Tsadkan Gebre-Tensae: The Tigray general who came in from the cold

AFP , Friday 10 Dec 2021

Sidelined after a decade leading Ethiopia's army, General Tsadkan Gebre-Tensae did not expect to don his uniform after retirement. But when war erupted in Tigray, the renowned military strategist was back, ready to fight the army he had once commanded.

People react as captive Ethiopian soldiers walk towards Mekele Rehabilitation Center in Mekele, the capital of Tigray region, Ethiopia, on July 2, 2021. AFP

For many observers, there is little doubt that Tsadkan, whose face -- round, bald, moustached -- is famous in Ethiopia, is the man responsible for the advances of the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF) rebel group since June.

Related

 Life under rebel rule in an Ethiopian holy city

 Ethiopia's Abiy announces return to Addis Ababa from war front

 More adversity in Ethiopia

Thirty years earlier in 1991, Tsadkan led the TPLF's march on Addis Ababa, part of a coalition that ousted the autocrat Mengistu Hailemariam.

He then served as the Ethiopian army's chief of staff for a decade, leading troops during the country's bloody border war against Eritrea (1998-2000).

But it is his decision to return to the battle front in his late sixties that may prove most momentous.

"This is a well-to-do (man), who could have lived in luxury anywhere he chooses," said Awet Weldemichael, a Horn of Africa security expert at Queen's University in Canada.

"The fact that he decided to face the gathering storm with his people is honourable."

'Trained on the job'

Born into a peasant family, nothing predisposed Tsadkan for a military career.

But shortly after the TPLF was created in 1975 to advocate for the rights of Tigrayans in multi-ethnic Ethiopia, he abandoned his science studies at Addis Ababa University to join the movement.

"Militarily, he was trained on the job, and he climbed all the levels," Rene Lefort, a historian specialising in Ethiopia, told AFP, underlining "his intelligence, his rigour, his pragmatism".

"He projects a steely calm, he never raises his voice," said Lefort, who has met Tsadkan on several occasions.

After the fall of Mengistu, Tsadkan was put in charge of Ethiopia's military and transformed it, according to Gerard Prunier, an expert on the country.

"He turned it into an army that could have been a Western army. He made reforms focused in particular on recruitment and training," said Prunier, who has known Tsadkan for over two decades.

"For him, an army, it is above all about men."

Tsadkan's army was dominated by Tigrayans, as was the national government -- intensifying discontent among other ethnic groups that would eventually lead to the TPLF's ouster from power.

The army chief's own fortunes took a turn for the worse during the war with Eritrea, when he urged the capture of territory inside the neighbouring country, deepening tensions with then prime minister Meles Zenawi.

Meles dismissed him in 2001 and Tsadkan returned to civilian life after 36 years.

Civilian life

Tsadkan went into business, setting up a brewery and a horticultural company in Tigray. He was also named to the board of several major firms, including Ethiopian Shipping Lines and Lion Bank.

He offered his services as a military consultant to South Sudan's new government and earned a master's degree in international politics at George Washington University in the United States.

In 2019, he was called in from the sidelines to help resolve the increasingly fractious relationship between the TPLF and Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, whose push to remove TPLF officials from top positions had stoked discontent since his appointment in 2018.

The mediation efforts went nowhere.

"I met with Abiy Ahmed three times... but it became obvious he had no intention to resolve this peacefully," Tsadkan said in an interview on a Tigrayan TV channel in June.

War seemed increasingly inevitable to the military veteran, who quietly packed up his life in Addis Ababa and returned to Tigray's capital Mekele last year.

Repeat strategy

When Abiy deployed federal forces in Tigray in November 2020, a move he said came in response to TPLF attacks on army camps, the rebels retreated to the mountains and the government declared victory.

"The number one doctrine of the TPLF is to never engage in a fight one cannot win," said historian Lefort, explaining that the rebel strategy was to retreat, regroup and eventually recapture lost ground.

Under Tsadkan's leadership, the TPLF recruited and trained new combatants en masse while also welcoming Tigrayan troops who lost their jobs following a purge of the national army.

Seven months later, they made a shock comeback, retaking most of Tigray and rapidly expanding into the neighbouring regions of Amhara and Afar before claiming towns located on a key highway to Addis Ababa at the end of October.

The recent announcements of territorial advances by Abiy's government have opened a new, uncertain phase in the 13-month war, with Tsadkan once again expected to play a key role in his country's trajectory.

"They are following the same strategy they have always done," said Lefort.

"What they did in 1991 inspires what they are trying to do in 2021."

Australia fights bushfires in west, floods in east



Australia fights bushfires in west, floods in eastAfter weeks of high temperatures, fires flanked the western tourist hotspot of Margaret River (AFP/Sean BLOCKSIDGE)

Thu, December 9, 2021, 10:45 PM·1 min read

Australia battled twin natural disasters Friday, with bushfires cutting through a picturesque west coast region, while serious flooding and heavy rains lashed the country's east.

After weeks of high temperatures, fires flanked the western tourist hotspot of Margaret River -- famed for its fine wine and big surf.

No homes have been damaged or injuries reported, but flames have been seen over a wide area, sending smoke billowing high into the sky.

