FAILED STATE

Lights out in Pakistan as energy-saving move backfires

 

A shopkeeper use a battery light at his mobile selling shop to deal customers during a national-wide power breakdown, in Islamabad, Pakistan, Monday, Jan. 23, 2023. Much of Pakistan was left without power Monday as an energy-saving measure by the government backfired. The outage spread panic and raised questions about the cash-strapped government's handling of the country's economic crisis.

 (AP Photo/Anjum Naveed)

MUNIR AHMED
Mon, January 23, 2023 

ISLAMABAD (AP) — Most of Pakistan was left without power Monday as an energy-saving measure by the government backfired. The outage spread panic and raised questions about the cash-strapped government’s handling of the country's economic crisis.

It all started when electricity was turned off during low usage hours overnight to conserve fuel across the country, officials said, leaving technicians unable to boot up the system all at once after daybreak. The outage was reminiscent of a massive blackout in January 2021, attributed at the time to a technical fault in Pakistan's power generation and distribution system.

Many major cities, including the capital of Islamabad, and remote towns and villages across Pakistan were without electricity for more than 12 hours. As the electricity failure continued into Monday night, authorities deployed additional police at markets around the country to provide security.

Officials announced late Monday that power was restored in many cities, 15 hours after the outage was reported.

Earlier, the nationwide electricity breakdown left many in this country of some 220 million people without drinking water as pumps powered by electricity failed to work. Schools, hospitals, factories and shops were without power amid the harsh winter weather.

Energy Minister Khurram Dastgir told local media that engineers were working to restore power across the country and tried to reassure the nation that power would be fully restored within the next 12 hours.

According to the minister, electricity usage typically goes down overnight during winter — unlike summer months when Pakistanis turn to air conditioning, seeking a respite from the heat.

“As an economic measure, we temporarily shut down our power generation systems" Sunday night, Dastgir said. When engineers tried to turn the systems back on, a “fluctuation in voltage" was observed, which “forced engineers to shut down the power grid" stations one by one.

Dastgir insisted the outage did not constitute a major crisis and that electricity was being restored in phases. In many places and key businesses and institutions, including hospitals, military and government facilities, backup generators kicked in.

By late afternoon Monday, Dastgir told reporters at another press conference that Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif ordered a probe into the outage.

“We are hoping that the supply of electricity will be fully restored tonight,” he said.

Before midnight, power was back in Karachi, the country's largest city and economic hub, and in many other major cities including Rawalpindi, Quetta, Peshawar and Lahore, the capital of eastern Punjab province.

In Lahore, a closing notice was posted on the Orange Line metro stations, with rail workers guarding the sites and trains parked on the rails. It was unknown when the metro system would be restored.

Imran Rana, a spokesperson for Karachi's power supply company, said the government's priority was to restore power first to strategic facilities, including hospitals and airports.

Internet-access advocacy group NetBlocks.org said network data showed a significant decline in internet access in Pakistan that was attributed to the power outage. It said metrics indicated that connectivity was at 60% of ordinary levels as many users struggled to get online Monday.

Pakistan gets at least 60% of its electricity from fossil fuels, while nearly 27% of the electricity is generated by hydropower. The contribution of nuclear and solar power to the nation's grid is about 10%.

Pakistan is grappling with one of the country's worst economic crisis in recent years amid dwindling foreign exchange reserves. That has compelled the government to order shopping malls and markets closed by 8:30 p.m. to conserve energy.

Talks are underway with the International Monetary Fund to soften some conditions on Pakistan’s $6 billion bailout, which the government thinks will trigger further inflation hikes. The IMF released the last crucial tranche of $1.1 billion to Islamabad in August.

Since then, discussions between the two parties have oscillated due to Pakistan's reluctance to impose new tax measures.

___

Associated Press writer Jon Gambrell in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, contributed to this report.

 

Pakistan power grid hit by nationwide breakdown with outages in all major cities

Pakistan power grid hit by nationwide breakdown with outages in all major cities

Shweta Sharma
Mon, January 23, 2023 

Much of Pakistan was left without power for several hours on Monday morning after an energy-saving measure by the government backfired.

Electricity was turned off across the country during low usage hours overnight to conserve fuel, leaving the grid unable to meet demand at daybreak, officials said.

Mobile phone masts and airports were among the facilities left without power, causing wider chaos.

The outage spread panic and raised questions about the cash-strapped government's handling of the crisis.

Blackouts were reported in most cities including Karachi, Quetta, Peshawar and Lahore.

Supply to some areas has been suspended by up to 90 per cent, according to initial reports.

The contry’s energy ministry said the system frequency of the national grid was reduced at around 7.34am on Monday, which resulted in “widespread breakdown in the power system”.

“System maintenance work is progressing rapidly,” it said in a tweet.

Electricity supplies are regularly cut off across the country during low usage hours overnight, especially during winters, to conserve fuel. Pakistan’s power minister Khurrum Dastagir confirmed to Geo News that power generation units had been temporarily shut down on Sunday night as a fuel-preserving measure, with the country reeling from an ongoing economic crisis.

Officials said that when technicians went to turn on the system after daybreak, the network failed.

Mr Dastagir denied it was a “major crisis”.

“When the systems were turned on at 7.30am this morning one by one, frequency variation was reported in the southern part of the country between Jamshoro and Dadu. There was a fluctuation in voltage and the systems were shut down one by one,” said Mr Dastagir.

After 10am local time, the energy ministry said in an update that restoration work on the power grids had begun and some grids, including those operated by the Islamabad Supply Company and Peshawar Supply Company, had been at least partially restored.

More than six hours later with key facilities including factories, hospitals and schools grinding to a halt due to the outage, Mr Dastagir told Reuters supplies were partially restored and engineers are working to restore the grid fully by 10pm local time.

“We are trying our utmost to achieve restoration before that.”

He added that power had been partially restored in Islamabad, Peshawar, Multan and Sukkur.

Videos on social media showed a train stuck on a bridge and passengers trapped inside walking on foot on the tracks.



The Civil Aviation Authority said there were significant issues from power outages at airports across the country, though backup systems mean the situation was “under control”.

“The situation is under control thanks to the alternative systems. We are using standby power to provide uninterrupted electricity to all the airports,” the authority’s spokesperson said in a statement.

Several private power distribution companies also confirmed the breakdown at their end amid massive power outages across the country.

