DEATH THREATS

Conspiracy Theory Kingpin Calls for Hunter Biden’s Execution

At a wild pitstop of the ReAwaken America tour, headlined by Donald Trump Jr., Stew Peters demanded “permanent accountability” for another presidential failed son

NOBODY SAID THIS ABOUT JARED


BY TIM DICKINSON
ROLLING STONE
SEPTEMBER 1, 2023

Stew Peters speaks at the ReAwaken America tour's latest pitstop in North Las Vegas STEW PETERS NETWORK/RUMBLE


CONSPIRACY THEORIST STEW Peters made a startling demand for public executions at the latest stop on the ReAwaken America tour — calling for the death of Joe Biden’s son Hunter as well as Dr. Anthony Fauci, whom Peters insisted should “hang from a length of thick rope until he is dead.”

Peters speaks in the argot of the tin-foil-hat set. To hear him tell it, Fauci deserves the gallows because the federal physician-scientist supposedly backed a Wuhan “bioweapons lab” — and that this “illegal research” cost “millions of lives.” The younger Biden should get the “Julius and Ethel Rosenberg” treatment, Peters insisted, for the “treason” of “selling this country off to rich oligarchs.” Peters also demanded that Alejandro Mayorkas, the secretary of Homeland Security, be executed as “a treasonous traitor” because he has permitted legions of “rapists and murderers and killers and goons” to breach the border.

“In the world that we are going to build,” Peters declared, “traitors will hang.”

As Peters ramped up this violent diatribe, including with a call to drown doctors who care for transgender patients, no one cut his microphone. The North Las Vegas crowd didn’t recoil; rather, they filled the giant air-conditioned tent hall with hoots and hollers of approval. After Peters thundered his demand for “permanent accountability with extreme prejudice,” emcee Clay Clark treated Peters as if he were a WWE star. “Ladies and gentlemen,” he intoned. “Let’s hear it for Stuuuuuuuuuuuuuu Peters!!”

ReAwaken America is a traveling, far-right roadshow, headlined by pardoned criminal Gen. Michael Flynn, and Clark, the Tulsa-based entrepreneur radio personality. It has drawn raucous crowds across the country, with an atmosphere that’s part political convention, part religious revival, and part QAnon circus. Just minutes after Peters’ call for Hunter Biden’s execution, a different presidential failson, Donald Trump Jr., picked up the same red-white-and-blue mic, and began preaching to the MAGA minions about the dangers and “derangement” of the Left.

Peters couldn’t be a more natural fit in this setting. He is a media maven for a country hooked on conspiracy theories,catering to a religious, red-pilled audience that chooses to live in a dark irreality, full of horrific plots, satanic forces, and illicit knowledge. No longer just a sideshow on the right’s lunatic fringe, Peters, through his dark films and on his nightly streaming broadcast, is reaching an audience of millions. Increasingly, he’s playing host to elected officials, including sitting members of congress, at least one of whom praises him as a “friend.”

Peters is a prolific conspiracy content creator. In the last two years, he has churned out a pair of feature-length films — “Watch the Water” and “Died Suddenly” — each falsely purporting to reveal demonic plots behind the novel coronavirus and the “bioweapon” vaccines allegedly foisted on an unsuspecting public by a nefarious cabal.

His first film absurdly purported that Covid is connected to snake venom in the water, and that mRNA jabs transform humans into satanic “hybrids.” The second movie spreads the widely debunked conspiracy theory that Covid vaccines are causing an epidemic of heart failure — which Peters paints as part of a genocidal plot by “globalist” elites to “depopulate” the world. The noxious films have been streamed by tens of millions of viewers.

In addition to the viral success of his smooth-brained cinema, Peters has also built a large audience for his weeknight broadcasts of the “Stew Peters Show,” which has more than half a million subscribers on Rumble alone. Peters did not respond to an interview request to discuss his worldview or his calls for public hangings. But such calls to violence — in particular toward Fauci — are a staple of Peters’ schtick. As is lofting new, ever-more-absurd conspiracy theories, like that the Titan submersible was destroyed to prevent the public from learning that the Titanic was not, in fact, sunk by an iceberg but in a nefarious plot linked to the Rothschilds.

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In a sane world, Peters would be politically radioactive. But the conspiratorial audience that Peters is building is, to be frank, a key component of the modern GOP base. And these days, Peters’ broadcast is not just filled with fellow-citizen crackpots. It’s becoming a venue for right-wing GOP politicians who treat Peters as just another media persona. Peters has interviewed many members of the United States Congress, including Paul Gosar, Bob Good, Pete Sessions, and Andy Biggs, who signed off with the encouraging words to Peters: “Keep preaching, my friend.” He’s also interviewed the anti-vax extremist Robert Kennedy, Jr., now a Democratic candidate for president.

Peters has long hungered for this kind of limelight. He grew up in Minnesota and first attempted to launch a career as a rapper, performing under the name Fokiss, pronounced “focus,” while sporting a frosted-tip mini mohawk.

His boastful bars included predictions of triumph: “The future looks real bright for Fokiss/ we’re planning shows in the tropics / I’m talking Grammys and Oscars.” But when his rap dreams fizzled, Peters turned to a different life on the edge — as a bounty hunter.

In this business, Peters was infamous for controversial outfits, including a dark uniform and a badge, that critics contended could be confused with law enforcement. The Minnesota legislature took this issue seriously enough to make changes to state law in 2015 that, as AP reported it, were “aimed mostly at curtailing Peters.” (At the time, Peters insisted he had no intention of being confused for a policeman. “We’re proudly bounty hunters,” Peters said. “I don’t go out to play cops and robbers.”) But Peters’ career catching bail hoppers petered out, around the time he ran afoul of the law himself in 2021 — reportedly getting sentenced to probation after a domestic dispute.

But by then, Peters’ conspiracy-laced, shock-jock enterprise was already taking off. His online show launched in 2020, just as the coronavirus pandemic struck. Is Peters a true believer in the garbage he peddles? Or a cynical man who found lucrative way to build an audience? In the end, any level of ironic detachment from the material matters less than surface-level ugliness that Peters is preaching to rapt crowds.

At ReAwaken America, Peters flashed the full, rancid, often bigoted, display of his conspiratorial repertoire. (Peters’ dark comments were first highlighted by Right Wing Watch.) The theme of his address was how “Trust the Plan” — a popular slogan among believers in the QAnon conspiracy — may be too passive, and why listeners must decide to make their own plan.

“The group of people who can sit around and ‘trust the plan’ are liberal Democrats,” he argued. “Our enemies have a plan. Our enemies’ leader has a plan. We all have one common enemy, his name is Satan,” Peters said, giving the speech a dark, biblical twist. “And right now his minions are trying to run this country.”

Even as he invoked the Good Book, Peters wove in the latest, utterly abominable conspiracy about the Obamas, suggesting Michelle Obama is secretly a man (known to believers of this hokum as “Big Mike”) and insisting, therefore, Barack Obama was the “first gay president” — with Peters sneering hatefully that liberals want “our first tranny president.”

Lacking a theory to peddle as much as just naked, bigoted disrespect, Peters then railed against “big, fat, black Fani Willis,” the Fulton County DA who indicted Trump for election crimes, before pivoting to a medley of Covid misinformation, and then adding a soupçon of QAnon: “Our opponents have a plan to make America communist, to overthrow our constitution,” he said, and “to turn our children into their painted sex slaves.”

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In his ReAwaken calls for public executions, it should be noted, Peters did call for nominal trials before imposing the death penalty. But introducing a video of his speech on the Christian nationalist social network Gab, Peters seemed to suggest he’d be also alright with wild-west style justice.

“The plan is called EXTREME accountability,” he wrote. “So get your ropes ready…”

Scientist Peter Kalmus: The Hurricanes, Floods & Fires of 2023 Are Just the Beginning of Climate Emergency

DEMOCRACY NOW!
STORY  AUGUST 31, 2023

GUESTS  Peter Kalmus
climate activist and scientist.

