The U.S. Senate Might Be About to Kill 

Biden's Clean Energy Plans

Alejandro de la Garza

Thu, June 30, 2022 

Deepwater Wind installing the first offshore wind farm at Block Island, Rhode Island, August 14, 2016. Credit - Mark Harrington/Newsday RM—Getty Images

You might not expect to see fireworks in congressional debates over offshore energy worker regulations. But in a little-noticed March meeting of the House transportation and infrastructure committee, things got heated between Rep. Garret Graves (R., La.) and Rep. Jake Auchincloss (D., Mass.) as they argued over an amendment to the 2022 Coast Guard reauthorization bill that would ban foreign flagged ships with multinational crews from working off the U.S. coast. The back-and-forth ended on a sour note. “If my friend wants to keep hiring Russians, that’s fine,” Graves said.

“If my friend from Louisiana wants to thwart the clean energy industry in the United States,” Auchincloss responded, “then that’s fine.”

Committee chairman Peter DeFasio (D., Ore.) stepped in to note his support for the amendment and it ultimately passed. While not yet enacted—the bill will likely come up before the Senate commerce committee in the next month—wind energy proponents are worried. American Clean Power, a renewables industry group, said the new provision would “cripple” the offshore wind industry and stymie President Joe Biden’s efforts to build 30 gigawatts of offshore wind energy by 2030. (Unlike Europe and Asia, the United States has almost no offshore wind power at present, and even Biden’s aspirations lag far behind the ambitions of other countries.)

The crux of the debate comes down to certain kinds of highly specialized ships needed to perform mega-construction tasks like erecting huge turbine components and laying miles of underwater cables, which will be needed as offshore construction on the U.S.’s few approved ocean wind projects actually gets underway. The provision would mandate that only U.S. ships with American crews be allowed to work on offshore energy projects, including those big lift jobs, or, if foreign ships are used, they must be crewed either by Americans, or by sailors and workers that match the vessel’s flag of origin: for example, a ship flying the Norwegian flag should be crewed only by Norwegians.

There’s American boats to do a lot of the smaller supporting tasks around that construction, and the bill’s proponents say there’s a big problem of foreign boats with low paid workers taking American jobs. Of the few ships designed to do the specialized heavy lift work, most are registered in different countries than where the crew is from because of financial or regulatory expediency. Lower foreign wages give those ships an unfair advantage, say supporters of the new provision, effectively thwarting the U.S. shipbuilding industry from getting financing to roll out ships capable of building offshore wind turbines. “If the law continues to allow foreign entities to enjoy cost advantages we don’t have, and an unlevel playing field, we simply cannot compete with them,” says Aaron Smith, president of the Offshore Marine Service Association, an industry group that advised on the provision in the Coast Guard bill.

But that situation is also why the bill could mean big problems for offshore wind projects planned up and down the East coast: the U.S. simply doesn’t have many of those types of specialized ships, and the U.S. offshore wind market is so small that even blocking foreign ships from coming still might not make a good enough financial case to get American versions built.

“Every wind turbine installation vessel that is not able to come to the United States because of this provision would eliminate 1,460 megawatts of offshore wind from being installed a year, which would be 4.9 million tons of carbon dioxide,” says Claire Richer, federal affairs director at American Clean Power. Instead, she suggests subsidies to build U.S. offshore wind vessels, rather than mandates that block ships from working here.

In theory, foreign ships could switch their registrations and crews to comply with the law, though that could be difficult since some highly specialized personnel can’t be easily swapped out. Of some essential ships, like the nine worldwide designed to place wind turbine foundations on the seafloor, every single vessel is registered in countries like the Bahamas where the entire crew is permitted to be from somewhere else. And the harsh reality is that there’s so much offshore wind work to be done around the world that the owners of the ships are likely not to bother with the hassle, and just stick to construction jobs in Asia and Europe, leaving the fledgling U.S. offshore wind industry high and dry. And even if protectionism eventually helps build up a domestic offshore construction fleet, some in the offshore wind industry say that the result, free from international competition, would be inferior to the ships building wind power in Europe or Asia, meaning a slower offshore wind rollout.

The whole issue points to an uncomfortable opposition in the green energy transition: we need to decarbonize the economy as fast as possible to avert the worst effects of climate change, but the quickest and most efficient way of doing so sometimes means dropping politically popular protectionism in favor of free trade. The balance between efficiency and protectionism has been long established—things get cheaper when you open the doors to the foreign market, and some domestic industry suffers—and for decades the balance of U.S. policy was weighted firmly toward globalism. Then, around the 2016 election, Donald Trump’s campaign invoked the evils of the North American Free Trade Agreement (“The worst trade deal maybe ever signed anywhere.”) so many times as to make the position politically radioactive.

There’s lots of good reasons to prioritize U.S. green industry—and there’s an argument to be made that sometimes a bit of protectionism is necessary to get the ball rolling. But there are also trade-offs to blocking foreign competition. Usually, it means higher prices: more expensive steel and socks. In the case of offshore wind, it could mean even more delay in developing a desperately-needed source of green power as we wait for our own industry to catch up—assuming it ever really does. There’s a lot of jobs around offshore wind, and only some of them involve manning the ships that come by for a few months to drop components in the water. If the price of those additional American crews means tipping the climate balance even further in the wrong direction, our leaders should think carefully about if it’s really worth it for the rest of us.

ALBERTA

A party divided cannot stand — especially if they can’t stand their leader

The UCP may not fall as a result of its divisions. But after the result of the party’s leadership review vote is announced on May 18, it’ll have to be either all Jason Kenney or no Jason Kenney at all!

Alberta Premier Jason Kenney addresses a carefully curated crowd of about 100 supporters at a UCP “Special General Meeting” in Red Deer April 11 (Photo: Screenshot of United Conservative Party video). 

Credit: Twitter screenshot / United Conservative Party

by David J. Climenhaga

April 25, 2022

A house divided against itself cannot stand.

That goes for political parties too, I daresay.

And I’d say the United Conservative Party (UCP) led by Premier Jason Kenney is getting perilously close to the point where it’s so divided against itself, that if nothing changes, it’ll have to have to be folded up like a tent, thrown in the back of a blue pickup truck, and driven out of town!

