Which would make me nervous if I were the President.
Sam Clovis is, of course, the climate-denying, islamaphobic, Russo-philic, non-scientist appointed recently to a science-heavy USDA post, see background here.
Sam Clovis, President Donald Trump’s controversial nominee to be the Agriculture Department’s chief scientist, has been “a fully cooperative witness” in the Senate Intelligence Committee’s investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 election, Senate Agriculture Chairman Pat Roberts told POLITICO.
Clovis, a former co-chair and policy adviser to Trump’s campaign, knew that another campaign adviser, George Papadopoulos, was talking to Russians, according to documents released Monday as part of special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe and campaign and administration officials.
I’m not a huge Chris Mathews fan, but he’s the first “mainstream” journalist I’ve heard put his finger on what I’ve been saying since the election. Caught Chris on Colbert’s late show last night.
Last time I looked, the Russian mob-ocracy is overwhelmingly dependent on fossil fuel extraction to maintain their wealth and power.
Russia is a major exporter of crude oil, petroleum products, and natural gas. Sales of these fuels accounted for 68% of Russia’s total export revenues in 2013, based on data from Russia’s Federal Customs Service. Russia received almost four times as much revenue from exports of crude oil and petroleum products as from natural gas. Crude oil exports alone were greater in value than the value of all non-oil and natural gas exports.
Russia is one of the leading countries that actively produce oil and supply it to other countries: Over last ten years Russian economy depends on oil and gas revenues as the oil prices grow. This has double meaning. On the one hand, the Russian economy demonstrated growth; the budget revenues, therefore, grew due to oil and gas industry, which may be beneficial for the state. But then the oil dependency resulted in other industries underdeveloped or even did not develop at all, which would be negative in terms of diversification of the national economy and mitigation of risks. Therefore, as the oil prices reduced late 2014, it negatively affected the Russian economy and may adversely affect the prospects of economic growth under uncertainty of oil prices.
Trump/Russia scandal is about fossil fuels, the carbon bubble, and a last monstrous grasp by the rotting dead hand of the global carbon club. Readers know that I’ve been saying this for a year, and managed to get thru to the Diane Rehm show days after the election a year ago, to point out that Putin’s election hack showed identical MO to the “ClimateGate” email hacks of the last decade – updated and rolled out on a global scale.
