CRIMINAL CRYPTO CAPITALI$M;FTX

UPDATED

Former FTX US President Accuses SBF of ‘Gaslighting and Manipulation’

André Beganski

Sun, January 15, 2023

Former President of FTX US Brett Harrison shared details of his tenure under Sam Bankman-Fried on Saturday, distancing himself from the disgraced crypto mogul who’s been charged with a series of financial crimes.

In a flurry of Twitter posts, Harrison accused Bankman-Fried of “gaslighting and manipulation,” claiming he was isolated as a leader while working to build out the defunct cryptocurrency exchange’s presence in the U.S.

Harrison stepped down from FTX’s U.S. division in September, just weeks before Bankman-Fried’s crypto empire began to crumble—but says his relationship with the former CEO had begun to fall apart long before that.

“My relationship with Sam Bankman-Fried and his deputies had reached a point of total deterioration, after months of disputes over management practices at FTX,” he wrote.

Former FTX US President Promises to Share More Information ‘In Time’

While Harrison led FTX US for a total of 17 months, the former high-ranking employee said he threatened to leave the company in April of last year—just 11 months into his role—over “organizational problems” that he identified with FTX’s structure.

Harrison said one issue he flagged was the separation of FTX’s legal, development, and executive teams, which had influence over both FTX US and the company’s international exchange, according to Harrison.

Harrison said Bankman-Fried ultimately disagreed with the suggested structural changes early on in his role at FTX US, describing the FTX founder as stubborn and spiteful when his authority was questioned.

Harrison added that he faced “tremendous pressure not to disagree with Sam” as president of FTX US, along with other employees who worked within the cryptocurrency exchange’s U.S. division. He said the team’s professional background was rendered “irrelevant and valueless.”

“I wasn’t the only one at FTX US who disagreed with Sam and members of his inner circle,” he stated. “FTX US was staffed with experienced professionals from US finance firms, law firms, and regulated exchanges.”

Other sticking points Harrison said he identified were “the delegation of managerial responsibility and controls,” which he said were handled by Bankman-Fried and other company executives based in the Bahamas, where FTX was based.

He also wanted to make more transparent the software development responsibilities of FTX co-founder Gary Wang and Nishad Singh, the former FTX engineering chief who is now seeking a cooperation deal with federal prosecutors in New York pertaining to Bankman-Fried’s criminal trial.

Attorneys in the Southern District of New York filed charges against Wang last month, as well as the former CEO Alameda Research, Caroline Ellison, who led the trading firm founded by Bankman-Fried before FTX. Wang and Ellison are both cooperating with investigations into FTX. Singh and Harrison have not been accused of wrongdoing.

Prosecutors have charged Bankman-Fried with eight criminal charges, including fraud and money laundering. He is accused of siphoning billions of dollars worth of customer funds away from FTX to cover trades made by Alameda, donate to political campaigns, purchase private real estate, and expand his business.

After submitting a formal complaint about issues he identified with FTX’s structure, Harrison resolved to leave the company upon receiving backlash, stating he was “threatened on Sam’s behalf” that he would be fired and his professional reputation ruined.

FTX US President Brett Harrison Stepping Down, Shifting to Advisory Role

Harrison explained he was initially sympathetic towards Bankman-Fried’s unfavorable leadership, stating he thought “addiction and mental health problems” could’ve been a contributing factor.

The former FTX US president had come to know Bankman-Fried as a junior trader at New York-based trading firm Jane Street, where Ellison also got her start in finance as an intern. Harrison had worked there for over seven years prior to roles at Citadel Securities and Headlands Technologies.

In addition to the proficiency Bankman-Fried displayed in a programming class he taught, Harrison developed a positive perception of Bankman-Fried as a “sensitive and intellectually curious person who cared about animals,” and senior traders “indicated he had promise.”

During Harrison’s time at FTX US, the company was hit with a cease-and-desist-letter from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation over a false and misleading statement made by Harrison. In a now-deleted Tweet, Harrison had claimed “direct deposits from employers to FTX US are stored in individually FDIC-insured bank accounts in the users’ names.”

When asked about the statement via Twitter on Saturday by EZPR founder and CEO Ed Zitron, Harrison blocked Zitron’s account, according to a recent post made by Zitron. Zitrion told Decrypt that Harrison’s move was “laughable.”

FTX US Hit With FDIC Cease-and-Desist Over 'False and Misleading' Statements

Harrison did not respond immediately to requests for comment, but he replied to Zitron’s question stating “it’s impossible to have a good faith or fact-based discussion” about the incident on Twitter.

When Harrison departed from FTX US in September, he announced that he would be shifting into an advisory role with the firm over the next few months but wouldn’t be leaving the crypto space in his next role.

“I don’t doubt my experiences in this role will be among the most cherished of my career,” he stated. “I’ll be assisting Sam and the team with this transition to ensure FTX ends the year with all its characteristic momentum.”

Harrison is currently launching a crypto software company, for which he recently sought funding at a valuation of up to $100 million, Bloomberg reported last month. In a reply to Harrison’s thread on Saturday, American financier and former White House director of communications Anthony Scaramucci identified himself as an investor.

Scaramucci's investment firm Skybridge Capital received $40 million from Bankman-Fried's FTX Ventures in September in exchange for a 30% stake in the investment firm. FTX was also featured prominently as a sponsor at SALT New York last year, a networking event affiliated with Skybridge.

“I am proud to be an investor in your new company,” Scaramucci stated. “Go forward. Don’t look back.”

 

Meet Sam Trabucco, the Alameda exec who oversaw the development of the crypto hedge fund's ultra-risky trading strategies

Morgan Chittum
Sun, January 15, 2023 

Sam Trabucco was the co-CEO of Alameda Research.

Sam Trabucco was Alameda Research's co-CEO. He left the crypto hedge fund a few months before its collapse.


Before he left Alameda, he reportedly went on a $10 million all-cash property buying spree and bought a 52-foot yacht.


US prosecutors have not alleged Trabucco with any wrongdoing.

Sam Trabucco stepped down as the co-CEO of trading firm Alameda Research in August, just months before Sam Bankman-Fried's crypto empire filed for bankruptcy and lost $8 billion of customer money.

Around the time of his departure in late August, he tweeted, "But if I've learned anything at Alameda, it's how to make good decisions – and this is the right one for me."

Whereabouts of Trabucco, who has not been accused of any wrongdoing, are unclear. Here's what we know about one of the top executives at Alameda Research.

Bankman-Fried was the sole CEO of Alameda from its inception until October 2021 when Ellison and Trabucco took over. Trabucco was formally in his role as Alameda's co-CEO for less than a year, according to a court filing, from October 2021 to August 2022.

Trabucco, 30, hasn't publicly been accused of any wrongdoing. He stepped down from the company in August, shifting Caroline Ellison into the role of Alameda's CEO.

Trabucco significantly reduced his role at Alameda in this months leading up to his departure. He couldn't "personally continue to justify the time investment of being a central part of Alameda," he tweeted, adding that he would be staying on as an advisor to the company but would not have a "strong day-to-day presence."

Trabucco wanted to "prioritize other things."

"What other things? I'm really not sure, exactly. Lately I've been really happy, spending a lot of time traveling, visiting friends and family, working on 'myself' and whatnot," he said. "Also I bought a boat, that's been cool. I needed to relax, and I'm really, really happy."

Before he left Alameda, it was reported that Trabucco a went on a $10 million all-cash property buying spree, purchasing two luxury apartments in San Francisco, according to Protos. He also bought a 52-foot yacht, which he called "Soak my Deck." The Financial Times reported that Trabucco even paid a freelancer on Fiverr to design the boat's logo.

A little over a month after his departure from FTX, Trabucco tweeted: "Why are journalists so excited to make my stepping down about something other than a desire to go fast over the nice water."

Bankman-Fried and Trabucco have known each other for over a decade. They met at a five-week math camp at Mount Holyoke College in 2010, where Trabucco said Bankman-Fried rarely slept during his stay, Insider reported.

The two later reconnected in college at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where Trabucco studied math and computer science. Before joining Alameda as a trader in 2019, he had a stint as a quant trader on Susquehanna's bond exchange-traded fund desk, according to his LinkedIn.

In a press release announcing Trabucco and Ellison's move to become co-CEOs, the company said the two will "oversee all operations at Alameda while also collaborating to execute on the strategy the organization" and "focus on managing the trading desk."