It’s been apparent for a while there are serious divisions within the UCP – COVID deniers versus public health affirmers, Progressive Conservatives versus Wildrosers, neoliberals versus social conservatives, rural MLAs versus urban MLAs, possibly even climate change deniers versus “green conservatives,” to borrow a phrase from Preston Manning.

It looked for a spell as if the UCP – cobbled together in 2017 to restore the Progressive Conservative dynasty created by Peter Lougheed, who led the PCs to power in 1971 and created the big-tent model that kept them there until 2015 – might actually have cast out the demon of division animated in 2009 by the advent of the Wildrose Caucus in the Alberta Legislature, and its near miss with power in 2012.

Whether it was principally the superb campaign run by NDP Leader Rachel Notley or the divisions that bedevilled the Conservatives will forever be debated, but the rift in the conservative movement unquestionably contributed to the NDP victory in 2015 that ended 44-year PC Dynasty, and eventually the PC Party itself.

Kenney was anointed leader in a somewhat-tainted UCP vote in 2017. He seemed to lay to rest any doubts about the unity of the new conservative party, though, with his convincing electoral victory in 2019.

There were lots of Albertans, on the right and the left, who concluded then Kenney was the saviour of the right, who had resuscitated the indivisible Alberta Tory coalition of old.

But that ole Demon Division was not so easily cast out. Disagreement over how to respond to COVID seems to have been the catalyst, and Kenney’s own inclination to use polarization as a political tool certainly contributed.

That led to the party referendum on Kenney’s leadership now being conducted through a controversial – and itself divisive – mail-in vote, with allegations of cheating in the wind and Kenney himself calling members of his own party “lunatics” and implying that without him at the helm, bigotry would run wild in the UCP.

By the end of last week, no politically alert Albertan could miss the fact the UCP has become a public snake pit, with MLAs, party members and political staffers mud-rasslin’ on social media and in the press.

On Friday, Postmedia political columnist Rick Bell quoted eight sitting UCP MLAs publicly assailing their leader in a single column! In addition, he tossed in two Independent MLAs exiled from the UCP Caucus by Kenney for disloyalty to raise the total to 10.

Quoting Chestermere-Strathmore MLA Leela Aheer, Bell wrote: “With the NDP, people had concerns about certain policies. ‘With us, they’re concerned about corruption.’”

Airdrie-Cochrane MLA Peter Guthrie, from the party’s COVID-skeptical right, called Kenney “a federal Ottawa elitist.” Richard Gotfried, the moderate former Progressive Conservative from Calgary-Fish Creek, told Bell the premier is beholden to a small circle with “very little skin in the game in Alberta.” Same thing? Sure sounds like it.

Brian Jean, Kenney’s chief leadership rival in 2017 and victor in a recent by-election in Fort-McMurray-Lac La Biche on a platform of replacing the premier, made it clear that, this time, he won’t stand for cheating by Kenney’s supporters.

The same day, Kenney’s interim issues manager, Bryan Rogers, called the MLAs quoted in Bell’s column “just the same old crew” with a clip of clowns from an episode of The Simpsons.

The intramural mudslinging on social media got so bad and so public the Canadian Press reported on it.

“An internal feud battering Alberta’s governing party took a new twist after Premier Jason Kenney’s issues manager went on Twitter to compare Kenney’s United Conservative backbench critics to clowns,” wrote CP’s Dean Bennett in the deadly serious tones to which the national news service defaults.

Airdrie-East MLA Angela Pitt, another of the UCP MLAs quoted by Bell, took to Twitter to fire back: “This is exactly the kind of bullying and intimidation that happens every day from the Premier’s staff. MLAs provide dissenting opinions and they are ridiculed like clowns or called insane.”

Members of the UCP, which under Kenney has edged very close to the Christian right in Alberta, should be familiar with the metaphor about what happens when houses are divided against themselves.

It was famously used by Jesus of Nazareth himself in his memorably clever defence against Pharisaical accusations he’d been working on the sabbath by, among other things, casting out demons.

It was used again by the first Republican president of the United States, Abraham Lincoln, to describe the state of that Union in 1858, on the brink of the U.S. Civil War.

“I do not expect the Union to be dissolved – I do not expect the house to fall – but I do expect it will cease to be divided,” Lincoln added on June 6 that year at the Republican State Convention in Springfield. The Springfield in Illinois, that is, not the one in The Simpsons.

At the risk of channeling President Lincoln, I don’t expect the UCP to fall either, at least before the next general election.

But after the result of the party’s leadership review vote is announced on May 18, it’ll have to be either all Jason Kenney or no Jason Kenney at all!

Will France’s Yellow Vests come back to haunt Macron on election day?

Fri, 1 April 2022


The most potent protest movement in recent French history, the Yellow Vest uprising looked at one point like it might bring a premature end to Emmanuel Macron’s presidency. More than three years after it was smothered, its politicised remnants are counting on their ballots to finish the job.

France’s upcoming presidential election has been described as the least suspenseful in decades, a lopsided contest in which Macron is widely expected to prevail over a motley crew of challengers rejected by a majority of voters.

It’s a prospect 56-year-old Jérôme Batret finds hard to stomach, more than three years after the farmer from rural Auvergne first donned a “yellow vest” in protest at Macron’s government – joining an unconventional insurgency that caught Paris elites napping, rattling the government, baffling commentators, and eventually inspiring copy-cat protests around the world.

Named after the now-famous fluorescent waistcoats that are mandatory in French cars, the Gilets jaunes (Yellow Vests) staged more than 60 consecutive weeks of protests against economic hardship, mounting inequality and a discredited political establishment. They manned roundabouts across the country night and day, took to the streets of towns and cities on every Saturday, and at their peak in December 2018 even stormed the Arc de Triomphe in central Paris, amid scenes of chaos not witnessed since May 1968.

On the day a sea of yellow swarmed the Champs-Elysées, protesters in Batret’s usually tranquil hometown of Le Puy-en-Velay set fire to the local police prefecture with a molotov cocktail. When the French president paid a secretive visit days later to offer shaken officers his support, his vehicle was chased away by angry protesters shouting “Tous pourris” (You’re all corrupt) and “Macron resign”.