Emergency warnings are in effect, and some residents have been told to flee to safety or shelter in place.

"Act immediately to survive," the state's Department of Fire and Emergency Services said.

While Australia's Indian Ocean coast has sizzled under temperatures that have reached 40 degrees Celsius (104 Fahrenheit), on the other side of the continent its Pacific Coast has been pummelled by rain for months.

"A low pressure centre has formed off the southern New South Wales coast bringing heavy rainfall and major flooding," the Bureau of Meteorology said.

Some rural regions south of Sydney -- engulfed in the country's worst-ever bushfires exactly two years ago -- have received 21 centimetres (eight inches) of rain in the last 24 hours alone.

November was the wettest in 122 years of records and among the coolest, as a La Nina weather phenomenon took hold.

Scientists believe Australia's extreme weather has been made worse by man-made climate change.

In recent years the continent has experienced a litany of climate-worsened droughts, bushfires and floods.

arb/reb

EXCLUSIVE

Nobel Peace Prize winners warn of growing disinformation threat

Journalists Maria Ressa and Dmitry Muratov tell Al Jazeera that media outlets must collaborate to counter dangerous lies.

Nobel Peace Prize winners Dmitry Muratov from Russia and Maria Ressa of the Philippines embrace during the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony at Oslo City Hall, Norway [Alexander Zemlianichenko/AP Photo]

Published On 10 Dec 2021

Disinformation poses a growing threat to security and democracy, the journalists awarded the Nobel Peace Prize have told Al Jazeera in an exclusive interview.

Maria Ressa of the Philippines said the greatest threat to democracy is “when lies become facts”, while Dmitry Muratov of Russia said society is currently in a dangerous “post-truth period”.

The Norwegian Nobel Committee awarded the prize to the two journalists during a ceremony in Oslo, Norway on Friday “for their efforts to safeguard freedom of expression, which is a precondition for democracy and lasting peace”.

The journalists and their teams have faced attacks and harassment in their countries for their journalism.

In 2012 Ressa, 58, co-founded Rappler, an investigative journalism website critical of the Philippine government.

In 1993 Muratov, 59, was one of the founders of the independent Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta, one of the few media outlets that does not follow the Kremlin’s line.

The last time the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to a journalist was in 1935 when it was given to German Carl von Ossietzky, who alerted the world that Hitler was re-arming.

Von Ossietzky was unable to go to Norway to pick up his prize as he was imprisoned in a Nazi camp.

Video 02:38 Nobel Peace Prize winners demand protection for journalists

Ressa told Al Jazeera in an interview from Norway following the ceremony that she sees parallels between that period and now as authoritarianism is again a growing threat.

“I think that’s the signal the Nobel committee was sending out. We are yet at another similar moment – a historical, existential moment – and we have to do something about it,” Ressa said.

She said the greatest threat to democracy is “when lies become facts. Because that breaks our shared reality and that allows the manipulation of the public,” Ressa said.

Muratov also told Al Jazeera that disinformation was a significant and growing threat.

“Manipulation leads to war,” he said. “We are in the middle of a post-truth period. Now, everyone is concerned about their own ideas and not the facts,” Muratov said.

“Social scientists have shown that, when even knowing what is the truth and what is a lie, 75 percent of people will consider the lie as truth as they like the lie better. This is happening already. We are at the very bottom of the manipulation of the human mind.”

‘We are in the middle of a post-truth period,’ Nobel Peace Prize winner Dmitry Muratov told Al Jazeera in Oslo, Norway [Stian Lysberg Solum/NTB/via Reuters]

‘We’re on the same side fighting for facts’

In her acceptance speech earlier on Friday, Ressa had criticised US tech giants such as Facebook for making a profit by disseminating lies and hate.

Ressa told Al Jazeera that facts are being doubted and news organisations must collaborate and help each other.

“The days when we used to compete with each other, those days are gone. We are now on the same side fighting for facts. Who I always call out on the other side … are the new gatekeepers, the technology companies that have abdicated responsibility for the public sphere,” Ressa said.

She said that many countries are using the same authoritarian tactics to repress the media and dissent through “the weaponisation of social media, followed by the weaponisation of the law”.

“This weaponisation of social media ‘gets rid’ of facts … How do we avoid the doubting of facts? … How can we do our jobs if trust is broken down? The people watching – do they believe us? That’s the core of the problem I think that we are facing today,” Ressa said.

When a recent poll conducted by Al Jazeera had asked viewers whether they trust journalism, 71 percent said no

.

Nobel Peace Prize winner Maria Ressa of the Philippines speaks during the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony at Oslo City Hall, Norway [Alexander Zemlianichenko/AP Photo]
Attacks

The award comes as violations of journalists’ rights and media freedoms are growing worldwide.

Novaya Gazeta is one of the last independent newspapers in Russia that has not been labelled as a foreign agent.

Between 2000 and 2009, six journalists from the Novaya Gazeta were killed, including investigative reporter Anna Politkovskaya who was shot dead in the elevator of her apartment in 2006.

Her reporting exposed high-level corruption in Russia and rights abuses in Chechnya.