The former exec was an aggressive crypto trader, employing risky bets in Alameda's business. Trabucco has indicated in a series of public comments that he also employed poker and blackjack strategies in trading, Bloomberg reported.

"Bigger is Bigger (when Betting is Better)," he tweeted in January of 2021, explaining how his gambling experience shaped his trading methods. "Getting it in good is a poker term referring to the idea that, when your odds are best.... you wanna bet more."

When crypto exchange OKX suspended user withdrawals on its platform in January of 2021, Alameda began buying out positions of investors wanting to reduce exposure.

"Not only are we not sellers, we're HUGE buyers -- even though it's risky -- because, in fact, we can take the risk and this trade is GREAT according to what we know -- was crucial, and it's something we're always aiming to do," he tweeted.

As for his involvement in FTX's downfall, US prosecutors have not said Trabucco was involved in any wrongdoing even as he worked in Alameda's C-suite with several execs who are now facing a slew of charges.

"[Sam] is not really involved in day-to-day operations in Alameda," Trabucco told CoinDesk in October of 2021. "Caroline and I have been leading the charge [at Alameda] for quite some time."

Despite his claims to the news outlet over a year ago,"Bankman-Fried remained the ultimate decision-maker at Alameda, even after Ellison and Trabucco became co-CEOs," the US Securities and Exchange Commission said in its complaint against the fallen FTX CEO.

The court document reads: "Bankman-Fried directed investment and operational decisions, frequently communicated with Alameda employees, and had full access to Alameda's records and databases."

Trabucco did not respond to Insider's request for comment.

FTX Collapse: Bankman-Fried Takes On a Powerful Law Firm

The disgraced former crypto king continues to tell a version of events that ignores regulators' allegations against him.

LUC OLINGA
JAN 14, 2023 

Sam Bankman-Fried faces a series of criminal and civil charges, including alleged fraud.

The trial of the disgraced founder of cryptocurrency exchange FTX and its sister company Alameda Research, a hedge fund and trading platform, is scheduled for October.

Bankman-Fried was released on bail on Dec. 21 after being extradited from the Bahamas where he lived and where FTX's headquarters were based.

The former trader pleaded not guilty on Jan. 3 during a hearing in New York.

Facing the court, he remained silent but since Bankman-Fried, known by the initials SBF in the crypto space, has resumed speaking on social networks. He tries, as during his apology tour at the end of November/beginning of December, to exculpate himself. In doing so, he tries to blame others.

He has just done this in a blog post in which he points the finger at the powerful law firm Sullivan & Cromwell. To be clear, Bankman-Fried is not accusing Sullivan & Cromwell of any wrongdoing related to FTX or Alameda Research.


Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post via Getty

'I Would Sometimes Work Out of S&C's Office'

He accuses Sullivan & Cromwell of conflicts of interest. He also claims that the law firm forced him to file for bankruptcy and to choose John Ray, the new CEO of FTX, as liquidator of FTX and Alameda Research. Basically, if his empire is in disarray it is the fault of Cromwell & Sullivan because there were other options than bankruptcy, says Bankman-Fried.

"Senators have raised concerns about a potential conflict of interest from Sullivan & Crowell (S&C)," the former crypto emperor wrote. "Contrary to S&C’s statement that they 'had a limited and largely transactional relationship with FTX', S&C was one of FTX International’s two primary law firms prior to bankruptcy, and were FTX US’s primary law firm."

He continued: "FTX US’ GC came from S&C, they worked with FTX US in its most important regulatory application, they worked with FTX International on some of its most important regulatory concerns, and they worked with FTX US on its most important transaction. When I would visit NYC, I would sometimes work out of S&C’s office."

GC stands for General Counsel. FTX US is the American subsidiary of FTX. Consumers residing in the United States wishing to buy or sell cryptocurrencies and other digital assets (NFTs) via FTX could only do so through FTX US, an entity based on American soil.

"S&C and the GC were the primary parties strong-arming and threatening me into naming the candidate they themselves chose as CEO of FTX -- including for a solvent entity in FTX US -- who then filed for Chapter 11 and chose S&C as counsel to the debtor entities," Bankman-Fried asserted without providing any evidence.

Sullivan & Cromwell did not respond to a request for comment.

The law firm is FTX's lead counsel in its bankruptcy.

'Pressured'

Four U.S. senators -- Sens. John Hickenlooper (D-Colo.), Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.) -- recently wrote to Delaware Judge John Dorsey to point out that, given the past relationship between FTX and Sullivan & Cromwell, the law firm was not in the best position to deal with the current bankruptcy proceedings.

The bipartisan group of senators wrote that the law firm has "advised FTX for years leading up to its collapse and one of its partners even served as FTX’s general counsel."

As a result, "the firm is simply not in a position to uncover the information needed to ensure confidence in any investigation or findings."

"The firm had a limited and largely transactional relationship with FTX and certain affiliates prior to the bankruptcy,” Sullivan & Cromwell responded in a statement according to Bloomberg. A "broad team of sophisticated professionals, including conflicts counsel,” is advising FTX in bankruptcy.

The law firm has already said in court documents that it collected $8.5 million from FTX for work related to regulatory requests and transactions.

Dorsey found the senators' letter 'inappropriate' but said he will "make my decisions on the matters referred to in the letter based only upon admissible evidence and the arguments of parties and interest presented in open court."

Bankman-Fried says there was another option other than bankruptcy.

"Despite its insolvency, and despite processing roughly $5b of withdrawals over its last few days of operation, FTX International retains significant assets – roughly $8b of assets of varying liquidity as of when Mr. Ray took over," he asserted without providing evidence.

"In addition to that, there were numerous potential funding offers – including signed LOIs (letters of intent) post chapter 11 filing totaling over $4b. I believe that, had FTX International been given a few weeks, it could likely have utilized its illiquid assets and equity to raise enough financing to make customers substantially whole."

Bankman-Fried is not optimistic.

"Since S&C pressured FTX into Chapter 11 filings, however, I worry that those pathways may have been abandoned."

Why the IRS Has an Interest in the FTX Bankruptcy Case


Stacy Elliott
Sat, January 14, 2023

Of all the crypto bankruptcies over the past year, the FTX Chapter 11 proceeding is the only one that’s had a Department of Justice attorney assigned to represent the Internal Revenue Service.

Deputy Attorney General David Hubbert filed notice for Department of Justice trial attorney Elisabeth Bruce (replacing attorney Warren Benson, who was assigned in December) to appear in the FTX bankruptcy proceedings on Thursday.

There’s been no indication of the IRS’s exact interest in the case. A call to the IRS’s press office from Decrypt yielded a decline to comment. It’s also not clear if the agency plans to pursue its own litigation against the bankrupt crypto exchange. But the fact that it's involved at all is notable, especially given the IRS's prior interest in the customer data of major crypto exchanges such as Coinbase and Kraken.

FTX, founded by ex-CEO Sam Bankman-Fried, filed for bankruptcy on November 11. In the days leading up to its voluntary filing, the company saw billions worth of assets pulled off its crypto trading platform, was almost acquired by competitor Binance, and then froze withdrawals in a last-ditch attempt to stay afloat.

It was a sudden and spectacular downfall that caught the attention of U.S. regulators and law enforcement. Sam Bankman-Fried has since been arrested and charged with eight financial crimes. Members of his inner-circle Caroline Ellison and Gary Wang have already pleaded guilty and are cooperating with prosecutors as Bankman-Fried awaits trial.

Meanwhile, the FDIC, Federal Reserve, and Office of the Comptroller put out a joint statement two weeks ago, warning that crypto isn’t “safe and sound.” The White House has ramped up its call for regulation (while fielding questions about meetings between Bankman-Fried and President Joe Biden).

As for the IRS, Miles Fuller, TaxBit’s director of government solutions, told Decrypt that it seems the agency has more than a passing interest in the case.

Normally when debtors file for bankruptcy, those cases get assigned to an insolvency unit within the IRS, he said. The unit keeps tabs on the case and, if the IRS becomes a creditor in the proceedings, they file a proof of claim without getting lawyers involved.

He would know. Fuller spent 15 years working as an attorney at the IRS before joining TaxBit last year.

“If there was some very administrative thing that just needed to be handled, the Department of Justice's tax division is like, ‘Yeah, we don't care about that. We'll let you guys handle that,’” Fuller said. “But for any sort of really substantive tax related matter or high profile tax matter, they say, ‘No, no, we want to do that.’”

TaxBit, a tax software and crypto account firm, raised $130 million last year at a $1.3 billion valuation. That made it one of the rare startup unicorns in the middle of a not so great year for most of the crypto industry.