LINKS Peter Kalmus website
"Being the Change: Live Well and Spark a Climate Revolution"


As Hurricane Idalia left a wake of destruction Wednesday, President Joe Biden said, “I don’t think anybody can deny the impact of the climate crisis anymore.” Climate activist and scientist Peter Kalmus calls for Biden to declare a climate emergency in order to unleash the government’s ability to transition away from fossil fuels. “The public just doesn’t understand, in my opinion, what a deep emergency we are in,” says Kalmus. “This is the merest beginning of what we’re going to see in coming years.” Kalmus blasts the fossil fuel industry for manipulating politics through campaign contributions, and GOP presidential candidates for misleading the public about climate science. “As a parent, as a citizen and as a scientist, I find it appalling and disgusting,” declares Kalmus. “I can’t mince words anymore.”

Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.


AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman, with Nermeen Shaikh.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: Hurricane Idalia has left a trail of flooding and destruction from Florida to the Carolinas, inundating coastal towns and leaving over 300,000 customers across the region without power. Idalia made landfall as a Category 3 hurricane and was later downgraded to a tropical storm. It was the strongest hurricane to hit the Big Bend section of Florida in over 125 years. The storm produced record storm surge across much of the region. As Idalia continues northward, North Carolina residents are bracing themselves for heavy downpours and possible tornadoes. Officials warned residents dangerous storm surges are still possible. Two people died in Florida in car crashes linked to the storm.

On Wednesday, President Biden spoke at the White House.


PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN: I don’t think anybody can deny the impact of the climate crisis anymore. Just look around. Historic floods — I mean historic floods — more intense droughts, extreme heat, significant wildfires have caused significant damage like we’ve never seen before.

AMY GOODMAN: We go now to Raleigh, North Carolina, where we’re joined by Peter Kalmus, climate activist, climate scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab, joining us today speaking on his own behalf, not as a spokesperson for NASA. Last year, he was arrested for locking himself onto an entrance to the JPMorgan Chase building in Los Angeles.

And you can explain why, Peter Kalmus, you locked yourself to the JPMorgan Chase building, how that relates to your climate science work, and what the south and the east of the country is experiencing right now, even Raleigh getting the tail end as the storm moves north.

PETER KALMUS: Yeah. Thank you.

So, the public just doesn’t understand, in my opinion, what a deep emergency we are in. This is the merest beginning of what we’re going to see in coming years. And to me, it’s absolutely horrifying. I don’t think people really fully appreciate how irreversible these impacts are. We can’t just reverse this. It’s not like cleaning up trash in a park. How hot we allow this planet to get is how hot it will stay for a very long time. And I feel like climate scientists, including myself, have been being ignored for decades by world leaders. They just don’t seem to get this, either.

I’m glad to hear President Biden finally using his bully pulpit a little bit to try to wake people up that this is real, but he continues to expand fossil fuels at breakneck pace. He continues to permit more drilling on public lands at a pace even faster than Trump, to approve the Willow project in Alaska. He went out of his way to make sure that the Mountain Valley Pipeline, a natural gas pipeline in Virginia and West Virginia, was approved. He could have stopped that, but, instead, he’s pushing to expand fossil fuels.

And that’s the cause of all of this damage that we’re seeing — the deadly fires in Greece, in Maui a few weeks ago, the flooding that we’ve seen in Vermont this year, in Pakistan last summer that basically inundated most of the country. The record heat that we’re seeing is going to get worse and worse. I feel like we are on the verge — these are very nonlinear changes. So, it feels like they’re increasing very quickly, because they interact with society in very complex ways. And we’re a lot more vulnerable than I think that most people think, or thought quite recently. And so, we could start seeing things like regional heat waves that end up killing a million people over the course of a few days in coming years. And it won’t stop there. That’s the thing. It just gets worse, the more fossil fuels we burn.

And so, yeah, the science, just doing the science, publishing the papers hasn’t seemed to got the message across either to the public or to world leaders. I’ve got two sons, and it breaks my heart to see the Biden administration continue to expand fossil fuels and take us deeper into this catastrophe, instead of trying to bring us back from this. He’s deeply on the wrong side of history.

Choosing JPMorgan Chase Bank in Los Angeles last year, that was a strategic choice, because a lot of these new fossil fuel projects — and just let me say again how insane it is that we’re still building new — we’re still allowing new fossil fuel projects to be built, because they have lifetimes of three to four decades. Anyway, the financing of those new projects is crucial. And no one, no institution on the planet does more damage to the Earth system, irreversible damage, by financing fossil fuel projects than JPMorgan.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: So, Peter Kalmus, could you talk about that? Elaborate on the role of the fossil fuel industry, not just in, of course, contributing over 80% — being responsible for over 80% of global heating, but what role, if any, it plays in the Biden administration’s — despite what he said, that there’s no question now of denying the impact of the climate crisis, he’s falling short. Even though he says — he said earlier this year that he’s “practically” declared a climate emergency, he has not done so. So, what would declaring a climate emergency enable? And what role is the fossil fuel industry playing, if any, in preventing him from doing so?

PETER KALMUS: Yeah, so a lot of questions there. Let me start out by saying that the public needs to know that the fossil fuel industry and its leaders, the fossil fuel executives, have — and their lobbyists, have been lying for decades, for about 50 years. This is very well documented. There’s a paper trail — people like science historians like Naomi Oreskes, Ben Franta, journalists like Amy Westervelt. There’s a very clear and sizable body of evidence that the fossil fuel industry, and through organizations like the American Petroleum Institute, have been literally lying to the public, trying to spread confusion about the science, countering climate scientists’ attempt to sound the alarm, kind of creating this sense of uncertainty through their lies, you know, spending billions of dollars on these misinformation campaigns, and then bribing politicians.

So, I think it was a year ago a story in The New York Times said that, you know, we all know that Joe Manchin gets a lot of money from the fossil fuel industry, but even Senator Chuck Schumer received almost $300,000 in one election cycle from the corporation that benefits from the Mountain Valley Pipeline, to ensure that the Mountain Valley Pipeline was built. So, the tendrils of the fossil fuel industry — and it’s surprising how cheap it is for them to buy off these politicians. It reminds me of the David Bowie song “The Man Who Sold the World.” I know that President Biden, when he was — during the primaries, a lot of the people in his campaign team had worked previously in the fossil fuel industry, so there’s a lot of connection there, as well. So I think that, you know, part of the problem is simply we have one of the most powerful industries on the planet, if not the most powerful industry, which has extremely deep pockets. They have profits of over, I think, a trillion dollars per year. And they can spend a tiny bit of that money to basically influence politicians. It’s essentially legalized bribery.

So, you know, I think there’s also — their disinformation campaign is a big part of why the public doesn’t understand how serious of an emergency we’re in right now. And that, in turn, kind of doesn’t push journalists to kind of connect these dots. So I see a lot of stories being reported, in The New York Times and elsewhere, about these individual climate catastrophes, but they miss very key points in the story, right? First of all, they often use the passive voice. They say, like, “The Earth is heating up.” No, it’s being heated up by the fossil fuel industry, by their dishonesty, by their legalized bribery. So they don’t make that connection.

They also don’t make the connection of where we’re going in the near future. Right? So, if they’re talking about a deadly heat wave that happens in 2023, they don’t say how much worse things are going to get by, say, 2028 or 2032. This is what really frightens me about climate change caused by global heating. It’s a trend. You might have some years that are slightly cooler than others due to natural variability, so it’s a little bit of a noisy trend, but it’s rising year on year. The physics is absolutely — you can’t negotiate with it. We understand the physics quite well. We don’t understand how it’s all going to play out with these complex human systems like the agriculture system, water systems, geopolitics. That’s a whole other question. But we know it’s going to get hotter and hotter, and that’s going to drive all of these types of catastrophes that we’re seeing to get more intense, more frequent.

