15 November 19
Robert Reich | George Kent and Bill Taylor's Testimony Was Devastating
Robert Reich, Robert Reich's Facebook Page
Reich writes: "Today the House conducted the first public hearings in the impeachment inquiry, and Republicans behaved just as expected."
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Robert Reich, Robert Reich's Facebook Page
Reich writes: "Today the House conducted the first public hearings in the impeachment inquiry, and Republicans behaved just as expected."
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Rudy Giuliani. (photo: Getty)
DOJ Opens Investigation Into Giuliani for Failure to Register as Foreign Agent, Campaign Finance Violations
Chris Strohm and Jordan Fabian, Bloomberg
Excerpt: "Rudy Giuliani, President Donald Trump's personal lawyer, is being investigated by federal prosecutors for possible campaign finance violations and a failure to register as a foreign agent as part of an active investigation into his financial dealings, according to three U.S. officials."
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Chris Strohm and Jordan Fabian, Bloomberg
Excerpt: "Rudy Giuliani, President Donald Trump's personal lawyer, is being investigated by federal prosecutors for possible campaign finance violations and a failure to register as a foreign agent as part of an active investigation into his financial dealings, according to three U.S. officials."
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Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) have introduced a bill that would upgrade public housing to be more energy efficient and run on renewable energy. (photo: Stephen Maturen/Getty)
Bernie and AOC Introduce $172 Billion Public Housing Plan as Part of Their Green New Deal
Ella Nilsen and Umair Irfan, Vox
Excerpt: "The $172 billion proposal aims to upgrade 1.2 million units of public housing to curb emissions."
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Ella Nilsen and Umair Irfan, Vox
Excerpt: "The $172 billion proposal aims to upgrade 1.2 million units of public housing to curb emissions."
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Students are escorted out of Saugus High School as some parents join them after reports of a shooting on Thursday in Santa Clarita, California. (photo: NBC)
Republicans Blocked a Bill for Universal Background Checks as the Santa Clarita High-School Shooting Was Unfolding
Paul McLeod and Kadia Goba, BuzzFeed
Excerpt: "Sen. Chris Murphy attempted to pass a gun control package Thursday morning, watched it get blocked by Republicans, and then gave a speech about the need to do something about the regular mass shootings in America. He didn't know until he walked out that another mass shooting had just happened, this time at a high school in California."
Paul McLeod and Kadia Goba, BuzzFeed
Excerpt: "Sen. Chris Murphy attempted to pass a gun control package Thursday morning, watched it get blocked by Republicans, and then gave a speech about the need to do something about the regular mass shootings in America. He didn't know until he walked out that another mass shooting had just happened, this time at a high school in California."
“I found out as soon as I walked off the floor,” Murphy told BuzzFeed News.
Two students were killed and several others were injured when a 16-year-old went on a shooting spree at a school in Santa Clarita on Thursday morning.
Murphy had asked for the Senate to unanimously agree to pass universal background checks for firearms, as he’s done repeatedly for months. “The American public are not going to accept silence from the body week after week, month after month in the face of this epidemic carnage that is happening in this country,” he said.
But even after news of the shooting spread through the Senate — Sen. Richard Blumenthal found out via a note from a staffer while he was giving a speech about gun violence — Murphy said he doesn’t believe it will change anything.
“I wish this weren’t the case, but Republicans’ interest in working on guns is driven by casualties of 15 or more. It’s so awful that it works like this,” he said. “I don’t doubt that we’ll be back in a conversation about background checks, but it probably won’t happen until there’s another epic-scale shooting.”
Some Republicans have long opposed the bill, arguing that universal background checks violate Second Amendment rights. Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith, the Republican who objected to Murphy trying to get a vote on the bill Thursday morning, argued that the legislation “should not be fast-tracked by the Senate.”
“Many questions about this legislation need to be answered before it’s forced upon law-abiding gun owners," Hyde-Smith said.
In September, House Democrats advanced three additional gun bills following mass shootings in El Paso, Texas, and Dayton, Ohio, which left a total of 31 people dead. There was also momentum toward a bipartisan gun control package negotiated with the White House.
But Murphy said he hadn’t heard from the Trump administration about background checks since September.
Lindsey Graham, chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said there is bipartisan support for one part of a gun control package — a grant program that encourages states to set up “red flag” programs that allow law enforcement officers to preemptively seize a person’s firearms if they are deemed to be a danger to themselves or others. But he said progress on background checks has stalled, and blamed, in part, the House impeachment inquiry.