DOJ, IRS Target Tax-Evading Clients of Crypto Broker SFOX

Fuller said it’s possible, but a long shot, that the IRS is trying to get its hands on the customer list that FTX was given permission to keep private for another three months. If that were the agency’s interest, it wouldn’t be completely unprecedented. The IRS has issued John Doe summons seeking information on potential tax evaders to crypto firms Coinbase, Kraken, Circle, and SFOX.

Fuller suggested the IRS could also be working on guidance for how customers who have lost money in FTX, or other crypto collapses, can claim their assets at a loss without having to wait for the full bankruptcy proceeding to play out. The agency created a rule for victims of theft and Ponzi schemes in 2009 following the Bernie Madoff case.

Lisa Zarlenga, a tax attorney and partner at Steptoe & Johnson in D.C., said she’s not as optimistic about the IRS making accommodations for FTX victims.

Court Greenlights IRS Access to Kraken’s Customer Data

“You're probably still in limbo because you're gonna have to wait for the bankruptcy to play out. You could recover something, and so it's not really a closed transaction yet. They haven't actually incurred the loss,” she told Decrypt. “Some people have talked about triggering a loss by abandoning something, but can you even abandon a crypto account?”

She’s gotten the sense that most customers would prefer to wait and see what they can get from the bankruptcy, even if it means they forgo any immediate benefit. As for the IRS sending a Justice Department attorney to represent it in the case, she said her initial thought was that the agency is getting in line to file its own claim. Why? FTX—or one of its 130 entities—could owe the government money, she said.

CRIMINAL CRYPTO CAPITALI$M;TWINS

Tyler Winklevoss says SEC charges over Gemini are 'super lame' and a 'manufactured parking ticket'

Ryan Hogg
Sat, January 14, 2023 

Gemini cofounders Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss.Gemini

A PORTRAIT OF HUBRIS

Tyler Winklevoss called the SEC "super lame" after filing charges against his crypto company.

Gemini was sued along with Genesis after blocking $900 million of withdrawals in November.

Winklevoss said the SEC was trying to score political points rather than work with Genesis clients.

Tyler Winklevoss called regulators "super lame" after his company was hit by charges linked to a $900 million funds crisis.

On Thursday the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) charged Genesis' lending arm Genesis Global Capital and digital currency exchange Gemini for the unregistered offer and sale of crypto asset securities through the Gemini Earn lending program.

Gary Gensler, the SEC chair, said in a statement: "We allege that Genesis and Gemini offered unregistered securities to the public, bypassing disclosure requirements designed to protect investors."

The Winklevoss company, which he runs with twin brother Cameron, launched its Earn program along with Genesis in February 2021, allowing users to lend crypto to institutional investors and earn interest on assets.

However, the collapse of FTX left $900 million of Gemini clients' funds stuck on the platform after Genesis halted withdrawals, prompting a feud between the Winklevoss twins and Genesis' parent company DCG.

In a Twitter thread Thursday, Tyler Winklevoss argued that the SEC action was counterproductive to the company's aim of settling cases with customers.

He added that despite working with the SEC for 17 months, it hadn't raised the prospect of enforcement action until after Genesis paused withdrawals in November.

"Despite these ongoing conversations, the SEC chose to announce their lawsuit to the press before notifying us. Super lame. It's unfortunate that they're optimizing for political points instead of helping us advance the cause of 340,000 Earn users and other creditors," Tyler Winklevoss wrote.

"We look forward to defending ourselves against this manufactured parking ticket. And we will make sure this doesn't distract us from the important recovery work we are doing."

Tyler Winklevoss also questioned the pace of the SEC's action, given the Earn program had been shut down for more than two months.

A representative for the SEC declined to comment further.

Immigration spike has created an unexpected wave of enrollment at Miami-Dade schools


Al Diaz/adiaz@miamiherald.com


Sommer Brugal
Sun, January 15, 2023 

Since the start of the 2022-23 school year, nearly 10,000 students from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela have enrolled in Miami-Dade County public schools — about 2,500 more students than who arrived in the entire 2021-22 year, reflecting the surge of immigrants coming from those four countries over nearly six months.

All told, the district has enrolled more than 14,700 new students who’ve emigrated from another country, an unexpected wave that comes at a time when the district is grappling with an already thin workforce and classroom teacher vacancies — one of the pandemic’s lingering effects.

“This whole thing is like a perfect storm. We’ve already been experiencing, for the last couple of years, the lack of human capital,” said Miami-Dade School Board Chair Mari Tere Rojas in a meeting Wednesday where board members and Superintendent Jose Dotres discussed the issue. “Now, we’re going to have more children to serve.”

Of the 14,723 students who enrolled in the district between Aug. 17, 2022 — the start of the school year — and Jan. 10, 2023, 9,935 came from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela, the four countries where U.S. immigration levels have been at record highs over the past year, according to the district. The remaining students, enrolled in all grade levels, have come from more than 20 countries, mostly countries in the Americas such as Argentina, Colombia, Honduras, Mexico and Peru, and some from Russia and Ukraine.

READ MORE: Fast turnaround: Feds approve first Cubans to come to the U.S. under new parole program

The increase has become a topic of discussion for School Board members in recent months. Rojas in October requested data regarding migrant students. On Wednesday, at the end the board’s first workshop of the calendar year, the numbers came into sharper focus.

Board members and district staff briefly discussed the implications of the influx of students, particularly with the district facing fewer teachers since the pandemic. (At the start of the school year, the district reported about 220 classroom vacancies.)

The arrival of the new students has been particularly acute over the last few months, reflecting the near-daily landings of migrants off Florida’s southeast coast.

From mid-October to Dec. 22, the number of student migrants who enrolled in the district increased by more than 3,100, records show. On Oct. 11, the district reported 9,864 students who had enrolled after immigrating; by Dec. 22, the number totaled 12,978 students.

In December, just before Christmas, 175 Cubans arrived in the Florida Keys and Hollywood Beach in 24 hours. Over the New Year’s weekend, more than 500 Cubans arrived in the Keys. A group of 70 Haitian migrants arrived Thursday afternoon off Virginia Key, a barrier island off Miami that leads to Key Biscayne.

READ MORE: Border Patrol says migrants from Brazil, Bahamas and Haiti arrived in Fort Lauderdale

Students coming from Cuba, Nicaragua, Haiti and Venezuela

During the entire 2021-22 school year, the district enrolled 13,404 students who recently came from other countries, records show.

Notably, the countries the district is paying most attention to are Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela, when comparing this year’s numbers to last year, said Dotres, who updated board members Wednesday on the latest numbers.

So far this year, there have been 4,600 more Cuban immigrant students who have enrolled compared to all of last school year, and nearly 1,700 more students from Venezuela, records show. Overall, the number of students this year enrolling from Nicaragua is just about 330 shy of the total number of students who emigrated last year from the country. And from Haiti, the number is just 90 fewer students compared to last year, data show.

The number of students emigrating from other countries has remained relatively stable compared to previous years, he said, prompting district staff to play closer attention to the four outliers.

In response, the district has launched its Student Influx Guide, or plan for how the district responds to a sudden increase in enrollment. It comprises three brackets and is deployed depending on the severity of the influx.

Currently, the district is operating in the first bracket, or the “engaging stage,” Chief Operating Officer Luis Diaz told the Herald Thursday. That means, once the district is made aware of an influx, staff begins monitoring and targeting which schools students are enrolling in.

READ MORE: Between politics and poor pay, teachers are more strained than ever — and the numbers show it

For the time being, no school has become too overcrowded or is unable to provide the resources needed, Diaz said. Though exact data was not available for which schools have received the majority of students since the start of the school year, Diaz said, historically, a family’s country of origin has indicated where they have settled across the region. (Cubans, for example, often choose to reside in Hialeah, he said.)

The district registers the new students immediately and, as part of the engaging stage, follows up with those students to ensure proper documentation, or language exams, for example, are finalized. Then, and perhaps most importantly, services for those students are “triggered.”

“At this point in time, [we’re] making sure that every student that resides in and enrolls in the district gets the services they’re allowed to receive and the services they should receive,” Diaz said.

The next phase, Diaz said, would be to set up registration centers or hubs around the district to streamline student enrollment processes, avoid overcrowding at one or various schools in a particular neighborhood and centralize the resources both the schools and families often require upon arrival.
Broward Schools see fewer migrant students

Compared to Miami-Dade, Broward County schools usually receive fewer immigrant students, defined as those born in another country who have been in the U.S. for less than three years, said Victoria Saldala, director of the Bilingual or English for Speakers of Other Languages Department at Broward Schools.