The Quetta Electric Supply Company (QESCO) said two transmission lines in towns between Sindh province and Quetta had tripped. It said that 22 districts of Balochistan, including Quetta itself, are without power.

The Islamabad Electric Supply Company said 117 grid stations were without electricity, adding that “no clear reason has been given by the Region Control Center”.

In the first week of January, authorities in Pakistan ordered shopping malls and markets to close by 8.30pm as part of a new energy conservation plan aimed at easing Pakistan‘s economic crisis.

Pakistan is grappling with one of the country’s worst domestic and foreign financial crises following unprecedented floods last year and dwindling foreign exchange reserves.

The government is attempting to save energy and curtail the costs of imported oil, on which Pakistan spends $3bn annually. Most of Pakistan’s electricity is generated by using imported oil.

It gets at least 60 per cent of its electricity from fossil fuels, while nearly 27 per cent of the electricity is generated by hydropower. The contribution of nuclear and solar power to the nation’s grid is about 10 per cent.

The cash-strapped nation is also in talks with IMF to soften some conditions on its $6bn bailout deal, which the government thinks will cause a further increase in inflation.

A similar power outage occurred in Pakistan in October 2022, when a large part of the country was without electricity for almost 12 hours.

 

China, Russia show freedom’s role in ‘disruptive’ science


the Monitor's Editorial Board
Mon, January 23, 2023 

Big and new ideas in scientific research don’t always originate in well-equipped labs or with more money. Sometimes the greatest resource is freedom. To see why, look at the exodus of people – especially creative innovators and entrepreneurs – from Russia and China over the past year.

Russia’s exodus of talent began with Western economic sanctions imposed after the Ukraine invasion, new restrictions on the internet, and later a harsh military draft of young men. Tens of thousands of high-tech workers fled to Israel, Georgia, or Kazakhstan, where they could find opportunities and free expression in safe havens. Those countries welcomed them as potential founts of innovation.

The exodus from China began with a crackdown on its biggest tech companies, especially their founders, as well as a draconian lockdown of cities against COVID-19. Many of the country’s most creative people moved to the United States, Singapore, and Japan to avoid China’s increasing techno-authoritarianism, or a top-down approach to research.

“Now that they have lived free of fear in other countries, they are reluctant to put themselves and their businesses under the thumb of the Chinese Communist Party again,” wrote The New York Times. One founder of a crypto banking startup cited the need to have a say in how government makes rules. “There are many other places [than China] where you can do things,” said Aginny Wang, a co-founder of Flashwire who moved from China to Singapore.

These two waves of talent emigration, both of which may set back each country’s science and technology, are timely reminders about the most basic element for breakthroughs in scientific thought: freedom. They come as yet another study suggests global science has been in a slump in producing “disruptive” discoveries, such as lasers, airplanes, and transistors.

The study, conducted at the University of Minnesota and the University of Arizona, looked at 45 million papers and 3.9 million U.S. patents from 1945 to 2010 to see which research pointed to groundbreaking disruptions in fields from physics to social science. This “disruption index” showed a decline in basic discoveries after World War II and then a leveling since the 1990s. Also noted was an increase in the use of words like “improve” and “enhance” over language such as “make” and “produce.”

OF COURSE THEY SAY THAT , WITHOUT REFERENCING THE SOVIET DISCOVERY OF THE BIOPHAGE

As in China and Russia today, many researchers may feel less free to pursue novel and radical ideas. In the West, scholars are publishing research more than ever but in increasingly narrower silos of knowledge. Many spend half their time applying for government grants, which are often given out based on demands for immediate, risk-free results.

“Rather than minting revolutionary ways of thinking, science and technology are increasingly polishing the same conceptual pennies,” writes science commentator Anjana Ahuja in The Financial Times.

The study’s authors say scientific workers can find greater freedom in undirected research and more sabbaticals. Long-shot research begins with short-term liberties to think, explore, make mistakes, and share ideas freely. The best research centers are small in number with high trust and no compulsion for conformity. Or just the opposite of what authoritarian leaders prefer. More freedom may be the greatest disruptor in the world of science seeking disruptive ideas.

SUPPLY CHAIN VS RIGHT WHALES
U$ Feds deny emergency call to slow ships, ease whale strikes

 A North Atlantic right whale feeds on the surface of Cape Cod bay off the coast of Plymouth, Mass., March 28, 2018. On Friday, Jan. 20, 2023, the federal government denied a request from a group of environmental organizations to immediately apply proposed ship speed restrictions in an effort to save right whales, a vanishing species. 

(AP Photo/Michael Dwyer, File) 

PATRICK WHITTLE
Mon, January 23, 2023 

PORTLAND, Maine (AP) — The U.S. government has denied a request from a group of environmental organizations to immediately apply proposed ship-speed restrictions in an effort to save a vanishing species of whale.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is considering new rules designed to stop large ships from colliding with North Atlantic right whales. The whales number less than 340, and they are vulnerable to ship strikes and entanglement in fishing gear.

The proposed rules would expand “slow zones” off the East Coast and require more vessels to comply with those rules. The environmental groups had asked NOAA to immediately implement pieces of the proposed rule that would aid the whales this winter and spring, when the whales travel from their calving grounds off the southern states to feeding grounds off New England and Canada.

The agency informed the conservation groups on Jan. 20 that it was denying the request on the basis that it is “focused on implementing long-term, substantive vessel strike risk reduction measures,” according to documents obtained by The Associated Press. NOAA also told the groups it was concerned the time needed to develop emergency regulations would prevent their quick implementation.


Members of the conservation groups, including Arizona-based Center for Biological Diversity and Massachusetts-based Whale and Dolphin Conservation, said they felt NOAA's decision was wrongheaded. Protecting the whales while they are on the move is especially important because mother whales and their young are at risk, said Regina Asmutis-Silvia, executive director of Whale and Dolphin Conservation.

“We know that the risk is there,” Asmutis-Silvia said. “You can't recover the population unless you have kids, and we want to make sure the kids survive.”

The population of right whales has been declining in recent years, and that has raised alarms among marine biologists, animal welfare activists and government regulators. Some scientists have said the warming of the ocean has caused the whales to stray outside of existing protected areas as they search for food.

Conservation groups and commercial fishermen have also been at odds over the correct way to protect the whales. The conservationists want new restrictions on lobster fishing to prevent the whales from getting entangled in gear, but those restrictions are currently on hold.

