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George W. Bush EPA chief slams Trump’s pick

by BuddyWalden Posted on December 12, 2016

Christine Todd Whitman is arguably the most prominent figure ever to lead the Environmental Protection Agency under a Republican president, and she has critical words for Donald Trump’s potentially disastrous pick Scott Pruitt.

“I don’t recall ever having seen an appointment of someone who is so disdainful of the agency and the science behind what the agency does,” Whitman told Grist. The former governor of New Jersey led the EPA under George W. Bush from 2001 to 2003.

“It doesn’t put us in a good place, in my mind,” Whitman said. “And he’s going to have trouble within the agency if he does convey that kind of disdain to the career staff.”

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Pruitt has close ties to the oil and gas industry. As Oklahoma attorney general, he sued the agency at least 13 times in five years, eight cases pending. The most high-profile case is his ongoing lawsuit against the Clean Power Plan, Obama’s most ambitious climate-related regulation. His career has gotten a boost from the likes of oil executive Harold Hamm, who was co-chair of Pruitt’s reelection campaign.

At times, Pruitt directly coordinated with the Oklahoma oil and gas industry to put pressure on the Obama White House in an effort to weaken clean air and water regulations or squash investigations.

REUTERS/Nick Oxford

“He obviously doesn’t care much for the agency or any of the regulations it has promulgated,” Whitman said. “He doesn’t believe in climate change; he wants to roll back the Clean Power Plan.”

Whitman foresees Pruitt clashing with the staff of the agency she once ran, which could have several consequences, she said. Staffers could stand in the way of Pruitt’s ambitions to cut back on the agency’s role, slowing the potential damage of his appointment. But at the same time, Pruitt could slow the staff’s ongoing and vital work. Remember Flint, Michigan? Superfund cleanups? Clean air?

Or, if the clashes are too severe and agency staffers either walk away or get purged under Pruitt, the EPA would lose a vast amount of expertise in a short period of time. “I worry about people retiring and losing institutional knowledge,” Whitman said. “They can slow things down, but he could too, and put a hard stop to regulations.”

In addition to suing over Clean Power Plan regulations, Pruitt has argued that climate activists should be prosecuted, and that debate over whether climate change is human-made should be encouraged in classrooms and Congress — despite overwhelming scientific evidence that the debate is settled.

Compared to where her party stands today on climate change, Whitman is considered an outlier. She has argued that the GOP should moderate itself on climate change and accept that humans play a role. Her philosophy — “Not being a scientist, I rely on the ones that are” — is quite rare these days. As extreme as Pruitt is, he’s in line with Republicans like House Science Chair Lamar Smith and Senate Environment and Public Works Chair James Inhofe — climate-denying senators who use their positions to confuse the public and block progress on climate action.

Still, Whitman pointed out the possibility for pushback to Pruitt’s anti-conservation agenda from hunters and ranchers within the GOP’s base, and possibly the more moderate Republicans she has had conversations with in Congress (Whitman declined to name those politicians).

For those still fooling themselves into thinking that Trump means it when he tells interviewers he has an “open mind” on climate science and environmental protection, his appointments should be telling.

“I never thought Trump was particularly an ideologue, but the picks have been a very conservative mindset,” Whitman said. “That will tell you he is quite serious about the anti-government pronouncements he made.”

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George W. Bush EPA chief slams Trump’s pick

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Secret CIA Report Says Russia Intervened to Help Elect Trump

by NellEUHzum Posted on December 10, 2016

Mother Jones

Update, 11:48 p.m.: The New York Times reports that American intelligence officials found with “high confidence” that Russians also hacked the Republican National Committee, but did not release any information. Based in part on this finding, intelligence officials were able to conclude that Russia intended to harm Hillary Clinton’s campaign and bolster Donald Trump’s.

Russia intervened in the 2016 election to help Donald Trump win the presidency, according to a secret assessment by the CIA, the Washington Post reported late Friday. In a closed-door meeting last week, according to officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity, the agency told US senators that it had identified individuals with connections to the Russian government who had provided WikiLeaks with thousands of hacked DNC emails. The agency described them as “part of a wider Russian operation to boost Trump and hurt Clinton’s chances.”