The district reported nearly 6,900 foreign-born students who registered for the first time at a U.S. school less than three years ago, although its August number includes those who enrolled during June and July.

Since June 2022, the highest enrollment numbers have come from Colombians, followed by Cubans, Haitians and Venezuelans.

The district operates an International Welcome Center, which supports parents and guardians as they register their children for school, and connects them with school social workers to help them with school supplies, uniforms, clothing and food. All schools also provide mental health and other services as well.

“We don’t care how they got here,” said Saldala, who’s been working with these families for about 35 years, the first 18 or so in Miami-Dade and 17 years in Broward. “Our job is not to question that. We accept all students.”

READ MORE: Florida says it’s helping feds deal with migrant surge but not directly intervening

Previous influx of migrant students

This isn’t the first time Miami-Dade schools have dealt with an influx of students as the result of immigration, which Rojas noted Wednesday.

In the 1980s, there was the Mariel boatlift, which allowed Cubans who wished to leave Cuba to board boats at the port of Mariel in Havana and flee to the US. In just six months, more than 125,000 Cubans arrived to the United States, predominantly settling in South Florida.

In the 1990s, there was the rafter crisis, which saw 35,000 Cubans flee the country.

This year, Diaz said, the challenges are mostly related to hiring teachers and other staffers.

“In some cases, it will take a minute or so to hire a teacher,” he said. If and when a school receives an influx of students and a new position is required to offset the numbers, the district will allocate and budget for the position “as soon as possible. The issue will be the hiring of the staffer for the position.”

Why Oil And Gas Companies Are Considering Green Hydrogen

Editor OilPrice.com
Sun, January 15, 2023

As interest in green hydrogen picks up worldwide, energy firms are using a variety of renewable energy projects to power hydrogen production. One major source for this production is wind power, thanks to decades of development of wind farms worldwide. Green hydrogen has been hailed by many as a magical fuel that could eventually provide an alternative to diesel and jet fuel, as well as a movement away from the sole reliance on electric batteries – produced using mined metals and minerals. However, the reason for the sudden interest in green hydrogen by many energy companies is to support longer-term oil and gas production by helping to decarbonize operations.

The U.S. Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy believes that the net-zero carbon emissions by 2050 target cannot be achieved by relying purely on renewable electricity. Instead, green hydrogen could provide households with a vital heating source and could contribute substantially to the decarbonization of the transport sector. It could also be used in industries that currently rely heavily on fossil fuels, and in agriculture. While the production of blue and grey hydrogen – using natural gas to drive output – is already fairly common, the production of green hydrogen from renewable energy sources is less typical.

The growing number of wind farms in the U.S. and other countries around the world could help energy companies to shift their hydrogen production practices from blue and grey to green. Green hydrogen is produced using renewable electricity to power an electrolyzer, which then splits water into hydrogen and oxygen. The gas is then burned to produce power, emitting only water vapor and warm air, making it carbon-free. The potential for green hydrogen produced from wind energy is significant, as both onshore and offshore wind operations are expanding at a rapid rate.

In the U.S., the offshore wind pipeline grew by 13.5 percent in 2021, compared to 2020, with 40,083 megawatts (MW) now in various stages of development. In 2021 and 2022, the government expanded the areas of the U.S. available for offshore wind development, auctioning several new lease areas. This development was supported by the falling costs of wind energy projects, with the cost of commercial-scale offshore wind projects decreasing by 13 percent, to $84/MW-hour on average. Meanwhile, global offshore wind installations saw a record year in 2021, with the commissioning of 17,398 MW of new projects, meaning a global installed capacity of over 50 GW.

The development of the green hydrogen industry is seen as key to a green transition as it has the potential to replace natural gas in heating, as well as to be used in place of diesel and other fuels. In Europe and Asia, numerous large-scale green hydrogen projects have been announced over the last year, with a major hydrogen corridor planned for Europe. At present, the production of green hydrogen is expensive compared to other forms of renewable energy. However, much like solar and wind power, production prices are expected to drop significantly as hydrogen operations expand worldwide.

But many energy companies are looking to green hydrogen not only to support the transition away from fossil fuels but to decarbonize oil and gas operations to boost their longevity. In the Gulf of Mexico, offshore wind farms have attracted great interest, with some looking to use the energy to power homes in Texas and Louisiana – around 3.1 million houses in total – and others seeing the potential for powering oil refining operations. The Biden administration plans to build 30 GW of offshore wind by 2030, capable of powering 10 million homes. But others are eyeing the windfarms for their potential to fuel green hydrogen projects that could power industrial processes, helping energy firms to decarbonize operations.

Green hydrogen would be sent to shore via oil and gas pipelines, replacing fossil fuels in powering oil operations, reducing carbon emissions by as much as 68 percent. This would be the first project of its kind and could spur other companies around the globe to do the same. Some opponents believe it would be prolonging the lifespan of the fossil fuel projects that they wish to end. The national policy director for Taproot Earth, Kendall Dix, explained: “Hydrogen is, at worst, a false solution and, at best, potentially a distraction.”

Many oil and gas majors have already started to shift to lower-carbon oil operations by moving away from aging oil regions to new areas, such as Africa and the Caribbean, and incorporating carbon-cutting technologies. Wind-powered hydrogen production is just the latest trend that Big Oil is jumping on as a means of extending the potential lifespan of oil and gas operations, to meet the high global demand while decarbonizing. But many believe this is a fallacy and that as demand for green hydrogen increases, the clean fuel source could be better used for heating and transportation in a bigger transition away from fossil fuels.

How Montana Became a Testing Ground for Christian Nationalism

Montana Gov. Greg Gianforte poses a question while taking part in a panel discussion during a Republican Governors Association conference, Wednesday, Nov. 16, 2022, in Orlando, Fla. (AP Photo/Phelan M. Ebenhack)

Abe Streep
Sun, January 15, 2023

LONG READ

The fifth season of the hit show “Yellowstone” premiered on the Sunday after the midterm elections, with Kevin Costner’s character, the rancher John Dutton, assuming Montana’s governorship. “This was never my plan,” he says, wearing a cowboy hat outside the State Capitol building in Helena. Dutton has reluctantly entered politics in part to stop an influx of rich outsiders he believes are transforming his home. In the last three years, Montana has become the second-fastest-growing state in the nation, largely because of the arrival of wealthy transplants. Unlike Dutton, many influential figures in the state’s real Republican Party have welcomed them, sometimes calling them “political refugees” fleeing blue states. Montana’s actual governor, the Republican Greg Gianforte, is himself a multimillionaire who was raised in Pennsylvania. Since assuming office in 2021, Gianforte has presided over this period of demographic change and economic growth, which has coincided with a hard shift to the right in state politics.

Montana has a tradition of ticket-splitting and has long been one of the most politically independent states in the union, resisting the kind of single-party rule that has flourished in the neighboring states of Idaho and Wyoming. But in recent years, Republicans have managed to secure an ironclad grasp over state government, and the religious right is ascendant. “We’re a country founded on Christian ideals,” Austin Knudsen, the attorney general, told me. “That’s what’s made us the country that we are.” In 2021, the Montana Legislature passed a bill banning transgender athletes on sports teams at public schools and universities, an increased tax credit benefiting private Christian schools and numerous anti-abortion laws. “They’re trying to convert the state,” said Whitney Williams, who ran for governor as a Democrat in 2020. When the state G.O.P. gathered in Billings last July to formalize its platform, Ronna McDaniel, the chairwoman of the Republican National Committee, told those assembled that Montana was “a symbol for the nation.”

The Montana Republican Party has a few factions, among them free-market advocates and moderates willing to cross party lines. But the dominant voice is that of the far right. At the convention in Billings, that group was well represented. In attendance was the party treasurer, Derek Skees, who has called Montana’s Constitution a “socialist rag”; a state representative named John Fuller, who published an opinion column in The Flathead Beacon earlier that year declaring that democracy had “failed as miserably as socialism”; and a public-service commissioner, Randy Pinocci, who told me that he “hunt[s] RINOs” (Republicans in name only). During the convention, a group of delegates led an ultimately unsuccessful push to declare the 2020 presidential election fraudulent. (In Montana, such efforts occupy a curious logical space: Citizen groups sympathetic to Donald Trump have repeatedly demanded recounts of districts he won handily.)