Batret was among the very first Gilets jaunes, manning a nearby roundabout non-stop for three weeks. During those heady days, it felt like Macron’s fall was “only a matter of days”, he recalls in an interview with FRANCE 24. Little did he expect the young president would see off the challenge and come back stronger three years later, poised for another mandate.

“He didn’t respect the people back then and he doesn’t respect them now,” says Batret, citing Macron’s pledge last year to “emmerde” (piss off) those who reject Covid-19 vaccines. “We have a president who wants to piss off his own people – and yet he’ll win again.”

‘Politicians in Paris don’t give a shit about us’

Like other rural and suburban workers who formed the backbone of the Yellow Vest insurgency, Batret says his spending power has plummeted during Macron’s five years in office – a turbulent term marked by the coronavirus pandemic and now the fallout from the war in Ukraine. Surging energy prices mean most of his earnings are now swallowed up by the fuel he needs to run his car and tractor, and heat his house.

“People in Paris tell me it’s not so bad for them, but out here in the countryside we’ve got no choice,” he says. “My sons work 35 kilometres from home. That’s 400 euros per month in petrol just to get to work.”

The trigger for the Yellow Vest uprising was an unpopular fuel tax, ostensibly designed to finance France’s transition to a green economy – though it soon became apparent that its proceeds would mostly be used to plug a budget deficit widened by the government’s tax cuts for businesses. The levy infuriated motorists in rural and suburban areas starved of public transport and other services, where households are heavily reliant on their cars.

This original association with motor vehicles, cemented by the symbol of the high-visibility vests, allowed some commentators in well-connected cities to dismiss the protesters as recalcitrant, selfish motorists unconcerned by climate change – an image that has largely stuck.

“Politicians in Paris don’t give a shit about us,” says Batret. “They make empty promises come election time and then leave us to rot. They have no respect for the people.”

A longtime conservative voter, the organic farmer says he will no longer vote for career politicians “who’ve never done anything real in their lives”. On April 10 he will cast his ballot in favour of Jean Lassalle, the Occitan-speaking son of Pyrenean shepherds who was fined 1,500 euros in 2018 for wearing a gilet jaune in France’s National Assembly.

“I know lots of people who never voted before but are now interested in the ‘small candidates’, like Lassalle, [trotskyist Philippe] Poutou, and others who never get mentioned in the media,” says Batret. “I also know people who’ll back extremists like [far-right polemicist] Eric Zemmour, but that says more about their state of despair than their true beliefs.”

When voters head back to the polls two weeks later for the second-round run-off, polls suggest they are likely to face a repeat of the 2017 duel between Macron and veteran far-right candidate Marine Le Pen – a prospect Batret is not relishing.

“On April 24 they’ll be telling us to back Macron as the lesser evil, but I don’t think he is,” he says. “If it’s Macron versus Le Pen again, I’ll vote Le Pen. And if it’s Zemmour, I’ll leave the country.”

‘The Gilets jaunes didn’t just evaporate’

Within months of the rioting witnessed on the Champs Elysée in late 2018, the number of Yellow Vests out on the streets had starkly diminished, and Macron could claim to have largely seen off the most formidable challenge to his presidency.

In terms of its material objectives, the movement was only partially successful. It forced the government into a series of crisis measures to prop up purchasing power, for instance by raising minimum pensions, which helped sap support for the movement. So did Macron’s “Great National Debate”, called in response to the protests, which the ubiquitous president soon turned into a town-hall road-show offering him unrivalled media coverage – while the Yellow Vests were kept at bay.

Still, the movement left an indelible mark on France, sending a clear warning to the country’s self-styled “Jupiterian” president and putting neglected swathes of the country back on the map.

“The Gilets jaunes didn’t just evaporate after taking off their vests,” says Magali Della Sudda, a researcher at Sciences-Po in Bordeaux, who has studied the uprising from its inception and continues to monitor its resurgences.

While the Yellow Vests are now a scattered and diminished force, Della Sudda identifies successive “waves of mobilisation”, some coinciding with policies or statements that galvanised protesters, like the introduction of a Covid-19 health pass restricting people’s freedom of movement or Macron’s pledge to “emmerde” anti-vaxxers.

“There are signs the movement is picking up again, focusing once again on its original themes of purchasing power and social justice,” she says, pointing to the tentative return of Yellow Vests on roundabouts across the country.

“Of course history never repeats itself quite the same way, but we can expect the movement to gain traction again, in one form or another, in the coming months – for instance if Macron puts his pension reform back on the table,” she adds, referring to an unpopular pension overhaul which the government forced through parliament without a vote and then suspended amid the pandemic.

Della Sudda says this year’s presidential campaign has done very little to address the grievances voiced by the Yellow Vests and their supporters, further fuelling popular resentment of politicians. Having pored over some of the tens of thousands of cahiers de doléances (complaint books) drawn up as part of Macron’s national debate, she points to a glaring gap between the country’s dominant political discourse and ordinary people’s real concerns.

“There is a huge discrepancy between the complaints voiced by the Gilets jaunes and by the broader public and the way political parties and the media fail to address these topics,” she says. “It took a war in Ukraine for candidates and the media to start talking about purchasing power – but the problem of energy and food prices did not start with the war.”

Surveys have consistently placed the cost of living at the top of voters’ concerns, followed by health and the environment – largely mirroring the priorities listed by French citizens in the cahiers de doléances, particularly those from rural areas where hospitals and other public services have shut over the years. And yet prior to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the presidential campaign was dominated by talk of immigration and Islam, driven by the unrivalled media exposure enjoyed by the likes of Zemmour.

>> Pushing far-right agenda, French news networks shape election debate

The gross inadequacy of the campaign means it is still unclear whether the bulk of the Gilets jaunes will boycott the polls or choose to cast protest votes instead, says Della Sudda, though stressing that the uprising has left a profound imprint on many, politicising citizens who previously shunned the polls. She says there are signs large swathes of the movement will seize on the opportunity to deliver their verdict on Macron’s government.