EVANGELICAL EXCORCISM
Wisconsin poses latest setback for conversion therapy opponents


Brooke Migdon
Sun, January 22, 2023

Wisconsin LGBTQ advocates and lawmakers are recalibrating after state GOP legislators last week voted for a second time to block a ban on conversion therapy from taking effect.

“I’m very concerned about young people in Wisconsin who live in communities where it is once again allowed, being subjected to this really cruel and unscientific form of therapy,” state Rep. Greta Neubauer (D), one of six openly LGBTQ members of Wisconsin’s Republican-controlled legislature, told The Hill.

“Conversion” or “reparative therapy” is a blanket term that refers to a host of interventions designed to change a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity. It’s been denounced by major medical organizations, including the American Medical Association (AMA) and the American Psychological Association, in part because such practices are underpinned by a belief that LGBTQ identities are pathologies that need to be cured.

Twenty-one states and the District of Columbia have laws or policies in place that ban conversion therapy for minors, according to the Movement Advancement Project, a think tank that tracks state legislation impacting the LGBTQ community. Five states, including Wisconsin through a 2021 executive order issued by Gov. Tony Evers (D), have partial bans.

Three states — Alabama, Georgia and Florida — are unable to enforce bans on conversion therapy because of an injunction in the 11th Circuit that prevents them from doing so.

“Professional consensus rejects pathologizing sexual and gender identities,” the AMA wrote in an issue brief last year. “In addition, empirical evidence has demonstrated a diversity of sexual and gender identities that are normal variations of human identity and expression, and not inherently linked to mental illness.”

While members of the religious right have posited that conversion therapy — often administered by religious leaders or institutions — can be beneficial to individuals struggling with their identities, Wisconsin Republicans claim their decision to block the state’s ban had nothing to do with the practice itself but whether the state Department of Safety and Professional Services (DSPS) could legally enforce the ban under Wisconsin law.

A DSPS examining board responsible for licensing counselors, social workers, and marriage and family therapists in 2020 developed a rule that classified conversion therapy as unprofessional conduct. State GOP lawmakers suspended that rule during the 2021 legislative session, calling it government overreach.

The rule briefly went back into effect in December, at the end of last year’s legislative session, prompting last week’s vote.

Neubauer said she’s expecting GOP lawmakers to introduce legislation this year to permanently strike down the DSPS rule — despite the high likelihood of a veto by Evers — “effectively reopening the opportunity for people to perform conversion therapy in Wisconsin for the next two years.”

Neubauer, who serves as Wisconsin’s House minority leader, said the legislature has hit a dead end in terms of passing a statewide ban on conversion therapy, and Democrats will likely have to wait until the next election cycle to make any meaningful strides.

“We do not have another option right now,” she said.

Still, several communities within Wisconsin, including the city of Racine, which Neubauer represents, have instituted bans on conversion therapy within their own boundaries, and more are coming down the pike.

In the absence of legislation prohibiting conversion therapy in states such as Wisconsin, advocacy groups are working behind the scenes to stop the practice, even if it means taking on health care providers one by one.

Mathew Shurka, the co-founder and chief strategist of Born Perfect, a civil rights group working to end conversion therapy nationwide, said his organization frequently encourages conversion therapy survivors to file complaints against their health care providers with their state licensing board, in multiple instances resulting in the revocation of the provider’s license.

“These people hide behind their licensure to make themselves credible,” Shurka, who was sent to conversion therapy from 16 to 21 years old, told The Hill. “They know they’re not supposed to be doing these things.”

As a teenager, Shurka said, his own therapist prescribed Viagra to help him have sex with women, among other unethical practices. At the time, he didn’t understand that what was happening to him was wrong and trusted his health care provider to make decisions with his best interests in mind.

“I loved my therapist. I thought he was a great guy,” he said. “That’s what’s so dangerous about a professional creating a safe space and inviting you into something that’s completely discredited and shaming you and giving you no option out.”

Multiple inquiries have found that the effects of conversion therapy are damaging and long-lasting.

A 2020 report from the Williams Institute, a public policy think tank, found that lesbian, gay and bisexual people in the U.S. were nearly twice as likely to report having suicidal thoughts when they were exposed to conversion therapy.

The same study found that 7 percent of lesbian, gay and bisexual 18- to 59-year-olds had experienced conversion therapy at some point in their lives, most of them from religious leaders but approximately one-third from a health care provider.

A 2022 study from The Trevor Project, a national LGBTQ youth suicide prevention group, found that around 17 percent of LGBTQ youth had been threatened with or subjected to conversion therapy.

Wagner financier Prigozhin launches campaign aimed at portraying himself anti-corruption crusader

Sun, January 22, 2023 

Evgeny Prigozhin, Vladimir Putin and Dmitry Peskov

On Jan. 21, Prigozhin’s personal press service distributed a letter from a family of a fallen Wagner mercenary, which mentioned “indifferent” local officials who did not help with their son’s funeral, as opposed to Prigozhin, who listens to their appeals.

Read also: Wagner’s Prigozhin using success in Soledar to bolster his group’s reputation, says ISW

In the letter, Prigozhin is referred to as “the only person (…) who is not indifferent to the fate of the Defender of Russia and his family.”

Prigozhin also harshly criticized the officials of Russia’s Sverdlovsk Oblast, apparently showing solidarity with the “common man.”

Read also: Prigozhin boasts of his impunity after brutal murder of Wagner mercenary

“Prigozhin claimed on Jan. 20 that he would not mind if someone brought a criminal case against him because he would be able to participate in Wagner PMC from prison,” ISW analysts wrote.

“Wagner Group continues to operate militia training centers in Kursk and Belgorod oblasts in a likely effort to provide military support for regions that the Russian MoD supposedly neglects to defend, although neither faces any risk against which Wagner Group could defend."

Read also: Former Wagner mercenary who fled to Norway to tell about war crimes of Wagner Group

Ukraine’s military intelligence agency, HUR, previously reported that Prigozhin, is looking to strengthen his influence in the circle of Russian dictator Vladimir Putin at any cost, and is a driving impetus behind the desperate Russian attempts to seize the towns of Soledar and Bakhmut.