“Impeachment has sucked all the oxygen out. But I hope we will revisit. I really do. I am ready to do something yesterday,” said Graham.
The House passed universal background checks in late February. The bill received bipartisan support with eight Republicans crossing the aisle to vote for the legislation. Since then, universal background checks have remained stalled in the Republican-led Senate at the behest of Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.
Attorney General Bill Barr blamed the House impeachment hearings for derailing the progress on gun control during an event in Tennessee on Wednesday. But Murphy refuted those claims Thursday morning.
“That’s not true,” Murphy said, addressing Barr’s comments on the Senate floor. “The impeachment proceedings right now are in the House of Representatives; the discussion on the future of the background checks bill was in the Senate.”
Government contractors erect a section of Pentagon-funded border wall along the Colorado River, in Yuma, Arizona, Sept. 10, 2019. (photo: Matt York/AP)
Trump Admin Preparing to Take Over Private Land in Texas for Border Wall
Courtney Kube and Julia Ainsley, NBC News
Excerpt: "The Trump administration is preparing court filings to begin taking over private land to build its long-promised border wall as early as this week - without confirming how much it will pay landowners first, according to two officials familiar with the process."
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Courtney Kube and Julia Ainsley, NBC News
Excerpt: "The Trump administration is preparing court filings to begin taking over private land to build its long-promised border wall as early as this week - without confirming how much it will pay landowners first, according to two officials familiar with the process."
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A supporter of former Bolivian president Evo Morales holding a Wiphala flag takes part in a protest in La Paz. (photo: Carlos Garcia Rawlins/Reuters)
Morales Supporters Reject New Government in Bolivia and Demand Reinstatement of Left-Wing Leader to Power
Manuel Rueda, Al Jazeera
Rueda writes: "Two people were killed on Wednesday in clashes between Bolivian police and supporters of former president Evo Morales, as the interim government of Jeanine Anez struggled to contain the political unrest sweeping the South American country."
Manuel Rueda, Al Jazeera
Rueda writes: "Two people were killed on Wednesday in clashes between Bolivian police and supporters of former president Evo Morales, as the interim government of Jeanine Anez struggled to contain the political unrest sweeping the South American country."
EXCERPT:
'On the streets until Evo returns'
Morales supporters marched through La Paz, Cochabamba and several other cities to denounce Anez on Wednesday.
"This woman does not represent us," said Rolando Balboa, a teacher from El Alto, a sprawling working-class area that is perched above the capital city of La Paz.
"Evo was a good man who built roads and gave homes to the poor, and they have forced him to resign," Balboa told Al Jazeera.
Protesters said they were outraged by recent incidents in which they said police burned the Wiphala flag and tore it off their shoulder patches after Morales was removed. The checkered, rainbow-coloured flag is an indigenous symbol that was placed on all government buildings, and stitched on police uniforms along with the national flag after Morales became president.
Morales became the country's first indigenous leader when he was first elected president in 2006. He remains a highly popular figure among the country's indigenous population.
"They are racists, who do not respect indigenous people," said Sabina Paz, a street vendor from El Alto who attended the protest.
Paz said her mother relies on a monthly subsidy of about $50 that Morales created for elderly people from poor and rural areas. She feared that Bolivia's new government would now revoke her benefit.
"We will be on the streets until Evo returns," she said.
Meanwhile, protests in the eastern province of Santa Cruz were markedly more violent.
The director of Bolivia's Institute for Forensic Science, Andres Flores said that in the town of Yapacani a man died from a bullet wound to his stomach on Wednesday. In nearby Montero, a teenager died from injuries to his skull after being beaten. It remains unclear who was responsible for the killings.
Flores said up to 10 people have been killed so far since political turmoil broke out in Bolivia following the elections.
In this July 5, 2017 file photo, pipes for the Sunoco Mariner East pipeline are placed in South Lebanon Township, Pennsylvania. (photo: Jeremy Long/AP)
FBI Begins Corruption Investigation of Another Energy Transfer Pipeline Project
Marc Levy, Associated Press
Levy writes: "The FBI has begun a corruption investigation into how Gov. Tom Wolf's administration came to issue permits for construction on a multibillion-dollar pipeline project to carry highly volatile natural gas liquids across Pennsylvania."