AMY GOODMAN: Peter Kalmus, I wanted to go back to last week’s Republican presidential debate. Some are calling it a vice-presidential debate, those who are competing to be the vice-presidential running mate of President Trump. But Fox News played a question from Alexander Diaz, a student at Catholic University of America.


ALEXANDER DIAZ: Polls consistently show that young people’s number one issue is climate change. How will you, as both president of the United States and leader of the Republican Party, calm their fears that the Republican Party doesn’t care about climate change?


MARTHA MacCALLUM: So, we want to start on this with a show of hands. Do you believe in human behavior is causing climate change? Raise your hand if you do.


GOV. RON DESANTIS: Look, we’re not schoolchildren. Let’s have the debate. I mean, I’m happy to take it to start, Alexander.


MARTHA MacCALLUM: OK. You know what?


BRET BAIER: So, do you want to raise your hand or not?

AMY GOODMAN: That was Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. He and the other seven candidates refused to say climate change is caused by humans. Vivek Ramaswamy went on to call climate change a “hoax,” Peter Kalmus.

PETER KALMUS: It’s absolutely disgusting to me. I mean, he made a reference to schoolchildren. Schoolchildren understand this science much better than these adult men who are running for high office. And as a parent, as a citizen and as a scientist, I find it appalling and disgusting. I mean, I can’t mince words anymore. You know, I think too many scientists are holding back in how they talk about this. But the science is — there’s a mountain of evidence; the science could not be any more clear. There is no debate. It’s just ridiculous. And I don’t know what else to say. It’s like: How would I be able to argue with somebody who insisted that two plus two equals five?

NERMEEN SHAIKH: So, Peter, before we end — we just have a minute — what alternatives to fossil fuel are being explored now?

PETER KALMUS: Well, so, let’s be really clear, right? So, as you said earlier, about roughly 80% of global heating is caused by burning fossil fuels. Most of the rest of it is caused by industrial animal agriculture. So, but we know nothing we do will stop this, besides — if solution packages don’t include ramping down fossil fuels very quickly, they’re complete, basically, garbage. Right? So, look at the COP28 process, too — I want to make this point — which COP28 has — the last few COPs, the fossil fuel industry has sent the largest group of delegates to. This is the United Nations global negotiations on —

AMY GOODMAN: Twenty seconds.

PETER KALMUS: Yeah, and now it’s being led by the UAE national fossil fuel executives. So, the fox is controlling the henhouse. We have to ramp down fossil fuels. There’s no other choice. And renewable energies are already cheaper. So it’s just this money in politics which is blocking everything, and the ignorance of some of these politicians.

AMY GOODMAN: Peter Kalmus, climate activist, climate scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab, not speaking on behalf of NASA but speaking on his own behalf, and, some might say, on behalf of the planet.

Coming up, we’ll look at another crisis: the rapidly shrinking supply of groundwater in the nation’s aquifers. 

U.S. Aquifers Are Running Dry, Posing Major Threat to Drinking Water Supply

STORY AUGUST 31, 2023
GUESTS Warigia Bowman
director of sustainable energy and natural resources law at the University of Tulsa College of Law.

LINKS"America Is Using Up Its Groundwater Like There's No Tomorrow"


A major New York Times investigation reveals how the United States’ aquifers are becoming severely depleted due to overuse in part from huge industrial farms and sprawling cities. The Times reports that Kansas corn yields are plummeting due to a lack of water, there is not enough water to support the construction of new homes in parts of Phoenix, Arizona, and rivers across the country are drying up as aquifers are being drained far faster than they are refilling. “It can take millions of years to fill an aquifer, but they can be depleted in 50 years,” says Warigia Bowman, director of sustainable energy and natural resources law at the University of Tulsa College of Law. “All coastal regions in the United States are really being threatened by groundwater and aquifer problems.”

Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.


AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org. I’m Amy Goodman, with Nermeen Shaikh.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: “America Is Using Up Its Groundwater Like There’s No Tomorrow.” That’s the headline to a major New York Times investigation that examines how the nation’s aquifers are becoming severely depleted due to overuse in part from huge industrial farms and sprawling cities.

The depletion of the nation’s aquifers is already having a devastating impact. The Times reports that in Kansas, corn yields are plummeting due to a lack of water. In Arizona, there is not enough water to support the construction of new homes in parts of Phoenix. And rivers across the country are drying up.

AMY GOODMAN: We’re going now to Oklahoma, where we’re joined by Warigia Bowman, who has been closely tracking this issue, director of sustainable energy and natural resources law at the University of Tulsa College of Law.

Thank you so much for being with us. Can you start off by just explaining what an aquifer is, why these groundwater resources are under such threat, why they’re so critical not only to the United States but all over the world?

WARIGIA BOWMAN: Well, thank you so much, Amy. It’s really an honor to be on your show. I’ve been listening for years, so I am grateful for the opportunity.

For your listeners, an aquifer refers to, essentially, a container of soil and rock that holds water under the ground. This is not an underground river. Rather, it’s water flowing through porous rock and soil. So, if you have an aquifer very close to the surface, we usually call that artesian, and that’s when you see a spring. So, if you see a spring bubbling out of the ground, that means that the aquifer is very close to the surface. Some aquifers are very deep below the surface, and they were formed by glacial rainwater billions and millions of years ago. So, an aquifer is just a fancy way of saying, you know, the place that holds our groundwater.

Now, aquifers are critical for both the United and the world, because we get so much of our drinking water from groundwater. It’s really a significant percentage. In California, it could go as high as 60% in a drought year.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: And so, Warigia, if you could talk about how the federal government and state governments manage public water supplies?

WARIGIA BOWMAN: OK. Well, the federal government does not deal with groundwater. They have the power to. The Supreme Court has said, in Nebraska v. Sporhase, that the federal government has that opportunity. But all water law is done at the state level for the moment. And what that means is that each different state has a different approach to managing its water. So, actually, who manages water at the local level, that’s a municipal issue. That’s a little bit more of an infrastructure issue. But in terms of who owns the water and the legal regime to utilize it, that’s a state law issue.

AMY GOODMAN: And can you talk about how aquifer depletion isn’t solely a problem in the west of the country, how the tap water crisis is emerging in other parts of the country, as well?

WARIGIA BOWMAN: OK, well, I’m not an expert on the tap water crisis, but I will say that all coastal regions in the United States are really being threatened by groundwater and aquifer problems. Some of the hardest hit are going to be Louisiana and Florida. Obviously, New York will eventually be hit.

Let’s take Florida. I’m sure you guys have already heard about how residents in Miami are trying to move their properties or find property on hillier areas, but in places like the Everglade, you have a very delicate balance of freshwater and saltwater. But when we overdraw our aquifers, then you get something called saltwater intrusion, which upsets that balance. And that’s also a serious problem in Louisiana.

And surprisingly, under the Mississippi River between Mississippi and Arkansas, there’s enormous aquifer depletion. It’s hard to believe because the Mississippi is such a big river. But the farmers in that region are withdrawing so much water so fast that actually the aquifers underneath the Mississippi River are one of the most endangered aquifers in the United States.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: So, Warigia, if you could talk about, very quickly, in the last minute we have, how the climate crisis worsens this aquifer depletion and accelerates it?

WARIGIA BOWMAN: Well, there are a few different ways. The first way is precipitation is declining. Snowmelt is declining — I mean, snow is declining. But one thing to understand it that aquifers and groundwater, they recharge incredibly slowly. So, it can take millions of years to fill an aquifer, but they can be depleted, you know, in 50 years. But as surface water supplies, like rivers and streams and lakes, are depleted, farmers and industry are going to draw more from groundwater, and so that accelerates the depletion.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, Warigia Bowman, we want to thank you so much for being with us, associate professor and director of sustainable energy and natural resources law at the University of Tulsa College of Law.