Read the original article on The New Voice of Ukraine

WHITE AMERICAN PROTESTANTS
Tensions with evangelicals threaten Trump White House bid

Julia Manchester
Sat, January 21, 2023

Tensions between Donald Trump and evangelical leaders have spilled into public view, posing a potential threat to the former president’s election chances in 2024.

In an interview earlier this week, Trump said evangelical leaders are showing “signs of disloyalty” because they have yet to endorse his third presidential bid.

The comments highlighted the changing dynamic in GOP politics as the leaders of one of Trump’s most supportive demographics appear to distance themselves from the former president.

“It’s going to make these next few months uncomfortable for evangelical leaders because they’re going to have to, in essence, answer that question: Are you for Trump or are you not?” said David Brody, the chief political analyst at the Christian Broadcasting Network, who conducted the interview with Trump.

Trump’s comments come after influential evangelical pastor Robert Jeffress interviewed former Vice President Mike Pence, who is also evangelical, on stage at First Baptist Church in Dallas last week.

Pence is a potential 2024 Trump rival and Jeffress is a longtime supporter of Trump but has notably held off on endorsing him ahead of next year’s presidential election.

But in an interview with The Hill on Friday, Jeffress said he believes the former president will be the GOP presidential nominee in 2024 and that his decision to hold off on endorsing the president is “just a matter of timing.”

“I just don’t see a need to make an official endorsement two years out,” Jeffress said.

“Just let me cut to the chase,” he said. “I think President Trump is the presumptive nominee for 2024. I expect he will be the nominee in 2024 and I believe he’ll be the next president of the United States.”

However, Jeffress said that if Pence decides to run in 2024 he will be “a strong contender.”

White, evangelical Protestants played a key role in Trump’s coalition in 2016 and 2020 and have historically been a loyal Republican voting bloc. According to Pew Research, 84 percent of white, evangelical Protestants voted for Trump in 2020, while 77 percent voted for him in 2016.

The conservative voting bloc was drawn to Trump for his stances on issues like abortion and immigration. Trump, who appointed three conservative Supreme Court justices, has largely been credited for setting in motion the overturning of Roe v. Wade — one of his key campaign promises.

“He’s very much action-oriented and so therefore if he made promises and he delivered on those promises, which he did for four years, he’s going to say ‘well, what’s the problem here?’” Brody said.

While notable group leaders are choosing to wait to endorse the former president — despite him delivering on those promises — many are now wondering if it’s a signal that Trump’s support is softening among evangelicals ahead of the 2024 Republican primary.

“I think Trump is not helping himself here,” said Robert Jones, founder of the nonpartisan Public Religion Research Institute. “Trump did not really gain the votes of white evangelicals through white evangelical leaders in 2016.”

Jeffress publicly broke with Russell Moore, the-then president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, over Trump in 2016. Moore has been a vocal critic of the then-GOP candidate, while Jeffress embraced him.

“If you had just listened to evangelical leaders, you would have thought there was a great divide in the evangelical community on this,” Jones continued. “Of course when it came time to vote in primaries, the rank and file of white evangelicals lined up quite handily behind Trump.”

“There was never a divide on the ground in the way there was among evangelical leaders,” he said. “I think Trump himself may misunderstand the dynamics that evangelicals were never waiting on their leaders to tell them who to vote for.”

Brody said that broadly evangelical leaders and voters also have not been turned off by the controversies that have dogged Trump for decades, arguing that they always knew what they were signing up for.

“If chaos was there before — and it was — and chaos was here now, what has changed? Nothing has changed,” Brody said.

There is a trend in some early polls showing Trump’s support wavering among Republican voters as Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) gains traction. Forty-nine percent of Republican primary voters said they would support the former president in 2024 and 54 percent of evangelical voters said they planned on supporting him in his third bid, according to a New York Times-Sienna College poll released in October ahead of the midterm elections.

However, polling this week showed Trump running ahead of DeSantis. A new Harvard CAPS-Harris Poll survey released on Friday showed Trump leading DeSantis 48 percent to 28 percent. Meanwhile, a Morning Consult poll released on Wednesday showed Trump leading DeSantis 48 percent to 31 percent.

But if multiple Republican contenders jump into the primary, which is likely to happen, evangelical support could be divvied up.

“Evangelicals are going to have a decision to make and Trump will probably end up losing some of that support,” Brody said.

And experts say they doubt that Trump’s support among evangelical voters themselves will suffer drastically anytime soon.

“When you look at Trump’s favorability numbers, they have moved down a bit since he was in office among white evangelicals but not very much,” Jones said. “To me, unless the numbers look significantly worse than they did in 2016 for him, I would not count him out, and they do not.”

“Hundreds of thank yous are not hundreds of tanks.”

T62 USED IN UKRAINE

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was typically blunt. 

After thanking the United States for a $2.5 billion contribution of arms, atop $3 billion announced several weeks ago, he said: “Hundreds of thank yous are not hundreds of tanks.”

In an appearance on German television, he said: “If you have Leopards, then give them to us.”

American officials were clearly frustrated after their negotiations with the German government this week. Germany had begun by saying that it would send Leopard tanks, and authorize others to, if the United States sent its M-1 Abrams tank as well. 

The United States declined, saying the tank is such a gas guzzler — it employs a jet engine — and requires such a supply line to keep running that it would not be useful in Ukraine’s environment. (The officials dodged questions about why a tank so difficult to operate on European battlefields is in the American arsenal.)

The British Challengers and German Leopards are more flexible and easier to run. 

THEY TAKE DESIEL

But in public, Austin and others avoided criticizing Scholz, who in their view has managed the biggest reversal of German foreign policy — starting with the suspension of two pipelines bringing gas from Russia — quite skillfully.

The NATO Alliance Is Holding Strong on Ukraine. But Fractures Are Emerging. (yahoo.com)

 

Ukraine war: Can NATO tanks and training turn the tide?

Anna Mulrine Grobe
Mon, January 23, 2023 

As the defense chiefs of 54 nations gathered Friday to chart the next steps forward in repelling Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin reiterated the urgency of their mission.

“Russia is regrouping, recruiting, and trying to reequip,” he warned, urging colleagues to “dig deeper” in their efforts to bolster Kyiv’s defenses with weapons and training as the first anniversary of Russia’s war in Ukraine – and an expected spring assault – approaches.

He then patched in Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy via video, who noted that the assembled Ukraine Defense Contact Group has done so much for his country that it would be “absolutely just” to tender “hundreds of thank-you’s.”