“Despite [the fact that] Russian journalism is going through a dark valley now, we don’t reject our principles,” Muratov told Al Jazeera when asked how his newspaper endures amid the threat of violence.

Much of Ressa’s work has focused on President Rodrigo Duterte’s controversial war on drugs, which has led to the extrajudicial killings of 7,000 people. As a result, she has faced smear campaigns and government legal action.

In order to travel to Norway to receive her award, Ressa had to ask for permission from four courts in the Philippines.

She currently faces up to six years in jail for defamation over a published article implicating the former chief justice of the Supreme Court in corruption.

Video 07:43 Interview with Maria Ressa, Nobel Peace Prize laureate | al Jazeera Exclusive

The Brussels-based International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) said in a statement on Thursday that the number of imprisoned journalists is on the rise, with 365 journalists imprisoned in 2021 compared with 235 last year.

China has jailed the most journalists with 102 behind bars, while Turkey had 34 journalists in prison, Belarus and Eritrea 29, Egypt 27 and Vietnam 21.

Russia still has 12 journalists behind bars, and three journalists were killed in the Philippines.

At least 45 journalists and media workers have been killed this year, 33 of them killed in targeted attacks, IFJ said.

Ressa said she is “very lucky” to be with the audience in Norway as just 36 hours ago, a former colleague, Jesus Malabanan, was shot dead – making him the 22nd journalist to be killed in the Philippines since Duterte came to power in 2016.

When asked by a young female journalist for advice, Ressa said while the “world as it used to be, our world, is dead,” there is still “the excitement that you can help create what journalism is going to be like in the 21st century.

“Think about what is your worst fear, and then embrace it,” Ressa said.

“Whatever you are most afraid of, you touch it, hold it, imagine it and then think through what you will do if that happens. Come out with a plan and then let it go. Drill it if you need to, but when you do that, you take away the fear and then you do the job.”

KEEP READING
Journalists Ressa and Muratov receive Nobel Peace Prize
The Nobel Peace Prize | Start Here
Is it time to change the way Nobel prizes are awarded?
Philippine court allows Maria Ressa’s trip to receive Nobel prize

SOURCE: AL JAZEERA

Jay-Z busts Western cowboy myths in all-Black ‘The Harder They Fall’

Los Angeles – Jay-Z said Thursday that his new Western movie “The Harder They Fall” aims to correct misconceptions that all cowboys were white, wore ponchos and listened to... Read more

Los Angeles – Jay-Z said Thursday that his new Western movie “The Harder They Fall” aims to correct misconceptions that all cowboys were white, wore ponchos and listened to “Italian guitar music”.

The US rap superstar is a producer on the Netflix revenge drama starring Idris Elba and Regina King among an all-Black ensemble, as real and once-famous characters from the Old West.

While classic Hollywood Westerns such as Clint Eastwood’s Spaghetti Western “Dollars” trilogy – famously scored by Italian maestro Ennio Morricone – ignored many minorities, around one in four historical cowboys were Black, according to the film’s director Jeymes Samuel.

“There are a lot of people that would like that history to still stay uncovered,” Jay-Z told a virtual press conference.

In addition to telling an entertaining story, a “cherry on top” for the film is “letting people be seen” who had been ignored by history and Hollywood’s typical, white-dominated Westerns, he said.

Historical Black and Native Americans cowboys

The rap mogul – who is married to Beyonce – also said the film had been educational to him personally, and that their young daughters Blue Ivy and Rumi were now “way ahead of the eight-ball” in their understanding of Black history.

The film draws on historical Black and Native Americans cowboys and outlaws such as Nat Love, Rufus Buck and Cherokee Bill, many of whom lived in different eras and places, and would never have met.

But Jay-Z said taking a more strictly factual or documentary approach would have “got people to turn off” and reduced the movie’s impact.

“If you present it as ‘here’s a fictional story,’ but you slip some things in there… I think music (also) does a great job at that,” he said.

“You just listen to music, you tuned in, you like the beat, and all this information is passing and it’s entering your soul without you even knowing.

‘Great storytelling’

“That’s what I love about ‘The Harder They Fall’.”

Rap music and film are “one and the same” and both are about “great storytelling,” he added, pointing to the lyrics of narrative hits such as the Notorious BIG’s “I Got A Story To Tell” and his own “Meet The Parents.”

Jay-Z said that many Hollywood Western tropes are not rooted in historical reality – for example, Eastwood’s poncho in the “Dollars” trilogy.

Accordingly, the music in “The Harder They Fall” draws on a wide range of anachronistic influences, including Jamaican reggae star Barrington Levy.

“When you hear Barrington Levy, and you say ‘Oh, that’s not Western music’… Neither is the Italian guitar in ‘Oklahoma!'”

ITS GREAT, AND THEY DO HAVE WHITE FOLKS IN A TOWN CALLED WHITE FOLKS 

After Senate Proves 'Exceptions to Filibuster ARE Possible,' Progressives Say: Now Do All the Good Stuff

"We still need 60 votes to raise the minimum wage, end voter suppression, and save our democracy?" asked one critic. "Kinda like the filibuster is just there to protect the wealthy and powerful."