“It is the assessment of the intelligence community that Russia’s goal here was to favor one candidate over the other, to help Trump get elected,” a senior US official told the Washington Post. “That’s the consensus view.”

The Post story comes after numerous calls from both members of Congress and President Obama to investigate Russia’s role in the election. Earlier today, Obama ordered the national intelligence community to conduct a “full review” of Russian interference in the campaign. According to the Post, the White House had attempted to gain bipartisan support for investigating Russian hacking as early as September, but Republicans resisted making such a public challenge.

There were also disagreements from intelligence officials on the CIA’s assessment:

A senior US official said there were minor disagreements among intelligence officials about the agency’s assessment, in part because some questions remain unanswered.

For example, intelligence agencies do not have specific intelligence showing officials in the Kremlin “directing” the identified individuals to pass the Democratic emails to WikiLeaks, a second senior US official said. Those actors, according to the official, were “one step” removed from the Russian government, rather than government employees. Moscow has in the past used middlemen to participate in sensitive intelligence operations so it has plausible deniability.

The Trump transition team issued the following response to the story late Friday:

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Secret CIA Report Says Russia Intervened to Help Elect Trump

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Donald Trump’s Interior Secretary Doesn’t Want to Combat Climate Change

by bfys19 Posted on December 9, 2016

Mother Jones

On Friday the Wall Street Journal reported that Donald Trump has chosen Washington Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, chair of the House Republican Conference, to be his Secretary of Interior. The Interior Department is responsible for three quarters of the nation’s public lands, and includes under its umbrella agencies like the National Parks Service, the US Fish and Wildlife Service, the US Geological Survey, and the Bureau of Land Management, and the Bureau of Reclamation—all which are on the front lines of the fight against climate change.

But if her record in Congress is any indication, don’t expect McMorris Rogers to make climate science or conservation a priority. In 2008, after Al Gore earned a Nobel Peace Prize and an Oscar for An Inconvenient Truth, she dismissed the former vice president’s warnings about global warming. “We believe Al Gore deserves an ‘F’ in science and an ‘A’ in creative writing,” she joked.

One year later, McMorris Rodgers sang a slightly different tune, telling a group of students from her district that “we should be taking steps to reduce our carbon emissions”—but that’s been the extent of her climate awakening. In 2010, she earned plaudits from the Koch Brothers-backed Americans for Prosperity for opposing a cap-and-trade carbon-pricing system aimed at reducing emissions. In 2011 she voted three times against a resolution acknowledging that “climate change is happening and human beings are a major reason for it.” More recently, she co-sponsored the House bill to prohibit the Environmental Protection Agency (which is not part of Interior) from regulating carbon emissions; EPA carbon regulations form the core of President Barack Obama’s climate policy.

McMorris Rodgers has explicitly voted against letting the Interior Secretary consider climate change when setting policy. In 2014, while supporting legislation designed to protect hunters’ access to public lands, she opposed an amendment stipulating that, “Nothing in this Act limits the authority of the Secretary of the Interior to include climate change as a consideration in making decisions related to conservation and recreation on public lands.”

Even the firsthand effects of climate change on her district have done little to spur the congresswoman to action. When forest fires swept through Eastern Washington in August, the state’s Democratic governor, Jay Inslee, argued that the fires, aided by tree-killing bugs and dry conditions, were a problem that would only get worse due to climate change—a position shared by the US Forest Service. McMorris Rodgers declined to make that connection when asked by reporters about Inslee’s comments, instead urging authorities to simply focus on “better forest management.”

McMorris Rogers, who has a four-percent lifetime rating from the League of Conservation Voters, has taken concrete steps to curb the power of the department she’s now set to run. She’s repeatedly backed legislation that would limit the president’s authority to protect public lands under the Antiquities Act, which President Barack Obama and his predecessors have used to create marine sanctuaries and to set aside large chunks of the West as national monuments. (The impetus for the most recent push was Obama’s creation of Basin and Range National Monument, to be run by the Bureau of Land Management, in central Nevada.) She also backed a proposal loosen environmental laws in national parks and wildlife refuges within 100 miles of the US–Mexican border. That’s not a good sign for fragile desert ecosystems—but it might come in handy when construction starts on Trump’s wall.

