“because chickens and pigs (and cows and lambs and turkeys … ) are living things whose shapes and sizes vary, cutting and pulling breast meat from chickens, for example, can’t be done with machines or robots. It has to be done by human beings, and to achieve the output that slaughterhouses and meatpacking plants want, it has to be done quickly.
The plants’ practice of placing workers shoulder to shoulder, while doing exhausting work that leads to heavy breathing, has made them epicenters for the coronavirus outbreak this year. The Trump administration has tried to keep the mostly low-income workers in these plants working all the same out of fear of a “meat shortage,” putting the workers at considerable risk.
That’s hardly the only risk, however, that workers in these plants face. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, workers in animal slaughter and production face higher rates of injury than coal miners or construction workers. Poultry processing in particular is the leading occupational cause of finger amputations in the US.”
“Though hydraulic fracturing as a technique has been around since the 19th century and the first commercial fracking for gas took place in the 1940s, the most recent fracking boom started in earnest around 2005. That’s when the rising prices of oil and gas forced energy companies to look for other sources, when related techniques like horizontal drilling and low-cost slickwater fracking matured, and new estimates revealed the gargantuan amounts of gas stored in formations like Marcellus Shale.
Fracking has now become the dominant technique for extracting oil and gas in the US.”
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“During much of the fracking boom, the US economy grew and emissions declined. One study found that between 2005 and 2012, fracking created 725,000 jobs in the industry, not counting related supporting jobs. “This has been one of the most dynamic parts of the U.S. economy — you’re talking about millions of jobs,” Daniel Yergin, vice chairman of IHS Markit and founder of IHS Cambridge Energy Research Associates, told CNBC.
That’s largely due to natural gas from fracking displacing coal in electricity production. Natural gas emits about half of the greenhouse gas emissions of coal per unit of energy. It doesn’t have the massive land footprint that open pit mines or mountaintop removal coal mines do. While it has its own pollution problems, burning natural gas doesn’t produce pollutants like ash and mercury, which can pose health and environmental hazards for years.”
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“Natural gas’s flexibility has also eased the integration of variable renewable energy sources like wind and solar power. When the breezes slow down and clouds form above, natural gas steps in. This has reduced the need for other ways to compensate for intermittency, like energy storage.”
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“fracking has helped insulate the US from global economic shocks, particularly in oil markets. US shale oil has provided more than half the growth in global oil supplies, so rising tensions and disruptions in countries like Iran, Libya, and Venezuela have barely moved the needle at the gas pump.”
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“natural gas obtained by fracking has reduced emissions, aided the economy, and helped clean energy rise, while costing less than dirtier fuels.”
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“while low natural gas prices have helped knock dirty coal off the market, low oil prices driven in part by fracking have encouraged more travel. In fact, transportation is now the largest source of greenhouse gases in the US. And after years of decline, US emissions in 2018 rose by 3.4 percent.
Low oil prices have undermined the business case for cleaner transportation alternatives, like electric cars and fuel cell-powered buses. Instead, the United States has experienced a growing appetite for larger, thirstier cars and more air travel.
Meanwhile, low natural gas prices have had some collateral damage for nuclear power, the largest source of clean electricity in the US. Some of the nuclear power plants that have announced early retirements are likely to see their capacity replaced by natural gas. So while replacing coal with natural gas often leads to a reduction in emissions, replacing nuclear energy leads to an increase.
Natural gas itself can also become a climate problem. Methane, the dominant component of natural gas, produces less carbon dioxide than coal when burned. But if methane leaks, which it often does in some quantity during normal gas extraction operations, it becomes a potent greenhouse gas. Over 100 years, a quantity of methane traps more than 25 times the amount of heat compared to a similar amount of carbon dioxide.”
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“then there’s the technique of fracking itself. It requires a massive volume of water. Wells can release toxic chemicals like benzene into the air. Fracking sites can experience explosions and fires. They can contaminate drinking water. More than 17 million people in the US live within a mile of an active fracking well, and research shows that fracking can lead to low birth weight in infants born in that radius.