Toppling France’s ‘presidential monarchy’

The Yellow Vests’ relative inexperience of politics has contributed to generating misconceptions – as with their use of the term “apolitical” to stress their rejection of traditional party politics. Studies carried out at the height of the movement revealed that most participants were first-time protesters with no political or union affiliation. A majority said they didn’t believe in the traditional left-right divide, but theirs was a rejection of partisan politics, not of politics per se.

One of the defining features of the Yellow Vests is their attempt to reclaim politics by wresting it from the control of parties and institutions they see as undemocratic. As Della Sudda puts it, “one can credit the movement with getting the French to show interest in their institutions and constitution – a remarkable feat in its own right.”

Those institutions are failing the people, says 56-year-old Sabine, a primary school teacher from the Montpellier area in southern France, who declined to give her full name. She ranks among the numerous Gilets jaunes who have taken up grassroots politics after years of abstaining from the electoral process.

“I used to boycott the Fifth Republic’s anti-democratic elections,” she says, referring to the presidential regime instituted more than 60 years ago by France’s wartime hero, General Charles De Gaulle. “But after five years of Macron, I’ve decided to use my ballot to stop the rot.”

Sabine likens the Yellow Vest experience to a personal and collective awakening to politics and rampant injustice. She describes its members as “society’s invisible people who have risen up, who have sprung from the earth with their bright jackets, a symbol of alertness and visibility”.

“First there was the uprising, then the movement took root on roundabouts and on social media, and by way of regular meetings and assemblies,” she says. “Over time we were able to elaborate a political thought, in the noble sense of the word, meaning a commitment to improve the society we live in.”

More than three years after they first donned their bright jackets, Sabine and a dozen fellow activists are back on the roundabout they occupied on the outskirts of Montpellier at the start of the movement. After lengthy discussions, most members have agreed to back leftist candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon on April 10.

“There were two main requirements for our choice of candidate: to carry our aspirations and have a chance of beating Macron. Mélenchon is the only one who meets both,” the teacher explains. She points to his pledges to impose a cap on prices, boost wages, bolster public services and convene a constituent assembly tasked with drafting a new constitution and replacing France’s “presidential monarchy”.

>> A new Republic: Leftist Mélenchon promises to topple France’s ‘presidential monarchy’

“Mélenchon is not our ideal candidate, he’s not to everyone's taste and we are well aware that there’s no easy fix. But he’s our best option. We’re at a crossroads: either we change course now or we let those in power dismantle our social system,” Sabine adds. “But our struggle won’t end at the ballot box. Whoever wins on April 24, we’ll keep up the fight.”

Anyone but Macron

A veteran leftist who is having his third shot at the presidency, Mélenchon is locked in a battle for second place with his longtime rival Le Pen – and polls suggest he is likely to fall short once again, missing out on the April 24 run-off. Second-round data also looks more encouraging for Le Pen, who has significantly narrowed the gap with Macron since she lost by more than 20 percentage points five years ago.

>> Closing in on Macron: Could Le Pen’s blandest campaign be her most successful yet?

On paper, the narrowing gap means Le Pen is more likely to benefit from the “anyone but Macron” vote than Mélenchon, says Della Sudda, with some supporters claiming that widespread anger could propel her to an unlikely victory over the president.

“It’s an argument I’ve been hearing on the roundabouts, voiced by a minority of Yellow Vests. But it’s not clear it will translate into widespread support for Le Pen,” she says. “Anti-Macronism is just one component of the Yellow Vest vote; and the National Rally doesn’t carry all of their aspirations – far from it.”

Both the National Rally and Mélenchon's La France insoumise (France unbowed) have been cautious in their appeals to the Gilets jaunes, wary of scaring away more moderate voters, says Frédéric Gonthier, a political scientist at the Pacte research centre in Grenoble, who has carried out extensive surveys of the Yellow Vest movement.

“Mélenchon and Le Pen are trying to present themselves as credible alternatives to Macron, by softening the more divisive elements in their platforms and tempering their populist pitch,” he explains. “For candidates who are trying to project an image of respectability, overtly anti-elitist statements aimed at seducing the Yellow Vests would be counterproductive.”

Vying for the working-class vote, the two candidates have focused on the hardship endured by France’s most vulnerable, hoping to draw the Yellow Vests among them without overt appeals.

Mélenchon has had to tread carefully, says Gonthier, noting that many Yellow Vests were deeply suspicious of his longtime membership of the Socialist Party, seeing him as a political “apparatchik”. As for Le Pen, “her party is deeply uncomfortable with the issue of police brutality, which is intimately associated with the Gilets jaunes.”

A tiny window of opportunity

The Yellow Vests’ often violent protests were met with a fierce crackdown that eventually smothered the movement, but not the anger. During the first months of unrest, dozens of protesters, journalists and bystanders suffered shocking injuries – including gouged eyes and hands ripped off – as a result of the rubber bullets and stun grenades used by riot police, while scores of officers were also wounded. The government’s steadfast refusal to question the police tactics, with Macron at one point saying “there is no such thing as police violence”, infuriated the Yellow Vests and further radicalised its diehard members.

Daniel Bodin’s voice breaks into sobs when recalling the violence of those days. The 66-year-old was among the first to man the roundabout near Montpellier, where he and Sabine still don their high-visibility jackets. “We’d never seen anything like it before. They treated us like pariahs,” he says of the “brutal repression” ordered by a president he describes as “authoritarian”.

There is something visceral about the revulsion Macron elicits among many Yellow Vests, who are prone to citing his derogatory comments – such as telling an unemployed man he need only “cross the street” to find a job, complaining about the “crazy money” France spends on welfare, and urging pensioners to “complain less” about their shrinking allowances.

“His comments are proof of his contempt for small folk like us, but it would be foolish to stop at that. It’s the laws he passed that upset me most,” says Bodin, pointing to the Covid-19 health pass and a contentious law extending police powers as evidence of civic freedoms being curtailed under Macron.

Like others in his group, Bodin is routing for Mélenchon in the election. He sees it as the only chance to reverse “the downward slide into neoliberal economics” and “put our politics back into the people’s hands”. He singles out for praise the leftist candidate’s pledge to introduce a so-called “citizen’s initiative referendum”, giving voters the power to initiate policy and revoke their elected representatives.

