Cities in British Columbia prepare for trucker convoy protests

VICTORIA — British Columbia's public safety minister says Victoria residents should plan for a potential truck convoy protest against COVID-19 measures this weekend at the legislature as the government works with police to prepare for possible disruptions in the area

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The expected protest comes as residents in downtown Ottawa endure blaring truck horns and blocked streets in a situation the city's police chief called an "increasingly dangerous demonstration" on Friday.

In B.C., Public Safety Minister Mike Farnworth says in a statement the government supports the public's right to engage in peaceful protest and lawful assembly.

While the police will respect lawful protests, he says "they will also consider all the tools and options available to them to protect people, preserve public safety and investigate unlawful conduct."

Farnworth says it's "unfair" for one group to disrupt the lives of others, as has been seen in Ottawa and other cities.

Earlier, Premier John Horgan said while he hears the "voices of disappointment," he also wants those people to respect the rights and liberties of others.

"When your desire to have your voice heard starts to interfere with the lives of other people, that's when lines are drawn," Horgan said after a meeting of the Council of the Federation.

In a statement, Victoria Mayor Lisa Helps said the city expects protests, but emails from residents and businesses after protests last weekend show that some protesters "went beyond the right to peacefully gather and infringed on the well-being and safety of others."

Reports included the egging of homes that had signs supporting health-care workers, people using anti-Semitic and racist language, and people violating health orders by entering businesses without masks, Helps said.

"This kind of behaviour is unacceptable. My request is that this weekend’s protests respect the values of our city and do not promote hate or put our already struggling and much-loved local businesses at further risk," she said.

Vancouver Mayor Kennedy Stewart noted that the proposed route of protesters heading for Vancouver this weekend passes three health-care facilities.

"As the mayor of a city with an over 95 per cent vaccination rate, my message to the convoy is this: Vancouver doesn’t want you here. Make your point and then go home," Stewart said on Twitter.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Feb. 4, 2022.

The Canadian Press

How the truckers' convoy might show where the Conservative party is headed next


OTTAWA — A convoy of protesters against COVID-19 restrictions that has settled into downtown Ottawa has provided a test for the Conservative party as it rolls into a leadership race.

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"I spent the week undergoing the siege of Ottawa," Quebec Tory MP Pierre Paul-Hus said Friday on Twitter.

"If the motivation of truckers could be understood, the current situation is quite different," he added. "I ask that we clear the streets and that we stop this occupation controlled by radicals and anarchist groups."

Ontario Conservative MP Dean Allison replied that while he respects his colleague, he strongly disagrees.

Ginny Roth, a vice-president at the public relations firm Crestview Strategy and conservative activist, sees the protest as an expression of the populist sentiment that the Conservatives must contend with as they seek a new direction after the abrupt ouster of Erin O'Toole as leader.

"I don't think that the question is whether we should be more right-wing or left-wing," she said.

"It's how do we try to listen to people who feel completely like their lives have been turned upside down these last couple of years and who aren't sure what their role is in society."

O'Toole didn't mention the truck convoy when he issued a statement late Monday after news broke that he was facing an imminent threat to his job. But he did say the party was at a crossroads and that one direction to take would be "angry, negative and extreme," instead of what he described as a "winning message," "one of inclusion, optimism, ideas and hope."

Candice Bergen, the party's new interim leader, now faces the challenge of addressing the truckloads of protesters that are refusing to leave Parliament Hill and have been honking their horns and blocking street access for a week.

The protest has shuttered businesses and subjected residents to downtown streets gridlocked by idling trucks, blaring air horns and harassment. Nazi symbols and Confederate flags have been spotted in the crowds and monuments were desecrated. Ottawa Mayor Jim Watson has joined city councillors and others in referring to the protest as an "occupation" of the capital city.

Many Conservatives, including Bergen, have thrown their full support behind the protesters and their cause, which include demanding an end to all COVID-19 vaccine mandates.

Chris Alexander, a cabinet minister in former prime minister Stephen Harper's Conservative government, said recently on Twitter he was ashamed to see the party's MPs calling vaccine mandates a form of tyranny, particularly when Ukraine is under threat from Russia.

In an interview Friday, he said this language makes him concerned for the party's direction.

"I really don't think that vaccine mandates for a bunch of truckers who are obliged to get them by (U.S. President) Joe Biden anyway is a form of tyranny compared to these other threats."

Nunavut Sen. Dennis Patterson left the Conservative caucus on Friday to sit with the Canadian Senators Group. In an interview, he said he has been contemplating the move for awhile but the party's refusal to condemn the protest was the final straw.

"I'm appalled that we're being associated with extremists, lawless extremists who I'm thinking … have taken over from whatever moderates were there initially."

As for the party's direction, he said he's expressed concerns with the current leadership and plans on backing a candidate that will bring it toward the political centre.

"I am going to be fighting, continuing to fight and speak against what seems to have been an increasingly divisive and vitriolic approach."

On Friday, as police were preparing for more trucks and other protesters to descend upon the city, Bergen issued a statement urging a peaceful way out of the impasse.

"To the truck drivers in Ottawa: please remain peaceful. Call out and denounce any acts of hate, racism, intolerance or violence," she said in the statement.

"Canadians and Conservatives have heard you loud and clear. Regardless of political stripe, we all want an end to the demonstrations, and we all want an end to the restrictions."

An email from Monday, obtained by The Canadian Press, showed that Bergen, who was then deputy party leader, told fellow senior Conservative MPs: "I don't think we should be asking them to go home."

She added: "I understand the mood may shift soon. So we need to turn this into the (prime minister's) problem. What will he take (as) the first step to working towards ending this?"

Neither Bergen nor the Opposition Leader's Office has responded to a request for comment about her message. The Canadian Press has not viewed the rest of the email chain.