That does it for our show. A very happy birthday to Hany Massoud! Democracy Now! is produced with Renée Feltz, Mike Burke, Deena Guzder, Messiah Rhodes, Nermeen Shaikh, María Taracena, Tami Woronoff, Charina Nadura, Sam Alcoff, Tey-Marie Astudillo, John Hamilton, Robby Karran, Hany Massoud, Sonyi Lopez. Our executive director is Julie Crosby. Special thanks to Becca Staley, Jon Randolph, Paul Powell, Mike Di Filippo, Miguel Nogueira, Hugh Gran, Denis Moynihan, David Prude, Dennis McCormick, Matt Ealy and Emily Anderson.

If you want to sign up for our daily digest, news in your email box, go to democracynow.org. I’m Amy Goodman, with Nermeen Shaikh. Thanks so much for joining us.

This is viewer supported news. Please do your part today.DONATE

The original content of this program is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. Please attribute legal copies of this work to democracynow.org. Some of the work(s) that this program incorporates, however, may be separately licensed. For further information or additional permissions, contact us.

 

Oklahoma bank and the Justice Department propose settlement of redlining allegations around Tulsa


The U.S. Department of Justice and a northeastern Oklahoma bank have announced a proposed agreement to settle claims that the bank discriminated in lending to Blacks and Hispanics in the Tulsa area.

Collinsville-based American Bank of Oklahoma used the illegal practice known as redlining in majority-Black and Hispanic neighborhoods in the Tulsa area, including the area of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre, according to the Justice Department.

Redlining is an illegal practice in which lenders avoid providing credit to people because of their race, color or national origin.

The practice was used by the bank from 2017 through at least 2021, the Justice Department alleged.

The proposed consent agreement filed in federal court in Tulsa on Monday is pending court approval and calls for ABOK to provide $1.15 million in credit opportunities in neighborhoods of color in the Tulsa area.

“This agreement will help expand investment in Black communities and communities of color in Tulsa and increase opportunities for homeownership and financial stability," Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke of the department’s Civil Rights Division said in a statement.

“Remedial provisions in the agreement will open up opportunities for building generational wealth while focusing on neighborhoods that bear the scars of the Tulsa Race Massacre,” Clarke said.

Lawsuit Filed Over "Improve Our Tulsa"

ABOK denied the allegations but said in a statement that it agreed to the proposal to avoid the cost and distraction of lengthy litigation.

Bank chief executive Joe Landon said in a statement that ABOK, with branches in Collinsville, Ramona, Muskogee, Disney and Skiatook, is a small community bank with $383 million in assets and lamented that the Justice Department referenced the 1921 Race Massacre.

“As Oklahomans, we carry a profound sense of sorrow for the tragic events of the Tulsa Race Massacre over a century ago,” Landon said.

The 1921 massacre left hundreds of Black residents dead when an angry white mob descended on a 35-block area known as Greenwood, looting, killing and burning it to the ground. Beyond those killed, thousands more were left homeless and living in a hastily constructed internment camp.

The three known living survivors of the massacre are appealing a ruling that dismissed their lawsuit seeking reparations from the city and other defendants for the destruction of the once-thriving Black district.

Landon said the bank will expand its deposit and lending products and add mortgage and refinancing options in Tulsa and open a new loan production office in a historically Black area of the city.

The Justice Department said the bank will also provide at least two mortgage loan officers for majority-Black and Hispanic neighborhoods, and host at least six consumer financial education seminars annually with translation and interpretation services in Spanish.

ABOK is also to hire a full-time director of community lending to oversee lending in neighborhoods of color in the Tulsa area.

Ken Miller, The Associated Press

Gen Z’s Declining College Interest Persists — Even Among Middle Schoolers

Joshua Bay

THE 74
Thu, August 24, 2023 




Consumed with pandemic-era grief, Gen Z’s apathy towards attending college has grown — even influencing students as young as middle schoolers.

A new YPulse report found two in five Gen Z students agreed with the statement: “The pandemic has made me less interested in pursuing higher education.”

Middle school students, generally 11 to 13 years old, not only contribute to the trend but also lead the view that work experience is more valuable.

That attitude has translated into an 8% decline in college enrollment from 2019 to 2022, showing how attending college is no longer a given for Gen Z.

“Seeing the way many Millennials are saddled with insurmountable debt from the higher ed system, and knowing from their online lives that other paths are possible, these high school and even middle school students are reconsidering if they even need college to be successful,” YPulse wrote in the report.

Gen Z advocates Brian Femminella, co-founder and chief executive officer of SoundMind, Bella Santos, community leadership board president of The Conversationalist, and Ian Gates, policy and program quality fellow of The Opportunity Project Tulsa talked about key takeaways from the report:

From left to right, Brian Femminella, 23, Bella Santos, 20, and Ian Gates, 22.
1. The vast majority of Gen Z middle school students say they don’t see a future pursuing college.

YPulse found 80% of Gen Z middle school students and 85% of high school students plan to go to college compared to 100% pre-pandemic.

YPulse

Gates, 22, said pandemic-era online learning showed younger Gen Z students how monotonous taking classes can be — whether they’re in middle school, high school, community college or a four-year institution.

“[Gen Z] is thinking about different options now,” Gates told The 74. “A lot of us are thinking about non-college careers…like being a Youtuber, influencer and other alternate paths like that.”

Femminella, 23, said his own college education didn’t necessarily help him start his mental health company.

“When I see how a lot of younger kids would rather do something else, I applaud that,” Femminella told The 74. “We need more folks that want to do different things and shouldn’t fall into the stigma of college being a must.”

Related: Gen Z Entrepreneurs Tackle Youth Mental Health Crisis With Music Therapy
2. Gen Z students are more likely to find Google and YouTube more helpful than a teacher.

YPulse found Gen Z students were more likely to choose Google and YouTube over a teacher when asked: “If you wanted to learn something new, what resources would you use?”

Santos, 20, wasn’t shocked.

“There is often not a ton of oversight when it comes to how choosy schools are with who gets to teach — especially in public schools,” Santos told The 74. “Teachers and the system in which they teach aren’t always suited for success to begin with.”

Gates said disparaging parent attitudes towards teachers and school curriculum also had an effect on how Gen Z grows up to question the value of a college education.

“With the parental rights movement, certainly when you’re telling your kid ‘hey your teachers are trying to indoctrinate you and make you communist and make you gay’ it obviously gets to them,” Gates said.

Gates added how states such as Florida, which have banned AP Psychology and AP African American Studies, contribute to Gen Z’s disinterest in pursuing higher education by not exposing them to diverse courses.
3. Gen Z college students struggle to stay interested in their classes and believe they don’t teach practical skills.

YPulse found 55% of current Gen Z undergraduate students and 38% of Gen Z graduate students found their classes not relevant to their lives — in part because college doesn’t teach practical skills such as mental health skills, cooking and personal finance.

“Learning should be an enriching experience no matter what your interests are,” Santos said. “Yet school systems are often set up to just drill information into people’s brains.”

Femminella said mental health concerns should be the foundation on which professors shape their curriculum.

“There are some moments when students in college need to have a mental health day because they’re overworked,” Femminella said. “There’s not a lot of outlets and resources until it’s too late…and you’re really in the midst of a mental health crisis when there’s ways to avoid that.”

Femminella also said colleges should require personal finance and cooking courses.

“A lot of colleges forget that when Gen Z students close their computer, they’re a human and have to go do other human things like pay bills, cook and clean,” Femminella said. “I think it’s something that should just be incorporated into the entire university structure.”
4. Gen Z students wish they learned about alternative career paths growing up.

YPulse found that 74% of Gen Z students wish they learned more about alternative career paths compared to a traditional college education.