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Donald Trump’s Interior Secretary Doesn’t Want to Combat Climate Change

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Democrats Intensify Push for Probe of Russian Meddling in 2016 Campaign

by TamiLemmon13 Posted on December 7, 2016

Mother Jones

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Congressional Democrats are increasing the pressure for an official and public inquiry into Russian meddling in the 2016 campaign. On Wednesday afternoon, Rep. Eric Swalwell, (D-Calif.), a Democrat on the House intelligence committee, and Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.), the senior Democrat on the House government oversight committee, announced they were introducing legislation to create a bipartisan commission to investigate any attempt by the Russian government or persons in Russia to interfere with the recent US election. The commission they propose is modeled on the widely praised 9/11 Commission. It would consist of 12 members, equally divided between Democrats and Republicans. The members would be appointed by the House speaker, the Senate majority leader, and the two Democratic leaders of the House and Senate. This commission would be granted subpoena power, the ability to hold public hearings, and the task of producing a public report.

Cummings previously called on Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah), the chair of the House government oversight committee, to launch such an investigation via his committee. But Chaffetz, who before the election vowed to probe Hillary Clinton fiercely, has not replied to Cummings’ request, according to a Cummings spokesperson. Nor has Chaffetz responded to another Cummings request for a committee examination of Donald Trump’s potential conflicts of interest. House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi (Calif.) and incoming Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer (N.Y.) have both endorsed Cummings’ proposal for a congressional investigation of Russian attempts to influence the 2016 campaign. Republican Sens. Lindsey Graham (S.C.) and Marco Rubio (Fla.) also have suggested that Congress examine Russian interference in the election.

The Democrats have not yet catapulted the issue of foreign interference fully into the media spotlight. But Swalwell and Cummings’ bill comes as more Democrats are demanding action. Last week, seven Democrats on the Senate intelligence committee publicly pressed the Obama administration to declassify more information about Russia’s intervention in the election. Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), who led that effort, wrote in a brief letter to the White House, “We believe there is additional information concerning the Russian Government and the US election that should be declassified and released to the public. We are conveying specifics through classified channels.”

On Tuesday, seven high-ranking House Democrats sent a letter to President Barack Obama requesting a classified briefing on Russian involvement in the election, including “Russian entities’ hacking of American political organizations; hacking and strategic release of emails from campaign officials; the WikiLeaks disclosures; fake news stories produced and distributed with the intent to mislead American voters; and any other Russian or Russian-related interference or involvement in our recent election.” The signatories were Cummings, Rep. Steny Hoyer, the Democratic whip, Rep. John Conyers, the top Democrat on the judiciary committee, Rep. Eliot Engel, the top Democrat on the foreign affairs committee, Rep. Bennie Thompson, the top Democrat on the homeland security committee, Rep. Adam Smith, the top Democrat on the armed services committee, and Rep. Adam Schiff, the top Democrat on the intelligence committee. They wrote:

We are deeply concerned by Russian efforts to undermine, interfere with, and even influence the outcome of our recent election. This Russian malfeasance is not confined to us, but extends to our allies, our alliances and to democratic institutions around the world.

The integrity of democracy must never be in question, and we are gravely concerned that Russia may have succeeded in weakening Americans’ trust in our electoral institutions through their cyber activity, which may also include sponsoring disclosures through WikiLeaks and other venues, and the production and distribution of fake news stories.

In September, Schiff joined Sen. Dianne Feinstein (Calif.), the top Democrat on the Senate intelligence committee, to release a statement blaming Russia for the hacks of Democratic targets during the campaign:

Based on briefings we have received, we have concluded that the Russian intelligence agencies are making a serious and concerted effort to influence the US election. At the least, this effort is intended to sow doubt about the security of our election and may well be intended to influence the outcomes of the election—we can see no other rationale for the behavior of the Russians. We believe that orders for the Russian intelligence agencies to conduct such actions could come only from very senior levels of the Russian government.