Pierre Poilievre, the party's high-profile finance critic who is considered a strong potential leadership contender, has fully endorsed the truck convoy. In a recent tweet he said that those on Parliament Hill are "championing freedom over fear."

Leslyn Lewis, the Ontario MP who was heavily backed by the party's social conservative and Western members in the last race, has also pledged support for the protesters.

What direction leadership candidates pitch to party members will be watched closely after O'Toole's approach as leader. When he was vying for the job in the 2020 race, he painted himself as a "true blue" conservative. But as leader, he said he wanted to grow support by putting a more moderate stamp on the Conservative brand, which included his embrace of carbon pricing.

Although there were Conservatives that welcomed O'Toole's introduction of a carbon price, many other MPs and party members, particularly in Western Canada, saw it as a betrayal to the party's stand against the Liberal government's program, which O'Toole had pledged to scrap.

"It's hard to not think that the policy's in some jeopardy," said Michael Bernstein, executive director of Clean Prosperity, a group that advocated for the Tories to embrace a carbon price.

The backlash in caucus and the grassroots grew stronger when O'Toole's strategy did not pay off in the 2021 election. The party failed to bring in more seats in key regions such as the Greater Toronto Area.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Feb. 4, 2022.

— -With files from Emma Tranter in Iqaluit

Stephanie Taylor, The Canadian Press

US backs rare flower habitat amid Nevada lithium mine fight

RENO, Nev. (AP) — The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has proposed designating critical habitat for a Nevada wildflower it plans to list as endangered amid a conflict over a mine to produce lithium batteries for electric vehicles critical to the Biden administration's plans to combat climate change.

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The agency on Wednesday proposed designating critical habitat for Tiehm's buckwheat on a high-desert ridge near the California line halfway between Reno and Las Vegas.

It's the only place in the world the delicate, 6-inch-tall (15-centimeter) wildflower with yellow blooms is known to exist.

It's also the site where Ioneer USA Corp. plans to build a big lithium mine.

Ioneer said the proposed designation was “an anticipated development” that “has no material impacts on our planned mining activities.”

The Australian-based company noted that mining is allowed within areas designated as critical habitat if approved by the Fish and Wildlife Service and the Bureau of Land Management.

“Ioneer has already taken this into account with its planning and proposed operations and continues to work closely with both agencies to ensure its proposed activities will not jeopardize the conservation of the species,” the company said in a statement Wednesday.

The Fish and Wildlife Service said in its formal notice of the proposed designation that “this unit is essential to the conservation and recovery of Tiehm’s buckwheat because it supports all of the habitat that is occupied by Tiehm’s buckwheat across the species’ range.”

Conservationists who sued to protect the wildflower praised the move.

“This proposed critical habitat rule sends a clear message: protecting the native range of Tiehm’s buckwheat is the only way to prevent its extinction,” said Naomi Fraga, the conservation director of the California Botanic Garden, a group that joined the Center for Biological Diversity's 2019 petition to list the plant as endangered.

Demand for lithium worldwide is expected to double by 2025. Most of it currently comes from Australia and South America. Boosting domestic production could potentially lower the price tag on a key component of President Joe Biden’s $2 trillion climate plan: offering rebates to consumers to trade in gas-powered for electric cars.

Ioneer says its mine is expected to produce 22,000 tons (19,958 metric tons) of lithium — enough to power hundreds of thousands of electric vehicles annually. But the endangered species listing process has contributed to delays in its original plans to obtain all necessary permits and begin initial construction of the $785 million project before the end of last year.

Unless the Fish and Wildlife Service reverses course because of new information, the plant will be declared endangered in September based on a court order and the agency's final listing rule in October 2021 that concluded that the wildflower may already be on the brink of extinction.

That listing triggers certain regulatory obligations, such as consulting with the service before any development or other activity that could harm the plant.

The critical habitat designation also identifies specific habitat that “may require special management and protection” — in this case "to address mineral development, road development and (off-highway vehicle) activity, livestock grazing, nonnative invasive plants species and herbivory,” the agency said.

Tiehm's buckwheat grows on about 10 acres (4 hectares) — an area about the size of 130 football fields — at Rhyolite Ridge in the Silver Peak range west of the small community of Tonopah, about 200 miles (322 km) from Reno. Fewer than 30,000 are believed to exist.

The 910 acres (368 hectares) proposed for habitat designation — about half a square mile (1.3 square kilometers) — would provide about a 1,650-foot (503-meter) buffer around the plants to ensure access to bees and other pollinators.

Conservationists have argued for a buffer three times larger, while Ioneer suggested less than a tenth of the size proposed by the agency would be sufficient.

The company has said its project has a conservation strategy that includes transplanting some flowers and growing new ones with seeds it gathered as part of an experiment in greenhouses at the University of Nevada, Reno.

Conservationists said the proposed designation reaffirms their contention that won't work, or at least pass legal muster.

“Ioneer’s plans to destroy much of the plant’s habitat and establish it somewhere else are highly unlikely to comport with a critical habitat designation, since the rule recognizes that these areas are essential for the species,” said Patrick Donnelly, the Center for Biological Diversity’s Nevada director.

The Fish and Wildlife Service said Ioneer's conservation strategy remains “in the early stages.”

It said Ioneer plans to avoid and fence off half of the eight separate places within the 10-acre (4-hectare) site where the flowers grow and “remove and salvage all remaining plants ... and translocate them to another location.”

But the agency said soil studies and results of greenhouse experiments show there’s a “unique envelope of soil conditions in which Tiehm’s buckwheat thrives that is different from adjacent unoccupied soils.”

“The areas outside the occupied area do not support these physical and biological features and we are not confident that they would support populations of Tiehm’s buckwheat," the agency said.