YPulse

Santos said the social stigma of not attending college is declining among Gen Z students.

“I don’t think it’s for everyone, I don’t think it’s necessary, so it makes sense that other people in my generation see that,” Santos said.

Gates added how this is especially true for students who come from immigrant families and used to feel “the pressure that college is just what’s next.”

“Gen Z knows people are graduating college with all these loans,” Gates said. “They’re taking that into account, especially those from lower income families, and asking themselves if college is really worth it.”

Related: What Gen Z Teens Are Asking About Education, Work and Their Future
5. Gen Z students believe work experience is more important than a college education.

YPulse found that 57% of Gen Z middle school students and 49% of Gen Z high school students believe work experience is more important than a college education.


YPulse

Femminella said work experience has been the most helpful tool to his success.

“When you’re in your field and you get to practice, you also get to fail,” Femminella said. “And by failing you learn the most, and that’s been invaluable to starting my company.”

Nearly half of Gen Zers think they won’t ‘get a dime’ in Social Security: survey

Aris Folley
Tue, August 22, 2023 

Almost half of Generation Z adults said they don’t expect to get any of the Social Security benefits they’ve earned, according to a survey.

In a survey released Tuesday by the Nationwide Retirement Institute, 45 percent of Gen Z adults between the ages of 18 to 26 said they expect to not “get a dime” of the benefits they have earned.

Additionally, 39 percent of millennials said the same, compared to 25 percent of Gen X adults and 10 percent of baby boomers who agreed.

More older Americans also expressed concern that Social Security could run out of funding in their lifetimes, with 75 percent of respondents aged 50 and older sharing that concern in the survey, up 9 percent from roughly a decade ago.

The fate of Social Security drew significant attention around Capitol Hill earlier this year as Republicans and Democrats warred over how to tackle the nation’s climbing debt, which stands at more than $32 trillion.

As one of the country’s largest mandatory spending programs, dollars for Social Security comprise a significant portion of the nation’s annual spending.

The program is expected to approach insolvency in roughly a decade, so lawmakers on both sides have floated potential changes to extend the lifetime of the program.

In the new survey, less than a fourth of respondents backed increasing funding through payroll taxes. Instead, 49 percent of respondents pushed for tax increases on higher earners to pay for the program.

Forty-one percent also said they supported increasing funding through taxes paid by employers, compared to 40 percent who also pushed for less taxation and 24 percent who wanted to see the age of eligibility lowered.

The survey found less support among respondents when it came to some changes tightening eligibility, with only 19 percent saying they support raising the full retirement age, while just 9 percent backed a gradual reduction of benefits that would most affect younger generations.

Only 6 percent of respondents support reducing benefits across the board.

Gen Z, millennial, and Gen X respondents were more likely than boomers and older respondents in the survey to say they have or “will have retirement accounts and savings as additional sources of retirement income beyond Social Security benefits.”

They were also more likely to say they plan to delay or have delayed retirement in case a quarter of their monthly benefit is cut during retirement.

The 2023 Social Security survey was conducted online between May 18 and June 13 among 1,806 adults age 18 and older who receive or expect to receive Social Security. That includes 300 Gen Z respondents, 500 millennials and 502 boomers or those age 59 and older.

The sample data is accurate to “within plus 3.0 percentage points using a 95 percent confidence level,” the survey notes.

HIP HOP CAPITALI$M
How hip-hop spurred the growth in Black businesses and financial empowerment

REVOLT COMMODIFIED

Ronda Lee
Sun, August 20, 2023

The 50th anniversary of hip-hop coincides with the national Black business month in August, and the former has been a driver of growth and empowerment for the latter, according to leaders in the music genre’s industry.

Hip-hop is an industry with an economic impact of $16 billion and has launched Black-owned businesses in music, film, fashion, and advertising for creatives that curated the culture.

Rappers have turned into entrepreneurs, spurring growth for other Black-owned businesses, building generational wealth, and investing in the communities that nurtured them.

"Hip-hop went from being a fad to commercialized and monetized in technology, fashion, sports and business," Detavio Samuels, CEO of REVOLT, told Yahoo Finance. "In the beginning, we weren’t owners, just brand ambassadors, not accumulating wealth from a genre and culture that we created. We’ve gone from making others rich to wealth accumulators."

Rashad Bilal and Troy Millings of Earn Your Leisure, host REVOLT's Assets Over Liabilities, with the premiere episode featuring entrepreneur, producer, and artist Swizz Beatz.

Overall, there are around 3 million Black-owned businesses in America now, generating about $206 billion in annual revenue with 36% of those led by Black women. But the road to these successes was far from easy.

The history of Black businesses in the US is rife with violence and racism.

In what was known as the Red Summers of 1917-1919, many Black-owned businesses in Washington, D.C., Chicago, St. Louis, Houston, Tulsa, and Omaha were decimated during mob violence and racial terrorism.

In the decades that followed, many Black-owned businesses closed due to racially biased eminent domain proceedings, with the government taking land in Black business districts like Bruce’s Beach in Los Angeles and Beale Street in Memphis.

Hip-hop itself was its own economic battleground. When the genre was born, recording studios — more often owned by white executives — controlled the process from radio air time, marketing, ownership interests, and rights.

But they did not control the culture, which spawned more and more businesses.

For instance, Dapper Dan and 5001 FLAVORS were favorite designers for hip-hop artists that disrupted the fashion industry. Some of 5001 FLAVORS clients include Salt-n-Pepa, Heavy D, Sean P. Diddy Combs, Dr. Dre, DMX, Tupac, The Notorious BIG, Jay-Z, Beyonce, and Blue Ivy.

"Hip-hop allowed Black creatives and artists to create brands that wouldn’t have existed without hip-hop and allowed us to engage in collective economics, supporting other Black businesses," Sharene Wood, president and CEO of 5001 FLAVORS and Harlem Haberdashery, told Yahoo Finance. "Hip-hop opened the door to a lot of Black brands, like 5001 FLAVORS."

August 5, 2023. Ashlee Muhammad, Guy Wood Sr., Sharene Wood, Kells Barnett, and Guy Wood Jr. are featured at New York Public Library's "The Rap-Up" celebrating 50 years of hip-hop featuring Harlem Haberdashery and 5001 FLAVORS.

What started with $600 in Wood’s college dorm room has expanded 30 years later into a family business with a retail store (Harlem Haberdashery), a bespoke spirits line (HH Bespoke Spirits), and a 501(c)(3) that gives back to the community that raised them — #TakeCareofHarlem.

Designs by 5001 FLAVORS are archived at the Smithsonian, Grammy museum, and the Rock-n-Roll Hall of Fame museum honoring hip-hop.

"People wanted to build their own economy, and Biggie said it best: 'Never thought hip-hop would take us this far,'" Wood said. "Hip-hop creatives and the businesses that sprung from them didn’t have corporate grooming or business degrees when we started, but now Queen Latifah, LL COOL J, and Diddy are multi-hyphenates — rappers, actors, and entrepreneurs."

Sean "Diddy" Combs went from rapper-producer to CEO of Bad Boy Entertainment, owning a fashion line, and founder and chairman of REVOLT. This year is Bad Boy Entertainment’s 35th anniversary and the 10th anniversary of REVOLT.

REVOLT originally started as music video television in response to MTV’s embrace of reality television over music videos. However, when none of the genres outside of hip-hop showed up for the platform, REVOLT decided to embrace hip-hop culture as the storytelling agent.

"The narrative others tell about hip-hop is sex, love, drugs, and materialism," Samuels said. "REVOLT isn’t a media company, but an engine for transformative change for Black people to build generational wealth with culturally relevant information to turn financial whispers into shouts as to how Black billionaires have done it."

This resonates with the Black community. A Pew Research study found that 58% of Black adults say supporting Black businesses, or "buying Black" is an effective strategy for moving Black people toward equality in the United States.