Many of these environmental risks, on balance, are less than those associated with mining and burning coal. However, the sudden surge in fracking means many people are being confronted with its impacts for the first time, making it a more vivid political concern. That’s in contrast to coal hazards, which are mostly familiar to the public consciousness.”
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“when it comes to limiting climate change, a key factor is time. Methane leaked from gas wells can stay in the atmosphere for a decade. Carbon dioxide from burning it can linger for a century. So it is imperative to ramp down greenhouse gas emissions as quickly as possible. Yet every new natural gas power plant represents a decades-long commitment to continue using the fuel. That means gas plants will have to install carbon capture systems, which would add to their operating costs and worsen the business case further, or some poor investor is going to be left holding the bag.”
“the biggest payoff for Operation Warp Speed could be the rapid deployment of a vaccine once one is approved. The upfront investment for drug companies to produce vaccine doses without knowing whether they will ever be used is the kind of thing the federal government is best positioned to do. Risk-averse pharmaceutical companies wouldn’t ordinarily spend hundreds of millions of dollars in that way otherwise.
“We want to make it worthwhile for these companies to do that under these conditions of uncertainty,” Sachs said.
Warp Speed has become in effect a military operation, with a STAT report on its organizational structure revealing that the military personnel working on the project actually outnumber the civilians. The military has flown equipment and raw materials around the world to manufacturing centers, and it will likely play a central role in vaccine distribution. Even Joe Biden has compared that process to a large-scale military operation.”
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“Not only have Trump’s public comments and this lack of coordination hindered the project, but the administration’s singular focus on Warp Speed has arguably led to other parts of the US pandemic response being undermined.
As Bloomberg reported in late September, the Trump administration has redirected about $6 billion in federal funding meant for the National Strategic Stockpile to Operation Warp Speed, even though protective equipment shortages persist. And about $1 billion in CDC funding, which otherwise would have been sent to state and local health agencies, was also steered to the project, according to Bloomberg.”
“Trump administration officials have repeatedly denied that they pursued a policy of intentionally separating immigrant families arriving at the southern border in 2018 — depicting the separation of parents from their children as a side effect of a “zero tolerance” policy of prosecuting all border crossers.
A new draft report from a government watchdog obtained by the New York Times shows they were lying.
“We need to take away children,” then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions reportedly told five US attorneys on the border during a meeting in May 2018 (to the lawyers’ alarm), adding that if parents care about their children, they shouldn’t bring them to the US in order to seek “amnesty.””
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“While former Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen has largely taken the blame for the policy publicly, it turns out that Sessions and his deputy Rod Rosenstein were much more directly involved in pushing for family separations than previously known.”
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“Rosenstein also emphasized the policy, telling the US attorneys that no children were too young to be separated from their parents. One of the prosecutors, John Bash, decided not to prosecute two cases involving families in which the children were just babies, and Rosenstein told him he should have gone ahead.
Bash later told his staff that the cases should not have been declined: “Per the A.G.’s policy, we should NOT be categorically declining immigration prosecutions of adults in family units because of the age of a child,” he said.”
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” for the duration of the zero-tolerance policy, prosecutors actually had a harder time enforcing the law in serious felony cases because they were overwhelmed in trying to prosecute every person who crossed the border without authorization. According to the report, a Texas prosecutor informed the DOJ in 2018 that “sex offenders” were consequently freed from custody. The US Marshals Service was also unprepared for the implementation of the zero-tolerance policy, meaning that it had to divert resources from serving warrants in other cases, the report said.”
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“Senior Trump administration officials, including Nielsen, have repeatedly denied that they pursued a policy of family separation”
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“It was later revealed that she had, in fact, signed a memo greenlighting the practice, which clearly stated that DHS could “permissibly direct the separation of parents or legal guardians and minors held in immigration detention so that the parent or legal guardian can be prosecuted.””