U.S. Interior Secretary Deb Haaland has the authority to exclude the area from a critical habitat designation if she determines such exclusion would outweigh the benefits, “unless we determine ... failure to designate such area will result in the extinction of the species,” the agency said.

Scott Sonner, The Associated Press

The Analytical Angle: Need for youth-centred sustainable economic and social growth in Pakistan

With the majority of Pakistan's population under 30, we must create right conditions for them to succeed in future labour markets.

Ahwaz Akhtar | Imran Zia

Updated 25 Jan, 2022 

As we move into another year of a Covid-affected global economy with extreme local consequences in the form of rising inflation and low growth, it is pertinent to consider what the opportunities look like for Pakistan’s young population in the years ahead.

Have the structural imperatives changed appreciably for us to expect a high-growth future and allow us to benefit from the elusive demographic dividend?

First, let’s consider how our population structure and movement trends look like at the moment.

According to the 2017 census, 64 per cent of the population is younger than 30, and 29pc of the population is between the ages of 15 and 29. Out of those younger than 30, a full 90 million people or 65pc live in rural areas.

Furthermore, according to Pakistan Social And Living Standards Measurement (PSLM), rural to urban migration is showing a downward trend in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (37.6pc to 30.7pc) and Balochistan (14pc to 1.9pc), and an upward trend in Punjab (14pc to 14.2pc), while migration levels remain the same in Sindh (at 6.4pc) during the period 2017-2018 as compared with the period 2018-2019. Therefore, one can conclude that our “youth bulge” is mostly located in rural areas and will remain increasingly so in the years to come.

The question that then arises is: are we creating the right conditions for the youth to succeed in labour markets of the future? The answer is unfortunately not particularly promising.

Despite having 187 million cellular subscribers, 3G/4G and broadband penetration remains below 50% and remains concentrated mainly in the urban areas. According to outlets such as the Economist, Covid has moved us into a “hybrid” future of work where opportunities are becoming more democratised and accessible from anywhere in the world. Yet this world of opportunities remains largely inaccessible to our youth which are now increasingly choosing to stay put in rural areas.

It is also important to consider whether the domestic market is providing our youth opportunities to succeed. Many of us believe in the power of education as a ticket to opportunity. However, according to the Labour Force Survey 2018-2019, the labour market outcomes of even our domestic graduates do not paint a pretty picture.

Infographic courtesy: Durre Nayab on Twitter


Policy implications

Policymaking has tried to keep pace with the challenges. Pakistan has launched the National Freelancing Facilitation Policy with an overall focus on increasing IT exports which are expected to reach $3.5 billion by 2022. The idea has been to exploit our favourable cost structure, due to our abundant labour, and export the surplus abroad. This requires either the youth to move to cities en-masse or the government to help provide the right conditions for youth to find employment where they reside, which is primarily in the rural areas.

While migration to large cities can be a force for good, this cannot be a sustainable long-term strategy. Those who move face a loss of social network and difficulties in finding a job. Further, affordable housing remains elusive with skyrocketing rents which comes with an inability to put down long-term roots.

According to the United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN-HABITAT), as of 2017, 40pc of the urban residents in Pakistan reside in slums which is exactly where low-income migrants find themselves after migration. Initiatives such as the Naya Pakistan housing project remain beset by development delays that have traditionally meant a wait of 10-15 years for possession of a housing unit.
Towards inclusive growth

What then can we do to promote inclusive growth that serves our youth?

First, we must recognise that the future of Pakistan is going to be decided by investments that focus outside of the big urban areas. Nasir, Tauheed, and Haider show in their paper that second-tier cities such as Haripur in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, although they have lower GDP than major cities such as Peshawar, are more inclusive and the inhabitants have higher welfare outcomes. Therefore, investments in improving human capital and infrastructure of these second-tier cities will have better returns compared to those made in existing megacities.

Second, we may consider adopting what’s known as the “good-jobs development model” proposed by Professor Dani Rodrik and Professor Stefanie Stantcheva of Harvard University. They argue that conventional standalone welfare state policies on education, training, progressive taxation, and social insurance are inadequate in addressing the challenge of increasing growth while reducing inequality. They propose a “multi-pronged strategy aimed directly at the productive sphere of the economy and targeting an increase in the supply of ‘good jobs’ —jobs that provide a middle-class living standard, a sufficiently high wage, good benefits, reasonable levels of personal autonomy, adequate economic security, and career ladders.”

The figure below illustrates the argument.


The "good-jobs" model

What then does the application of the “good-jobs development model” look like in Pakistan’s case? This involves a specific approach to labour market policies and innovation policies.

First, a focus on active sectoral labour market policies is important. These are programmes that aim to increase the beneficiaries’ prospect of finding employment or increasing earnings. These sectoral programmes take into account the needs of local employers and include them as key stakeholders in policy design. These should be targeted towards employers and industries that have the highest growth potential in a given area. For job seekers, they provide an array of services that facilitate better matching with local employers.

These services can be differentiated based on the potential productivity of the employees. If the employee is considered middle-to-high productivity, soft-skills training and credentialing will help create a better match with the employers. This approach takes both the employer and employee as clients and facilitates better outcomes using partnerships with educational institutions and trade bodies.

Policymaking seems to be oriented in this direction already in export-oriented industries such as IT with the planning of industry-readiness bootcamps in the pipeline. Based on previous track record, these interventions would have to be executed extremely well in combination with other support (credentialing, training, soft-skills training) to make a dent.

For low-productivity employees, this should ideally include investments in education and health in the “pre-production” phase.

According to a study on human capital formation, while average years of education in Pakistan increased from 5 years to 9 years between 1990 and 2016, effective health status remained largely constant from 43 to 45, with 100 representing perfect health.