The Obama administration has reached the same conclusion. In October, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the Department of Homeland Security released a joint statement declaring, “The US Intelligence Community (USIC) is confident that the Russian Government directed the recent compromises of e-mails from US persons and institutions, including from US political organizations.” A week after the election, the director of the National Security Agency, Admiral Michael Rogers, was asked about the WikiLeaks release of hacked information during the campaign, and he said, “This was a conscious effort by a nation-state to attempt to achieve a specific effect.” He added, “This was not something that was done casually. This was not something that was done by chance. This was not a target that was selected purely arbitrarily.”

For some reason, Moscow’s effort to influence the presidential election has not been as big a story as, say, Trump’s tweets about the musical Hamilton or Alec Baldwin. That may be because Democrats, busy licking their wounds, have not aggressively sought to keep the issue front and center. (Obama and Vice President Joe Biden have not said much on this subject.) And most Republicans have shown little interest in investigating an assault on American democracy that helped their party win the White House and retain majorities in both houses of Congress. But Cummings has been trying mightily to kick-start a public investigation. (Presumably, the FBI, CIA, and NSA have been looking into Russian hacking related to the election, but their investigations are not designed to yield public information—unless they result in a criminal prosecution.)

With the legislation to establish an independent commission, Cummings and Swalwell are opening another front. In the coming days, they will be signing up co-sponsors and looking for Republican support. Their bill provides a proposal that concerned voters—including upset Democrats and activists—can rally behind. (Were this measure to pass next year, Trump, who has steadfastly refused to blame Moscow for the hacks of the Democratic Party and the Clinton campaign, would have to decide whether to sign it.)

In his recent letter to Chaffetz, Cummings noted, “Elections are the bedrock of our nation’s democracy. Any attempt by a foreign power to undermine them is a direct attack on our core democratic values, and it should chill every Member of Congress and American—red or blue—to the core.” So far, few Republicans, including Trump, have acknowledged feeling that chill, and there’s certainly more opportunity for the Democrats to turn up the heat.

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Democrats Intensify Push for Probe of Russian Meddling in 2016 Campaign

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Our Food System Relies on Immigrants. Here’s How One Waiter Is Coping With Trump’s Election.

by FerneBlubaugh Posted on November 25, 2016

Mother Jones

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Enrique Diaz, 24, leads a busy life. He works 50 to 60 hours a week as a waiter at a restaurant in Lower Manhattan and takes classes at John Jay College for Criminal Justice, where he’s close to earning a bachelor’s degree in forensic psychology. On November 8, Diaz suddenly got a new challenge: contending with an incoming president who wants to purge him—and his family—from the country.

Enrique Diaz

President-elect Donald Trump ran on a platform of bare-knuckled xenophobia, insulting Muslims and Mexicans and vowing to expel 11 million undocumented immigrants. Since the election, he has reiterated those sentiments, declaring he would assemble a “deportation force,” appointing white nationalist Steve Bannon as his chief White House strategist, and tapping a notorious immigrant-basher, Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Alabama), as attorney general.

As I noted in this pre-election post, the Trump program amounts to a direct attack on the very people who feed us. The entire food system, from farm fields to meat-packing floors to restaurants, is shot through with immigrants, large numbers of whom are undocumented.

To get an idea of what it feels like to work in the food system while being targeted by the incoming administration, I interviewed Diaz for Bite podcast.

He moved to Brooklyn at eight years old, when his parents migrated from Mexico City without papers. Still living in Brooklyn, he currently has a two-year work permit under a program called Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), a policy created by a 2012 Obama administration executive order. DACA is intended to protect the approximately 1.7 million people in Diaz’ circumstances: undocumented young adults who migrated to the United States before their 16th birthday. DACA doesn’t offer a path to citizenship; it allows people who quality to apply for work permits and gain temporary protection against deportation.

Trump has vowed repeatedly, including on his campaign website, to rescind DACA “immediately.” So in addition to juggling 12-hour restaurant shifts and college classes, Diaz—whose brother also has DACA status —now has to contend with a promised immigration crackdown.

I talked to Diaz about his experience on Election Day, which started with a stint volunteering as a translator at a Brooklyn polling booth, and also about how the Trump victory went over with his fellow immigrants at work and at home with his family. “I’m afraid, I’m terrified,” Enrique said. “But I can’t show it at home”—he feels like he should maintain a calm face for his parents. Such stress reverberates through the food system.