“But we are neither fans, nor groupies,” he cautions. “And we don’t claim to tell people how they should vote – that’s what political parties do.”

Bodin acknowledges deep divisions within the Yellow Vest movement, between those willing to engage with the electoral process and others who “would rather wait for the system to collapse or a civil war to break out”. “I understand those who are disgusted by politics and don’t want to vote,” he adds. “But we have a tiny window of opportunity and we must give it a try.”

ALBERTA

Protest continues at Coutts on 7th day as traffic flows slowly to U.S. border

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Mayor Willett says protesters have made their point and

 need to leave his village soon

CBC News · Posted: Feb 04, 2022

Members of a protest impeding travel to the U.S. border moved in to block southbound traffic on Highway 4 early Friday afternoon. The protest near Coutts, Alta., has been going on since last Saturday. 0:40

Lanes to the U.S. border near Coutts, Alta., opened and closed intermittently Friday as an ongoing protest continued to affect traffic in the area.

Early Friday afternoon, protesters moved in to block southbound traffic on Highway 4 leading to the border. One protester at the blockade told CBC News that the latest move was a result of not enough progress being made on the group's goal to lift pandemic mandates.

RCMP previously confirmed the blockade on one side of the highway. For a while, traffic was being stopped at Milk River, Alta.

On Thursday, protesters had said they planned to vacate the border and move north to Edmonton, but that night they reversed the decision and stayed put.

• Alberta Indigenous leaders speak up against approach to Coutts border crossing protest and blockade

• Alberta ranchers worried about border protest rattling cattle sector

The demonstration is tied to an ongoing protest over federal rules for unvaccinated or partially vaccinated truckers, which took effect Jan. 15.

The Alberta blockade is being held in solidarity with similar protests in Ottawa and other locations.

RIGHT WING DEMANDS

Protesters have been on-site near the village of Coutts since Jan. 29, protesting federal rules for unvaccinated or partially vaccinated truckers. 

Jim Willett, the mayor of Coutts, said he has met with truckers who have been there for almost a week.

He said he paid a visit Thursday — and again Friday — to a former saloon in the village where protest leaders have gathered.

He said he expected to find a room of angry people but instead found they were just waiting.

He said protesters have made their point and need to leave his village soon.

Premier's Facebook live

Speaking during a Facebook live broadcast held late Thursday, Premier Jason Kenney said he did not say that truckers assaulted RCMP officers during a news conference held earlier in the week. 

The premier added he had received a situation report from the Alberta Ministry of Justice and Solicitor General on Tuesday afternoon, produced by RCMP officers in the field, who testified to being swarmed by protest sympathizers. 

Those officers, the premier said, had threats made against them by protesters and had their barricades charged by vehicles. There was also an attempt to ram officers on the scene, which was narrowly avoided.

In addition, the same protesters collided with other motorists on the highway, with assault ensuing from that, Kenney said.

"I absolutely characterized what happened there, at that barricade, accurately," Kenney said. "All I can say is, shame on those responsible. You shouldn't blame me, or the RCMP, or anyone else, for the dangerous and unlawful conduct of these individuals."

Speaking during a Facebook live stream held Thursday night, Premier Jason Kenney said it was unacceptable for people to make threats, swarm or attempt to ram police vehicles as part of a protest. (Facebook)

During Tuesday's press conference, Kenney did refer to an instance of assault of an RCMP officer alongside the attempted ramming of a police vehicle and the collision with a civilian vehicle. 

"I have also received reports in the last hour of people allied with the protesters assaulting RCMP officers," he said at the time.

Meanwhile, Alberta NDP justice critic Irfan Sabir attacked the premier Friday and said he appears to be pandering to the protesters by saying he has a plan to ease restrictions to be announced next week.

"There was no action taken by this government … go to the court, get the injunction and let RCMP do their thing," Sabir said.

With files from Carolyn Dunn, Colleen Underwood and The Canadian Press

Mystery shrouds ‘backchannel’ discussions with MLAs over blockade in Alberta near US border

04/02/2022


Anti-mandate demonstrators gather as a truck convoy blocks the highway the busy US border crossing in Coutts, Alta., on Jan. 31, 2022.Jeff McIntosh/The Canadian Press

Inside the Smugglers Saloon, a roadside tavern around the bend from the US-Canada border, blocking Alberta’s Highway 4 thought they had a deal with provincial legislators representing rural areas.

The group, who were assembled on Wednesday afternoon, voted by a show of hands to move their campers, tractors, semis and other vehicles so traffic could flow in one lane in each direction. The group had been blocking north and southbound traffic at Coutts, a village of about 250 people, since last Saturday, shuttering an important Alberta border crossing.

“They said, if we open that lane of traffic, they will drop … the [vaccination passport system],” one of the protesters said in a video posted online from inside the bar. “If they do not meet our requests, that border is shut again immediately.”

The group’s lawyer Martin Rejman told The Globe and Mail that there were “backchannel” discussions with members of the legislature, but would not reveal who was involved.

The protesters scurried about in -20 weather to clear the way, with some leaving the protest entirely.

In Ottawa, site of the original protest, trucks remain parked across from Parliament Hill, without any hint the impasse may soon end.

There was, however, no deal in Alberta – at least not with anyone who had the power to authorize the province to drop its coronavirus restrictions to appease a group of disgruntled citizens protesting illegally. Once that was clear, a secondary protest, clogging but not blocking the highway, popped up at a police barricade 14 kilometers north of the original Coutts camp.

Jason Kenney says truckers’ Coutts border blockade violates traffic laws and must end

But a day after the phantom deal, Premier Jason Kenney accelerated the timeline for lifting Alberta’s COVID-19 protocols. Meanwhile, scores of United Conservative Party caucus members issued statements denouncing the pandemic policies.

In an unannounced Facebook Live broadcast on Thursday evening, Mr. Kenney said that, because of widespread vaccination rates and protection from prior COVID-19 infections, the rationale for Alberta’s restrictions exemption program (REP) – code for a vaccination passport system – is not as strong as it was when it was introduced in September.