Possible remedies include targeted interventions for disadvantaged households and lagging populations. This may take the form of local seasonal migration that helps reallocate labour to areas in need from areas where unemployment is high and prospects are poor.

An example of this is the Bangladeshi programme which included the provision of an $8 cash grant or loan to mitigate the cost of moving, as well as provision of information about (and endorsement of) migration. It was found that seasonal out-migration had large benefits in terms of consumption and caloric intake for seasonal drought-prone households.

This kind of targeted migration incentivisation and information provision will help move human resources to cities with best income growth prospects. In addition to opening up newer internal migration pathways, this could augment existing temporary flows from southern Punjab and the mountainous areas in KP to agricultural lands in central Punjab.

The second integral part is a focus on innovation policies that incentivise labour-friendly technologies. Despite all the hype around IT services or freelancing opportunities, they cannot absorb the huge numbers of Pakistani youth that are entering the labour force every year. Employment-friendly technologies — those that augment rather than replace labour — are a much better solution in Pakistan’s context.

The gap between skills and technology can be closed in one of two ways: either by increasing education to match the demands of new technologies, or by redirecting innovation to match the skills of the current and prospective labour force. The latter is a strategy that gets limited attention in policy discussions, however is worth taking more seriously. It may be possible to direct technology to better serve the existing workforce’s needs, in addition to preparing the workforce to match the requirements of technology.

In conclusion, all is not lost — the demographic dividend remains there for Pakistan to take advantage of and rejuvenate the sputtering economy.

However, in addition to investments in education, health and human capital of its youth, there remains a huge role that needs to be played by policy to promote inclusive and sustainable growth, with a geographic focus on places where young Pakistanis are choosing to build their lives. Policymakers must contend with the concurrent challenges of rising youth unemployment and stasis in the formal sector through active sectoral labour market and innovation policies that incentivise labour friendly technologies.

The Analytical Angle is a monthly column where top researchers bring rigorous evidence to policy debates in Pakistan. The series is a collaboration between the Centre for Economic Research in Pakistan and Dawn.com. The views expressed are the authors’ alone.


Ahwaz Akhtar is a Senior Associate at CERP Analytics. He holds a Master’s in Economics and a Bachelors in Foreign Service, International Economics from Georgetown University. His interests include public health, education, and using large-scale analytics for improving service delivery.

Imran Zia heads CERP Analytics as the Executive Vice President Business Development. His expertise is product strategy, new product development and management, supply chain optimization, data-driven evidence-based decision making and rule and machine learning-based systems. He holds an MBA from the University of Chicago and a Master's in Electrical Engineering from Cornell University.

Should we care about what Transparency International has to say on corruption in Pakistan?

While the findings must be viewed cautiously, a decline in the index is bad for a country that is seeking foreign investments.

Uzair M. Younus

Updated about 24 hours ago

Every year before coming into power, the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) had a field day with the Transparency International's (TI) annual report on corruption perceptions in Pakistan. The party's leaders used it as vindication of their stance that corruption was rampant in the country and that the PTI alone could rid the nation of this menace.

Now that the tables have turned and Prime Minister Imran Khan finds himself on the other side of the proverbial aisle, his coterie of advisers and spokespersons will have you believe that the TI is "biased" and its report is essentially flawed.

So what is the truth? And why is it important to understand it?

For those who have been living under a rock, the Transparency International’s 2021 Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) revealed that despite all the brouhaha around PTI’s anti-corruption and accountability agenda, the situation is grim.



According to the latest data, Pakistan has fallen by 16 spots, ranking 140 out of 180 countries in the index. The country’s score has declined to 28 in 2021, compared to 31 in 2020, representing a decline of 9.7 per cent. On surface value, the decline shows that all is not well when it comes to the fight against corruption, but a deeper assessment is still necessary before drawing any conclusions.

What is the Corruption Perceptions Index?

The Corruption Perceptions Index or CPI, according to Transparency International, “measures how corrupt each country’s public sector is perceived to be, according to experts and businesspeople.

This means that the score and rankings are based on the opinions of a narrow, but relatively influential and well-heeled segment of society. The public sector corruption measured by the CPI includes “bribery, diversion of public funds, nepotistic appointments in the civil service, and state capture by narrow vested interests”, among others.

Transparency International agrees that corruption is “very difficult to measure” which is why it relies on “carefully designed and calibrated questionnaires, answered by experts and businesspeople” to develop the index.

What all the above means is that just coming up with a number to rank a diverse group of countries is a very difficult task. Therefore, we must use the CPI cautiously as a data point to argue whether corruption has increased in society.
Is perception really important?

Having said that, it is important to recognise that a sustained decline in corruption perceptions is bad for a country, especially one seeking foreign direct investment. As someone who has worked with foreign investors seeking to deploy capital abroad, I am quite familiar with the way a country is ranked among a peer group before a decision is made to conduct a deep dive into the political economies of a shortlist.

The initial task of conducting this exercise falls to a small team of analysts, mostly below 30 years of age. These analysts collect data such as the World Bank Ease of Doing Business rankings (before it was scrapped by the World Bank), the World Economic Forum’s Competitiveness Index, the Economist Intelligence Unit’s Country Risk Ratings, and Transparency International’s CPI. All this data is tabulated in an Excel file and relative weights are given to each measure based on the type of investment being considered.

For example, a major infrastructure project with high government involvement and debt financing will command higher weightage to country risk ratings and corruption perceptions, while a funding round for a technology startup will focus more on indices measuring digital connectivity and internet access.