Bite is Mother Jones‘ podcast for people who think hard about their food. Listen to all our episodes here, or subscribe in iTunes, Stitcher, or via RSS.

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Our Food System Relies on Immigrants. Here’s How One Waiter Is Coping With Trump’s Election.

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Here’s Evidence Steve Bannon Joined a Facebook Group That Posts Racist Rants and Obama Death Threats

by UlrikeCohn89764 Posted on November 18, 2016

Mother Jones

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Stephen Bannon, whom Donald Trump tapped as his chief strategist in the White House, has come under fire for his self-admitted promotion of the alt-right, a haven of white nationalists, when he was head of far-right Breitbart News. His defenders have insisted Bannon is no racist or anti-Semite. But Mother Jones has uncovered another clue about Bannon’s political personality: Bannon joined a conservative Facebook group that has featured racist and extreme material. This material includes posts urging a military coup against President Barack Obama, featuring an image of the president dressed as an SS officer, celebrating the Confederate flag, highlighting a photoshopped picture of Obama with watermelons, praising a police officer who called Obama a “F*cking Nigger,” and calling for Obama to be “executed as a traitor.”

This Facebook group is for an outfit called Vigilant Patriots, which claims its goals are defending and upholding the Constitution and preserving “our history and culture.” As of Friday morning, it listed nearly 3,600 members, including Stephen Bannon, who apparently joined the group seven years ago.

Vigilant Patriots is a collection of right-wing Facebookers, including members who hail militias and decry Muslims, immigration, progressives, sellout Republicans, and the president with hateful, violent, and racist rhetoric. It has an active Twitter feed that is virulently anti-Islam. Its website does not seem to be functioning currently.

Bannon has not engaged in much public activity on Facebook. He is listed as a member of 31 groups, most of them conservative, with several comprising supporters of Sarah Palin. (Bannon once made a gushy documentary about the tea party star.) A search of Facebook turned up only a handful of posts attributed to Bannon, none on the Vigilant Patriots page.

With Facebook, there is always the chance an account could be a spoof or phony. But the Facebook account attributed to Bannon—the one that joined the Vigilant Patriots group—does appear to be legitimate. The Facebook page for the Breitbart radio show that Bannon once hosted contains a post from Matthew Boyle, a Breitbart editor, that linked to Bannon using this particular Facebook account. The Facebook page for Bannon’s Palin documentary also linked to this Facebook account for Bannon. And a private and official Facebook group for media professionals lists Bannon as a member using this Facebook account. Bannon had to be added to this group by a Facebook staffer. (Facebook would not confirm whether this account belongs to Bannon.)

This Bannon Facebook page joined a group that has provided a platform for extremism and racism. The Vigilant Patriots page on Facebook pushes a vicious mix of agitprop and conspiracy theory. It has published calls to arrest, impeach, and execute Obama. A 2012 post declared that Obama must be arrested as a “terrorist” for “Treason, Espionage, Sedition and Fraud” and derided him as “an Illegal Commander-in-Chief.” A long anti-Obama rant from a member in 2011 called for hanging the “traitor.” A different member referred to Obama as “the muzzie usurping lying POS traitor.” (“Muzzie” is a derogatory term for a Muslim.) A group member in 2013 said Obama “must be tried, convicted, and executed as a traitor.” One member railed, Obama “still occupies the office because white members of Congress are too afraid of being branded racist to file Articles of Impeachment against him. It’s time to stop the charade. He is destroying America. Black, White, Green, Brown, or Purple, the man is a traitor. IMPEACHMENT NOW!”

One Vigilant Patriot offered this critique of Obama:

America is in danger of a complete take-over by the Muslim Brotherhood. Our military and governmental resources have been subverted to benefit the cause of Islamic Jihad…As RADICAL as that sounds, an Islamic take-over is the ONLY fact that snaps all of the puzzle pieces together and makes sense of the last 25 years of American History. Barrack Obama is a Muslim Brotherhood TRAITOR to America. He stands convicted in the eyes of all true American Patriots.

A group participant claimed that Obama wants to “enforce Marshall sic law” to stay in the White House.” And one post contended that US troops were purposefully bringing back Ebola from Africa.