“That is why, early next week, Alberta will announce a firm date to end the REP and do so in the very near future,” he said. “We will also lay out a simple, phased plan to remove almost all public-health restrictions later this month, as long as we see a trend of decreasing pressure on our hospitals.”


But no downward trend in hospital admissions has started. Alberta counted 1,584 people with COVID-19 in hospital when Mr. Kenny made his comments on Thursday. On Jan. 27 – as a convoy of truckers and motorists was converging on Ottawa, but before the protest emerged at Coutts – Alberta’s hospitals had 1,570 people with COVID-19.

“We are continuing to see upward movement in our inpatient beds, hospitalization pressure, from COVID-19, and we’re at, in fact, the highest point in the two years in terms of people in hospital with COVID,” Mr. Kenny said at the Jan. 27 media conference. “Now is not the right time to be relaxing measures when the hospitals are under so much pressure.”

If Alberta moved too quickly, Mr. Kenny warned, the situation could get worse.

“Let’s just keep our eye on the ball, have the backs of the people in our hospitals. Let’s not start removing measures that could trip us back into higher transmissions and hospitalizations when the hospitals are already under so much pressure,” he said. “That day … is coming. I’m pretty confident it will come before the end of March.”

A record 1,648 COVID-19 patients were in hospital as of Feb. 1, the day before demonstrators in Coutts dismantled their blockade.

However, the protest is not over.

Disaffected Albertans remain parked on the sides of the highway in Coutts. The allied protest at the police barricade to the north continues. That crowd is likely to swell with supporters over the weekend as protests spread across Southern Alberta.

Jarrad McCoy, a carpenter from the town of Milk River, was among those inside Smugglers Saloon when some in the group believed they had a deal with the government. He said he is protesting not because of his family’s circumstances, but to alleviate the suffering of others and to build a better future for his six kids.

“Every generation has a fight or a battle, or has to be courageous in some way. And I think this is a moment of courage and love for these guys,” Mr. McCoy said on Wednesday, noting that many of the participants are “men of faith.”

While his own contracting business has prospered through the pandemic, he said he’s seen provincial health restrictions hit the finances of neighbors and friends. “I’ve seen God provide for my family through all of this. But I’ve seen other people suffer. And it’s broken my heart.”

Mr. McCoy said the clearing of one lane in each direction so that the flow of cross-border traffic and trade could resume was a good thing.

“None of the guys here want to be affecting anyone’s livelihood either,” he said. “We don’t want anyone suffering.”

With a report from Kelly Cryderman

Paul Brandt issues statement

 on Coutts convoy

Feb 4, 2022 | 5:09 PM

LETHBRIDGE, AB. — In the entertainment industry, the music, lyrics and voice of famous musicians can hold sway over a myriad of issues.

In Alberta, one of the most loved of musicians is Paul Brandt. He was born in Calgary, and attended Mount Royal College (University) where he studied nursing and worked as a pediatric nurse at the Alberta Children’s Hospital. In the fall of 2009, he was conferred the degree of Doctor of Fine Arts, by the University of Lethbridge.

Brandt has won a raft of music awards, and loaned his support to various causes, from Samaritan’s Purse to World Vision. In May of 2020, the Alberta government introduced a newly appointed Human Trafficking Task Force, to find ways to prevent human trafficking and protect and empower survivors. The man chosen to chair the task force was Paul Brandt, who also voiced his opposition to a proposed coal mine on the eastern slopes of the rockies.

Late Friday afternoon, Brandt issued a statement on his Instagram account regarding the situation at the Coutts border crossing.

Paul Brandt statement from his Instagram account

Two days ago, those involved in the Coutts trucker convoy had posted photos of a helicopter which they indicated Brandt had used to fly provisions to the trucker group in Coutts.

LNN reached out to Brandt’s publicist for confirmation about the helicopter flight. However, we have not heard back.

'It feels great': Trucks heading to U.S. get through Alberta blockades

COUTTS, Alta. — Gurdeep Chumbur says he sympathizes with fellow truckers concerned about cross-border COVID-19 vaccine mandates who have taken drastic action to make their views known.

But he was relieved Thursday when a second illegal blockade on a highway leading to the main border crossing in southern Alberta opened to traffic and RCMP ushered through some trucks heading to the United States.

"It feels great, yeah, because I need to work. I've got bills to pay," said Chumbur, after getting the green light from police to proceed down Highway 4 to the crossing at Coutts, Alta.

"I understand, you guys are protesting, that's great. Just stick to a side and let us go for it."

Chumbur said he was stuck in Montana for four days last weekend and eventually rerouted to the Roosville crossing in British Columbia before heading back to Calgary for another load. He was next on his way to Utah.

"There's no hard feelings. I'm with them. I understand, but unfortunately, I can't stand and protest," Chumbur said.

Demonstrators started the main blockade at Coutts on Saturday in solidarity with similar events in Ottawa and countrywide to protest vaccine mandates and broader public health measures.

The impasse stranded travellers and cross-border truckers, compromised millions of dollars in trade and impeded access to basic goods and medical services for area residents

On Tuesday, some demonstrators left that main blockade after Mounties announced negotiations to end the standoff had failed and they were prepared to make arrests and tow vehicles. However, other vehicles, including tractors, breached a police barrier and joined the stoppage.

Protesters at the blockade agreed Wednesday to open a lane on each side of the highway.

Early Thursday, the RCMP warned there was a second blockade of protesters north of Coutts, closer to the town of Milk River, and asked the public to avoid the area.

Hundreds of vehicles, including trucks, tractors and cars, had blocked the road there in solidarity with the main blockade.

Later in the day, traffic was allowed through and many sounded horns as they headed down the highway.

Officers stopped and checked with truckers to make sure they were making deliveries across the border and with area residents trying to get home.

Vehicles then weaved slowly through a narrow phalanx lined by protesters parked along the highway.

RCMP Cpl. Curtis Peters said the situation is anything but ideal.

"It's very slow moving and we have to be very cautious," he said.

"There has been conflicts flare up here. We've had people just trying to get through, who've had some confrontations with protesters.

"The fact that we're allowing traffic to flow through is a positive step in the right direction but it's still an unlawful protest."

More protesters arrived at the site during the day. Some tractors and SUVs parked in a ditch. Two people showed up on horses and there an impromptu stage was set up for singing and a prayer service.