Activists rally against Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.V), calling on them to eliminate the legislative filibuster and pass the For the People Act outside the Supreme Court on June 23, 2021 in Washington, D.C. (Photo: Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

KENNY STANCIL

COMMONDREAMS

December 10, 2021

After the U.S. Senate demonstrated this week that the filibuster can be ignored at-will—by establishing a process to raise the nation's debt ceiling with a simple majority vote—progressives demanded that Democrats fully repeal the chamber's anti-democratic 60-vote rule and pass legislation to protect voting rights and improve working peoples' lives.

"If we can abolish the filibuster to raise the debt ceiling, we can abolish the filibuster to protect voting rights."

"The Senate proved that exceptions to the filibuster ARE possible," Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) said Thursday night after 14 Republicans—led by a filibuster fanatic in Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.)—joined all 50 Democrats to approve a bill that allows the nation's debt ceiling to be raised with a simple majority vote, averting a default that would trigger another devastating round of austerity.

"That's great news—now do the same for voting rights, reproductive freedom, workers' rights, and much more," added Jayapal, chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus.

Thursday night's "exception to the filibuster to advance debt ceiling legislation," said Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.), "is proof that we can pass voting rights legislation this Congress—regardless of the filibuster."

That sentiment was echoed by Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), who said that "it's possible to create exceptions to the filibuster and move forward when it's important. We did it this time, let's do it again."

Earlier this week, when reports of the bipartisan debt ceiling deal first came to light, Sean Eldridge, president and founder of the progressive advocacy group Stand Up America, said in a statement that McConnell's "convoluted legislative maneuver... highlights the Senate's growing dysfunction" and "makes clear the need to reform the filibuster to make the Senate work for the American people."

"If our senators are willing to suspend the filibuster to protect our economy," he added, "they should be willing to suspend it to protect our democracy and our freedom to vote."

Senate Democrats—with the support of all 50 members of the caucus plus a tie-breaking vote cast by Vice President Kamala Harris—can reform or nix the filibuster indefinitely, which would enable them to circumvent GOP obstructionism and swiftly enact the legislative agenda that a majority of U.S. voters elected them to implement.

However, some right-wing Democratic senators, including Joe Manchin (W.Va.) and Kyrsten Sinema (Ariz.), remain opposed to abolishing the filibuster and to carving out exceptions to the 60-vote threshold—on issues other than lifting the nation's borrowing cap.

Related Content

Filibuster Reform for Debt Ceiling Fight But Not Voting Rights or Reproductive Freedom?

Their refusal persists even as scholars and activists warn that federal legislation is necessary to neutralize the ongoing right-wing assaults on democracy and abortion, which are being carried out by state-level Republicans across the nation.

Senate Republicans have deployed the filibuster four times this year to prevent voting rights legislation from reaching President Joe Biden's desk. After blocking the sweeping For the People Act in June and August, they also filibustered the Freedom to Vote Act—a compromise bill backed by Manchin—in October, and the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act two weeks later.

Meanwhile, Republican lawmakers have passed 33 voter suppression laws in 19 states this year and are currently engaged in a relentless gerrymandering spree—the combination of which threatens to disenfranchise millions and cement right-wing minority rule amid worsening crises of inequality and climate change.

"Senate Democrats must end the filibuster to pass the Freedom to Vote Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Act," Eldridge said earlier this week. "Our democracy depends on it."

Repealing the filibuster would also allow Democrats to codify reproductive rights, which are currently under attack nationwide—often with the tacit support of the U.S. Supreme Court's far-right justices, as on Friday when five of them voted to dismiss the Biden administration's appeal challenging Texas' abortion ban.

House Democrats approved the Women's Health Protection Act in September, but until Senate Democrats jettison the chamber's anti-democratic rule requiring 60 votes to advance most bills, it has virtually no chance of passing.

On Wednesday, in another example of the Senate's capacity for flexibility, 52 senators voted to strike down Biden's vaccine-or-test rule for large companies. All 50 Senate Republicans plus Manchin and Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.) were able to kill the president's public health measure with a simple majority vote thanks to a filibuster-proof mechanism called the Congressional Review Act.

"Wait," Warren Gunnels, staff director for Senate Budget Committee Chairman Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), said in response. "The Republicans used a procedure to pass legislation by a simple majority vote with little debate, but we still need 60 votes to raise the minimum wage, end voter suppression, and save our democracy?"

"Kinda like the filibuster is just there to protect the wealthy and powerful," he added.

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The Curious Case of Two Generals Named Flynn

An insider says Mike Flynn's brother lied about the Pentagon's response to the Capitol riot.


Maj. General Michael T. Flynn speaks with his brother Col. Charlie Flynn, aide to General Stanley McChrystal, during a morning meeting in Kabul, Afghanistan in July 2009. (Photo: Carolyn Cole/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)

MIKE LOFGREN

December 10, 2021

Time flies whether one is having fun or not: it's now almost a year since insurrectionists worked to nullify your vote in a violent storming of the Capitol. Investigations of the attempted overthrow of the government thus far have proceeded with all the urgency of an interagency review of the price structure of cafeterias in federal facilities.