Based on this tabulation, a shortlist of countries is prepared for deeper assessment to determine political risk, financial risk, execution risk, etc. As this process is conducted, investment teams project the risk premium in a financial model and develop high-level budgets for things like compliance monitoring, legal support, etc. These budgets are determined based on initial conversations with in-country experts as well as a country’s trajectory in rankings and scores across a whole host of indices, including the CPI.

What this means is that a country like Pakistan, which is experiencing a declining score in the CPI and witnessing economic and political instability (as evidenced by rising inflation, debt, and extremist violence), will find it difficult to make it to the shortlist. And even if it does, the risk premium in the financial models being developed to seek the investment committee’s approval will be high. This would then make the overall project costlier compared to other countries with a lower risk profile, meaning that the investment committee would likely decide against choosing Pakistan.

It is for this reason that improving rankings in indices such as the CPI is vital. Without doing so, the risk premium on a country like Pakistan will remain above the tolerance levels of a significant portion of international investors looking at Pakistan and other peer economies.

Victims of rhetoric

Another reason why the declining score in the CPI ought to concern Pakistanis is because the ruling party’s rhetoric about corruption has not translated into an improvement in perceptions among a narrow segment of society. As detailed CPI data shows, Pakistan’s score has declined significantly in four of the eight measures that make up the CPI:
Bertelsmann Foundation Transformation Index = -16 per cent
Economist Intelligence Unit Country Rankings = -46 per cent
Global Insights Country Risk Ratings = 0 per cent
PRS International Country Risk Guide = 0 per cent
Varieties of Democracy Project = -26 per cent
World Bank CPIA = 0 per cent
World Economic Forum EOS = -0.05 per cent
World Justice Rule of Law Index = -18 per cent

Finally, there is the baggage of the ruling PTI’s own rhetoric, where senior leaders including Prime Minister Imran Khan used to chide the opposition about corruption using CPI data. Now that they are in power, the party’s leaders and social media teams are spinning a different narrative.



Despite the political rhetoric on either side of the aisle, it is important to remember that the CPI is at best a flawed indicator of corruption in any society. The index may have some value for some actors, but it does not tell the full story when it comes to corruption in a society. To credibly deal with the corruption challenge, it is important for successive governments to focus on improving the rule of law, promoting transparency, and reducing bureaucratic red tape.

These actions, as I argued in another article, must “be informed by research that highlights why corruption is pervasive, what its transmission mechanisms are and the type of systemic reforms that may succeed in reducing the incentive for people to grease the system.”

Only then, I would argue, can Pakistan develop a more equitable and transparent economy which is attractive to foreign investors.

Header illustration: Ok Sotnikova/ Shutterstock.com



The writer is the director of the Pakistan Initiative at the Atlantic Council’s South Asia Center and host of the podcast Pakistonomy.

Trump plotters, Republican lawmakers met on eve of coup to seek NSA “intelligence” on foreign interference in 2020 election

Jacob Crosse
WSWS.ORG

In a new report, the Washington Post has shed further light on Donald Trump’s wide-ranging scheme to overthrow the 2020 election and establish a presidential dictatorship with the aid of Republican lawmakers and the US military and intelligence apparatus.

Rudy Giuliani, Mike Lindell, and Sidney Powell. 

Exploding all claims that Trump’s failed coup was a spontaneous riot, the Post revealed Thursday that on January 4, 2021, two days prior to the violent siege of the U.S. Capitol, Republican lawmakers gathered at the Trump International Hotel in Washington D.C. for a meeting organized by Trump accomplices and fascist conspiracy theorists. Among the organizers were MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell, former Overstock chief executive Patrick Byrne and Trump lawyer Sidney Powell.

The Post reports that the well-attended meeting included at least three sitting Republican senators. Lindell presented a proposal, based on a December 18, 2020 document titled “Counter-Election Fraud,” for Trump to instruct Acting Secretary of Defense Christopher Miller to impanel a three-person “inquiry” with dictatorial powers to “reverse the fraud” and overturn the election of Joe Biden.

Like the previously reported December 16, 2020 draft executive order, the document alleged, without presenting any evidence, that there was “foreign interference” in the 2020 presidential election. In order to find the nonexistent “evidence,” the document called for the “inquiry” to “be done confidentially and ... completed in several days.” The document would then be declassified, and Trump would be declared the winner.

Unlike the unsigned executive order, which granted power to Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe to deliver a pre-ordained “intelligence assessment” declaring Trump the winner, the newly reported document recommended that three people, handpicked by Trump’s co-conspirators, be granted authority under National Security Presidential Memo 13 to undertake cyber warfare operations in the United States to seize and analyze “NSA (National Security Agency) unprocessed raw signals data.”

The document stated that these “targeted inquires” would “likely identify hard evidence of foreign involvement in DoD data, which will support all other efforts to reverse the fraud.”

In essence, the aim of the proposal was to give Republican lawmakers political cover for voting against certifying the Electoral College vote on January 6. In an interview with the Post on the meeting, Lindell said the idea was to delay congressional certification of the electoral vote—normally a ceremonial formality—to give Trump and his fascistic allies sufficient time to allow Republican-controlled legislatures in swing states to override Biden’s popular vote victory and approve pro-Trump slates of electors.

“We were hoping that the senators would give it 10 more days to give it back to the states,” Lindell told the newspaper.

Last year, Lindell, a multi-millionaire fascist, hosted a “cyber symposium” heavily attended by far-right politicians, where he failed to present any evidence to support Trump’s claims of a “stolen election.”

The memo proposed that “POTUS instruct acting Secretary of Defense Christopher Miller to bring these three, cleared individuals to form a core advisory team to the White House ...”

The three men cited in the memorandum are Frank Colon, Richard Higgins and Michael Del Rosso. Colon and Higgins have extensive military and intelligence experience, while Del Rosso is a failed Republican congressional candidate. North Dakota Senator Kevin Cramer confirmed to the Post that Del Rosso sent his office a copy of the December 18 memo after he attended the meeting with Del Rosso at the Trump International Hotel on January 4.