As waiters served steak in a windowless ballroom, the party chairman, Don Kaltschmidt, a car dealer, stood at a lectern framed by checkered racing flags. “When Republicans come together, we always win,” Kaltschmidt said. “Every time, when we come together, we win. So let’s keep Montana Montana!”

Gianforte, a bald, resolute man of 61, made only a brief appearance in Billings. He is an evangelical Christian and former entrepreneur who sold his cloud-based customer-service company, RightNow Technologies, to Oracle for $1.5 billion in 2012, before entering politics. For more than 25 years, Gianforte has belonged to a church in Bozeman adhering to a literal interpretation of the Bible that rejects evolution and considers homosexuality a sin. He doesn’t often discuss his faith, but his donations reflect a clear set of religious values. Through their foundation, Gianforte and his wife, Susan, have contributed to an organization that funds scholarships at private schools, many of which are Christian; a Montana fossil museum that challenges evolution; and Focus on the Family, a Christian organization that vehemently opposes gay rights. From 2013 to 2019, the Gianforte Family Charitable Trust gave $300,000 to the Alliance Defending Freedom, a global nonprofit dedicated to protecting religious liberty; its lawyers have represented several Christian business owners who refused to serve same-sex couples. (Through a spokesperson, Gianforte declined interview requests.)

Gianforte spent much of his remarks in Billings congratulating the convention delegates on their party’s takeover of Montana politics. “We have reversed a 100-year trend,” he told the crowd, noting that it was the first time since the 1920s that Republicans controlled all state constitutional offices and a majority of the Legislature. And Gianforte said he believed the best days for Montana Republicans were still ahead. “I think we can paint our state an even brighter shade of red,” he said.

The recent midterms may have proved him right. In November, Montana defied the national trend of Republican disappointment. Because of its increased population, the state earned a second congressional seat, which went to Ryan Zinke, who previously served as a U.S. representative before becoming Trump’s secretary of the interior, a post from which he resigned while being investigated for using his office for personal gain. (He has rejected the allegations as “politically motivated.”) Republicans won a supermajority of seats in the State Legislature, which means the party has enough votes to put proposed amendments to the State Constitution on the ballot. Duane Ankney, a 76-year-old outgoing Republican state senator, told me last summer that he worried legislators might advance what he called “hate bills” targeting the individual liberties of Montanans. “I don’t know why it’s become so extreme.” he said. “What the hell happened?”

FOR MUCH OF the 20th century, Montana reliably sent both Democrats and Republicans to Washington. Candidates across the political spectrum respected Montanans’ libertarian streak, which was born out of a deep suspicion of corporate power. Montana politics were defined by the period in the early 20th century when mining barons ruled the state, controlling legislators and the local newspapers. In response to the corruption of these “copper kings,” Montana passed a strict campaign-finance law in 1912; it also nurtured a powerful organized labor movement. Brian Schweitzer, a Democrat who served as governor from 2005 to 2013, has said that the state’s motto should be: “None of your damn business.”

In 1972, Montanans approved a new State Constitution, updating the one that was ratified at statehood in 1889. Concerns about industrial pollution were peaking in the 1970s, and the new Constitution guaranteed citizens the right to “a clean and healthful environment,” as well as an individual right to privacy that the state Supreme Court later decided, in a 1999 ruling, protected access to abortion.

Though the new Constitution created mechanisms to dissuade partisanship, including an independent commission tasked with redrawing electoral maps every decade, Montana continued to foster strains of right-wing extremism, providing refuge to white nationalists and militias. Montana has the smallest percentage of Black residents in the country, and the largest minority group in the state, Native Americans, have faced entrenched disenfranchisement since securing the right to vote in 1924. The settlement of a 2012 lawsuit under the Voting Rights Act mandated the establishment of polling places on particular reservations, but it remains common for tribal citizens to have to drive vast distances to vote in statewide and national races.

In recent years, the rise of Montana’s Christian right has been enabled by the weakening of the state Democratic Party. It has become harder for Montana Democrats to separate themselves from the national party and, as a result, ticket-splitting has dropped. As the strength of timber and railroad unions has faded across much of the state, the state Democratic Party has refocused its organizing efforts on expanding cities and the growing Indigenous vote. But Ta’jin Perez, who is Totonac Indigenous and the deputy executive director of the organizing group Western Native Voice, told me that those efforts have been sporadic. “Both parties have a really lackluster track record in sustained connection and relationship-building in Indian Country,” he said.

Changes to campaign-finance laws have also contributed to tipping the balance of power in the state. Following the 2010 Supreme Court decision in the Citizens United case, a dark-money group that became known as American Tradition Partnership challenged Montana’s 1912 law that prohibited corporate spending on campaigns. In 2011, the Montana Supreme Court upheld the law, but the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the ruling the following year, and corporate money poured into Montana. State law still restricts direct corporate spending on local elections, but political-action committees and dark-money groups have injected money into divisive contests and, as in much of the country, there’s no limit on candidates’ donations to their own campaigns.

Gianforte first ran for governor in 2016 against the incumbent Democrat, Steve Bullock, spending more than $6 million of his own money on the race. Gianforte, who was taken with Montana’s land and iconography, is a big-game hunter and the author of a 2005 book, “Bootstrapping Your Business,” that features cowboy boots on its cover. But he couldn’t shake the perception of himself as a wealthy outsider. During his 2016 race for governor, Democratic attacks focused on the fact that, seven years earlier, Gianforte filed a complaint to remove an easement accessing a river running through his property — a serious political misstep in a state in which all navigable streams are public and equal access to wilderness is sacrosanct. Gianforte claimed there had been a misunderstanding with his title company and didn’t pursue his complaint, but Bullock won re-election handily.

Gianforte’s was a rare loss for Montana Republicans that cycle, as Trump blasted apart politics in rural America. Not only did Trump win the state by 20 points, but he also seemed to obliterate Montanans’ resistance to single-party rule. Four months after the election, when Zinke was confirmed as interior secretary, Gianforte ran for his newly vacant seat in the House of Representatives. His campaign benefited from millions of dollars spent on attack ads targeting his opponent, and he began to align himself more with Trump. At an event hosted by a Christian political organization, he promised to “drain the swamp.” Less than a month later, on the eve of his election victory, Gianforte assaulted Ben Jacobs, a reporter for The Guardian, who was asking him a question about the congressional Republican health care plan. A Gianforte spokesman claimed that Jacobs had initiated the physical contact by grabbing Gianforte’s wrist, but Fox News journalists who were present refuted that account. Gianforte pleaded guilty to misdemeanor assault and was sentenced to 40 hours of community service and 20 hours of anger-management classes. He also donated to the Committee to Protect Journalists, but not before winning his race by six points. At a 2018 rally, Trump said he thought the attack had helped Gianforte at the polls, adding, “He’s my guy.”

Gianforte kept a relatively low profile in the House, but his local influence continued to grow. Since arriving in Montana, his family foundation has donated tens of millions of dollars to Montana State University, and from 2016 to 2020, he and his wife gave more than $50,000 to Republican candidates for state offices, according to campaign-finance records. In 2020, Gianforte ran again for governor, this time against Bullock’s former lieutenant, Mike Cooney. Bullock himself ran for Senate, losing to Steve Daines — a former employee of Gianforte’s at RightNow Technologies — in a race that drew more than $100 million in outside spending. In the Legislature, Republicans gained another 10 seats, and Gianforte, after spending more than $7 million on his own campaign, finally emerged victorious in his quest to be governor.

Gianforte’s first months in office were occupied by Covid-related battles. News agencies circulated a photo of the governor receiving a vaccine, but he resisted closing any public institutions, leaving decisions about whether schools would remain open to individual districts. The state Department of Health and Human Services also issued an emergency order instructing schools to consider parents’ wishes about mask mandates, claiming that “the scientific literature is not conclusive” on their efficacy. In response, the Montana Nurses Association accused the state of pushing “junk science.” Infighting at school-board meetings became commonplace. In Montana, as in much of the country, the arguments centered on masks and the teaching of what critics called “critical race theory.” Knudsen, the attorney general, issued an opinion that described certain antiracist programming as “racial harassment,” and Gianforte would later oppose the addition of the word “equity” to a teachers’ code of ethics.