“But,” he added in a pointed proviso, “hundreds of thank-you’s are not hundreds of tanks.”

For days before – and after – the Ramstein meeting, the talk was of tanks: specifically whether the United States would greenlight its M1 Abrams for Ukraine. Such a move by the U.S. appears to be Germany’s tacit precondition for releasing its own Leopard 2 tanks, desperately desired by President Zelenskyy and his troops for their war effort.

Those tanks did not materialize at this meeting, though Poland vowed last week to send some of its own Leopards – never mind German arms export laws. The German foreign minister has signaled that Berlin won’t stand in Warsaw’s way.

Still, many military analysts say that such vehicles and more long-range firepower will ultimately be necessary. The new infusion of heavy weapons – and the intensive troop training that goes with them – buoys Ukrainian hopes of potentially turning the tide toward victory. At the very least, it raises the hope of Ukraine holding its own in the conflict’s next phase.

New equipment will continue to require “brutal prioritization” on the battlefield, however, says retired Gen. Frederick “Ben” Hodges, former commander of U.S. Army forces in Europe. And those sorts of decisions about how to distribute scarce resources, he adds, like everything about this war, “will be hard.”
Ukraine seeking firepower and mobility

The goal for the extensive – if accelerated – training that Ukrainian soldiers began this month is to give them the skills to penetrate Russian positions that have been hardening for months and, in some cases, years.

This will be particularly necessary in the face of a new round of Russian mobilizations, which will “probably bring a lot of new recruits into Ukraine in roughly April,” says Rafael Loss, coordinator for pan-European data projects at the European Council on Foreign Relations.

More than ever, Ukrainian soldiers “will need to be able to move around under fire, and for that, you need armored vehicles,” he notes, adding that up to this point, troops have often been using pickup trucks. “Any piece of shrapnel shreds the aluminum.”

To help avoid this, the U.S. last week promised, along with other armored personnel carriers, 59 Bradley Fighting Vehicles, renowned not only for their ability to protect soldiers but also – given the 7-foot-long gun barrels mounted to their turrets – for their considerable firepower.

Equally important to this latest arms package, military analysts say, is the training that will come with it. It will focus on how to maneuver the new vehicles while wielding existing weapons – known in military parlance as “combined arms” training – “as opposed to just pounding one another with artillery,” a senior defense official said in a briefing earlier this month. “Equipment is one thing. Using the equipment is another.”

The idea, ultimately, is to “change this dynamic that you see right now where it’s inches forward” on the front lines, Laura Cooper, deputy assistant secretary of defense for Russia and Ukraine, said in a Pentagon briefing this month. The point is to instead use the new vehicles, artillery, and other firepower together to “make greater progress on the battlefield and really push back on these Russian positions,” she added. “So that’s what we’re looking forward to seeing in the coming months.”

For NATO, the stakes involve not only aiding a democratic ally but also defending Europe more broadly against the threat posed by a more aggressive Russia under Vladimir Putin.

The new armored vehicles and other support are enough to equip the equivalent of two brigades of Ukrainian fighters, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley said at Ramstein Friday. Training on the Bradleys is now taking place in Germany.

Across the Atlantic, in Fort Sill, Oklahoma, Ukrainian soldiers are learning to operate Patriot missile defense systems, to allow them to shoot down incoming Russian air attacks. While such instruction can take up to one year, the U.S. Army is “expediting” this training for Kyiv to “several months.”

“The longer these troops are off the line,” Pentagon spokesman Brig. Gen. Patrick Ryder observed, “they’re not actually engaged in combat.”
Can you “maintain it, operate it, fuel it?”

Key to this operation will be Ukraine’s ability to keep these ever more powerful and complex vehicles and weapons systems running – and that will take practice, too.

Some of it will involve “tele-maintenance,” which is “exactly what it sounds like,” Ms. Cooper says. The near-rocket-scientist skill level required for repairs of the M1 Abrams has been the chief reason the Pentagon has raised for not giving Kyiv its much-coveted tank to date.

It’s “a very complicated piece of equipment,” Colin Kahl, undersecretary of defense for policy, has noted. “It’s hard to train on. It has a jet engine.” Plus, it uses “about three gallons to the mile with jet fuel.”

This could prove a disadvantage on the battlefield, says Brigadier General Ryder. “If I’m going to provide you with a piece of equipment, are you going to be able to sustain it, maintain it, operate it, fuel it? Is it going to be an albatross around your neck, so to speak?”

That said, Ms. Cooper acknowledged, “We absolutely agree that Ukraine does need tanks.”

For now, NATO allies are helping to refurbish Russian-made T-72 tanks for Ukraine, which currently has some 800 Soviet-era tanks on the battlefield, says retired Col. Mark Cancian, senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, who has made a comprehensive study of armaments in the war.

One problem, however, is that “the production line for T-72 ammunition is really limited outside of Russia,” says Mr. Loss at the European Council on Foreign Relations. “And Russia is of course not going to sell that to Ukraine.”
Pressing Germany

Great Britain has provided 14 of its Challenger 2 tanks – widely seen as an effort to spur Germany to provide its widely lauded Leopard 2 tanks. But a dozen or so such tanks won’t turn the tide of battle, analysts say.

The benefit of the Leopard 2 tanks is that “there are enough out there, hither and yon, that you could cobble together numbers that are significant,” Mr. Cancian says. Ukraine would like at least 300 of them, and “you could definitely get 100,” which, he adds, “is enough to outfit a significant part of the Ukrainian armored force.”

Countries that use the Leopards would likely come together to build a coalition to supply the tanks as well, “ensuring a steady supply of ammunition and spare parts,” Mr. Loss says.

For these reasons, Germany is under heavy pressure to let their tanks go to Ukraine.

Secretary Austin was asked, repeatedly, at Ramstein whether Germany was showing “real leadership” in the war effort. “Yes,” he replied. “But we can all do more.”

Still, as the latest round of equipment and training flows into Ukraine, its soldiers build their skills. And as that happens, analysts point out, Kyiv is in an ever-better position to lobby President Joe Biden and other allied leaders for the big guns of their respective arsenals.

For this reason, it is likely not a matter of whether Kyiv will get more tanks, they add, but when.

“The Ukrainian people are watching us,” Secretary Austin said Friday. “The Kremlin is watching us. And history is watching us.”