At the time the memo was written, Colon, according to a personal résumé attached to the memo, was serving as a senior legal counsel to the Army. An Army spokesperson confirmed to the Post that Colon is currently serving as a “civilian legal adviser assigned to a military intelligence brigade headquartered at Fort Meade in Maryland.”

As the Post writes: “Colon’s name first surfaced publicly on January 15, 2021 ... that day, Post photographer Jabin Botsford took a picture of Lindell ... exiting the White House with a coffee cup and a document that mentioned ‘martial law’ and the ‘insurrection act.’ The portions of the document visible in Botsford’s photograph called for Trump loyalist Kash Patel to be installed as acting CIA director and for Colon to be named ‘Acting National Security’ adviser.”

Richard Higgins is a former member of Trump’s National Security Council. He was forced out of the White House in 2017 after he circulated a memo to White House staff claiming that Trump was the target of a “deep state international globalist cabal” of “Islamists” and “cultural Marxists” inside and outside of the US government.

“Globalists and Islamists recognize that for their visions to succeed, America, both as an ideal and as a national and political identity, must be the destroyed,” Higgins wrote.

A frequent guest on the far-right Sean Hannity program, Higgins previously alleged that the Obama government was subservient to the Muslim Brotherhood.

No evidence has been presented in the 15 months since the November 2020 election that China or any other foreign power interfered in the election on behalf of Biden. That has not prevented Trump and his far-right allies from insisting that the “real insurrection” occurred not on January 6, 2021, but on Election Day, November 3, 2020.

Campaigning on the “stolen election” lie, Trump and his allies are inciting fascistic violence on a near-daily basis against their political opponents who, they claim, are under the control of Jews, Black Lives Matter activists, communists, liberal and left-leaning billionaires and the Chinese Communist Party. These forces allegedly conspired to use fake mail-in ballots and Dominion Voting Systems software to manipulate vote totals.

These conspiracies, among others, were advanced in the months following Trump’s defeat by his coup lawyers Rudy Giuliani, Sidney Powell and Jenna Ellis. The lawyers operated out of the Willard Hotel, located in Washington D.C. less than a block from the White House.

While the Willard Hotel served as one nerve center of fascist conspiracy, the Post reports that two days before the attack on the Capitol, North Dakota Senator Cramer, Wyoming Senator Cynthia Lummis and “some two dozen others” were “crammed into a ground-floor hotel conference room” at the Trump International Hotel, located less than a mile from the White House, “to discuss election fraud allegations” and listen to the presentation from Trump’s co-plotters.

Pro-Trump Wisconsin Senator Ron Johnson attended the meeting as well, albeit virtually. Johnson, who recently announced he would be running for re-election, was one of the earliest proponents of the fascist conspiracy theory, first advanced by former Trump speechwriter Darren Beattie, that January 6 was not an insurrection orchestrated by Trump with the support of a majority of the Republican Party, but a “Fedsurrection,” i.e., a sting operation concocted by FBI “deep state” agents to entrap pro-Trump supporters at the Capitol.

The Post noted that the January 4 meeting at the Trump International Hotel was “similar to a briefing held in a congressional office building the next day for members of the House.”

The newspaper also noted that former Trump National Security Adviser Michael Flynn extended an “invitation to at least one senator and his staff, according to a person familiar with the meeting.”

Only Christians need apply? 

Gov. Mike Parson’s ‘Christian values’ statement prompts legal concerns

2022/2/3

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. — Does the next director of the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services need to be a Christian?

That is the question after Gov. Mike Parson said in a statement Tuesday that he would only choose someone for the job who shared the “same Christian values” as him.

Parson, a Republican, was blasting conservative hard-liners in the Missouri Senate who had just jettisoned his pick for state health director, Donald Kauerauf, a pro-vaccine and mask public health professional with 35 years of experience.

But in defending his pick, Parson’s statement, which his office also shared on social media, prompted a whole new round of criticism.

“I’m curious Governor, is this a standard you traditionally use?” state Rep. Adam Schwadron, a Republican, asked on Twitter. “Article VI of the US Constitution strictly prohibits a religious test as a qualification to any office or public trust. Considering that, I then must ask the question. Would someone who is Jewish, such as myself, be considered for nomination?”

In his statement, Parson said, “Don is a public health expert that is on record opposing masking requirements and COVID-19 vaccine mandates. He is outspokenly pro-life and morally opposed to abortion. Missourians know that I share these beliefs and would not have nominated someone who does not share the same Christian values.”

Brian Kaylor, the editor of Word&Way, a Jefferson City-based publication founded in 1896 and focused on the Baptist faith and other topics, said in an interview he found the tweet “inappropriate, but also not surprising.”

“It’s a little shocking just to see the governor make such an explicitly sectarian claim about who he would pick for this type of position,” said Kaylor, who is a board member of the St. Louis chapter of the Americans United for Separation of Church and State, according to his online biography.

Kaylor also referenced a news release Parson had sent earlier defending Kauerauf, saying he is “guided by our Missouri principles: Christian values, family values, and love for this nation.”

“He was already kind of framing this as a ‘you all should just vote for my guy because I’m a Christian, he’s a Christian, we’re all Christians,” Kaylor said.

“The only religious reference in the United States Constitution is that there be no religious test for office, Article VI,” Kaylor said. “This is a public office. So it is unconstitutional to suggest that someone should be a Christian to be the director of the state’s DHSS.

“This is a state where this director is going to be serving people of many faiths and no faith,” Kaylor said, “and so I think that’s very concerning that a governor would send a message that only Christians need to apply to this type of position, which not only impacts any applicants, or people who might be chosen, but also sends a message to the rest of the state that maybe you’re a second-class citizen.”