"Social justice and empowerment has always been part of the DNA of hip-hop culture," Samuels said.

Financial empowerment

In another effort to empower the Black community and businesses, REVOLT partnered with Rashad Bilal and Troy Millings, founders of the viral platform Earn Your Leisure (EYL) that turned into a TV network on financial literacy, to host Assets Over Liabilities, a television series that bridges the gap between the world of finance and the hip-hop community, making financial literacy a focal point.

This season’s premiere episode is a sit-down with producer Swizz Beatz discussing his investment in Black artwork, selling his company Verzuz for $28 million, and his investment strategy for building generational wealth.

"Partnering with REVOLT to integrate hip-hop into the conversation removes stigmas and increases accessibility to financial literacy," Rashad Bilal and Troy Millings, co-hosts and co-founders of Earn Your Leisure, said. "We're empowering the community to break down financial walls and master their money with knowledge."

REVOLT is using its platform to highlight Black businesses and marketplace disruptors like Assets over Liabilities and Bet on Black.

Hip-hop’s influence on Black businesses and the idea of collective economics is rooted in empowering Black communities.

"Collective economics is not just about money, it’s a social responsibility to invest in the community because you can’t just consume from the community, you need to nurture it in order for business to thrive," Wood said. "Companies like the Fearless Fund exist because we’ve been historically underrepresented, underfunded, and systematically shut out of opportunities."

Ronda is a personal finance senior reporter for Yahoo Finance and attorney with experience in law, insurance, education, and government. Follow her on Twitter @writesronda

 

Atlatl weapon use by prehistoric females equalized the division of labor while hunting, experimental study shows

by Kent State University

Atlatl experiment on the Kent Campus with Bob Berg of Thunderbird Atlatl. Michelle Bebber

 is holding the radar gun. Credit: Metin I. Eren

A new study led by archaeologist Michelle Bebber, Ph.D., an assistant professor in Kent State University's Department of Anthropology, has demonstrated that the atlatl (i.e., spear thrower) functions as an "equalizer," a finding which supports women's potential active role as prehistoric hunters.

Bebber co-authored an article "Atlatl use equalizes female and male projectile weapon velocity" which was published in the journal Scientific Reports. Her co-authors include Metin I. Eren and Dexter Zirkle (a recent Ph.D. graduate) also in the Department of Anthropology at Kent State, Briggs Buchanan of University of Tulsa, and Robert Walker of the University of Missouri.

The atlatl is a handheld, rod-shaped device that employs leverage to launch a dart, and represents a major human technological innovation used in hunting and warfare since the Stone Age. The first javelins are at least hundreds of thousands of years old; the first atlatls are likely at least tens of thousands of years old.

"One hypothesis for forager atlatl adoption over its presumed predecessor, the thrown javelin, is that a diverse array of people could achieve equal performance results, thereby facilitating inclusive participation of more people in hunting activities," Bebber said.

Bebber's study tested this hypothesis via a systematic assessment of 2,160 weapon launch events by 108 people, all novices, (many of which were Kent State students) who used both javelins and atlatls. The results are consistent with the "atlatl equalizer hypothesis," showing that the atlatl not only increases the velocity of projectile weapons relative to thrown javelins, but that the atlatl equalizes the velocity of female- and male-launched projectiles.

"This result indicates that a javelin to atlatl transition would have promoted a unification, rather than division, of labor," Bebber said. "Our results suggest that female and male interments with atlatl weaponry should be interpreted similarly, and in some archaeological contexts females could have been the atlatl's inventor."

"Many people tend to view women in the past as passive and that only males were hunters, but increasingly that does not seem to be the case," Bebber said. "Indeed, and perhaps most importantly, there seems to be a growing consilience among different fields—archaeology, ethnography, and now modern experiments—that women were likely active and successful hunters of game, big and small."

Since 2019, every semester Bebber takes her class outside to use the atlatl. She noticed that females picked it up very easily and could launch darts as far as the males with little effort.

"Often males became frustrated because they were trying too hard and attempting to use their strength to launch the darts," Bebber said. "However, since the atlatl functions as a simple lever, it reduces the advantage of male's generally greater muscle strength."

"Given that females appear to benefit the most from atlatl use, it is certainly within the realm of possibility that in some contexts females invented the atlatl," Bebber said. "Likewise, in some primate species, females invent tool technologies for hunting as documented among the Fongoli chimpanzees."

More information: Michelle R. Bebber et al, Atlatl use equalizes female and male projectile weapon velocity, Scientific Reports (2023). DOI: 10.1038/s41598-023-40451-8

Journal information: Scientific Reports 

Provided by Kent State University Small-scale atlatl artifacts suggest children were taught how to use them

Green investors are learning to live with carbon in a new ‘energy transition 2.0’ strategy that comes with caveats

Peter Vanham, Nicholas Gordon
Tue, August 15, 2023 at 4:31 AM MDT·2 min read

Dane Rhys—Bloomberg via Getty Images


Good morning, Peter Vanham here in Geneva.

Far away from the political gridlock in Washington, D.C., a new energy consensus is brewing in the U.S., including in its reddest and most fossil fuel-reliant states. It is one where all agree that “energy is energy, whether it is generated by wind, steam or whatever it might be,” as Dewey F. Bartlett Jr., a former oil and gas executive and former mayor of Tulsa, Oklahoma, told the New York Times recently.

The emerging middle ground looks something like this: advocates of renewable energy acknowledge that fossil fuels will remain in the mix for decades to come to allow for an orderly and affordable transition to cleaner sources of energy. Companies that are very carbon-intensive, meanwhile, do their part to get on a pathway to “net zero” by 2050, but in the meantime can bank on techniques such as carbon capture and storage, which allow for the continued use of fossil fuels.

“The early days of the green transition being focused on green solutions and renewables—I very much believe that was energy transition 1.0,” Megan Starr, global head of impact at Carlyle, told me in an interview yesterday. “Energy transition 2.0 is a recognition that we need all of the clean solutions, but we also need to decarbonize the rest of the economy at the same time.”

At Carlyle, one of America’s largest private equity companies, this “2.0” approach to decarbonization means that the company still invests in businesses that are carbon intensive. But these companies must do two things: first, set long-term emissions targets in line with the international Paris climate accord. And second, find new avenues of business growth in a decarbonized economy.

One beneficial outcome of that approach, Starr told me, is that it allows for a world where “energy security and transition are not in conflict.” Another is that it prevents entire industries and human capital from becoming obsolete. Since embarking on its new strategy, Starr said, Carlyle worked with 22 carbon-intensive businesses to set “Paris-aligned” goals. “They’re investing in hydrogen, carbon capture and storage, and sustainable aviation fuels. They use the infrastructure that they have, and see how it can become part of new-age energy solutions.”

But perhaps the greatest benefit is that the approach is a solution to both the political division around the energy question and the emergency of the climate crisis. That is, of course, if it works.

NO JUSTICE! NO PEACE!
Oklahoma's high court will consider a reparations case from 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre survivors

AYANNA ALEXANDER and SEAN MURPHY
Updated Wed, August 16, 2023 


 People raise up their arms during the dedication of a prayer wall outside of the historic Vernon African Methodist Episcopal Church in the Greenwood neighborhood during the centennial of the Tulsa Race Massacre, May 31, 2021, in Tulsa, Okla. he state of Oklahoma says it is unwilling to participate in settlement discussions with survivors who are seeking reparations for the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre and that a Tulsa County judge properly dismissed the case in July 2023. The Oklahoma attorney general's litigation division filed its response Monday, Aug. 14, 2023, with the Oklahoma Supreme Court. 

(AP Photo/John Locher, File)


OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — The Oklahoma Supreme Court will consider a reparations case from survivors of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre after a lower court judge dismissed it last month, giving hope to advocates for racial justice that government may make amends in one of the worst single acts of violence against Black people in U.S. history.