Ryan Kenney said he drove down Wednesday to participate in the latest blockade.

"Slept here overnight and I'm planning to stay until I have to. I'll be here for days," he said.

"I'm here to support the protest against mandates. They need to negotiate with the truckers down at the border."

Sean Alexander of Calgary was also part of the protest.

"We've got truckers down here, you got farmers down here … you've got oil and gas workers down here," he said. "Eighty guys maybe slept on the highway last night.

"None of us are getting paid."

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Feb. 3, 2022.

Bill Graveland, The Canadian Press

Premier Kenney holds Facebook Q-and-A to discuss police “assault” issue and lifting mandates

Feb 4, 2022 

EDMONTON, AB. — As vehicle convoys continue to impede traffic in Southern Alberta (the LNN newsroom was notified of four Thursday afternoon alone), the level of frustration from the public is beginning to grow.

LNN took a litany of calls from travellers who wanted to know why police were not putting a stop “to this nonsense”, which brought traffic to a crawl in various locations, as people were attempting to make it to appointments, to care for elderly relatives or pickup children from school.

The organizers of the convoys repeatedly decline to speak to LNN and other media. However, a rural school bus driver who would speak to us when we asked if he had been caught in any of the convoys, said he had been able to escape them but, he was shocked by the fact that parents were pulling their children out of school classes to take part in the convoys.

Complaints about the convoys, border blockade and COVID-19 mandates have not escaped the ears of Premier Jason Kenney. On Thursday evening, Kenney held an hour-long question-and-answer segment on his Facebook site and announced the government would be announcing, next week, the path laid out to lift public health measures.

Kenney noted that governments should not be swayed by protesters.

“No responsible government makes policy by negotiating with people engaged in such unlawful conduct. Period. Full stop. We fully expect our law enforcement agencies to restore and maintain public safety and law and order.”

After a meeting with his COVID-19 cabinet committee next week, Kenney said there is a plan to end Alberta’s vaccine passport program. A few days ago, Kenney said he hoped the passport could be eliminated by the end of March and he hopes most other public health measures can be ended by the end of this month, if the pressure on the health-care system adequately declines.

The Premier understands the frustrations of those protesting health restrictions but, pleads with them to find legal ways of protesting.


“While I sympathize with and agree with many of the messages being sent by convoy protests over the past week, let me just underscore that a society built on the rule of law cannot accept protests that block critical infrastructure, that disrupts communities and countless law-abiding citizens.”

“I hear you loud and clear. You are right to point to the damaging impact of restrictions.”

Kenney said part of the reason he feels restrictions can be lifted is because so many Albertans have gained some immunity from COVID-19, both from getting vaccinated and from being infected with the virus.

In regard to inaccurate information about police officers being assaulted at the Coutts blockade, Kenney claimed to not have used the word assault and read a situation report he received from the Alberta Department of Justice and the Solicitor General on Tuesday (Feb 1) afternoon.

“A group of motorists (protest sympathizers) attempting to travel south to Coutts became increasingly hostile and made threats against the RCMP members at the checkpoint, to the point where they surrounded (police) members. A team of Alberta Sheriffs and RCMP members manning a checkpoint on highway-4 and highway-501 were surrounded by protesters in commercial and private vehicles. Protesters breached the barricades and attempted to ram officers at the scene. No staff were injured but narrowly escaped injury as the protesters collided with other motorists on the highway. Assaults between protestors and motorists ensued requiring (police) intervention.”

Kenney noted the incident report was filed by RCMP members on the scene, who testified they were swarmed, threatened and had their barricades rammed by vehicles which also attempted to ram the officers who narrowly escaped injury.

While the officers were not injured in the incident, it should be noted that in Canadian law, assault is defined as intentionally putting another person in apprehension of imminent harm or offensive contact. Physical injury is not required. The fact that the protesters swarmed the officers, the barricades were rammed and attempts to ram the officers is defined as assault.

The Premier stated that he, the RCMP or anyone else, “should not be blamed for the dangerous and unlawful conduct of these individuals – it is totally, totally unacceptable for people to make threats against the police, swarm the police, attempt to ram officers with their vehicles, causing them to narrowly escape injury and then to ultimately cause a collision with law abiding motorists and engage in the assault of those law abiding civilians.”

US Signaling Putin that Ukraine Will Be Bloody

CIA, Green Berets prepare Ukraine for guerrilla war, while Washington eyes other Russian weak points

Jeff Stein  and  Peter Eisner SPYTALK

The diplomatic game of chicken between Russia and the U.S. appears to be rolling toward a violent climax, with a U.S. official warning Tuesday that the situation is "extremely dangerous," and that Russia could invade Ukraine "at any moment." The U.S.-Russia talks appear to be “at a dead end,” as one Kremlin diplomat put it last week, even as they intend to give it one more try on Friday in Vienna.

Washington has taken pains to appear girding Ukraine for battle, with CIA Director Bill Burns and Secretary of State Antony Blinken flying off to Kyiv for urgent meetings, all the while expediting intelligence support and defensive arms shipments. On Tuesday a bipartisan group of U.S. Senators visiting Kyiv vowed solidarity and weapons for the Ukrainian government and people, including possibly deadly Stinger anti-aircraft missiles. The CIA and U.S. Green Berets have been preparing Ukraine troops for unconventional warfare—a defense-only move, they say. But the training, which has included “tactical stuff,” is “going to start looking pretty offensive if Russians invade Ukraine,” a former senior intelligence official told Yahoo News’ Zach Dorfman.

(Staff Sgt. Eddie Siguenza/Army National Guard)

"I think Vladimir Putin has made the biggest mistake of his career in underestimating how courageously the people of Ukraine will fight him if he invades," Senator Richard Blumenthal told reporters.

No one imagines that Ukraine can imperil, much less rout, a Russian invasion, but Washington’s part in the darkening drama has been to warn Putin that an attempt at a permanent occupation will be plagued by a bloody, U.S.-backed insurgency that will make its experience in Afghanistan seem mild in comparison. 

And Washington could well be tempted to stir up trouble elsewhere.

