Defying death threats, 3 former Trump admin officials, all women, speak to ABC News about the threat of a second Trump Administration:
“Fundamentally a second Trump term could mean the end of American democracy as we know it.”
In a joint interview with ABC News, Alyssa Farah Griffin, Cassidy Hutchinson, and Sarah Matthews, three conservative former Trump administration officials warned America of the danger of a second Trump term, and pledged to vote for President Biden if Trump is the GOP nominee:
“I’ve never voted for a Democrat in my life, but I think that in this next election, I would put policy aside and choose democracy”
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At the beginning, in an interview clip, Trump promises to be a Dictator on day one ( only for a day, he says) and his first acts will be to “close the border, and drill, drill, drill”. Do we understand now the connection between fossil fuels and dictatorship?
There’s no secret that Texas has a housing affordability crisis. Too few houses built after the pandemic, high land costs and mortgage rates and burgeoning population are among key factors.
Less evident is the increasing difficulty of homeowners to obtain affordable insurance. And that’s the reason for Texas policymakers to think proactively about the repercussions of extreme weather and outdated building and land-use policies on affordability and insurability.
Insurance is all about anticipating risks, and Texas’ staggering population growth and weather patterns have added new levels of risk. Decades ago, hail would land in an empty field. Now hail will hit a $500,000 house and $45,000 car, and an insurer will have financial exposure.
To reduce their financial exposure this year, some carriers no longer accept new homeowners insurance business in North Texas, are choosing not to renew existing policies or are linking homeowners insurance with bundled auto policies, according to a recent Dallas Morning News story. Other companies are increasing deductibles or changing coverage terms, potentially leaving unsuspecting homeowners on the wrong side of a claim.
Even with increased weather risks in the hurricane-prone Texas Gulf and other weather risks elsewhere in the state, Texas is a better risk market than California and Florida, where insurers are bailing out. Still, Texas ranks eighth in the U.S. for overall climate vulnerability, according to Environmental Defense Fund and Texas A&M University research. And that’s during this year when hurricanes didn’t queue up on the Texas Coast as they often do.
It’s New Year’s Eve, so let’s talk football. And, ok, also electricity production. Up front I admit I’m still pissed off, as a Lions fan, about last night’s result.
But I’m also biased as an energy nerd, and someone who hates to see one of the nation’s largest utility service provider (ERCOT – Energy Reliability Council of Texas) act as a solely owned subsidiary of the oil/gas oligarchy. What’s the common thread? Dallas Cowboys owner and gas billionaire Jerry Jones.
As mainstream NFL commentators come unglued about the obvious robbery of the Lions last night, energy geeks remember that Cowboys owner Jerry Jones profited enormously from 2021’s deadly Texas blackouts, (in which hundreds of Texans died), which happened primarily almost half of Texas’ gas generation (as well as coal and one nuclear plant) froze up when it was most needed. And THAT happened because the energy industry (still – see below) will not be bound by any lefty/communist regulations to disaster-proof the grid.
The winter storms gripping much of the United States have devastated many families and businesses, with frigid temperatures and power outages causing particularly dire conditions in Texas.
But for oil and gas producers that have managed to keep production going, this is proving to be a big payday. Jerry Jones, the billionaire owner of the Dallas Cowboys, appears to be one of the beneficiaries.
Comstock Resources Inc., a shale driller that operates in Texas and Louisiana, told investors on an earnings call this week that the surge in natural gas prices was providing it with a major — albeit almost certainly temporary — financial boost. The company is publicly traded but Jones holds a majority of the shares.
“Obviously, this week is like hitting the jackpot,” President and Chief Financial Officer Roland Burns said Wednesday.
Jerry Jones is doing what he has always done: trying to cash in. He is damn good at it. He is a billionaire for a lot of reasons: business acumen, luck, fearlessness and the willingness to do things like jack up the price of natural gas at a time when the people of Texas need it the most.
Recapping legal actions in the wake of Ohio’s biggest ever bribery and Racketeering case, generically known as the HB 6 Case, since it involved bribing legislators to help pass House Bill 6, a measure that forced Ohio ratepayers to subsidize failing nuclear and coal fired power plants.
Report includes very satisfying perp walk by Anti Clean energy (alleged) scammer Sam Randazzo.
Unlikely to ever see the outside of a prison fence for the rest of his life, former Republican House Speaker Larry Householder had a tough year.
After his trial from January to March, Householder was found guilty of accepting a $61 million bribe in exchange for selling out the Statehouse to FirstEnergy and other utility companies. He used taxpayer money to create legislation called House Bill 6 that provided a more than a billion-dollar bailout for FE’s struggling nuclear power plants.