Oil wells guzzle precious California water. Next door, residents can’t use the tap



Hilary Beaumont in Fuller Acres, California,  photograph by Pablo Unzueta
Sun, January 22, 2023 

Towering refineries and rusty pumpjacks greet visitors driving along the highways of Kern county, California. Oil wells sit in the middle of fields of grapevines and almond trees. The air is heavy with dust and the scent of petroleum.

The energy fields here are some of the most productive in the US, generating billions of barrels of oil annually and more than two-thirds of the state’s natural gas. And in a drought-stricken state, they’re also some of the thirstiest, consuming vast quantities of fresh water to extract stubborn oil.

But in the industry’s shadow, nearby communities can’t drink from the tap. One of those communities is Fuller Acres, a largely Latino town in Kern county where residents must drive to the nearest town to buy safe water. There is no proven link between the unsafe drinking water and the oil industry that surrounds the town, but there is a history of big businesses polluting the resources they share with their neighbors. For instance, nearby farming has left a dangerous pesticide known as 1,2,3-TCP in the drinking water.

Advocates say the dichotomy highlights deep-seated inequities in a state where water is a precious resource. The western US is in the midst of a once-in-a-millenium megadrought driven by the climate crisis. California officials have imposed restrictions on domestic water use and residents face fines for breaking the rules.

But as the state begins to phase out fossil fuels and usher in a sustainable economy, it has yet to limit the use of fresh water by oil companies.

Between 2018 and 2021, oil and gas companies in California consumed nearly 3bn gallons of fresh water for drilling operations – water that could otherwise have supplied domestic systems, according to Food & Water Watch, an NGO that focuses on corporate and government accountability. That’s equivalent to more than 120m showers.

Caroline Wren, a researcher with Food & Water Watch, calls it grave misuse that benefits the very companies that are exacerbating global heating.

“California cannot afford to waste water on industries like the fossil fuel industry that are unequivocally worsening the climate crisis and the water crisis,” she said.

‘Everybody buys water’

Fuller Acres is a community of about 1,000 people, mostly farmworkers, living in a collection of bungalows surrounded by a patchwork of farm fields and dozens of oil wells. A refinery looms over the town. At night, it lights up like a Christmas tree, and in the morning, it lets off flares that smell of rotten eggs.

In 2022, central California, including Kern county, experienced “exceptional drought” conditions, the highest category of official drought ranking. Other states in the western US also saw exceptional drought in 2022. Although historic rains flooded California in January, Kern county remains in severe drought.

On a mild December afternoon, stray dogs roam the Fuller Acres convenience store parking lot in search of kind faces and snacks. The catchy beats of Bad Bunny emanate from passing traffic.

Around the corner, Maria Villa lives in a cheerful turquoise bungalow. Her hair is pulled into a high bun and gray wisps frame her face.

She has lived here for decades but has long avoided drinking the tap water. About 20 years ago, when her parents became sick, she began to suspect the water was unsafe. “They died of cancer,” she said. “My dad had cancer in his stomach, and I don’t know if that happened [because of] the water or something else.

“He always drank the water from the house, and then when he started getting sick, I started buying water.”

The Fuller Acres Water Company, which is responsible for the community’s water, sent her a notice warning that her water was contaminated with 1,2,3-TCP, which the EPA has classified as probably carcinogenic to humans because it causes cancer in animals. TCP was manufactured by companies such as Shell and Dow and used by farmers in central California from the 1950s to the 1980s.

In 2018, Fuller Acres Water Company became one of 40 local water suppliers in California to sue Shell and Dow, accusing them of contaminating water with TCP. Shell and Dow have settled dozens of cases.

Now, Maria Villa and her sister Angelita Villa only use the tap water to wash dishes and shower. “I have rashes on my face and body,” Angelita said in Spanish, scratching her arms.

Twice a week, Villa drives to Lamont, a town about three miles away, to buy water from dispensing machines. It costs her about $48 per month on top of her domestic water bill of $210 a month. Her neighbors face the same reality: “Everybody is the same, everybody buys water.”

Water inequity in the Central Valley exists because water delivery is highly fragmented. While cities have significant freshwater resources to meet demand from residents and industry, including oil companies, smaller communities have never been hooked up to a large municipal supplier and instead draw water from wells.

Drought puts these communities at risk as decreasing surface water supply increases reliance on groundwater. Oil and agricultural companies drill deep wells that suck up groundwater, which in turn depletes the water in shallower wells that residents rely on, increasing concentrations of existing contaminants, or drying up the wells altogether. A new study in the journal Nature Communications found that groundwater was rapidly depleting in the Central Valley, which includes Fuller Acres.

The wastewater used in oil extraction can also put drinking water at risk. KQED reported in 2017 that companies injected wastewater directly into protected aquifers, and thousands of wastewater wells across the state could be contaminating drinking water. A 2021 paper found that wastewater disposal by oil companies affected aquifers used for public and agricultural water supplies.

Fuller Acres and other small towns in Kern county face a “double whammy” of chemicals from agriculture and oil extraction, explained Sandra Plascencia-Rodriguez, Kern county policy advocate with Leadership Counsel, a group that provides legal representation and policy advocacy to low-income, rural communities in California.

According to Leadership Counsel, because small communities like Fuller Acres don’t have the financial means to dig deeper wells or operate and maintain water treatment plants, they’re harder hit by lowering groundwater levels and groundwater contamination.

What can the state do?

Kern county’s ageing oil fields use a lot of water. Most of the easy oil has been pumped out, leaving thick, syrupy oil that’s hard to extract. As one state report put it, sucking heavy crude from the ground is like drinking a milkshake through a thin straw.

To solve this problem, companies use “enhanced oil recovery” methods, some of which use fresh water. In Kern county, it’s common to inject steam at temperatures of up to 300C into oil wells, heating the heavy crude and helping it flow to the surface. This method also requires huge amounts of energy, making Kern county’s Midway Sunset oil field one of the world’s highest greenhouse gas emitters, rivaling Canada’s oil sands.

Tony Kovscek, professor of energy science and engineering at Stanford University, said steam injection requires high quality water: “If the water is low quality, you damage the steam generator and you have to do a lot of maintenance.” Although oil companies do use fresh water from municipal sources, he said, they mostly use recycled water that is treated.