“Trump’s business model, which goes something like this: Launch several businesses, many of which hemorrhage millions of dollars each year, and use the publicity from those businesses to make money on personal branding. The latter is highly profitable, earning Trump $427.4 million between 2004-2018. The losses from the former—his hotels and resorts for instance—are then used to largely offset his tax liability.
The Times’ report does erode the savvy businessman brand Trump has sought to cultivate for himself, both commercially and as a candidate for office. The president is not necessarily the astute entrepreneur he claims to be, though he may be uniquely skilled at making money by wasting money. His most high-profile business successes—his golf courses—have reportedly lost $315 million since 2000. The Trump International Hotel in Washington, D.C., just opened in 2016, has already lost $55 million, both numbers according to the Times.
Losing money for a living is certainly an unorthodox business model, but that doesn’t make it illegal.
Trump’s deductions don’t stop there, however. There’s also the $9.7 million tax credit Trump claimed to renovate the Old Post Office building in Washington, D.C., which would later become the aforementioned Trump hotel. That fell under the historic preservation tax clause, an entirely legal tax incentive meant to encourage the redevelopment of old structures.
It could be legally problematic, or just another revealing symptom of U.S. tax law, that Trump has claimed millions of dollars in unspecified consulting fees on various business projects, which typically amounted to 20 percent of his income, according to the Times. Ivanka Trump was allegedly the recipient of hundreds of thousands of dollars in such consulting fees. The president also declared $1.4 billion in business losses in 2008 and 2009. An IRS audit is ongoing.”
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“Our tax code, which Bishop-Henchman says was written in the style of a “phone book,” is replete with overly complex rules and regulations meant to influence the public’s economic behavior. Former Vice President Joe Biden is no stranger to this. “I have nothing against Amazon,” he wrote in June of 2019, “but no company pulling in billions of dollars of profits should pay a lower tax rate than firefighters and teachers. We need to reward work, not just wealth.” The tech behemoth paid no federal taxes in 2018 after making use of legal tax incentives established by Congress, of which Biden was a member for 36 years. For example, Amazon invested $22.6 billion in research and development in 2017, something the legislature hopes will spur job creation and economic growth.”
“Reauthorized by Congress in December 2019 with the promise that it would suddenly change its ways and focus its firepower on fighting China, this export credit agency quickly returned to its tired routine of propping up its old and favorite customers, including—very prominently—Petroleos Mexicanos, or Pemex.”
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“Ex-Im Bank approved $400 million in financing to this Mexican government-owned oil company.”
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“Pemex is in serious financial trouble. It could very well collapse, despite its privileged position in Mexico. A pandemic-induced drop in oil prices combined with years of mismanagement have left Pemex technically insolvent. It’s already the world’s most-indebted oil company and one of the largest issuers of debt in Latin America.”
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“Pemex has been corrupt for years. In July 2020, its former chief executive was arrested in Spain (where he had been hiding to evade a Mexican arrest warrant) and extradited. He’s now a protected witness in an expansive bribery scandal involving three of Mexico’s former presidents, four former finance ministers, two presidential challengers, two state governors and a number of legislators.”
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“Now Ex-Im is justifying its financing to Pemex with the go-to excuse that it “would help counter financing competition from foreign export credit agencies, including from China.” This claim is dubious. In the bill to reauthorize Ex-Im last December, Congress did include what it calls the Program on China and Transformational Exports. It specified 10 sectors for the program, such as artificial intelligence, renewable energy, water treatment and sanitation. However, the list doesn’t include oil and gas. Nearly a quarter of Ex-Im’s overall exposure is in that sector, so Ex-Im’s long-standing connections to the industry—rather than a desire to counter China—are probably why the bank continues to deepen ties with Pemex.
This brings us to another question: How can some members of Congress reconcile subsidizing so many foreign oil and gas companies in light of their stated concerns about climate-related issues? Pemex’s record on that front should particularly disturb those who so loudly proclaim their environmental interests.”
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“The overarching lesson from this mess is that Congress was unrealistic to expect Ex-Im to change its ways. The bank can assert that things will be different, or that it will now focus on fighting China, but at the end of the day, its relationship with Pemex stretches back more than 70 years—a fact about which the agency boasts in its press release.