Tulsa County District Judge Caroline Wall dismissed the case on July 9. Survivors appealed and the state's high court agreed last week to consider whether that decision was proper and if the case should be returned to her court for further consideration.

In response to the appeal, the state told the court Monday that it won't consider a settlement with the survivors. The survivors want the state's high court to return the case to district court to determine exactly what occurred and what it would take to fix or abate what they allege is a continuing nuisance created by the massacre.

Just three survivors of the attack are known to still be living, all more than 100 years old. Lessie Benningfield Randle, Viola Fletcher and Hughes Van Ellis have sued for reparations from the city, state and others for the white mob's destruction of the once-thriving Black district known as Greenwood. Several other original plaintiffs who are descendants of survivors were dismissed from the case by the trial court judge last year.


“The survivors of the Tulsa Race Massacre are heroes, and Oklahoma has had 102 years to do right by them,” their attorney, Damario Solomon-Simmons, said in a statement to The Associated Press. "The state’s efforts to gaslight the living survivors, whitewash history, and move the goal posts for everyone seeking justice in Oklahoma puts all of us in danger, and that is why we need the Oklahoma Supreme Court to apply the rule of law.”

The lawsuit was brought under Oklahoma's public nuisance law, saying actions of the white mob that killed hundreds of Black residents and destroyed what had been the nation’s most prosperous Black business district continue to affect the city's Black community. It alleges Tulsa’s long history of racial division and tension stemmed from the massacre.

But the state says that argument was properly dismissed by Judge Wall. The judge properly determined that the plaintiffs failed to outline a clearly identifiable claim for relief, Assistant Attorney General Kevin McClure wrote in the state's response to the appeal.

"All their allegations are premised on conflicting historical facts from over 100 years ago, wherein they have failed to properly allege how the Oklahoma Military Department created (or continues to be responsible for) an ongoing ‘public nuisance,’ McClure wrote.

McClure claims the state's National Guard was activated only to quell the disturbance and left Tulsa after the mission was accomplished. The survivors' lawsuit alleges National Guard members participated in the massacre, systematically rounding up African Americans and “going so far as to kill those who would not leave their homes.”

Solomon-Simmons said the state's response denies the need for restorative justice for Black victims.

"We have people that suffered the harm that are still living, and we had the perpetrators, the city, the state, the county chamber, they are still here also,” he said. “Yes, the bombings have stopped. The shooting has stopped. The burning has stopped. But the buildings that were destroyed, they were never rebuilt.”

The attorney general's office represents only the Oklahoma Military Department. Tulsa officials have declined to discuss the appeal, citing the ongoing litigation. A Tulsa Chamber of Commerce attorney previously said that the massacre was horrible, but the nuisance it caused was not ongoing.

In 2019, Oklahoma’s attorney general used the public nuisance law to force drugmaker Johnson & Johnson to pay the state $465 million in damages for the opioid crisis. The Oklahoma Supreme Court overturned that decision two years later.

Democrats’ climate law set off a wave of energy projects in GOP districts. A backlash followed.

Michael Conroy/AP Photo

Josh Siegel, Kelsey Tamborrino and Jessie Blaeser
Sun, August 13, 2023 


President Joe Biden’s year-old climate law triggered a deluge of clean energy spending in almost every state — and it’s splitting conservatives across rural America.

Some communities are welcoming their slice of the $370 billion pot of federal tax incentives meant to accelerate the development of renewable energy and the deployment of electric vehicles as a way to bring back jobs. Others see the Inflation Reduction Act as a vehicle for boosting Chinese businesses and the reach of their government.

While Republicans on the campaign trail and in Congress regularly bash the law — which Biden signed a year ago Wednesday — as big-government overreach by Democrats bent on killing off fossil fuels, its benefits are disproportionately landing in their communities. And as the measure supercharges efforts to combat climate change, it’s also rekindling economies where people have felt forgotten, potentially softening how some voters view Biden as he seeks reelection.

“We always knew that it would fall across America, not in one particular state or another,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said in an interview. “We know that rural areas have been neglected, we know that rural areas have fallen behind, and we wanted to help those rural areas. And if some of those rural areas are red, so be it.”

For the companies that are hoping to reap federal tax incentives as well as state and local sweeteners, Republican parts of the country often look more attractive. Of the 200 project locations that have been announced through July, more than 60 percent are in GOP-held districts, according to a POLITICO analysis.

“Companies are building projects where they will be the most effective and generate the most resources,” said Jason Grumet, CEO of the American Clean Power Association, a clean energy industry trade group. “It is no surprise in the Southeast, Upper Midwest, where you have significant amounts of manufacturing capacity, much of which has been idled and left the country.”

As the IRA hits its first anniversary, POLITICO traveled across the nation to examine how the law is playing out in Oklahoma (where the Republican governor is claiming credit for the state’s booming clean energy sector), Michigan (where multibillion-dollar battery projects will generate jobs but are provoking uproars over Chinese ties) and upstate New York (where Republican congressmembers in Biden districts are trying to navigate the politics of the IRA).

MICHIGAN: Green Charter Township and Marshall

Jim Chapman, the Republican supervisor for Green Charter Township, a small rural community an hour’s drive north of Grand Rapids, said he’s received several death threats over a planned $2.36 billion battery component manufacturing facility in the area.

“I accepted the fact that I was going to have to be the lightning rod,” Chapman said in an interview from his office. He is facing a recall effort launched by residents worried about the plant’s sponsor, Gotion, and its links to China.

“Where you have people that are concerned about the Chinese Communist [Party] — they don’t know how to [fight] it in Lansing. They don’t know how to deal with it in Washington. They can deal with it locally,” he said.

Gotion Inc., which recently finalized the purchase of 270 acres in Green Charter Township, is a U.S. subsidiary of Gotion High-tech Co., an international company founded in China.

Residents and some elected officials point to Gotion High-tech documents that include language to “carry out Party activities” in accordance with the Chinese Communist Party.

Chuck Thelen, the vice president of North American manufacturing at Gotion, has insisted there is no such language in the U.S.-based company’s articles of incorporation. Thelen said the Chinese Communist Party has no presence in the North American company.

“The rumors that you’ve heard about us bringing communism to North America are just flat-out fear-mongering and really have nothing based in reality,” he said.

The plant’s backers say the opposition represents just a small minority of residents and argue it will bring much-needed economic growth.

“We desperately need good-paying jobs,” said Carlleen Rose, 69, a local business owner.

But those who oppose the project have a lengthy list of concerns, including a lack of transparency in the process up to this point and potential for air and water pollution stemming from battery materials.

Thelen said the company is currently going through the permitting process for the facility, including the next phase of an environmental study.

“All you gotta do is drive around the community and you’ll see how many people are against it,” said Lori Brock, 58, the owner of a local real estate agency and a horse farm across from the planned site.

“They’re pushing it down our throats,” Brock added. “Why are we giving our tax money to China when we’re almost at war with China? Why aren’t we giving our tax money to an American company?”

That antipathy is shared by local elected officials, including Republican Rep. John Moolenaar, who represents the district.

“Gotion North America is a subsidiary of a company that pledges allegiance to the CCP and I don’t think they should be receiving taxpayer money to build in Michigan,” he said in an interview.

The site’s proximity to a military training center has also raised national security concerns, although the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States reportedly determined earlier this year the factory was outside of its jurisdiction.

The project — along with a separate Ford Motor Co. battery facility in Marshall, Mich., that will license technology from a Chinese company — mark a recurring theme of distrust that undergirds some of the manufacturing announcements that are flowing to red districts.

More than 40 percent of the new manufacturing announcements made since the IRA was enacted were led by companies based outside the U.S. or by companies outside the U.S. in partnership with a U.S. company, according to data shared with POLITICO by national business group E2. At least six of those announcements were made by, or in partnership with, a Chinese-based company.

