolandaFoust Posted on August 3, 2015

Mother Jones

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President Barack Obama just unveiled the final version of rules that crack down on carbon dioxide emissions from power plants—the most significant contributor to global warming in the United States. “Climate change is not a problem for another generation, not anymore,” Obama said in a video released on Sunday. But not everyone agrees. Here’s what some of the leading 2016 presidential candidates think of Obama’s Clean Power Plan:

Marco Rubio

On Sunday, at an event hosted by the Koch Brothers, the Florida senator slammed the plan. “So if there’s some billionaire somewhere who is a pro-environmental, cap and trade person, yeah, they can probably afford for their electric bill to go up a couple of hundred dollars,” Rubio said, according to The Huffington Post. “But if you’re a single mom in Tampa, Florida, and your electric bill goes up by thirty dollars a month, that is catastrophic.” Experts disagree with Rubio’s suggestion that the new rules will be costly for ratepayers. As Tim McDonnell explains, “even though electric rates will probably go up, monthly electric bills are likely to go down, thanks to efficiency improvements.”

Jeb Bush

The former Florida governor released an official statement, calling the plan “overreaching” and “irresponsible.” Bush argued that the new rules would raise energy prices while also trampling on the powers of state governments. Bush went so far as to say that the plan would “hollow out our economy” for the sake of addressing climate change.

Mike Huckabee

The former Arkansas governor has been adamant about his opposition to the Clean Power Plan, saying that it would “bankrupt families.” On Monday he doubled down on his opposition to the plan, characterizing it as the president’s “carbon crusade”:

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"Lawless and Radical": What the 2016 Candidates Think of Obama’s New Climate Change Plan

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Climate change has turned southern England into a soggy teabag

by YolandaFoust Posted on February 10, 2014

Climate change has turned southern England into a soggy teabag

By

Adam Moralee

If you want to know what most of southern England looks like right now, take a peek into your mug of Earl Grey.

The region has taken an almighty soaking during the past week, following the wettest January on record. (And when we say “on record,” we’re talking about nearly 250 years worth of data.)

The unprecedented drenching shut down rail lines over the weekend. At least 5,000 homes have been flooded in the county of Somerset in the southwest of the country, and the government is warning that thousands more are vulnerable throughout the region as rivers swell. Al Jazeera reports:

Severe flooding and landslips cut off rail links to large parts of southwest England for more than 24 hours at the weekend as the government came under pressure for its handling of storms battering Britain.

Some areas have been underwater for over a month in the wettest January on record, with angry residents criticising the government for not doing enough to prevent flooding or reacting quickly enough to help those affected by the devastation.

The military has been brought in to help build flood defences and evacuate properties.

The Telegraph reports that more rain — and flooding danger — is on its way:

Britain’s flooding crisis is set to deepen this week after the Environment Agency warned that lives could be at risk from expected flooding along the River Thames.

The Environment Agency has dramatically increased the number of “severe” warnings, indicating a risk to life, from two to 16 as it warns that rivers already swollen by flood water could continue rising for at least 24 hours.

And as the floods set in, so too is a realization that this is a disaster that we have helped to bring upon ourselves — by filling the atmosphere with carbon dioxide from fossil-fuel burning. The BBC explains:

Climate change is likely to be a factor in the extreme weather that has hit much of the UK in recent months, the Met Office’s chief scientist has said.

Dame Julia Slingo said the variable UK climate meant there was “no definitive answer” to what caused the storms.

“But all the evidence suggests there is a link to climate change,” she added.

“There is no evidence to counter the basic premise that a warmer world will lead to more intense daily and hourly rain events.”

As if the watery wintertime weather in Britain weren’t already miserable enough, now we’ve gone and carbonated it.


Source
UK weather: flooding crisis set to deepen, The Telegraph
Heavy storms strike Britain’s southwest, Al Jazeera
Met Office: Evidence ‘suggests climate change link to storms’, BBC

John Upton is a science fan and green news boffin who tweets, posts articles to Facebook, and blogs about ecology. He welcomes reader questions, tips, and incoherent rants: johnupton@gmail.com.

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Climate change has turned southern England into a soggy teabag

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Reddit’s Gun Gang Takes Aim at MoJo With a Pink Assault Rifle

by YolandaFoust Posted on January 16, 2014

Mother Jones

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When we published our investigation of gun trafficking on Reddit—including the company’s endorsement of assault rifles emblazoned with its signature alien logo—the story promptly got yanked from Reddit’s popular /r/Politics subreddit. Apparently one of the /r/Politics moderators known as “TheRedditPope” deemed our story “off topic.”

Lots of Redditors on the /r/Guns subreddit, on the other hand, found the story to be sufficiently political. In response to it they let loose with much talk about liberal “gun grabbers,” the Second Amendment coming under siege and so forth. But perhaps the most enthusiastic response came from Redditor “WarFairy,” who decided to honor Mother Jones with its very own 3-D printable AR-15 lower receiver, featuring a “raspberry metallic” finish and the company’s phone number. Indeed, the Second Amendment may be in grave danger, but clearly the First is hanging tough.

The dudes of /r/Guns deserve a couple of points for creativity here, though probably no one will accuse them of being super classy.

“I would like to mass print these and hand them out to the kids on Halloween,” declared one commenter. (What a hilarious thing to joke about, especially given that kids and pink guns mix so well.)

“It looks like it has a boner,” said another.

“A glorious pink one,” replied WarFairy, who clarified that the feature in question was “actually a finger hook for use when using a magwell style grip while firing. Just a little design flair of mine.”

Another Redditor saw the feature from a different angle, likening it to female genitals, to which WarFairy replied: “Throbbing… moist… aluring… oh yes… imagine it… imagine running your fingers over it, listening to the whisper… P… Pull my trigger…”

The response to MoJo’s investigation also included multiple Redditors attempting to list guns for sale in the comments section of our story and then getting their buddies to vote up those comments (a vote-manipulation tactic that Reddit itself forbids). “Now motherjones has become an internet weapons market. TA DA!” one of them said.

Unfortunately, in their careful reading of our report, these folks missed a key distinction between Reddit and Mother Jones: Such postings are a violation of our Terms of Service, and thus have been deleted.

For more of the story behind our investigation, check out my conversation with WNYC’s Anna Sale.

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Reddit’s Gun Gang Takes Aim at MoJo With a Pink Assault Rifle

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