As long as Ex-Im holds tight to its favored companies, nobody should expect major results in any so-called transformational sectors. Old dogs won’t learn new tricks.”
“Inspectors general are the watchdogs of government, tasked with keeping government officials and their agencies honest and with detecting fraud and abuse. It’s an important position given the money and power that flows through the organs of the state and the resulting opportunities for shenanigans, great and small. So, it’s more than a little worrying when one of the watchdogs is charged with criminal abuse of his position of trust in an effort to enrich himself.”
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“The indictment of Charles K. Edwards, a former acting inspector general for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS), came down as most of the country was distracted by the prospect of viral doom.”
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“The indictment charges Charles K. Edwards, 59, of Sandy Spring, Maryland, and Murali Yamazula Venkata, 54, of Aldie, Virginia, with conspiracy to commit theft of government property and to defraud the United States, theft of government property, wire fraud, and aggravated identity theft. The indictment also charges Venkata with destruction of records.”
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“Edwards, who resigned from his post at DHS in 2013, had his associates copy proprietary software as well as information about internal investigations and personal identifying information on DHS and Postal Service employees. His intent, says the Justice department, was to sell an improved version of the software back to the government.
According to an internal privacy notice at DHS, the stolen data included “names, Social Security numbers, dates of birth, positions, grades, and duty stations” on 246,167 employees. The affected workers were offered 18 months of paid identity-protection services and urged to take other defensive steps, including freezing their credit.”
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“Edwards also socialized with senior DHS officials—the people he was supposed to be watching—in an apparent effort to gather support for a permanent appointment to his position. He “would boast about his close relationship with members of DHS management, how frequently he met or dined with DHS management, and that his nomination was all but assured.””
“President Donald Trump has been touting chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine since March as effective treatments for COVID-19. He even took hydroxychloroquine as a prophylactic measure for two weeks in May.
Last week, when the president was hospitalized for a COVID-19 infection, his physicians listed the medications with which he is being treated. Hydroxychloroquine is notable by its absence.
Instead, the president has been aggressively treated with Regeneron Pharmaceuticals’ polyclonal antibodies. This combination of two monoclonal antibodies aims to block the coronarvirus from infecting cells, providing extra time for patients’ immune systems to ramp up their own natural defenses against the virus. While the treatment is still in clinical trials, preliminary reports suggest that it does substantially help to alleviate COVID-19 symptoms.”
“Myles Cosgrove, a Louisville, Kentucky, detective who participated in the fruitless and legally dubious drug raid that killed Breonna Taylor last March, told investigators the incident unfolded so quickly that he was not consciously aware of using his gun. That detail, which emerged from audio recordings of grand jury proceedings that were released on Friday, is alarming in light of the fact that Cosgrove fired 16 rounds—including the fatal bullet, according to the FBI’s ballistic analysis.”
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“A third officer, Detective Brett Hankison, blindly fired 10 rounds from outside the apartment, an act of recklessness that led the grand jury to charge him with three counts of wanton endangerment. Some of Hankison’s rounds entered the unit behind Taylor’s, which was occupied by a man, a pregnant woman, and a child. Hankison is the only officer who faces criminal charges in connection with the raid. State prosecutors concluded that the other two officers legally used deadly force in self-defense.
Cosgrove’s description of the incident does not necessarily cast doubt on that conclusion, but it does underline the dangers inherent in the armed home invasions that police routinely use to enforce drug prohibition. Those dangers include not only the well-known risk that residents will mistake cops for robbers but the possibility that police will mistake their colleagues’ gunfire for an assault by their targets. In such chaotic circumstances, there is also a risk that police will be injured or killed by friendly fire.
The plainclothes officers were serving a warrant based on Taylor’s continued contact with an ex-boyfriend who was arrested for drug dealing the same night. They approached her apartment around 12:40 a.m. Although the warrant authorized the cops to break in without knocking or announcing themselves, they claim they did both. According to Cosgrove, they waited about 90 seconds before using a battering ram to force entry, beginning with “gentle knocking” and escalating to “forceful pounding,” eventually accompanied by cries of “Police!”