Michael Flynn's brother, involved as he was in the decision to delay mobilizing the National Guard, shortly thereafter received a promotion to head U.S. Army Pacific: a prestigious field command.

Politico now reports that a former District of Columbia National Guard officer, Colonel Earl Matthews, has written a 36-page memo blasting the Pentagon inspector general's review of the Army's response to the January 6th insurrection. Colonel Matthews also suggests that congressional oversight of the incident has been stymied by senior Army officials lying in their testimony.

As for the inspector general's survey of the Capitol riot, the Matthews memo concludes that the survey's deflecting of blame from the Army was "worthy of the best Stalinist or North Korea propagandist." This is not implausible, given the history of inspectors general finding few problems in the agencies they oversee.

The memo's biggest tell is that it brands as "absolute and unmitigated liars" among the Army's congressional witnesses one General Charles Flynn, who at the time of the incident was the service's deputy chief of staff for operations. On January 6, he was stationed at the Pentagon, a couple of miles from the Capitol.

Does that name strike a chord? He is the brother of the ever-charming Lieutenant General Michael Flynn, President Donald Trump's national security adviser, fired and then sentenced for lying to the FBI about unofficial communications with the Russian ambassador during the 2016 presidential transition. He was subsequently pardoned by Trump. Here is Mike in happier days among his congenial Russian hosts.

Flynn's subsequent career has been varied. Throughout the Trump presidency and beyond, he has acted as a tireless spokesman for Trump's interests, publicly advocating martial law to overturn the 2020 presidential election. He has also sworn an oath to QAnon, the bizarre conspiracy cult that has created a whole new form of contagious mass mental illness.

To be sure, Colonel Matthews's memo does not mention Michael Flynn, directly or indirectly. For a military observer like Matthews, who almost certainly had no personal knowledge of the relationship between the two brothers, it would have been improper for him to speculate.

But he has already denounced General Charles Flynn for lying to Congress. If that charge can be substantiated by evidence, one would likely conclude he was covering up an inappropriate response by the Army to the riot. What other rocks might be turned over?

It certainly bears investigation. After all, CNN host Chris Cuomo's assistance of his brother, former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, to manage media fallout over accusations that the latter engaged in sexual harassment, was covered up for months. The recent revelation of their collusion was a media sensation.

While that story certainly had legitimate news value, why, for eleven months, has the Flynn fraternal connection virtually lain fallow? Charles Flynn was a key figure in the delay of the response to an attempted overthrow of the United States Government; his brother Michael a beneficiary of Trump's pardon who might have "owed" the president. And Trump, of course, was the one who most of all would derive advantage from a successful coup.

Clearing up this question is not only crucial to a proper investigation of the Capitol riot. Michael Flynn's brother, involved as he was in the decision to delay mobilizing the National Guard, shortly thereafter received a promotion to head U.S. Army Pacific: a prestigious field command. The posting indicates, among other things, the Army's evaluation of his performance in situations where sound judgment is critical.

It also comes at a time when military veterans—and also serving military personnel—are being recruited by extremist groups, Both categories were disproportionately represented in the mob that attacked the Capitol. It is imperative that military and civilian leadership understand the domestic extremist threat and take action against it.

America's two-decade "forever war" in Iraq and Afghanistan resulted in a U.S. military force enduring multiple tour of duty. It has unquestionably left at least some of the force, officers and enlisted alike, cynical and ripe for politicization.

History, of course never repeats itself exactly, but eerie parallels exist. There were masses of German soldiers who returned from World War I embittered and estranged by their pointless sacrifice, and inclined to blame the politicians for losing the war. They were readily recruited into the Freikorps militias, theoretically ad hoc formations to defend Germany's fluid border with a newly-created Polish state.

But they became increasingly involved in attacking the left political opposition in Germany's streets, developing a profound hatred of the democratic institutions of the Weimar Republic. Their activity helped pave the way for the Third Reich.

A correspondent of mine, a Vietnam combat veteran and former Marine, wrote this about the potential recruitment of extremists from the military: "… We have lost the ideal of what we wanted in a military reflecting our society, our right-wing society has captured the military… If you walk the Pentagon halls there will be not ONE TV tuned to anything else but FOX."

If that description even approaches reality, it clearly explains the military's wretchedly miserable intelligence about the war in Afghanistan. It does not require inordinate cynicism, however, to suppose the officer corps knows all about the War on Christmas.

To be certain, there were many people in the military and civilian chain of command on January 6th, and a coincidence of family ties is not proof. But it and everything else connected with the event bear close investigation, both in view of an insider's accusations of perjury, and the knack of inspectors general for minimizing or whitewashing government dysfunction.

I am struck by how few people in our civilian government seem to be aware that it was sheer luck that an overthrow of the government miscarried, and that the danger has not gone away. On the contrary: unaddressed, the peril will only increase. Like the politicians of Weimar, they behave like rabbits mesmerized by a cobra.

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Mike Lofgren is a former congressional staff member who served on both the House and Senate budget committees. His books include: "The Deep State: The Fall of the Constitution and the Rise of a Shadow Government" (2016) and "The Party is Over: How Republicans Went Crazy, Democrats Became Useless, and the Middle Class Got Shafted" (2013).