Ford’s planned $3.5 billion BlueOval Battery Park Michigan project two hours south of the Gotion plant is expected to create 2,500 new U.S. jobs.

But its reliance on technology from China-based Contemporary Amperex Technology Co. Ltd., a large global battery producer, has drawn pushback both locally and in Washington, where Republicans are putting the project under a microscope. Residents have also lodged concerns about the plant's effects on the environment, particularly to the Kalamazoo River, and the loss of farmland.

Ford spokesperson Melissa Miller said there’s “a lot of misinformation” about the Marshall project. Ford, she said in a statement, will own and control the plant with “zero foreign investment” and its Chinese partner’s involvement will be as a licensor of battery cell technology and a service provider on a contractual basis.

“CATL does not and will not have any equity in the plant and will receive zero tax dollars,” Miller said.

On the environmental concerns, she said the company is still designing the plant, but has begun identifying and mitigating potential failures.

Residents in both communities have packed into town meetings over the months and launched Facebook pages devoted to their opposition. The two projects have prompted recall efforts for local officials and in the case of the Marshall project, a citizen-led lawsuit.

“America’s gotta wake up. We’re being taken over,” Debbie Dygert, 71, said in an interview after a recent Green Charter Township board meeting, which devolved into shouting over concerns of China’s influence and claims by some of xenophobia.

Both the Ford and Gotion facilities were applauded by Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, a Democrat, and are taking advantage of hundreds of millions of dollars in state-level incentives, on top of the likely incentives under the IRA.

Quentin Messer, Jr., the CEO of the Michigan Economic Development Corporation, a quasi-state agency, called it “critically important” for Michigan to maintain a foothold in battery manufacturing.

“You always have to make the affirmative case as to why growth and progress are going to be beneficial, and not something to be feared,” Messer said. “And I think that’s something that we understand we have to do and make more explicit to folks.”
OKLAHOMA: Inola and Oklahoma City

Bill McAnally, a self-declared “Trump fan,” was ecstatic when an Italian company, Enel, announced plans in May to spend more than $1 billion — the largest private investment in the state’s history — to build a solar cell and panel manufacturing facility a half-hour drive east of Tulsa.

He owns a diner that is one of the few restaurants around Inola, a town home to 1,500 people, and stands to see sales jump from the influx of new customers.

“It’s a great deal,” said McAnally, 68, since Enel, through its affiliate 3Sun USA, expects to generate 1,000 manufacturing jobs in 2025. “All it does is help my business.”

But when told by a reporter that Enel plans to take advantage of tax credits included in Biden’s climate law, McAnally abruptly changed his tune.

“I don’t support it now,” he said. “The federal government doesn’t need to get involved. We all support bringing in green, but we don’t want to give them all this free money.”

But Oklahoma’s Republican governor, Kevin Stitt, has no qualms about the IRA incentives that are attracting multinational companies to his state.

“Obviously some of these incentives from the federal government are causing people to look into the U.S. market,” Stitt said in an interview in the state capitol.

In addition to Enel, electric vehicle startup Canoo announced plans in November to manufacture cars in Oklahoma City, where it says it will employ 500 people, as well as battery modules in Pryor.

But Stitt also personally takes credit for attracting clean energy manufacturing, a sector he said dovetails with Oklahoma’s oil and gas industry, low energy costs, ample transportation infrastructure and central location in the country. The state also draws about 40 percent of its power from wind and is home to more electric vehicle fast-charging stations per capita than any other state.

“We’re just trying to be smart,” Stitt said. “All the [research and development] dollars are flowing into electric vehicles. Batteries. So then I’m thinking, let’s go where the puck is headed. Oklahoma doesn’t want to get left behind. We want the jobs.”


At Stitt’s behest, the Legislature approved taxpayer-funded rebates to companies that build facilities and create jobs in the state, including a $180 million incentive package to help lure Enel. It offered $300 million in incentives to Canoo, though the California-based company saw that figure drop after it missed construction targets.

But some in the state’s all-Republican congressional delegation are resisting the push — including Rep. Josh Brecheen, a freshman member of the conservative House Freedom Caucus who represents the district where Enel is building its huge solar project.

“Do I want jobs to come to Oklahoma? Yes. Do I want companies to stand on their own and be on an even playing field without taxpayer subsidization? Absolutely,” Brecheen said in an interview where he ridiculed wind and solar energy as “unreliable.”

Rep. Kevin Hern, who represents the larger Tulsa area surrounding the Enel project site, has helped lead GOP efforts to undo Biden’s climate law as chair of the Republican Study Committee, which released a proposal in June to repeal the IRA.

But Stitt doesn’t support repealing the law because companies have already factored in the incentives.

“I would never want to change the rules on someone mid-game,” he said.

Ron Burrows, one of three Republican commissioners for Rogers County, home to a river port in Inola that is set to host the plant, said local political leaders were important in sealing Enel’s decision to locate in Oklahoma.

“Local government is the last welcome mat before they enter the door, and my role is to give them some peace of mind that I’m supportive and not adversarial,” Burrows said.

GOP lawmakers, he said, need to take into account how their actions affect the districts they serve.

“You got to weigh what your belief system is versus what in reality is happening in the community,” Burrows said. “If things get passed outside of what [they] believe in, then [they have] to trust in us to spend that money to the best of our ability and we will grow these rural populations.”
NEW YORK: Kingston

The Hudson Valley has been waiting for an industrial reboot for almost 30 years. And now that Biden’s climate law is offering some flicker of hope, some Republicans are lining up to claim some bit of credit.

With the lucrative IRA incentives on offer, Canadian company Zinc8 Energy Solutions is planning to use a former IBM computer factory to make batteries for EVs and ones that can bolster electric grids, although it hasn’t finalized the site yet.

Having seen the economic engine of the region empty out 7,000 jobs a generation ago, both Democrats and Republicans support bringing the new project to Ulster County.

GOP Rep. Marc Molinaro, who represents the county, acknowledged the federal program is an “exceptionally important tool” in helping draw Zinc8 — despite his joining most Republicans in voting for legislation that would’ve repealed many of the climate law’s clean energy incentives.


In an interview, Molinaro, who is one of Democrats’ top targets in 2024, minimized the importance of his vote, saying the measure was mostly a messaging bill ahead of the debt ceiling fight with Democrats this spring. He insists he would fight to keep the IRA clean energy subsidies intact in the future and that enough Republicans agree.

“When you grow up living along the Hudson River and seeing businesses contaminate and leave, you grow up understanding the value of protecting our natural resources, and building the next generation of industry in a sustainable way,” he said. “I embraced that well before most folks in elected office in Hudson Valley.”

But Democratic Rep. Pat Ryan, who represents the neighboring 18th Congressional District, had no sympathy for Molinaro’s political predicament.

“You can’t sit there passively,” said Ryan, whose grandfather worked for IBM for 36 years before a restructuring shuttered the site. “We need people to champion [IRA tax credits] and block terrible public policy [to repeal it] at exactly the wrong moment.”

Ryan, who was Ulster County executive before being elected to Congress in 2022, and other local officials had begun taking action to revitalize the site. But the passage of the IRA was “like jet fuel,” Ryan said.

New York has also offered a grant of up to $9 million to Zinc8 to locate in the state, and the company is receiving a $10 million bond from the Ulster County Industrial Development Agency to help acquire machinery and equipment.

Local officials are cognizant of challenges that remain to ensure Zinc8’s success in Ulster County, which has seen previous efforts to redevelop the former IBM site fail, including a hollowed out workforce, which they are seeking to bolster through training programs with local schools and community groups.

“We literally don’t have the trained workers,” said Ulster County Executive Jen Metzger, a Democrat. “But now we have this enormous opportunity to turn it into a real hub for the new green economy.”

Grant Schwab contributed to this report.