Cameron accepted this account. That was an important determination, since Kentucky’s law allowing the use of deadly force in defense of a dwelling makes an exception for armed resistance to a police officer who enters a home “in the performance of his or her official duties,” but only if “the officer identified himself or herself in accordance with any applicable law or the person using force knew or reasonably should have known that the person entering or attempting to enter was a peace officer.”
In an interview played for the grand jurors, Walker said he and Taylor were watching a movie in bed at the time of the raid. He said he was “scared to death” when he heard the pounding on the door, which by his reckoning lasted for 30 seconds or so. “Who is it?” he and Taylor yelled, according to his account; he said they heard no response. The New York Times reports that “11 of 12 witnesses on the scene that night said they never heard the police identify themselves,” while “one of them said he heard the group say ‘police’ just once.””
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“it is completely plausible that Walker did not realize the armed men invading the apartment were police officers. He reported a break-in during phone calls that night, including a 911 call after the shooting in which a distraught Walker said, “I don’t know what’s happening. Somebody kicked in the door and shot my girlfriend.” In these circumstances, it is not surprising that local prosecutors, who initially charged Walker with attempted murder of a police officer, dropped that charge in May.”
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“gratuitous risks that all of the officers took that night. The Times notes that Hankison “had not anticipated a firefight” because he “expected one unarmed woman, who had no criminal record, to be home alone.” In a saner world, that expectation would have cast doubt on the tactics that police decided to use, even leaving aside the weak excuse of a search warrant that was built entirely on guilt by association.
Based on scant evidence and the immoral logic of the war on drugs, these officers created the situation in which Cosgrove found himself reflexively firing 16 rounds down a dark hallway. When a terrified man had the temerity to defend himself against a bewildering home invasion, Cosgrove and his colleagues responded with overwhelming force, firing a total of 32 bullets. The legal determination that 22 of those rounds were justified should not blind us to the fact that whole operation was a travesty from beginning to end.”
“There are 1.2 million foreign students in the United States, enrolled in 5,300 American colleges and universities. Most come to America on nonimmigrant F-1 and M-1 visas that require them to maintain a full course load at universities approved by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Student and Exchange Visitor Program. In order to guard against diploma mills, the program grants accreditation mostly to universities that offer classroom instruction and usually limits foreign students to three credit hours of online instruction per semester.
When COVID-19 hit and colleges moved online, ICE did the sensible thing and allowed international students to finish their spring and summer semesters by taking their classes online without voiding their visas. The agency rescinded that guidance in early July, however, ordering international students attending online-only programs to either leave or face deportation and risk getting barred from the U.S. for 10 years. This meant several hundred thousand foreign students would have had to quickly terminate leases on apartments, uproot the lives they’ve built here, and find exorbitantly expensive flights back home without any idea of when they would be allowed to return to complete their education.
Lawsuits by Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology prompted the Trump administration to issue new rules in late July allowing foreigners who are already enrolled to continue their studies online. But even though students who are here will be allowed to stay, the new rules will still deny visas to incoming freshmen from abroad whose universities are offering only online courses in response to the pandemic. They can either defer for a semester or begin their programs online from their home countries—a logistically challenging proposition for many due to time differences.
Roughly 80,000 people, or about 30 percent of new international students, even before the new pandemic visa rules, had decided not to come this fall, according to Brad Farnsworth, vice president of the American Council on Education. Given the political uncertainty, many of them might permanently abandon their plans to study in the U.S. and go to more welcoming countries instead.
The ban is a major hit to American universities. International students constitute 5.5 percent of all students. They pump around $41 billion into colleges annually and support nearly 460,000 jobs on campus and in surrounding communities. Many of them pay full tuition, which subsidizes the price tag for American kids. Universities also depend on foreign graduate students to assist in classroom instruction, especially in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) fields.
America was already facing declining international enrollment for three years straight. The administration’s move will only intensify that trend.”