'This Is Horrific': US Supreme Court Keeps 6-Week Abortion Ban in Place

"The Supreme Court has no value of our bodies, lives, and futures," said one advocacy group. "We need to liberate abortion."


Participants hold signs during a "Hold The Line For Abortion Justice" rally at the U.S. Supreme Court on December 1, 2021 in Washington, D.C. (Photo: Leigh Vogel/Getty Images for Women's March Inc)


JULIA CONLEY

December 10, 2021

This is a developing story and may be updated.

Reproductive rights advocates on Friday expressed outrage after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Texas' six-week abortion ban can remain in effect—a ruling that will continue to force Texans to travel out of state to obtain care at clinics which have reported surging demand, or to continue their unwanted pregnancies.

"The Supreme Court has no value of our bodies, lives, and futures," tweeted Physicians for Reproductive Health, a national advocacy group. "We need to liberate abortion."

The group repeated calls made in recent months for the passage of the Women's Health Protection Act (WHPA), which would ensure people in every state in the U.S. have the right to obtain abortion care regardless of whether the high court overturns Roe v. Wade—as it's being asked to do by Mississippi officials in a case regarding the state's 15-week forced-pregnancy law.

The Supreme Court justices ruled 5-4 in favor of allowing the Texas law to stand for the time being; a federal court is expected to be asked to block the law again.

The court also ruled 8-1 that abortion providers can proceed with their lawsuit challenging the law, known as Senate Bill 8, which deputizes ordinary citizens who can win at least $10,000 in court after suing anyone who has "aided or abetted" a patient who obtains an abortion after six weeks of pregnancy.

"S.B. 8 has caused untold harm—forcing those who can afford it to travel out of state for the care they need, and those who can’t to remain pregnant against their will," said NARAL Pro-Choice America. "As it stands, S.B. 8 makes accessing abortion care in Texas nearly impossible. And the Supreme Court should have blocked it."

In her dissent joined in part by the other two liberal judges on the court, Justice Sonia Sotomayor said the court "should have put an end to this madness months ago," instead of allowing the law to go into effect in September.

Sotomayor dissented "from the court's dangerous departure from its precedents, which establish that federal courts can and should issue relief when a state enacts a law that chills the exercise of a constitutional right."

The court's ruling "betrays not only the citizens of Texas, but also our constitutional system of government," the justice wrote.

Stand Up America, which has advocated for Supreme Court expansion, said the right wing-dominated court's continued attacks on reproductive rights make the case for adding seats to the court via the Judiciary Act.

"The conservative supermajority of the Supreme Court demonstrated once again today that they are nothing more than right-wing political operatives appointed to the bench to do one thing: roll back fundamental rights long-guaranteed by our Constitution and a Supreme Court that once endeavored to uphold them," said Christina Harvey, executive director of the group.

"Today's decision made clear the need for Congress and President Biden to act on Supreme Court expansion—for the sake of rebalancing the ideological scale of the Court and protecting our fundamental rights," she added.

Progressive lawmakers added their voices to the call for the passage of the House-approved WHPA—and the elimination of the legislative filibuster to allow it to pass in the Senate.

"Texans have been living the back and forth of this case for months. It doesn't have to be this way," tweeted the Congressional Progressive Caucus. "Congress can ensure that every American, no matter where they live, has access to abortion."

"It's the filibuster or reproductive freedom," the caucus added.
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Big Oil's Secret Strategy to Keep Winning

The oil and gas industry has refined its techniques to stay a step ahead over decades. And it has no plans to stop anytime soon.


Activists representing more than 350 environmental, civic, and college student organizations held a press conference in Downtown manhattan and delivered a letter to New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman in support of his investigation of ExxonMobil. (Photo: Erik McGregor/LightRocket via Getty Images)

NAOMI ORESKES, JEFF NESBIT

December 10, 2021

This article is published as part of Covering Climate Now, a global collaboration of news outlets strengthening coverage of the climate story.

Despite countless investigations, lawsuits, social shaming, and regulations dating back decades, the oil and gas industry remains formidable. After all, it has made consuming its products seem like a human necessity. It has confused the public about climate science, bought the eternal gratitude of one of America's two main political parties, and repeatedly out-maneuvered regulatory efforts. And it has done all this in part by thinking ahead and then acting ruthlessly. While the rest of us were playing checkers, its executives were playing three-dimensional chess.

Whether it is selling deadly pesticides or deadly fossil fuels, they will do what it takes to keep their products on the market.

Take this brief tour of the industry's history, and then ask yourself: Is there any doubt that these companies are now plotting to keep the profits rolling in, even as mega-hurricanes and roaring wildfires scream the dangers of the climate emergency?

The John D. Rockefeller Myth

Ida Tarbell is one of the most celebrated investigative journalists in American history. Long before Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein exposed the Watergate scandal, Tarbell's reporting broke up the Standard Oil monopoly. In 19 articles that became a widely read book, History of the Standard Oil Company, published in 1904, she exposed its unsavory practices. In 1911, federal regulators used Tarbell's findings to break Standard Oil into 33 much smaller companies.