Still, to get high quality fresh water, oil operators also draw from surface sources, such as lakes and rivers, and from underground aquifers. According to an analysis by the non-profit FracTracker Alliance, between 2018 and 2020, oil and gas operators used 302m gallons of potable groundwater from California’s aquifers.

Under the 2014 water use transparency law SB1281, operators are required to report how much of the water they use would otherwise have been available for domestic use or agriculture. According to a recent analysis of water disclosures by InsideClimate News, in 2021 Kern county’s oil and gas companies diverted about 58m gallons of water from the State Water Project, a vast system of pipes and aqueducts that transports crucial water resources from the Sierra Nevada snowpack to southern California.

Oil and gas companies are far from the only water-guzzlers. Stacked against the Central Valley’s vast agriculture industry, the amount used by oil is relatively small. While oil and gas operators used nearly 3bn gallons of fresh water from 2018 through 2020 that would have otherwise been used by domestic systems, Food & Water Watch estimated that almond groves alone used 4tn gallons of water over the same period. But Wren said the harm that oil and gas companies cause in communities – the pollution, health impacts and climate crisis – “makes their water use pretty egregious”.

California does not restrict oil companies’ use of this fresh water, according to Buzz Thompson, faculty director at Stanford’s Water in the West program. An earlier draft of SB1281 required oil producers to only use recycled water during a drought, but it was removed amid objections from the oil industry. The situation has put state officials, including California’s governor, Gavin Newsom, under fire for failing to take action.

According to Thompson, the state does have the power to act. California’s constitution states that fresh water can only be used for “reasonable and beneficial” applications. It is up to the state water resources control board, the agency responsible for California’s water management, or a court to decide what qualifies. But historically, the state has been reluctant to entirely halt use of fresh water by commercial entities. A rare exception occurred in 1935, when the California supreme court ruled that a farmer couldn’t use fresh water to drown gophers.

Thompson added that under emergency powers, the governor could direct the board to examine whether the use of water by oil companies is “reasonable and beneficial”.

Kyle Ferrar, the western program coordinator at FracTracker Alliance, pointed out in a 2021 report that Newsom had asked California residents to cut their personal domestic consumption of water by 15%, but he had done little to address the consumption of water by fossil fuel companies. Ferrar said outdated water laws in California continued to uphold the status quo, even as the state wrestles with continuing drought. “A lot of this just comes down to historical records and historical contracts that guaranteed the industry these volumes of water, and they’ve never been reviewed. There’s never been any legislation to consider the validity or the necessity of them, either.”

Asked why the governor wasn’t taking executive action to limit water use by oil companies, the governor’s office did not directly respond but said that the state does not have direct authority over oil companies’ water use. However, if an oil company has a water right, it must comply with state water board rules, the statement said. Thompson said that was correct, but the state did have the authority to review a municipality’s decision to sell surface water to an oil company.

Thompson said the solution to stark water inequity in the Central Valley was to hook up small communities to municipal systems. The state is working on that – it has a program to effectively “adopt” communities with shoddy water systems. The governor’s office said the state had earmarked $2.7bn in financial assistance that prioritized disadvantaged communities.
Residents protect themselves

As they wait for the state to take action, Kern county residents are left to figure things out for themselves.

A water-dispensing machine in Lamont advertises water for 25 cents a gallon or $1 for five gallons. Alejandro Sanchez opens a small door and inserts a gallon jug under the spout. He feeds a bill into the machine and presses a button. Water pours in.

He lives down the street and prefers to buy water rather than drink from his tap, he explains in Spanish. Once it is full, he balances the heavy jug on his shoulder, waits for a break in traffic, and walks across the highway toward home.

Lucy Basket, who lives in Lamont, parks her car at the water machine. She only fills her gallon jugs halfway because she has pain in her shoulders. She places the jugs in her backseat and secures them with seatbelts.

“I feel safer drinking this water,” she said in Spanish. “If you drink [tap water] a lot, you will get sick, but if you don’t you’ll be fine.”

Fuller Acres is one of dozens of disadvantaged unincorporated communities in Kern county – a designation for disproportionately low-income places that are outside city limits. Plascencia-Rodriguez of Leadership Counsel argued that Fuller Acres residents pay taxes and therefore Kern county should step up to help them access clean drinking water. “They want to see the county invest in them, just like they invest in the county,” she said.

Advocates with Leadership Counsel are asking the county to set aside funding in its budget to pay for bottled water deliveries at least twice a month.

Maria Villa said bottled water deliveries would help, as would better filtration of the tap water.

Villa questioned why oil companies are allowed to use so much high-quality fresh water while Fuller Acres doesn’t have safe water. “Why can’t they put the same water here?”

Oil Companies Stand Up To Los Angeles City Council Drilling Ban

Editor OilPrice.com
Sat, January 21, 2023

After decades of transitioning towards renewable energy, with several new developments across the state, LA has finally taken significant steps to move away from oil and gas. California has been repeatedly called the leader in clean energy in the U.S., and yet it is home to several large-scale oil and gas projects, as well as thousands of plugged wells from its former black gold heyday. And despite a lack of public awareness, LA was and remains a major hub for fossil fuel production, with giant wells hidden behind false buildings in busy districts across the city. At the end of last year - following several reports on the negative impact of fossil fuels on LA residents – the city council introduced a move towards a total ban on oil and gas drilling within city limits. But now, just over a month later, oil and gas companies operating in the region have filed a lawsuit against the city. So, will LA finally see the green transition it has long desired, or will Big Oil be allowed to continue pumping so long as demand remains high?

In December, the LA City Council voted unanimously to ban new oil and gas drilling as well as agreeing to phase out existing wells over the next 20 years. This is perhaps the most ambitious climate policy to be passed in the state to date and could provide the blueprint for other cities across the U.S. to follow. At present, there are 26 oil and gas fields and more than 5,000 active and idle wells in LA. While this has been negatively seen by U.S. politicians looking to boost national oil and gas output, as the country looks to reduce its reliance on Russia and ensure its energy security, LA residents and environmental groups have long been pushing for this move. The ban follows a major new policy from Californian lawmakers last year to ban new oil wells within 3,200 feet of homes, schools and other populated areas.

Yet, just over a month after the council’s decision, an oil firm with a drilling project in Wilmington, LA has decided to sue the city over the ban. The company, Warren Resources, has accused the council of failing to carry out the necessary environmental review over the potential impact of halting extraction. The lawsuit, filed in the LA Superior Court, states that the decision violates the California Environmental Quality Act, the city’s General Plan and the state and federal constitutions. Warren has good reason to be unhappy about the ban, as it would mean the closure of all its operations, which are all located in LA.