Chuck Hatfield, a Jefferson City attorney who has worked in state government, said Parson’s use of “Christian values” instead of plainly saying he would only hire a Christian could be the state’s saving grace if and when jilted job applicants start filing employment discrimination lawsuits because of the statement.

Religious discrimination in employment is illegal under federal and state law.

“He pulled up just short of saying, I’m not going to hire someone ... who’s not a Christian,” Hatfield said. “But by saying I’m only going to hire people who share ‘my Christian values,’ as opposed to ‘my values,’ I think he does open the state up (to lawsuits) if there are folks out there who, you know, do not share the Christian religion who’ve not been hired for jobs.

“They’ve got a plausible claim that perhaps Missouri discriminates against folks who aren’t Christians,” Hatfield said.

Asked if saying he would hire someone with “Christian values,” instead of saying he would only hire a Christian would save the state from legal liability, Kaylor said he wasn’t a lawyer but thought the message “was pretty clear.”

“Who shares Christian values that’s not a Christian?” Kaylor asked. “If he’s talking about some generic non-sectarian values those aren’t Christian values, right? If he’s talking about being pro-life, well there are non-Christians who are pro-life and there are some Christians who are not pro-life.

“As a minister I would suggest that you really can’t hold Christian values and not be a Christian,” Kaylor said. “The chief of all Christian values from the early church, and for 2,000 years, is that declaration, the foundational declaration, that Jesus is Lord.”

Kelli Jones, a spokeswoman for Parson, did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Thursday regarding the governor’s remarks.

The Madison, Wisconsin-based Freedom From Religion Foundation, which says it “works as an umbrella for those who are free from religion and are committed to the cherished principle of separation of state and church,” on Wednesday called on Parson to delete his tweet.

“The ban on religious tests in the United States Constitution is one of the truly great and original bulwarks for freedom of thought and expression,” Annie Laurie Gaylor and Dan Barker, co-presidents of the foundation, wrote in a letter to Parson dated Wednesday. “Our Constitution is godless, omitting any mention of god or Jesus — a unique contribution of our founders.”

The group also linked to a Pew Research Center article that said according to telephone surveys in 2018 and 2019, the number of American adults who said they were Christians had dropped 12% over the last decade, to 65%.

A March 2021 Pew survey found most U.S. adults support the separation between church and state, but that many Americans supported more Christian influence within public institutions.

The survey found 19% of respondents wanted the federal government to “stop enforcing separation of church and state,” for example.

Kaylor said the episode is "the same type of Christian nationalism that we saw helping storm the Capitol on Jan. 6 (2021).

“It’s dangerous,” Kaylor said. “As a Christian myself I speak up against (it) because it’s dangerous politically. I also think it’s a heresy of the Christian faith.”

THE ULTIMATE IN WHITE ON WHITE VIOLENCE 

Iowa man sentenced to life in prison after killing his friend in a fight over mayonnaise

By 

Mark Lungariello

February 3, 2022 

Kristofer Erlbacher murdered his friend Caleb Solberg over an argument about mayo.Harrison County Sheriff’s Offi

An Iowa man was sentenced to life behind bars for the murder of a friend he repeatedly ran over with a pickup truck after a fight about mayonnaise.

Kristofer Erlbacher, now 29, used his truck to ram Caleb Solberg, 30, outside a café in the small town of Pisgah on Dec. 17, 2020, the Des Moines Register reported. Erlbacher initially drove away, then came back and ran over Solberg two more times, according to the Register.

The two had been out drinking at a bar with another person earlier in the night in nearby Moorhead, but things took a turn when Erlbacher spread mayo on Solberg’s food, which riled Solberg and sparked a bar fight, the Woodbine Twiner-Herald reported.

A furious Erlbacher called Solberg’s half-brother, Craig Pryor, on the way to the café and threatened to set Solberg’s house on fire and shoot him, the newspaper said. Pryor later came to Dave’s Old Home in Pisgah, where another confrontation was brewing.

Erlbacher eventually rammed his truck into Pryor’s, then rammed Solberg.

“Erlbacher’s first blow to Solberg did not kill him. He can be heard screaming for his brother, Craig Pryor,” District Judge Greg Steensland wrote in the verdict, according to the Twiner-Herald.

The fatal incident happened in Pisgah, Iowa.

Jared Winkler/Creative Commons

“Rather than just leave, Erlbacher went down the street, turned around, and came back to strike Solberg a second time … To be sure he had completed the job, Erlbacher drove his truck up and over Solberg one last time.”

Erlbacher then drove off, but his truck broke down a short while later. On the phone, he told Pryor that he had killed Solberg, according to the verdict.

Erlbacher was convicted after a bench trial in December last year and sentenced Monday.

With Post wires

MAYO IS THE ULTIMATE 'WHITE PEOPLE' FOOD

Why do white people eat mayo sandwiches? - General ...

https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-white-people-eat-mayo...

Why do white people eat mayo sandwiches? General Questions. grude April 22, 2012, 10:33am #1. Whats the connection here in this phrase? I saw someone say a black guy should eat a mayo sandwich to turn white, in a sarcastic manner. I have seen this several places and it doesn’t seem to make much sense unless it is the color white?

Where does "Black people don't eat mayo/Mayonnaise is a ...

https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-does-black-people-dont-eat...

Where does "Black people don't eat mayo/Mayonnaise is a white people food" come from? Factual Questions. Asuka April 27, 2020, 10:24am #1. It wasn’t something I’ve ever heard at all well until the last decade, and I literally can’t find anything about it before the 2002 film “Undercover Brother” uses it extensively as a joke where a ...

