The most powerful people in the world pretend they can do nothing

I mentioned yesterday that an Arab won the mayoral election in Dearborn, Michigan. That winner is Abdullah Hammoud. But he wasn’t the only one. Aysha Qamar of Daily Kos reported Dearborn Heights elected Muslim Bill Bazzi, who had been appointed to the job in January, and now won a direct election. And Hamtramck elected Muslim Amer Ghalib. Hamtramck, surrounded by Detroit, has been known as the Polish neighborhood. It is now the city in the area with the highest percentage of immigrants. Ghalib’s election means this will be the first time in a century Hamtramck doesn’t have a mayor of Polish descent. The small city is now more than half Arab. The Detroit metro area has the largest Arab population outside the Middle East. Much of it is centered in Dearborn and Dearborn Heights. And now Arabs are speaking for themselves. Hunter of Kos reported the Federal Election Commission has decided that foreign people and governments may contribute money to state ballot initiatives. Yes, it is illegal for foreigners to donate to elections. But the FEC has said people running for office are elections, but ballot initiatives are, technically, not. The specific case that prompted the decision is the Canadian subsidiary of an Australian mining giant wanted to fund opposition to a Montana ballot measure about tightening water pollution rules for the mining industry. Hunter wrote:

Any world power with a bit of spare change could, for that matter, fund pro-gun, pro-militia ballot measures in all fifty states just to screw with our national security a bit more than the homegrown versions have managed. There's a political party who'd happily help, and a whole movement of people who would take time out from their pro-revolution and anti-vaxxer podcasts to jump on that bandwagon. The good news is that this is near-instantaneously fixable. All that needs to happen is that Congress needs to clarify existing laws to bar foreign cash from influencing any ballot measure, rather than just races for elected office. Surely, we cough, that would be a bipartisan 10-minute effort that could be done by Christmas. Similarly, each state could close the loophole itself. ... Seriously, could we just fix this one without drama? Looking at you, McConnell. Looking at you, Manchin.

Bills to close the foreign loophole have been introduced. We’ll see how far they get. Kerry Eleveld of Kos reported on a recent Kos/Civiqs poll asking about voter grievances, ten months into Biden’s term. At the top of the top ten is “State of Democracy.” That got a dissatisfied response from 88% of all who responded, 86% from Democrats, 90% from Republicans, and 87% from Independents. Eleveld wrote:

This is not to say that Democrats, Republicans, and independents agree on what’s ailing our democracy, just that it’s a key area of dissatisfaction for all three groups.

Other grievances in the top ten, ordered by total percent dissatisfied: gas prices, price of household goods, race relations, personal savings, wealth gap (91% Dems dissatisfied, 20% GOP), quality of education, price of health care, freedom to live as one pleases (51% D, 73% R), and local infrastructure. I add: When Republicans want freedom to live as one pleases it surely includes freedom to discriminate against others. Greg Dworkin, in his pundit roundup for Kos, quoted HuffPost’s article on Brad Raffensperger, famous as the Secretary of State in Georgia who refused to “find” 11,000 votes to allow the nasty guy to win the state. Many believe he is politically doomed.

He is seeking reelection in Georgia, where a crowded field of primary candidates have lined up to dethrone a man now considered public enemy No. 1 by adherents of the MAGA movement. Almost nobody thinks he can win. “He’s dead in the water,” Jay Williams, a Georgia GOP consultant, told HuffPost.

Laura Clawson of Kos reported that now that the COVID vaccine is available for children 5-11 the Boston Globe has all kinds of stories about parents who are hesitant or opposed to their kids getting the jab. But the story that appointments are getting snapped up so quickly that one would be very lucky to find an appointment within an hour of Boston within the next ten days? Crickets. Such a story should be easy to write. Sheesh, Kos did it. Instead, the Globe chose fear. April Siese of Kos reported that earlier this week Mia Mottley, Prime Minister of Barbados, gave a speech to the COP26 conference. Her main message: “Try harder.” Barbados is not a primary cause of the problem and can’t afford to reduce greenhouse gases without foreign help. The amount of money promised has not come and the little bit promised is not enough. So what will it take to get lawmakers to act? Siese quoted a tweet from Joel Scott-Halkes

Nearly every world leader at #COP26 is male. The #patriarchy seems abstract until you realise that the future or humanity rests this week almost exclusively in the hands of men.

Meteor Blades, in his Earth Matters column for Kos, says there is a lot of nice talk at COP26, but there isn’t a lot of precedent for turning all that talk into action. One example of the nice talk is the Global Methane Pledge to cut methane emissions by 30% over the next eight year. 100 nations have signed. But pledges are words, not actions. Russia, one of the worst methane emitters, didn’t sign. And the US commitment may be blocked by the Supreme Court. In 2007 the Supremes ruled that the Environmental Protection Agency is required to regulate greenhouse gases. The current Supremes may consider a way to make the EPA inoperable. Other stories Blades mentioned: Many diverse candidates put environmental justice at the center of their campaigns... and won. Climate disinformation on Facebook comes mostly from just ten sources, which are listed. Corporations are pledging to be “net-zero” by a certain date – are such pledges just greenwashing? Amy Westervelt tweeted:

Boy sure is infuriating watching the most powerful people in the world pretend they can do nothing about anything.

Last week Brandi Buchman of Kos reported on a hearing by the House Oversight and Reform Committee with top oil executives in the hot seats. A big topic was oil companies putting a green face to the public while paying $452 million since 2011 lobbying the federal government, at least partly through the American Petroleum Institute. So if these companies are claiming they disagree with the API and its lobbying against electric vehicles would they commit to ending their relationship with it? That was a question by Rep. Ro Khanna. The response: Silence. Then weasel words – gosh, the API does a lot of other things we like. Khanna said:

If your money is going to organizations that are against the fundamental values you claim you stand for, don’t you think you have some obligation to monitor where the money is going and to make some commitment today? You’re just saying ‘we’re going to just keep spending, we’ll keep having conversations and if they want to do false advertising, fine, we will talk to them behind the scenes’? Is anyone prepared to make a statement saying we are going to take accountability on something important and stop funding groups that are actively engaged in any form of climate disinformation? Is there any form of commitment in any way? Even with a bunch of weasel words would be great.

April Siese reported Rep. Katie Porter took over and posted a couple videos of her questioning. Siese wrote:

During Porter’s questioning of Shell President Gretchen Watkins, the California congresswoman held up a jar filled to the brim with M&Ms, each of which represented about $50 million. Altogether, the M&Ms signified upwards of the $22 billion Shell’s 2020 annual report called for spending on renewable energy in the near term. The near term must add up to almost a decade, because Watkins said Shell is only spending $2 billion to $3 billion on renewables this year. Porter noted that Shell will be spending between $16 billion and $17 billion this year on oil, gas, and chemical operations, with another $3 billion going towards marketing. “Mrs. Watkins, to me, this does not look like an adequate response to one of the ‘defining challenges of our time,’” Porter said, quoting Watkins’ own testimony. “This is greenwashing,” Porter added.

Porter then zeroed in on the API leasing huge plots of land, nearly 14 million acres, which they have yet to exploit. Yet the API is in a legal battle with the Biden Administration because Biden has banned any more leasing. To demonstrate this one Porter considered a grain of rice to be one acre. She then showed the back of an SUV holding 479 pounds of rice. She asked those at the hearing if they would support a ban on further leasing. She cut them off quickly when they veered into weasely answers. She said this acreage is the size of New Jersey and Maryland combined. What’s next – Iowa and Colorado? This is our public land and for the API “too much is never enough.”