There’s a lot of hate among the Vigilant Patriots. A participant assailed Obamacare as “totalitarian socialist” and claimed that Rahm Emanuel, an Obama aide who became mayor of Chicago, had “justified mistrust of Jews by the KKK.” Another proposed putting the “criminal news media into prison” (with Obama and Hillary Clinton). One post suggested adopting the Confederate flag as a symbol of resistance. Another declared that the Koran is a “declaration of war on you, your family, your friends, all you hold dear.”

Mother Jones sent a Trump spokeswoman and Trump’s presidential transition team a request for comment and a series of questions. The questions included the following: Did Bannon create this Facebook account? Does he personally control the account? Why did he apparently join the Vigilant Patriots group? Does he agree with the views expressed on this Facebook page? Does Donald Trump believe it would be appropriate for his senior staff to associate with a group that promotes racist material and death threats directed against Obama? The Trump spokeswoman and the transition team did not respond.

Bannon appears to have been rubbing Facebook elbows with racists and haters. On Thursday morning, Kellyanne Conway, Trump’s campaign manager, said Bannon “treats everyone kindly” and “has the ear and trust” of Trump. For those claiming Bannon is getting a bum rap on the white nationalist issue, this Facebook connection between Bannon and the Vigilant Patriots will not make their work any easier.

Here is a sample of the content posted on the Vigilant Patriots Facebook page:

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Here’s Evidence Steve Bannon Joined a Facebook Group That Posts Racist Rants and Obama Death Threats

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Meet Ret. General Michael Flynn, the Most Gullible Guy in the Army

by MargoPinkney Posted on November 17, 2016

Mother Jones

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Donald Trump’s favorite general, Michael Flynn, was fired as head of the Defense Intelligence Agency a couple of years ago. The circumstances have long been a bit mysterious. On one side, the story is that he was pushed out due to a revolt of his senior staff over his abusive and chaotic management style. Flynn himself says it was because he was tough on Islamic terrorism, and the weenies in the White House didn’t like it.

In any case, Flynn has been “right wing nutty” ever since, in Colin Powell’s words, so naturally he’s now in line for a top position in the Trump administration. Possibly National Security Advisor. But whatever you think of Flynn, he was the head of an intelligence agency and therefore ought to have a pretty good BS detector. Apparently he doesn’t:

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Meet Ret. General Michael Flynn, the Most Gullible Guy in the Army

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Climate hawks unite! Meet the newest members of Congress who will fight climate change.

by CeceliaKoenig Posted on November 16, 2016

Last week was an awful one for anyone who cares about the environment.

The new Congress and president-elect have a broad, aggressive, anti-environment agenda. Donald Trump has promised to scrap the Paris agreement, repeal all climate regulations, and approve every oil pipeline he can find. Congressional Republicans have spent years practicing for this moment by passing bills that eviscerate the government’s power to regulate pollution. And it’s sure to get worse as Trump fills his cabinet with fossil fuel magnates and climate science deniers.

But amid all the depressing news, there were a handful of election results that offer a glimmer of hope. At least five candidates with strong climate credentials won offices in Congress, and they have an impressive range of personal and political backgrounds. Here’s a quick overview of the newest congressional climate hawks.

Chris Van Hollen: Van Hollen is a progressive from the Maryland suburbs of Washington, D.C., who just won election to the Senate. He served for the last 13 years in the House of Representatives, where he co-chaired the Bicameral Task Force on Climate Change and the Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency Caucus. When he served in Maryland’s legislature, he helped pass a comprehensive package of tax incentives to support clean energy.

Last year, Van Hollen introduced the “Healthy Climate and Family Security Act.” The bill would cap and gradually reduce carbon pollution, set up an auction for carbon pollution permits, and hand over proceeds to Americans in the form of an annual dividend. The League of Conservation Voters gives him a near-perfect 98 percent lifetime voting score.

Ever the optimist, Van Hollen told Grist that he thinks there are some issues around energy policy in which he hopes to work with Republicans, especially in light of president-elect Donald Trump’s pitch for new infrastructure investment.

“I do think there are possible opportunities,” Van Hollen says. “One is in the focus on modernizing our infrastructure, which we should look at in an expansive way to include everything from broadband to clean energy.”