The Rich, Tangy Cultural History of Mayo

https://melmagazine.com/en-us/story/the-rich-tangy-cultural-history-of-mayo

Mayonnaise is middle class/rich people’s food. Miracle Whip is poor people’s food, the stuff of blacks, rednecks, and other social inferiors. Mayo, or “aioli,” is seen as “authentic” because it’s a product of European cultural heritage, the same cultural heritage that considers (explicitly or not) French food to be inherently superior to all other cuisines. Miracle Whip is mayonnaise. It’s …

‘White People Food’ Is Creating An Unattainable Picture Of ...

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/white-people-food_n_5b75c270e4b0df9b093...

Jones describes “white people food” as salads, fruits, yogurts, cottage cheeses and lean meats ― the standard low-fat, heart-healthy foods promoted by the U.S. Dietary Guidelines. Every five years, a

Crisis-hit Turkey survives as an extension of China

Turkey is weathering the storm of a catastrophic currency crisis through tighter trade integration with China

By DAVID P GOLDMAN

FEBRUARY 4, 2022

Turkey's trade with China is keeping its economy afloat amid a financial crisis. 

NEW YORK – Despite a catastrophic currency devaluation and 50% annual inflation as of December, Turkish manufacturing is booming and exports have risen by more than half from pre-pandemic levels.

A real economic boom in the midst of financial disaster is puzzling, but there’s a simple explanation: Turkish manufacturing doesn’t have much to do with Turkey. It buys Chinese capital equipment and semi-finished goods and sells the finished products to Europe.

Turkey has found a niche in the fast-growing trade relationship between Europe and China as a producer of steel products, chemicals, household appliances and other goods, concentrating on more labor-intensive and environmentally problematic industries.

Its economic dependence on China has increased significantly. This helps explain why Turkey eschewed American efforts for a diplomatic boycott of the Beijing Winter Olympics to protest against China’s treatment of its Uighur minority, even though the Uighurs speak a Turkish dialect and have strong cultural and religious ties to Turkey.

Mao Zedong might have said that political power grows out of the barrel of a gun, but for Xi Jinping, it is more likely to grow out of the door of a shipping container.

China’s imports from the rest of Asia have nearly tripled during the past five years, prompting 15 Asian countries including Australia to join the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership with China – but not the United States.

That was an important Chinese diplomatic victory. Now, a quantum jump in Sino-Turkish trade is likely to enhance China’s political influence in Western Asia.

Turkey’s surprising resilience is yet another expression of the Sino-forming of the world economy. China’s robust supply chains support not only China’s remarkable trade performance, but move the trade of its Asian neighbors into a tightly-integrated commercial nexus.

The Turkish lira has fallen by more than 50% against the US dollar since 2018, and the cost of production against default on its foreign-currency debt is more than 5 percentage points, compared to 2 percentage points for Brazil.

Nonetheless, Turkey has managed to more than double its imports from China in the past two years. Turkey runs a trade deficit, so it has to borrow in order to buy more foreign goods.

Turkey’s official data show little increase in foreign debt, but the triangular trade among China, Turkey and Europe allows ways to keep trade credits off the official balance sheet.

Turkey imports in order to export. Consumption and other goods imports fell during 2021, while imports of intermediate and capital goods rose, supporting a 32% overall rise in exports

.

The Turkish Statistical Institute’s breakdown of trade by country shows that the lion’s share of the increase in imports came from Russia – mainly due to higher energy prices – and China.




The export picture is markedly different. Europe accounted for more than half the 2021 increase in Turkish exports.

Turkish industrial companies who benefit from this trade boom earn foreign currency by exporting and paying for their imports with foreign currency.

The value of the Turkish currency is of secondary importance to them. That explains why the stock prices of Turkish industrial companies rose as the Turkish lira fell, that is, remained stable in terms of US dollars.

Turkish stock prices are a secondary concern for the Recep Tayyip Erdogan government. The market capitalization of the Istanbul 100 Index is less than US$40 billion.

The dollar value of Turkey’s housing stock, the main repository of middle-class wealth, exceeds $700 billion, I calculated in a 2020 study.


Erdogan’s low interest-rate policy sunk the Turkish lira, but Turkish home prices have more than kept pace with inflation. That is key to President Erdogan’s political staying power.

Unlike the Latin American and African devaluations of the past generation, the collapse of the lira did not take down with it the wealth of the middle class and industrial investors

Tensions between China and Turkey flare up periodically over the Uighur problem. Religious conservatives in Erdogan’s Justice and Freedom Party complain about China’s forced assimilation of Muslims into secular Chinese culture, and the nationalist Gray Wolves movement occasionally breaks the window of a Chinese restaurant in Istanbul.

But President Erdogan wants to stay in power, and China controls the means by which Erdogan can do so, namely Turkish economic growth, jobs and asset prices.

American strategists who hope that Turkey will provide a counterweight to growing Chinese and Russian influence in Western Asia may be spinning their wheels. Without China, Turkey’s economy would be a Venezuelan-style shambles, and that gives China enormous pull in Ankara.

Follow David P Goldman on Twitter at @davidpgoldman

S. KOREA Supreme Court ruled that police breached freedom of expression of demonstrators in US Embassy Rallies

Updated: 2022-02-04

On Thursday, the Supreme Court of South Korea ruled in favor of a civic group, judging that local police breached the group's freedom of expression during single-person demonstrations in February of 2016.

The ten-member civic group had filed an indemnity suit against the government for restricting single-person protests over the then planned installation of the U.S. anti-missile THAAD system.
Police had blocked the rally, citing security concerns.

Lower courts had ruled it not plausible to believe single-person rallies pose a threat to the security of the U.S. Embassy or their diplomats.

The Supreme Court upheld the decision.