“U.S. Special Forces Are Training for Full-Blown War with Russia,” a  headline in The National Interest, a bipartisan conservative magazine, trumpeted last May. Green Berets and other American spec ops teams have been conducting joint training exercises in a Russia-ringing arc from northern Scandinavia through the Baltics to the Balkans and beyond, involving nearly two dozen foreign counterparts (Austria, Bulgaria, Croatia, Georgia, Germany, Hungary, Slovakia, Slovenia, Bulgaria, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Romania, Spain and, of course, Ukraine).  Albania was just added to the mix. U.S. Special Forces have also been welcomed in some of the former Soviet republics of Central Asia.

“If Putin invades Ukraine with a major military force, U.S. and NATO military assistance—intelligence, cyber, anti-armor and anti-air weapons, offensive naval missiles—would ratchet up significantly,” James Stavridis, a retired four-star Navy admiral who was the supreme allied commander at NATO, told the New York Times last week. “And if it turned into a Ukrainian insurgency, Putin should realize that after fighting insurgencies ourselves for two decades, we know how to arm, train and energize them.”

Stavridis may have misspoken. “Fighting insurgencies,” we haven’t been so good at, from Vietnam to Iraq and Afghanistan, where U.S. efforts were undermine by their tethers to corrupt, inefficient regimes and officials. Supporting insurgencies, we’ve been better at. 

But CNN reports that some Biden officials, “wary of getting bogged down in an anti-occupation support effort,” are not so gung-ho to green light an unconventional warfare campaign that could go on for years. Afghanistan is a not distant memory, it’s not even over.

"We can exact some pain, but there is a big difference between exacting pain and actually having leverage," a senior US official said.

Optimists look back to the U.S.-backed Muslim uprising against the Soviet Red Army during the 1980s, especially after the CIA deployed game-changing Stingers, which neutralized Russian warplanes and gunships. But other CIA-backed insurgencies—Nicaragua in the 1980s, Iraq in the 1990s and Syria over the past decade—have fallen far short of that mark. With one major exception—covertly backing Poland’s Solidarity movement in the 1980s—the CIA’s Cold War record of clandestine operations aimed at the Soviet Union and its Eastern European satellites was mostly a bust. 

History Lessons

In the summer of 1948, President Harry S Truman’s White House National Security Council drew up “perhaps one of the most important documents in the CIA's history,” as a an agency planning document described it. NCS Directive 10/2 was a plan for all-out "covert operations" and “activities” against the Soviet Union and its Eastern European satellites.  

Frank Wisner, the leader of Its psychological warfare component, thought the U.S. could exploit Russia’s “internal strains” and "psychological fission" to crack the Soviet Union.  The project had some psywar successes, publicizing Soviet repression and economic failures, mainly through such CIA-backed propaganda vehicles as Radio Free Europe. But its efforts to subvert the USSR and its satellites by supporting or inventing anti-communist organizations in Russia were a spectacular bust. The KGB was always one step ahead.

“There were hundreds of these operations. And, yes, they ranged all the way from Bulgaria in the southeast of Europe all the way up to Poland, even in the Baltic states that were under Soviet control—or were part of the Soviet Union,” Scott Anderson, author of The Quiet Americans, told NPR in 2020. “They were uniformly disastrous. Virtually everybody who was parachuted in either disappeared or were captured and executed.”

In the 1960s, the CIA was busy at war elsewhere with the Soviets or their putative proxies,  in Southeast Asia, Latin America and Africa.  Covert action aimed directly at Mother Russia was pretty much abandoned over the next two decades.  

Ronald Reagan would reverse that.

On May 20, 1982, Reagan signed into law National Security Decision Directive 32, authorizing diplomatic, propaganda, political, and military action to “contain and reverse the expansion of Soviet control and military presence through the world,” as Seth Jones, vice president of the Center for Strategic and International Studies put it in a 2018 paper.  Reagan followed up months later with an even more aggressive Top Secret directive,  one which declared “it was U.S. policy to unhinge Moscow’s grip on Eastern Europe and to reunite it—eventually—with Western Europe.” Its most lauded success,  code-named QRHelpful, funneled $20 million worth of covert support to the Solidarity labor movement. Before the end of the decade, Eastern Europe cracked open, the Berlin Wall came down, and the Soviet Union, long sagging under its own economic weight and military adventurism, was well on the way to dissolution. 

Tremors in Kazakhstan

It’s easy to understand why Vladimir Putin might’ve been rattled by the popular protests that swept across Kazakhstan early this month. His hands were already full with the crisis he’d manufactured in Ukraine. He blamed foreign interests, and people “apparently trained in terrorist camps abroad” for the unrest, which reportedly included well organized attacks on police stations. 

Analysts awarded Putin a victory for his quick military intervention (officially, an action by Moscow’s version of NATO, the Collective Security Treaty Organization). But now he’s saddled with propping up yet another deeply unpopular and corrupt regime—which makes Kazakhstan a tempting target for the CIA  and other Western intelligence agencies, especially should Putin go ahead and invade Ukraine. He appears deeply concerned that Kazakhstan, even Belarus, could be ripe for another wave of Western backed “color revolutions,” which shattered Moscow’s control of Eastern Europe beginning 20 years ago.

“Of course, there is definitely polarity in Kazakhstan between the rich and very poor, which has never been seriously challenged before now, and that is an important upshot from these protests,” says Michael Frachetti, a professor of anthropology at Washington University, St. Louis, who specializes in Central Europe.

“The future of Kazakhstan will be ultimately be decided by approaches the government takes going forward—whether they want to bolster a representative relationship with the populace or double down on the path toward greater autocracy,” Frachetti said. 

“I suspect Putin is finding out that they don’t make spheres of influence like they used to, and that in this populist era he may be sitting over powder kegs more than client states,” Robert Manning, a former State Department official at the Atlantic Council, wrote earlier this month.

That’s a message Washington wants Moscow to hear in the Kabuki shadow war over Ukraine. And it’s understood that some in Washington are indeed serious about setting fires in Kazakhstan and elsewhere—not just Ukraine—should Russian troops and tanks cross the Dnieper in the coming days. 

But the theater of veiled and unveiled threats is coming to a close. The real thing starts soon.