Van Hollen also thinks a “green bank,” which would lend capital to businesses, non-profits, and local governments for energy efficiency and clean energy projects, could be incorporated into a Trump administration’s infrastructure bill.

Of course, Republicans have largely resisted such proposals. (Van Hollen introduced a bill to create a green bank in 2014 that went nowhere.) But Van Hollen thinks that could change if Democrats stress the high cost of inaction.

“We need to continue to emphasize the costs of doing nothing and the opportunities for economic growth,” Van Hollen says. “We need to highlight that the United States better not fall behind our competitors.”

Kamala Harris: Sen. Barbara Boxer, the longtime climate leader from California, is retiring. Her replacement is Harris, the Golden State’s attorney general and a charismatic African-American woman. Harris excited the state’s climate activists earlier this year when she launched an investigation into whether ExxonMobil lied about climate science. Her environmental platform included calling for carbon pricing and a raft of proposals to address California’s water shortage.

“She fully understands that the drought is going to have a profound effect on California’s future and that the drought is caused in part by climate change,” says R.L. Miller, the California-based founder of Climate Hawks Vote, a political action committee that supported Harris and other pro-climate candidates.

Miller says she was underwhelmed by the details of Harris’s campaign climate policy and disappointed that the investigation of ExxonMobil hasn’t produced any results. Still, she is inclined to trust Harris’s instincts. “She has a thin record,” Miller says, “but it’s very promising.”

Nanette Barragán: Barragán ran a pro-climate congressional campaign in California’s 44th district. Barragán, a Latina lawyer and former member of the Hermosa Beach City Council, helped lead a successful campaign to stop new oil drilling in the city. She also helped pass a ban on plastic bags and backed the city’s goal of getting carbon neutral by 2020.

In an interview with Grist during the campaign, Barragán emphasized her commitment to environmental justice for her largely low-income, overwhelmingly non-white district in the Los Angeles area. Her opponent in the general election — California has nonpartisan primaries — was state senator Isadore Hall, one of California’s top recipients of fossil-fuel donations. Hall moved left on environment and energy policy in the campaign and was the state party establishment’s favorite. But Barragán appears to have pulled off a narrow upset win. (Ballots are still being counted, but she is ahead by several thousand votes.)

Salud Carbajal: Another Latino climate leader from California, Carbajal is a supervisor in Santa Barbara County. Climate Hawks Vote backed Carbajal because he stood up against fracking, fighting for a ballot measure to ban it in 2014, even as it went down to defeat.

“He showed the political courage we expect,” says Miller of Climate Hawks Vote. “He stood by it even when he knew it was going down in flames.”

Miller recounts a story from late October to illustrate Carbajal’s commitment. Santa Barbara’s County Council was closely divided on a proposal to approve 96 new oil wells in the area. Kamala Harris, whose election to the Senate looked certain, was campaigning for down-ballot Democrats in tight races. She went to Santa Barbara County, because Carbajal was in a very close race. But he missed the event with Harris to attend the county council vote over the wells. In the end, Carbajal cast the decisive vote rejecting them.

“He was willing to forgo being there with one of California’s most popular politicians,” Miller says. “He did the right thing: took the vote instead of standing up on the stage. That’s the kind of dedicated public servant that we’re looking for.”

Brad Schneider: While congressional climate hawks tend to cluster on the coasts, you can find some in the Midwest. One is Illinois congressman Brad Schneider, who lost his House seat in 2014 but just reclaimed it last week. During his previous two-year term, Schneider racked up an impressive LCV score of 90 percent.

Schneider had the backing of a number of green groups in this election. He earned the endorsement of Vote Climate USA PAC, a pro-climate political action committee, after he declared his support for a nationwide carbon tax or a similar scheme to put prices on emissions.

The Sierra Club praised him for fighting for the Great Lakes Restoration Fund and for defending “environmental safeguards against Republican efforts to dismantle them.”

That last part refers to congressional Republicans constant assault on regulations of carbon and conventional pollutants, an attack sure to resume next year.