David had slayed Goliath. The U.S. government had set a monopoly-busting standard for future generations. John D. Rockefeller, Standard Oil's owner, lost. The good guys won—or so it seemed.

In fact, Rockefeller saw what was coming and ended up profiting—massively—from the breakup of his company. Rockefeller made sure to retain significant stock holdings in each of Standard Oil's 33 offspring and position them in different parts of the U.S. where they wouldn't compete against one another. Collectively, the 33 offspring went on to make Rockefeller very, very rich. Indeed, it was the breakup of Standard Oil that tripled his wealth and made him the wealthiest man in the world. In 1916, five years after Standard Oil was broken up, Rockefeller became the world's first billionaire.

Say It Ain't So, Dr. Seuss!

One of the offspring of Standard Oil was Esso (S-O, spelled out), which later launched one of the most successful advertising campaigns in history. It did so by relying on the talents of a young cartoonist who millions would later adore under his pen name, Dr. Seuss. Decades before authoring the pro-environment parable The Lorax, Theodore Geisel helped Esso market "Flit," a household spray gun that killed mosquitoes. What Americans weren't told was that the pesticide DDT made up 5% of each blast of Flit.

When Esso put considerable creative resources behind the Flit campaign, they were looking years ahead to a time when they would also successfully market oil-based products. The campaign ran for 17 years in the 1940s and 1950s, at the time an unheard length of time for an ad campaign. It taught Esso and other Standard Oil companies how to sell derivative products (like plastic and pesticides) that made the company and the brand a household name in the minds of the public. In its day, "Quick, Henry, the Flit!" was as ubiquitous as "Got Milk?" is today.

At the time, the public (and even many scientists) didn't appreciate the deadly nature of DDT. That didn't come until the 1962 publication of Rachel Carson's book Silent Spring. But accepting that DDT was deadly was hard, in part because of the genius of Geisel, whose wacky characters—strikingly similar to the figures who would later populate Dr. Seuss books—energetically extolled Flit's alleged benefits.

Geisel later said the experience "taught me conciseness and how to marry pictures with words." The Flit ad campaign was incredibly smart and clever marketing. It taught the industry how to sell a dangerous and unnecessary product as if it were something useful and even fun. Years later, ExxonMobil would take that cleverness to new heights in its advertorials. They weren't about clever characters. But they were awfully clever, containing few, if any, outright lies, but a whole lot of half-truths and misrepresentations. It was clever enough to convince the New York Times to run them without labeling them as the advertisements that they, in fact, were. Their climate "advertorials" appeared in the op-ed page of the New York Times and were part of what scholars have called "the longest, regular (weekly) use of media to influence public and elite opinion in contemporary America."

Controlling Climate Science

Big Oil also saw climate change coming. As abundant investigative reporting and academic studies have documented, the companies' own scientists were telling their executives in the 1970s that burning more oil and other fossil fuels would overheat the planet. (Other scientists had been saying so since the 1960s.) The companies responded by lying about the danger of their products, blunting public awareness, and lobbying against government action. The result is today's climate emergency.

Less well-known is how oil and gas companies didn't just lie about their own research. They also mounted a stealth campaign to monitor and influence what the rest of the scientific community learned and said about climate change.

The companies embedded scientists in universities and made sure they were present at important conferences. They nominated them to be contributors to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the UN body whose assessments from 1990 onward defined what the press, public, and policymakers thought was true about climate science. While the IPCC reports, which rely on consensus science, were sound, Big Oil's scientific participation gave them an insider's view of the road ahead. More ominously, they introduced the art of questioning the consensus science in forums where every word is parsed.

The industry was employing a strategy pioneered by tobacco companies, but with a twist. Beginning in the 1950s, the tobacco industry cultivated a sotto voce network of scientists at scores of American universities and medical schools, whose work it funded. Some of these scientists were actively engaged in research to discredit the idea that cigarette smoking was a health risk, but most of it was more subtle; the industry supported research on causes of cancer and heart disease other than tobacco, such as radon, asbestos, and diet. It was a form of misdirection, designed to deflect our attention away from the harms of tobacco and onto other things. The scheme worked for a while, but when it was exposed in the 1990s, in part through lawsuits, the bad publicity largely killed it. What self-respecting scientist would take tobacco industry money after that?

The oil and gas industry learned from that mistake and decided that, instead of working surreptitiously, it would work in the open. And rather than work primarily with individual scientists whose work might be of use, it would seek to influence the direction of the scientific community as a whole. The industry's internal scientists continued to do research and publish peer-reviewed articles, but the industry also openly funded university collaborations and other researchers. From the late 1970s through the 1980s, Exxon was known both as a climate research pioneer, and as a generous patron of university science, supporting student research and fellowships at many major universities. Its scientists also worked alongside senior colleagues at NASA, the Department of Energy, and other key institutions, and funded breakfasts, luncheons, and other activities at scientific meetings. Those efforts had the net effect of creating goodwill and bonds of loyalty. It's been effective.