During the 2021 legislative session, Republicans introduced a conservative wish list of bills. Along with the ban on transgender athletes, which has been blocked by the courts, they passed a bill that abolished an independent judicial-nomination commission, allowing the governor to directly appoint judges to vacant positions. Another bill increased the tax-credit limit for a private scholarship fund for K-12 schools from $150 to $2 million by 2023 — a boon to faith-based institutions. A majority of private schools in the state are Christian, and in 2020 the U.S. Supreme Court overturned a restriction on Montana religious schools’ receiving funding from such tax-credit programs. (The Alliance Defending Freedom, the religious-liberty nonprofit that the Gianfortes have supported, filed an amicus brief in support of the victorious plaintiffs.)

There were also bills banning same-day voter registration and paid ballot collection — measures that are considered essential for tribal communities because of the great distances between many reservations and polling places. After Gianforte signed the voting restrictions into law, Keaton Sunchild, a member of the Rocky Boy’s Chippewa-Cree Tribe and at the time the political director for Western Native Voice, called the laws “a coordinated, pretty overt way of trying to tamp down the enthusiasm and power of the Native vote.” Western Native Voice, along with other advocacy groups, filed suit, and a judge has since blocked the laws as unconstitutional.

Judges may have slowed the Legislature’s momentum, but Henry Kriegel, an influential lobbyist with Americans for Prosperity, a Koch brothers group, told me that 2021 was the group’s most successful session in Montana in a decade, citing several bills that restricted government regulation. Gianforte often frames his agenda in similar terms. “Government doesn’t create opportunity,” he told the delegates in Billings. “Let’s just get out of the way.”

In the months before the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, Gianforte signed several laws restricting reproductive rights, including a bill requiring health care providers to offer women the opportunity to view an ultrasound before deciding to terminate a pregnancy. Groups including Planned Parenthood brought suit, and a Montana district court judge issued a preliminary injunction blocking the laws as unconstitutional. But Knudsen, the attorney general, began a counteroffensive, asking the state Supreme Court to overrule the judge — and to reconsider the 1999 case that linked abortion to the State Constitution’s right to privacy. (The court declined to lift the injunction and has not signaled that it would reconsider its 1999 decision.) “We’ve got a real judge problem in this state,” Knudsen, who frequently complains about “judicial activism,” said at a firearm-advocacy event last May. Marc Racicot, the former Montana governor and attorney general who was chairman of the Republican National Committee in 2002 and 2003, has criticized Knudsen’s attacks on the judiciary as dangerous for the rule of law.

Montana’s new right-wing stridency, together with the Covid-era surge in remote work and the popularity of “Yellowstone,” has encouraged the influx of new residents. Data about their political leanings is difficult to come by, but in May, Knudsen pointed to the strong Republican showing in the 2020 elections as evidence that conservatives were seeking shelter in Montana. In 2021, Flathead County, which is deeply conservative, surpassed the majority Democratic Gallatin County, home to the tech hub of Bozeman, in its rate of population growth.

AS THE MONTANA Republican Party has strengthened its hold on power, the coalition’s existing fissures have widened. Over the course of the three-day platform convention in Billings this summer, numerous speakers appeared to be trying to outdo one another in their performative anger, and it was apparent that the enemies were not limited to the left. Even Skees, the provocative party treasurer, seemed to be watching his right flank. At the time of the convention, he was awaiting the results of a recount of a tight primary race for a seat on the public-service commission, which regulates utilities. “Derek Skees was always a hard-right guy,” said one state Republican official, who asked not to be named for fear of reprisal. “But now he’s being called a RINO!”

The Republicans unveiled their official party platform on the last day of the convention. The fieriest debate surrounded the abortion plank, which contained no exceptions for incest or rape. “We support the preservation of innocent human life at every stage of life, in all circumstances, beginning at conception through natural death,” it read. A young proxy delegate suggested removing the phrase “beginning at conception.” She was met with boos; Skees shouted the idea down. (Shortly after the convention, Skees conceded his primary to his even more conservative opponent.)

In conversations during the convention, several Republicans were open about their embrace of Christian nationalist ideology. Steven Galloway, a state representative from Great Falls, told me that he and his wife, who is also a legislator, had taken what are called “biblical citizenship classes,” developed by a former Texas legislator, who argues that the founding fathers drew heavily from the Bible when writing the Constitution and that the strict separation of church and state is a revisionist idea. “If you want to live here,” Karla Johnson, a chapter president of the Montana Federation of Republican Women, said, “be a Christian.” Keith Regier, an influential state senator, said all laws should be based on Judeo-Christian principles. “The Ten Commandments were a good foundation for any country to live by,” he told me. He was upset by what he perceived to be a censorious cultural moment — especially when it came to people speaking out against gay and transgender rights. “There is an open war on Christianity in this country.”

I told him that I’d heard other Montanans voice feelings of persecution because of the imposition of Christian doctrine. Was there a middle ground to be found? “There probably isn’t a middle,” he said. “You can’t have both.”

Gianforte avoids such extreme language, sticking to economic messaging; while he might enable religious policy, a number of Democratic and Republican legislators said that he does not openly push it. But Alan Rassaby, the former general counsel of Gianforte’s company, RightNow Technologies, told me that he thought Gianforte would gladly take down the wall between church and state if he had the opportunity. “He’d see that as part of his reshaped destiny,” Rassaby said. “But at the same time, he’s pragmatic. So what can he get away with? Whatever he can get away with, he’ll get away with in shaping a Christian society. Because he believes that’s a true society.”

Bryan Hughes, the senior pastor at Grace Bible Church in Bozeman, where Gianforte and his wife are members, told me that he and the governor have never discussed policy. Hughes claims the church is apolitical, but in 2021, a weekly men’s group read a polemic against Black Lives Matter, antiracism and the media titled “Fault Lines: The Social Justice Movement and Evangelicalism’s Looming Catastrophe,” by Voddie Baucham Jr., a Black former pastor. During a sermon on Mother’s Day, less than a week after news leaked that the U.S. Supreme Court was poised to overturn Roe v. Wade, a Grace Bible pastor prayed that “those little babies, the ones that have not been born yet, might be protected by law.”

On the day after the Billings convention in July, couples filed into Grace Bible Church for the morning service, and security officers assumed their places toward the back of the congregation. Gianforte greeted Hughes and a handful of the other parishioners before sitting down next to his wife and near two notable visitors: the Nebraska governor Pete Ricketts and Trump’s former press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, who were in Montana for a gathering of the Republican Governors Association. (Huckabee Sanders would be elected governor of Arkansas in November.)

Hughes yielded the stage to a visiting pastor named Brad Bigney, who dedicated much of the sermon to reassuring parishioners that, though they might feel uncertain, they had to believe that God was in control of their destinies. “We seem like a remnant,” Bigney said. “We seem weak. We seem like we don’t have enough resources. We seem — Hello, read your Bible! It always looks that way! I hear people saying now, ‘My America, I don’t even feel comfortable in my America.’ I get it. But this isn’t our final home,” he continued. “He’s testing us, you guys, and I’m sad to say we’ve got some believers that are failing the test. It looks like they never truly trusted in God and that’s being exposed now. They trusted in their country.”

ON ELECTION DAY, Republicans won 86 out of 127 legislative races, achieving their supermajority. Montana Democrats did not field candidates in 35 of those contests, and turnout was low in majority-Indigenous counties. In Cascade County, a onetime Democratic stronghold, Republicans swept all 15 state legislative races, two of which were uncontested. In the weeks after the election, Republicans announced plans to draft nearly 50 constitutional amendments. They seek to limit state Supreme Court justices’ terms and to change the manner in which the court is elected; to create a new method for drawing legislative districts; and to “revise Montana constitutional language regarding clean and healthful environment.” They also said they would introduce bills to prohibit minors from attending drag shows and to “define the right to privacy” — one of numerous efforts to remove protections for abortion.

Despite the poor results, some Democrats saw reasons to celebrate. The liberal city Missoula elected its first transgender and nonbinary legislators. Gianforte’s handpicked state Supreme Court candidate was defeated. “There was no red wave,” the state party’s executive director, Sheila Hogan, told me. “They do have the supermajority, but we really feel we’re able to work with moderates, and I think we’ll be OK.”

I spoke with several veterans of Montana politics who found this optimistic framing baffling. Bill Lombardi, a longtime Democratic operative, said the party was “institutionalizing losing.” Jon Tester, the Democratic U.S. senator, said that candidates need to campaign harder: “It’s a matter of getting out and meeting people where they’re at.”