Any action to combat climate change under a Trump administration will require boundless stamina, local organizing, and dedicated climate leaders who push the boundaries of what is politically possible. And, despite all the negative news, there will be a fresh crop of such leaders coming to Washington.

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Climate hawks unite! Meet the newest members of Congress who will fight climate change.

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Trump Admitted to a Conflict of Interest in Turkey

by ChrisUdnan Posted on November 15, 2016

Mother Jones

Donald Trump admitted last year that he had a conflict of interest in dealing with Turkey, a country instrumental in the United States’ fight against ISIS, because he has property there. The December 2015 comment foreshadowed the many questions now surrounding how the president-elect will separate himself from his far-reaching business interests.

“I have a little conflict of interest ’cause I have a major, major building in Istanbul,” Trump said. “It’s a tremendously successful job. It’s called Trump Towers—two towers, instead of one, not the usual one, it’s two.”

Trump made those comments to Stephen Bannon, who was then the chairman of Breitbart News, during an interview on Bannon’s radio show Breitbart News Daily. Bannon became the CEO of Trump’s campaign in August, after he secured the nomination. Trump announced shortly after the election that Bannon would serve as his chief strategist in the White House—an appointment widely denounced by Trump’s critics because of Bannon’s history as an enabler of white nationalism as head of Breitbart, not to mention the misogynist, anti-Semitic, and anti-Muslim content the website published.

Trump’s comments about his conflict of interest applied specifically to Turkey. But by the logic Trump used, the conflict would also pertain to US relations with countries around the world where Trump has properties and financial entanglements, from Scotland to Azerbaijan. It would even involve the US government itself. In Washington, DC, Trump operates the Trump International Hotel out of a historic building owned by the federal government.

Trump has said he would eliminate this conflict-of-interest problem by turning his business over to his children, in what he is calling a blind trust. But that questionable solution is even more dubious given that Trump has named his three children to his transition team and likely intends for them to serve as informal advisers on domestic and foreign policy matters. Reports Monday indicated Trump is seeking top-secret security clearances for his kids. That means his children are likely to have access to information they could use to steer their father’s decision-making in a direction friendly to the family business.

Listen to the interview with Bannon here. (The relevant section is at the beginning.)

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Trump Admitted to a Conflict of Interest in Turkey

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Should Donald Trump Get a Mulligan on His Lawsuits?

by Francis3561 Posted on November 15, 2016

Mother Jones

Federalist Society stalwart Saikrishna Prakash thinks we need to cut Donald Trump some slack:

Unlike his predecessors, Trump faces or is pursuing a slew of civil lawsuits, perhaps as many as 75….The news is awash with reports that Trump’s lawyers have asked for a delay of proceedings until inauguration, saying the president-elect is now too busy to participate. But it is hard to see how Trump would have more time for this suit after he moves into the White House. Being president is not a part-time job.

….The new president appears doomed to be distracted by his private concerns. Fortunately, a solution is within our grasp. Congress can pass a law that would put these kinds of civil actions on hold while President Trump remains in office. The law would have to provide that any lawsuit against a sitting president or president-elect, filed before or after he or she assumed office, would not proceed until the president left office. Such a law wouldn’t protect the president from impeachment or criminal prosecution, but it would ensure that Trump would not be distracted by civil litigation arising out of his personal life or business interests.

Ha ha ha. That’s a good one, professor. But, um, no. There’s a reason that IOKIYAR—It’s OK If You’re A Republican—has become such a widely-used acronym. It’s because Republicans seem to think that anything goes when a Democrat is in office but Republicans should all be treated with kid gloves. Every Republican in the country thought it was a great idea to allow the Paula Jones lawsuit to go forward because, hey, Bill Clinton was in the White House. If it wrecks his agenda, that’s great. If it provides an excuse to impeach him, that’s great too. And anyway, spending a few hours in depositions is no big deal.

If that was true then, it’s true now. Everyone who voted for Trump knew about Trump’s penchant for lawsuits. It was all part of the package. The folks involved deserve their day in court.

For more on this, see Stephanie Mencimer’s piece about the Paula Jones case. Someone might want to ask Kellyanne Conway’s husband what he thinks of allowing sitting presidents to be sued in civil court.

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Should Donald Trump Get a Mulligan on His Lawsuits?

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