The lawyers on the lawsuit stated: “The City has failed to ask the necessary questions and obtain the required evidence at every turn, has rushed every legally required process along the way, and as a result has based its approval and adoption of the Ordinance on a woefully deficient environmental document.” And the President and CEO of Warren Resources, James A. Watt, explained, “Warren Resources has spent millions to consolidate our operations into a single, all-electric location with an impeccable environmental record.”

Yet, Bahram Fazeli, the director of research and policy at Communities for a Better Environment, believes that “This is a baseless lawsuit to delay common sense protection for vulnerable communities," Fazeli said. "The city has the right to determine its land-use priorities and to make communities whole and healthy.”

However, four other oil entities have already also initiated a separate lawsuit against the city’s ban this month. And more oil companies may soon follow in Warren’s footsteps, many of whom have several high-value oil operations in development across the city.

California continues to be a major producer of oil and gas, as the seventh-largest crude oil-producing state in 2021 and third-largest refiner. It is also the largest consumer of jet fuel and second-largest consumer of gasoline, accounting for 15 percent of U.S. jet fuel consumption and 10 percent of motor gasoline use in 2020. However, in 2021, California was also the country’s biggest producer of electricity from solar, geothermal, and biomass energy, demonstrating the expanse of its renewable energy sector. While oil and gas still play a major role in California’s economy, as well as demand for the fuels remaining high, the state is making a clear and intentional transition towards greener alternatives by rapidly expanding its renewable energy capacity.

LA’s ban on new oil and gas projects, and plans to phase out existing operations, marks a major step away from fossil fuels to renewable alternatives. It follows several new climate policies at the state level and a wide array of reports and lobbying from environmental groups and residents. However, this is unlikely to be an easy transition as oil companies operating in the state reject the move, using legal action to ensure the City Council faces several hurdles on the road to green.

By Felicity Bradstock for Oilprice.com

BEFORE GEORGE SANTOS

New York’s New Guv Has a ‘Very Conservative,’ Pro-NRA, Anti-Immigrant Past

WATCH THAT SWING

Kathy Hochul was once an NRA favorite who bashed undocumented immigrants and donated money to an anti-LGBTQ ministry.

William Bredderman
Researcher
Updated Aug. 11, 2021


Lt. Gov. Kathy Hochul, who in two weeks will succeed the disgraced Gov. Andrew Cuomo, positioned herself in the conservative suburbs of Buffalo as a Democrat who feasted on liberal sacred cows.

She obtained local government posts in her native Erie County, which encompasses the Rust Belt city and adjoining communities, by running not only on the Democratic line but that of the state’s Conservative Party. Appointed Erie County Clerk in 2007 by then-Gov Eliot Spitzer—a Democratic favorite at the time—she shot to statewide prominence by going after the Buffalo area’s undocumented immigrant population: when Spitzer that same year proposed granting drivers licenses to migrants without a social security number, she not only fought to block the policy but threatened to have any such applicant who turned up at her office arrested.

It was largely this record and reputation that she ran on when GOP Rep. Chris Lee resigned his seat in the House in 2011 over a lewd photo scandal, although she did support the Affordable Care Act. Her victory in a four-way race, in a strongly Republican district and at the height of the Tea Party wave, seemed like a coup for the Democrats and then-President Barack Obama.

NY’s New Guv Is Staring at a Massive Conflict of Interest
CASH ME OUT
William Bredderman


But the Obama administration soon learned Hochul was anything but a reliable ally. While she endorsed increasing taxes on high income earners, she reiterated her campaign-era openness to cutting entitlements such as Medicaid, supported stripping out portions of the Affordable Care Act, and voted for the GOP-sponsored balanced budget amendment.

Most notably, she was one of 17 House Democrats who voted with Republicans to declare Obama’s Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt of Congress for declining to cooperate in an investigation into the “Fast and Furious” scandal, in which certain Department of Justice offices deliberately allowed gun dealers to sell firearms to traffickers, in the hopes of tracking the weapons to drug cartels.

The National Rifle Association had promised to reward those who voted in favor of the measure, and it followed through: its campaign arm supported Hochul for a full term in 2012, an endorsement she aggressively promoted in her re-election campaign. She also boasted that she had “become very conservative in my voting record.”

But it was not enough. Hochul lost her seat to Republican businessman Chris Collins, who would later have to resign himself after copping to insider trading charges.

Hochul left politics to take a job in banking. When she returned in 2014, as Cuomo’s handpicked running mate, she’d metamorphosed into a different sort of Democrat. She now applauded the governor’s signature piece of gun control legislation, anathema to gun rights groups, and even said she was open to supporting drivers licenses to undocumented immigrants—and fully endorsed the proposal by the time she ran for a second term as lieutenant governor in 2018.

She also boosted the governor’s new Women’s Equality Party line, which became an object of irony and ire after multiple female staffers alleged Cuomo had sexually harassed them this year.

But her earlier conservative incarnation always loomed in the background. During the 2014 campaign, her opponent in the primary, Columbia University Professor Tim Wu, drew attention to her earlier conservative incarnation. And even after she’d won the Democratic nomination for the state’s second slot, it emerged she had once donated money to the ministry of an anti-gay marriage, anti-abortion preacher from Texas.

How a Chain of Creeps Paved the Way for NY’s First Woman Guv
GLASS CEILING FROM HELL
Harry Siegel


Hochul, who had long received support from pro-choice groups such as EMILY’s List, claimed she had had no knowledge of the evangelical pastor’s social stances.

Even as Cuomo glided through Democratic primaries against high-profile but low-power progressive opponents like actress Cynthia Nixon, Hochul still struggled a bit, topping her 2018 opponent by fewer than 100,000 votes.

Hochul’s office did not respond to repeated requests for comment. But such evolutions are far from unheard of in New York, given the schism between its fiercely conservative rural regions and deep-blue Democratic cities, and the nation’s increasingly polarized politics. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) served a term-and-a-half in the House of Representatives as a pro-gun, anti-sanctuary city, pro-English-only education Democrat, only to morph into a liberal paragon after former Gov. David Paterson appointed her to the Senate seat vacated by Hillary Clinton