For some, a larger, existential question loomed: whether Montana itself had undergone a spiritual transformation. Schweitzer, the former governor, was one of those longtime party stalwarts who thought the pendulum would swing back toward moderation. “Montanans are still the same,” he said. “The Montana Democratic Party took the year off.” But Jason Small, a member of the Northern Cheyenne Tribe and a moderate Republican state senator, told me he sensed a more fundamental shift. “One of the Montana values is, if you’re neighbor’s not hurting you, you leave them alone,” he said. “Well, what I see is less of that and more of, ‘You’re just going to do it my way.’”

© 2023 The New York Times Company

Medicare Begins to Rein In Drug Costs for Older Americans


Paula Span

The New York Times
Sun, January 15, 2023

Steve Lubin, a retired intensive-care nurse who paid $1,582 for insulin out of pocket last year, in Philadelphia, Dec. 28, 2022.

 (Michelle Gustafson/The New York Times)

Steve Lubin spent a lot last year on insulin to control his Type 2 diabetes.

A retired nurse in Philadelphia, Lubin relies on Medicare for health coverage, including a Part D plan to cover drug expenses. Yet, his out-of-pocket costs kept mounting, including a deductible of $480, monthly supplies of two forms of insulin, and higher prices once he entered the “coverage gap.” His total insulin tab in 2022: $1,582.

So, Lubin, 68, was cheering for the sprawling federal Inflation Reduction Act, which among other provisions called for capping insulin prices for Part D beneficiaries at $35 a month, with no deductible. He signed petitions circulated by the American Diabetes Association and the Pennsylvania Health Access Network asking Congress to vote “yes.”

“My income is definitely down from when I was working, and the expenses go up,” he said. “It’s difficult.”

But Lubin also supported the bill because, after working in an intensive care unit for years, he had seen patients suffer the serious consequences of diabetes when they could not afford their prescriptions.

“You’d take their history and find out that they were rationing their insulin or couldn’t take it at all,” he recalled.

In August, Congress passed the bill, and President Joe Biden signed it. Lubin’s out-of-pocket insulin costs for 2023 will fall to $630. The legislation establishes other requirements to lower drug prices for Medicare beneficiaries, about three-fourths of whom have Part D plans.

“It’s one of the biggest changes to the way Medicare deals with prescription drugs,” said David Lipschutz, associate director of the Center for Medicare Advocacy. “It signals lawmakers’ willingness to take on a very powerful lobby.”

Some provisions took effect Jan. 1; others will phase in over several years. “Collectively, these represent substantial out-of-pocket cost savings, especially for those who use expensive drugs,” said Juliette Cubanski, deputy director of the Kaiser Family Foundation’s Medicare policy program. They could also bolster Medicare by reducing its spending.

Beneficiaries will see three significant changes in 2023.

The first is the $35 monthly cap on insulin, which will affect more than 1 million insulin users who have Part D through Medicare Advantage plans or free-standing plans purchased along with traditional Medicare.

From 2007-20, beneficiaries’ aggregate out-of-pocket insulin costs quadrupled, even though the number of users only doubled. They spent an average $54 a month on insulin in 2020, according to a Kaiser Family Foundation analysis.

The cap will save average users at least 35% and applies immediately, without requiring them to first pay the Part D deductible, which amounts to $505 in 2023. About 10% of Part D insulin users, such as Lubin, paid more than $1,300 out of pocket in 2020 and will save much more.

Although all Part D plans must cap the cost, they aren’t required to offer every form or brand of insulin.

“People should make extra sure their plan isn’t dropping their insulin from the formulary,” Cubanski said.

But Medicare’s open-enrollment period ended Dec. 7, and its online cost-comparison tool doesn’t reflect changes mandated by the new law, which was passed after Part D plans had already set prices.

“People might have made different choices if they’d had more information,” Cubanski said.

So, Medicare has begun a one-time special enrollment period through the end of 2023, allowing insulin users to drop, add or change Part D plans. Beneficiaries have to call the 1-800-MEDICARE number to make a switch. Counselors at State Health Insurance Assistance Programs can also help with the decision.

In the second major change, adult vaccines covered by Part D, typically offered at pharmacies, are now free, without deductibles or copays, just as the flu and pneumonia vaccines (covered by Part B) have been.

That will, in particular, improve access to the shingles vaccine, the most expensive adult vaccine. In 2018, the Kaiser Family Foundation reported, Part D enrollees paid $57 per dose out of pocket — and each recipient needs two doses.

Although shingles risk rises with age, only 46% of adults older than 65 had been vaccinated by 2020, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported. Rates were much lower among Black and Hispanic older adults.

“It’s disappointing because this is a spectacularly effective vaccine,” said Dr. William Schaffner, an infectious disease specialist at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. Shingrix, the current vaccine, is about 90% effective, and a new study has found that its protection persists a decade after vaccination.

A serious disease in itself, shingles can also cause the lingering nerve pain called post-herpetic neuralgia. “It varies from being annoying to being absolutely life-changing,” Schaffner said.

With Shingrix available at pharmacies without charge, “the receptivity to vaccination for older adults will increase substantially, especially among underserved populations,” he predicted.

Also free: hepatitis A and hepatitis B vaccinations, and Tdap, which protects against tetanus, diphtheria and pertussis (whooping cough).

The third major change: When prices for drugs covered under Part D, and some under Part B, increase faster than the inflation rate, the law now requires drug manufacturers to pay rebates or face stiff penalties.

Although those rebates will go to Medicare, not to individuals, “if you’re responsible for a portion of a drug’s cost and there are limits on how much that can increase, in theory, your costs should decrease,” Lipschutz said.

It will take months for Medicare to determine which price increases will prompt rebates and how much the rebates will amount to. But the Congressional Budget Office has estimated that this provision will save Medicare more than $56 billion over 10 years.

Medicaid has employed a similar strategy since 1990. “It definitely has an effect on keeping spending in check,” Cubanski said. “The hope is that it will have the same effect for Medicare.”

The changes in subsequent years will be more dramatic.

In 2025, Medicare will set a $2,000 annual limit on out-of-pocket spending for Part D beneficiaries. “Nowadays, a lot of drugs can cost $500 or $1,000 a month,” Cubanski said. “Or maybe you take 10 medications, and that adds up to high out-of-pocket costs.”

A kind of cap will take effect even sooner, in 2024. That’s when Medicare will eliminate the 5% copay that beneficiaries are responsible for once they pass the catastrophic expenditure threshold, effectively limiting out-of-pocket costs to about $3,250. The $2,000 cap takes hold the next year. Access to low-income subsidies will broaden, as well.

Probably the most significant policy change is that the new law requires Medicare to begin bargaining with drug manufacturers, “the first time the federal government is not just allowed but required to negotiate prices on behalf of Medicare beneficiaries,” Cubanski said.

Starting in 2026, the prices of 10 brand-name drugs covered by Part D, selected from those with the highest Medicare spending, will reflect those negotiations. The drugs must have been on the market for several years with no generic or biosimilar competitors.

Medicare will provide negotiated prices for 15 additional drugs the next year, another 15 in 2028 and 20 each year thereafter. Negotiated prices for selected Part B drugs will be available in 2028.

Given the thousands of covered drugs, “it’s a pretty modest proposal when it comes to restraining the cost,” Lipschutz said. Nevertheless, he added, “the pharmaceutical industry is likely to try to undermine this law — it will be looking for loopholes and escape hatches.”

Republicans in Congress, nearly all of whom voted against the Inflation Reduction Act, have already introduced legislation to repeal the measures intended to lower drug prices, and supporters are braced for court challenges, too.

But for now, the law is in effect. “It can give people peace of mind,” Cubanski said. “They won’t go bankrupt or go into medical debt to afford the prescriptions they need.”

© 2023 The New York Times Company

Lawsuit against NC school is another tall tale about white victimhood | Opinion



Issac Bailey
Sat, January 14, 2023 

The claims in a lawsuit by a former English instructor against North Carolina’s Governor’s School don’t sound credible. It seems like yet another attempt to ensure today’s students won’t be prepared for the ever-diversifying United States of America. What’s more, David Phillips wrapped himself in the cloak of victimhood he and others of like mind have been busy accusing others of clinging to.

The stereotypical words and descriptions more frequently being used by opponents of diversity efforts are all there. The lawsuit says the school has a “radical ideology.” It laments “anti-conservative bias,” mischaracterizes “critical race theory,” claims those who don’t think like he does are indoctrinating students. Phillips cites findings from a task force formed by Republican Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson – the very same Robinson who referred to gay people as “filth” and said parents had “mentally raped” their transgender children – which would call into question the lawsuit’s credibility even if it didn’t also paint those associated with the governor’s school as caricatures rather than living-breathing human beings with souls.