Marc Levy, Associated Press
Levy writes: "The FBI has begun a corruption investigation into how Gov. Tom Wolf's administration came to issue permits for construction on a multibillion-dollar pipeline project to carry highly volatile natural gas liquids across Pennsylvania."
FBI agents have interviewed current or former state employees in recent weeks about the Mariner East project and the construction permits, according to three people who have direct knowledge of the agents’ line of questioning.
All three spoke on condition of anonymity because they said they could not speak publicly about the investigation.
The focus of the agents’ questions involves the permitting of the pipeline, whether Wolf and his administration forced environmental protection staff to approve construction permits and whether Wolf or his administration received anything in return, those people say.
The Mariner East pipelines are owned by Texas-based Energy Transfer LP, a multibillion-dollar firm that owns sprawling interests in oil and gas pipelines and storage and processing facilities. At a price tag of nearly $3 billion, it is one of the largest construction projects, if not the largest, in Pennsylvania history.
However, the construction has spurred millions of dollars in fines, several temporary shutdown orders, lawsuits, protests and investigations. When construction permits were approved in 2017, environmental advocacy groups accused Wolf’s administration of pushing through incomplete permits that violated the law.
Wolf’s administration declined comment on the investigation Tuesday. In the past, Wolf and his administration have said the permits contained strong environmental protections and that the Department of Environmental Protection wasn’t forced to issue the permits.
An Energy Transfer spokeswoman said the company had not been contacted by the FBI about the Mariner East.
The chief federal prosecutor in Harrisburg, U.S. Attorney David Freed, declined comment.
The Mariner East project, along with the overhaul of the Marcus Hook refinery and export terminal near Philadelphia, have had the support of leading public officials and business trade groups.
Wolf himself has said that the pipeline’s economic benefits would outweigh the potential environmental harm, and that the Mariner East would be part of a distribution system that the industry needed.
The state’s building trades unions have seen a huge influx of work on the Mariner East pipelines and Marcus Hook. Exploration firms drilling in the booming Marcellus Shale and Utica Shale fields shipping natural gas liquids through Mariner East pipelines and Marcus Hook have helped the U.S. become the world’s leading ethane exporter.
The roughly 300-mile (480-kilometer) Mariner East 1 was originally built in the 1930s to transport gasoline westward from Marcus Hook. It was renovated and, in 2014, began carrying natural gas liquids eastward to the refinery from southwestern Pennsylvania’s drilling fields.
Construction permit applications were submitted in 2015 for two wider pipelines, the 350-mile-long (563-kilometer) Mariner East 2 and 2x, designed for the same purpose, but stretching farther, through West Virginia’s northern panhandle and into Ohio.
Both were projected to be open in 2017. But Mariner East 2 began operating in late December, and Mariner East 2X could be complete in 2020.
The pipelines run past houses, parks and schools in southeastern Pennsylvania, and have been met with protests by alarmed neighbors worried that one leak could ignite a deadly explosion. Sinkholes along the pipelines’ route have opened on lawns and construction has contaminated streams and private water wells.
Meanwhile, county and state prosecutors are investigating the pipeline.
Chester County’s district attorney, Tom Hogan, opened an investigation last December. In March, Pennsylvania’s attorney general, Josh Shapiro, said his office had opened an investigation on a referral from Delaware County’s district attorney. His office already had an environmental crimes investigation under way into the natural gas industry.
Wolf’s administration also has had run-ins with Energy Transfer in which it accused the company of willfully violating state law.
Still, when the Department of Environmental Protection issued the permits, environmental advocacy groups warned that it would unleash massive and irreparable damage to Pennsylvania’s environment and residents. In general, the permits are required to protect waterways and wetlands from pollution, runoff and obstruction stemming from heavy construction.
Within hours, the Clean Air Council and other environmental advocacy organizations appealed the permits, saying the DEP had approved incomplete and inaccurate permit applications that violated the law “in response to heavy and sustained political pressure.”
At the time, Wolf denied applying pressure to approve the pipeline permits. Rather, he said he had simply insisted the department stick to its own timeline to consider them and that he believed the department had done its due diligence.
The environmental groups’ request to halt construction was denied, but they did win additional protective steps in a settlement.
In depositions and internal documents that became exhibits in the appeal, department employees said the schedule to consider the applications had been sped up, but none said they had been forced to approve permits over their objections.
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