He used the bribe money to put himself and his allies into power, demolishing and threatening anyone in his path, as well as paying off credit card debt and renovations to his home in Florida.
He then fell into the FBI’s trap and, embarrassingly, lied on the stand. He seemed to not understand that the feds had recordings of him admitting to the crimes.
In June, he was sentenced to 20 years in prison.
“I’m not guilty,” Householder exclaimed following the verdict.
The jury, judge and FBI begged to differ.
Matt Borges
Former GOP leader Matt Borges got the short end of the racketeering stick, having his bribery scheme charges combined in the same trial as Householder.
He pocketed over $350,000 from the scandal, but his biggest faux pas was attempting to bribe an FBI informant with a $15,000 check.
He was also found guilty, which the foreman of the jury told News 5 was a much easier decision to make than Householder since it was so clear-cut.
“I did not believe that anything proved that I had engaged in a racketeering conspiracy, which is why I fought this from the beginning,” Borges said on the day the verdict was read.
Due to playing a significantly smaller role in the scandal and for seemingly taking responsibility for his actions in his sentencing request letter, he ended up with five years in prison.
Sam Randazzo
The dominos continue to fall in the H.B. 6 scheme. In early December, former chairman of the Public Utilities Commission Sam Randazzo pleaded not guilty after being charged with a dozen bribery crimes.
Unluckily for Randazzo, who didn’t also take a plea deal when Householder’s right-hand man, Jeff Longstreth, and FirstEnergy admitted to the scheme, he now has to deal with the ramifications of the information that is already public.
When I mentioned earlier that the extreme high tide and surf conditions in California today were tsunami-like in some cases, this is what I was talking about. Fortunately it sounds like everyone made it out but there was extensive damage and quite a few injuries. Wow. #CAwxhttps://t.co/eLiomglOxO
The piece here is actually informative and a lot more nuanced than the clickbait title on the thumbnail.
Early adopters run into challenges, and that’s happened here. Outlook? Hertz will be buying more EVs, and from a wider range of manufacturers. Transition continues.
Looking at station data through Dec 27th, there is a strong chance that Dec 2023, will exceed Dec 2021, as the warmest Dec on record for the Contiguous U.S. The last 4 days of the month must average about 3.1F above normal to finish in 1st place. No chance of dropping below 2nd. pic.twitter.com/MiQDX2c4Py
Key point: this whole concern about recycling solar panels, speaks to the basic orientation of solar industry professionals towards an environmental ethic, but also to a lot of bad actors pumping the “wave of solar junk” meme.
As the video points out, solar panels could account for as much as 80 million metric tons of material globally by 2050. Compare to 200 million tons of toxic coal waste that will accumulate in just the next few months! See my interviews with Heather Mirletz and Henry Hieslmair below.
The southern California city of Huntington Beach, a bastion of conservative voters, has made the move to block diverse monthlong celebrations of Black history, women’s history and Pride, in favor of observing the revolutionary and civil wars, California’s history and America’s independence.
An agenda item introduced on 19 December forbids any programming that pertains to previously established honorary celebrations for women, people of color and LGBTQ+ groups from taking place on city-owned property, including libraries, or of being featured in city communications such as social media posts, according to Natalie Moser, a city council member who voted against the action.
This means that monthly programming meant to acknowledge and teach the history of historically marginalized groups such as Black Americans and LGBTQ+ people will be replaced by “content” about local railroad and surfing history and a monthlong tribute to the discovery of oil in Huntington Beach called Black Gold Jubilee, according to the agenda item’s language. It’s still possible that the city can establish a day of observation for marginalized groups, Moser adds.
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This is the latest action in a series of local actions that mirror national culture wars over the past year, since four conservative council members were elected on anti-housing development platforms. In the year since their elections, mayor Gracey Van Der Mark, mayor pro tem Pat Burns and councilmembers Casey McKeon and Tony Strickland have voted to disallow Pride flags from being flown on city property, declared itself a “no mask and no vaccine mandate” city and created a review board for children’s library books.
“This traces back to a larger systemic apathy for what our libraries provide and support of the new culture wars, it’s just continuing down that path,” said Dan Kalmick, another Huntington Beach city council member who voted against the agenda item. “This is just an ignorant attempt to try to make the utopia that they accuse everyone else of trying to create. This is all a hand-wave to distract from the fact that they’re breaking the city.” Huntington Beach is a majority white community of nearly 200,000 in Orange county.
While the most recent moves by the conservative city council majority have grabbed local and regional headlines, they did not begin with the November 2022 elections. The city and county have grappled with decades of racial tensions and extremist demonstrations and actions including a stop the steal rally in 2020, a white lives matter rally in 2021, and the distribution of Ku Klux Klan propaganda that same year. Similar materials were found in Newport Beach, just 5 miles south.