The industry's scientists may have been operating in good faith, but their work helped delay public recognition of the scientific consensus that climate change was unequivocally man-made, happening now, and very dangerous. The industry's extensive presence in the field also gave it early access to cutting edge research it used to its advantage. Exxon, for example, designed oil platforms to accommodate more rapid sea level rise, even as the company publicly denied that climate change was occurring.

Don't Call It Methane, It's "Natural" Gas

Methane is an even more powerful greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide, yet it has received far less attention. One reason is that the oil and gas industry has positioned methane— which marketing experts cleverly labeled "natural gas"—as the future of the energy economy. The industry promotes methane gas as a "clean" fuel that's needed to bridge the transition from today's carbon economy to tomorrow's renewable energy era. Some go further and see gas as a permanent part of the energy landscape: BP's plan is renewables plus gas for the foreseeable future, and the company and other oil majors frequently invoke "low carbon" instead of "no carbon."

Except that methane gas isn't clean. It's about 80 times more potent at trapping heat in the atmosphere than carbon dioxide is.

As recently as a decade ago, many scientists and environmentalists viewed "natural gas" as a climate hero. The oil and gas industry's ad guys encouraged this view by portraying gas as a coal killer. The American Petroleum Institute paid millions to run its first-ever Super Bowl ad in 2017, portraying gas as an engine of innovation that powers the American way of life. Between 2008 and 2019, API spent more than $750 million on public relations, advertising, and communications (for both oil and gas interests), an analysis by the Climate Investigations Center found. Today, most Americans view gas as clean, even though science shows that we can't meet our climate goals without quickly transitioning away from it. The bottom line is that we can't solve a problem caused by fossil fuels with more fossil fuels. But the industry has made a lot of us think otherwise.

There's little chance the oil and gas industry can defeat renewable energy in the long term. Wind, solar, and geothermal, which are clean and cost-competitive, will eventually dominate energy markets. Researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, GridLab, and Energy Innovation have found that the U.S. can achieve 90% clean electricity by the year 2035 with no new gas and at no additional cost to consumers. But the oil and gas industry doesn't need to win the fight in the long term. It just needs to win right now so it can keep developing oil and gas fields that will be in use for decades to come. To do that, it just has to keep doing what it has done for the past 25 years: win today, fight again tomorrow.

A Spider's Web of Pipelines

Here's a final example of how the oil and gas industry plans for the next war even as its adversaries are still fighting the last one. Almost no one outside of a few law firms, trade groups, and congressional staff in Washington, DC, knows what the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission is or does. But the oil and gas industry knows and it moved quickly after Donald Trump became president to lay the groundwork for decades of future fossil fuel dependency.

FERC has long been a rubber stamp for the oil and gas industry. The industry proposes gas pipelines, and FERC approves them. When FERC approves a pipeline, that approval grants the pipeline eminent domain, which in effect makes the pipeline all but impossible to stop.

Eminent domain gives a company the legal right to build a pipeline through landowners' properties, and there is nothing they or state or county officials can do about it. A couple of states have successfully, though temporarily, blocked pipelines by invoking federal statutes such as the Clean Water Act. But if those state cases reach the current Supreme Court, the three justices Trump appointed—Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney-Barrett—are almost certain to rule in the industry's favor.

Oil and gas industry executives seized upon Trump's arrival in the White House. In the opening days of his administration, independent researchers listened in on public trade gatherings of the executives, who talked about "flooding the zone" at FERC. The industry planned to submit not just one or two but nearly a dozen interstate gas pipeline requests. Plotted on a map, the projected pipelines covered so much of the U.S. that they resembled a spider's web.

Once pipelines are in the system, companies can start to build them, and utility commissioners in every corner of America see this gas "infrastructure" as a fait accompli. And pipelines are built to last decades. In fact, if properly maintained, a pipeline can last forever in principle. This strategy could allow the oil and gas industry to lock in fossil fuel dependency for the rest of the century.

In hindsight, it's clear that oil and gas industry leaders used outright climate denial when it suited their corporate and political interests throughout the 1990s. But now that outright denial is no longer credible, they've pivoted from denial to delay. Industry PR and marketing efforts have shifted massive resources to a central message that, yes, climate change is real, but that the necessary changes will require more research and decades to implement, and above all, more fossil fuels. Climate delay is the new climate denial.

Nearly every major oil and gas company now claims that they accept the science and that they support sensible climate policies. But their actions speak louder than words. It's clear that the future they want is one that still uses fossil fuels abundantly—regardless of what the science says. Whether it is selling deadly pesticides or deadly fossil fuels, they will do what it takes to keep their products on the market. Now that we're in a race to a clean energy future, it's time to recognize that they simply can't be trusted as partners in that race. We've been fooled too many times.

Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.

NAOMI ORESKES
Naomi Oreskes is Professor of the History of Science and affiliated Professor of Earth and Planetary Sciences at Harvard University and co-author, with Erik Conway, of "Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Global Warming" (2011) and "Why Trust Science?" (2019). Follow her on Twitter: @NaomiOreskes

JEFF NESBIT
Jeff Nesbit is the author of Poison Tea, which exposed for the first time the close ties between the tobacco industry and Koch donor network front groups. He once helped lead efforts by the FDA to regulate cigarettes.

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