Stephan: It's only a first step but it is good news. I say this because I think it finally represents an act based on the awareness that climate change is not a matter of national borders, it is planet-wide. However, the actions of a single country within its borders can, and has, had an effect on the entire planet, and this also needs to be recognized as this decision reflects. Humanity is a long way from where we need to be, but at least we have started down the right path.
Sameh Shoukry, President of the UNFCCC COP27 climate conference, speaks on the conference’s first day on Nov. 6, 2022, in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt. Credit: Sean Gallup / Getty
Governments from around the world reached a preliminary deal Saturday on paying the most vulnerable nations for the damage they’re suffering from climate change, negotiators said — a move that would represent a major concession from the United States and European Union.
Despite that milestone, talks in the two-week United Nations climate summit slogged into early Sunday local time in the Red Sea resort of Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt, two days after the negotiations were supposed to have concluded. Nearly 200 nations still need to announce a final agreement on a host of issues, including whether they will commit to a broad phase-down of coal, oil and natural gas in an attempt to prevent a catastrophic warming of the Earth.
Organizers and delegates gave no hint of when the talks might conclude.
Final drafts of the texts, seen by POLITICO, showed that the deal on the damage fund remained intact despite […]
Stephan: The corruption of Trump and his administration has brought into focus the appalling corruption of the American government. Citizens United legalized bribery, and not only the American uber-rich, and the corporations they control, have taken advantage of this to shape government policies in the United States, foreign nations have also come to understand how blatant America corruption has become and bought into the game with millions of dollars. Here is just one example, the Emirates, and this is far from the only example. Saudi Arabia is another blatant example, and there are others. And none of this is going to stop until we create a system of publicly funded elections and make giving money to a politician a felony offense.
Criminal Trump welcomes Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan into the Oval Office, May 15, 2017, a meeting followed by wild corruption to the benefit of the Trump family. Credit: Getty
The UAE has spent more than $154 million on lobbyists since 2016, according to Justice Department records. It has spent hundreds of millions of dollars more on donations to American universities and think tanks, many that produce policy papers with findings favorable to UAE interests. The intrepid John Hudson at the Washington Post reports that the US National Intelligence Council has produced a secret report detailing the ways in which the United Arab Emirates (UAE) has intervened in US politics, sometimes in ways that appear to be illegal and to shade over into espionage.
Hudson writes,
“The UAE has spent more than $154 million on lobbyists since 2016, according to Justice Department records. It has spent hundreds of millions of dollars more on donations to American universities and think tanks, many that produce policy papers with findings favorable to UAE interests.”
Stephan: The current Supreme Court majority, in my opinion, are not justices interested in objective judicial judgments. They constitute a corrupt christofascist cabal. This is one of the many reasons I think as I do.
Chief Justice John Roberts Credit: Brendan Smialowski / AFP
According to a letter obtained by the New York Times, a former anti-choice religious leader informed Chief Justice John Roberts back in June that the leak of Associate Justice Sam Alito’s majority draft opinion gutting Roe v Wade was not the first time the court’s vaunted secrecy was breached.
According to the report, the Rev. Rob Schenck wrote the letter to Roberts in light of the Dobbs leak, claiming information on the 2014 Burwell v. Hobby Lobby ruling also made its way into the hand of religious leaders who used it to conduct a PR campaign.
As the Times’ Jodi Kantor and Jo Becker wrote, “Schenck said he was told the outcome of the 2014 case weeks before it was announced. He used that information to prepare a public relations push, records show, and he said that at the last minute he tipped off the president of Hobby Lobby, the craft store chain owned by Christian evangelicals that was the winning party […]
Stephan: Yet another example of the corruption of the Supreme Court, this time demonstrating yet again Associate Justice Clarence Thomas' lack of ethics. The failure of the Senate to impeach Clarence Thomas makes explicit that the Democrats know Thomas is corrupt but will do nothing to hold him accountable for his behavior. It is glaringly obvious that once an individual reaches a certain high level in the power structure of the United States they are essentially above the law.
Ginni Thomas, christofascist activist and wife of Associate Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas
In a dissent on Monday, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas showed that he would have blocked enforcement of a subpoena issued by the House Jan. 6 Committee for the phone and text records of Arizona Republican Party Chair Kelli Ward.
The committee is seeking Ward’s records related to her role in former President Donald Trump’s effort to steal the 2020 election as a fake elector casting ballots in the Electoral College for Trump.
This is the second time Thomas has indicated that he would intervene to hamper the committee’s efforts to investigate the plot to overturn the 2020 election in which his wife, Ginni Thomas, played a role
Thomas previously was the lone justice to dissent from the court’s refusal to block the release of White House records held by the National Archives to the Jan. 6 Committee. It was later revealed in March that his wife had been in communication with White House officials about Trump’s machinations to overturn President Joe Biden’s victory.
Stephan: This is excellent good news. The latest on the trend ending the internal combustion engine. I am very surprised that it is getting so little attention since it will have such a big impact on the future in a definable way.
U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris (C) looks at a heavy-duty electric truck at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York on Nov. 1, 2021. Credit: Kena Betancur / AFP / Getty
The memorandum sets a goal of ensuring 100 percent of new bus and truck sales are electric by 2040 and 30 percent by 2030.
“We have to work together across oceans and borders to meet our clean energy goals,” U.S. Secretary of Energy Jennifer M. Granholm said in a statement reported by clean transportation nonprofit CALSTART. “This global partnership will leverage the billions of dollars in clean transportation investments provided by President Biden’s agenda to drive technological innovation, lower vehicle costs, and reduce transportation emissions.”
CALSTART — through its Drive to Zero campaign — worked with the Netherlands to launch the Global MOU at last year’s COP26 in Glasgow, Scotland, according to the Drive to […]