The topper, though, is Phillips’s claim that the true victims of race discrimination are white conservative Christians because some teachers at the school talk about “privilege.” It’s a well-worn story whose roots reach back to this nation’s founding. White enslavers claimed they were the real victims because they didn’t have a real say over the laws they were governed by. White Southerners claimed they were the real victims because a war they began to preserve slavery ended with the near destruction of this region and most of their wealth. White business owners were upset they could no longer freely discriminate against black customers, and white parents howled when the Supreme Court put the final nail in the coffin of officially-sanctioned Jim Crow.

Now, a growing number of white conservatives and others have been making the case that being called racist or the removal or rethinking of traditional standards that had long favored them is the real discrimination.

A lawsuit like this would deserve to be ignored if it wasn’t part of a larger trend. It’s happening in Florida where Gov. Ron DeSantis, who might be the GOP’s next presidential nominee if Donald Trump stumbles before the finish line, has begun decimating higher education in that state with censorship laws that threaten professors who dare teach the truth about this country’s racial history and present. It’s happening in South Carolina where similar laws have been passed and bandied about. This has been happening even as courts have had to push back against racist voting laws in both Carolinas in recent years while racial disparities remain a reality.

This is happening as our nation grows more diverse by the year. The youngest generation is already where the U.S. as a whole is projected to be in a few decades, with no clearly-defined racial majority. This isn’t your grandfather’s country and won’t ever be again. It’s a mix of individuals and cultures maybe no other democracy has ever experienced. It means we must grapple with problems caused by institutional and systemic biases, the kind of honest grappling lawsuits like that against the governor’s school and a growing number of censorship laws and book bans make less likely.

If we aren’t careful, though, we can allow runaway fear of such a profound change to undermine this two and a half century long experiment. That fear will also leave today’s student ill-equipped to deal with the complex realities of tomorrow.

Conservatives shouldn’t be singled out as bad people any more than liberals should. And stress and fear are natural reactions to transformations as large as the one the U.S. is undergoing. We should be humble enough to admit that none of us has perfect clarity about what’s best for a country that has yet to fully reveal itself. That doesn’t mean we should stand by silently while that fear is weaponized in laws and lawsuits designed to turn back the clock.

Issac Bailey is McClatchy Opinion writer based in Myrtle Beach.

Greta Thunberg and a 'mud wizard' faced off against German cops to protest a coal deal with the country's largest energy company

Katherine Tangalakis-Lippert
Sun, January 15, 2023 

An activist stands on a pole high above the ground as another hangs on a rope fastened between poles as police close in at the settlement of Luetzerath on January 13, 2023 near Erkelenz, Germany.Sean Gallup/Getty Images

Climate activists in Germany are protesting a coal deal between energy company RWE and the Green party.


On Saturday, police evicted thousands of protesters who had gathered in the settlement of Lützerath.


Protesters used delayed officers in deep mud but were met with "pure violence," organizers said.

Climate change activists in Germany braved deep mud and "pure violence," organizers say, as they faced off against police on Saturday to protest an energy deal that will raze the abandoned village of Lützerath to expand a coal pit.

Thousands of protesters — among them, Swedish activist Greta Thunberg and a person dressed as some kind of wizard— attempted to protect the coal beneath Lützerath from being mined by setting up barricades and treehouses, using rope systems to evade capture, and ensnaring officers in deep mud.

Portions of the confrontation circulated on Reddit, with the mud wizard appearing to taunt officers who had fallen or became stuck in the mud, though the demonstration was not as peaceful as it was portrayed in some social media posts.

France24 reported that Indigo Drau, a spokeswoman for the organizers of the protest, said during a Sunday press conference that police approached demonstrators with "pure violence" and "unrestrainedly" beat them, often on the head.

Police estimate 15,000 protesters were present at the demonstration on Saturday, though organizers estimate that number closer to 35,000 according to reports. At least 20 activists were taken to hospital for treatment of injuries received during the clash, France24 reported Birte Schramm, a medic with the group said.

Though some stragglers remain in the area, most of the activists were ultimately removed and the demolition of Lützerath is underway, Politico reported.

The deal, made between the left-leaning political Green party and the largest German coal company, RWE, has been toted as a climate-saving agreement by the politicians who brokered it. While the deal lays the groundwork to phase out coal in Germany by 2030, it allows RWE to demolish Lützerath as part of the company's plan to expand the Garzweiler mine located nearby.

Police in riot gear carry away an activist out of the settlement of Luetzerath on January 13, 2023 near Erkelenz, Germany.

Sean Gallup/Getty Images

"It's a gut punch that Green ministers now try to sell this backroom coal deal as a success," Politico reported Olaf Bandt, the chair of the non-governmental German Federation for the Environment and Nature Conservation, said. "We won't accept that."

Robert Habeck, Germany's economy and climate minister — and a member of the Green party that helped complete the deal — said in a video posted to Twitter that the agreement is a "painful" but necessary compromise caused by the Russian invasion of Ukraine that has forced Germany to reboot its coal plants.

Critics argue that Germany has enough coal reserves without accessing the brown coal located beneath Lützerath and allowing RWE access to the coal will prevent Germany from meeting the CO2 budget that was agreed to with the Paris Agreement.

Climate activist Greta Thunberg (r) stands between Keyenberg and Lützerath under police guard on the edge of the open pit mine and dances.

Federico Gambarini/picture alliance via Getty Images

"Not all things around the climate crisis are black and white, but this is," climate activist Luisa Neubauer posted on Twitter about the protests. "If we want to see a world with less crisis, we need the fossil fuel destruction to be stopped. And we need governments to hold fossil fuel companies accountable, to put people over fossil fuel profits."

Household wealth optimism collapses, global survey shows


Sun, January 15, 2023 
By Mark John

(Reuters) - Barely two in five people believe their families will be better off in the future, according to a regular global survey that also identified growing levels of distrust in institutions among low-income households.

The Edelman Trust Barometer, which for over two decades has polled the attitudes of thousands of people, found that economic pessimism was at its highest in some of the world's top economies such as the United States, Britain, Germany and Japan.

It further confirmed how societies have been divided by the impacts of the pandemic and inflation. Higher-income households still broadly trust institutions such as government, business, media and NGOs. But alienation is rife among low-income groups.

"This has really shown the mass class divide again," said Richard Edelman, whose Edelman communications group published the survey of over 32,000 respondents in 28 countries interviewed from Nov. 1 to Nov. 28 of last year.

"We saw it in the pandemic because of differential outcomes in terms of health, now we see it in terms of the impact of inflation," he added. The World Health Organisation and others have noted the higher toll of the pandemic on the poor, while those on low incomes suffer most from costlier basic items.

Globally, only 40% agreed with the statement "my family and I will be better off in five years" compared to 50% a year before, with advanced economies most downbeat: the United States (36%), Britain (23%), Germany (15%) and Japan (9%).

Fast-growing economies saw much higher scores - albeit lower than last year - with only China bucking the trend with a one percentage point rise to 65% despite the economic disruption caused by its now-relaxed "zero COVID" policies.

Such anxieties reflect deep uncertainty about the state of the global economy as the Ukraine war continues and central banks hike their lending rates to tame inflation. The World Bank on Tuesday warned it could tip into recession this year.

While Edelman's longstanding Trust Index registered an average 63% trust level in key institutions among high-income U.S. respondents, that figure fell to just 40% among low-income groups. Similar income-based divergences were present in Saudi Arabia, China, Japan and the United Arab Emirates.

In some, that hinted at outright polarisation, with high levels of respondents agreeing with the statement "I see deep divisions, and I don’t think we’ll ever get past them" in countries as different as Argentina, the United States, South Africa, Spain, Sweden and Colombia.

While such attitudes inevitably reflect current events, the ebbing of trust in government in particular has been a key theme of the survey for several years, with its trust levels this year sharply lower than relatively healthy ones scored by business.

Edelman attributed that to positive perceptions of company furlough schemes during the pandemic, applause for company moves to exit Russia over the Ukraine war, and a sense that firms have started to up their games on diversity and inclusion.

He said respondents by a six-to-one margin wanted business to engage more on issues from reskilling to climate change and suggested this should encourage them to brush off accusations such as the "woke capitalism" charge voiced by U.S. Republicans.

"I think our data give a lot of ammunition to the CEOs who have recognised that business has to be an important force in societal issues," he said.

(Writing by Mark John; Editing by Hugh Lawson)