Fossil Fuel Industry Could End Up Paying Tens of Billions for LA Wildfires and Deceiving the Public on Climate Change for Decades

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: January 24, 2025 ~ On October 21, 2020, during Donald Trump’s first term as President, former President Barack Obama delivered a speech at a Democratic campaign rally in Philadelphia. During the remarks, Obama got to the core of how the fossil fuel industry had shaped the Trump administration. He stated: “The Environmental Protection Agency, that’s supposed to protect our air and our water, is right now run by an energy lobbyist that gives polluters free reign to dump unlimited poison into our air and water… “The Interior Department, that’s supposed to protect our public lands and wild spaces, our wildlife and our wilderness. And right now, that’s run by an oil lobbyist who’s determined to sell them to the highest bidder.” During Trump’s first term, the fossil fuels industry and particularly Charles Koch, Chairman and CEO of the fossil fuels conglomerate, Koch Industries, were brazen in … Continue reading →

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Early this morning I stepped outside into the thirty-degree weather we are experiencing in the Arizona desert. My across-the-street US Citizen Mexican neighbor was loading up his pickup truck to go do some landscaping work. His is one of the few pickup trucks I have seen with the backend box filled with the essentials needed […]

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A Bit of Paul Krugman “Trump, Energy and MAGA Brain” “So what’s going on with the proclamation that American energy production, which is one of our economic strong points, is in crisis? Partly it’s a cynical payoff to the oil industry, which more or less openly made a deal to give Trump $1 billion in return for […]

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Jobless claims: seasonality and neutrality continue  – by New Deal democrat The week’s first meaningful data is jobless claims. These have been trending higher YoY, but with lots of seasonal noise. And that trend continued this week. Initial claims increased 6,000 to 223,000. The four-week moving average (especially more important right now to filter out […]

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More on How the Republicans will have to cut in order to keep the TCJA. Perspective: “Nearly 60% of mandatory spending is for Medicare and Social Security,” noted one expert. “If they don’t touch those, they’d have to cut Medicaid to the bone.” Call for $2.5 Trillion in Cuts Proves GOP Wants to ‘Steal Our […]

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What is Necessary for Republicans to Extend 2017 Tax Cuts? The tax cuts in the 2017 TCJA were supposed to pay for itself in stimulation of the economy. The TCJA was passed using the Reconciliation Act. It never did pay for itself. So now Republicans are working on cuts to social programs to keep the […]

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The former German Democratic Republic (“East Germany”) was a police state in which neighbors spied on neighbors and family members spied on one another. If you were named by a friend or colleague as a potential subversive, the Stasi—the secret police—would arrest you and you could be imprisoned for years on trumped-up charges. After your […]

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Even after all of the knowledge we have gained over the years, people still do silly things. Then they wonder why the issues by authorities about their actions. Bringing your loaded weapons (guns) to the airport even if it is in a suitcase. One example: Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport was ranked fourth in the nation for […]

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ACA Marketplace Reflections on Retention and Year-round Enrollment – by Andrew Sprung xpostfactoid Writing about the ACA marketplace at this point has an elegiac feel (as does writing about almost any not-depraved or degraded aspect of American life). As of 2026, coverage is likely to be far less affordable, out of pocket costs will rise […]

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 – by New Deal democrat I don’t normally discuss movements in the stock and bond markets, but occasionally there are important paradigm shifts that can tell us a lot about the economy, and the last few months have been one of those times. The Federal Reserve began to cut interest rates on September 18th. What […]

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It’s Being Called the Biggest Grift by a President in U.S. History: Trump and First Lady Launch their Own Crypto Coins

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: January 22, 2025 ~ The crypto billionaires who played a major role in putting Donald Trump in the White House and defeating the reelection of honest Senators who had sat on the Senate Banking Committee, were celebrating their big wins at the Crypto Ball last Friday night at the gilded Mellon Auditorium just down the street from the White House, when they were blindsided by a Tweet from President-elect Donald Trump. The Tweet delivered the bombshell news that Trump – two days away from being sworn in as President of the United States — had just launched his own crypto coin: “My NEW Official Trump Meme is HERE! It’s time to celebrate everything we stand for: WINNING! Join my very special Trump Community. GET YOUR $TRUMP NOW. Go to http://gettrumpmemes.com — Have Fun!” Numerous attendees at the Ball thought this was such over-the-top grift, even for … Continue reading →

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– by Joyce Vance Civil Discourse Day One of Trump 2.0 was full of shock and awful, precisely what we had every reason to expect. In classic fashion, there was so much, and it was so all over the board that it was hard to focus on any one thing. I wrote to you about […]

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Somewhere in all of this, I one time wrote about the accessibility of groceries in low-income neighborhoods. It mostly does not exist and people living in these deserts are more into eating McDonalds or other fast foods. I believe as you read further, you will find the same circumstance driving many smaller stores out of […]

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The COVID pandemic in the US began five years ago. It wasn’t declared a pandemic then, but in retrospect, that’s when it began. My university has an NIH-designated vaccine testing and evaluation unit. In late January 2020, I attended a lecture by the clinical director about the recently named SARS-CoV-2. That was the first time […]

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 – by New Deal democrat There is no significant economic news until Thursday. In the meantime, today and tomorrow let me discuss a couple of issues at the intersection of economics and politics. The 2024 Presidential election was one of the closest popular vote margin for the winning candidate, at 1.5%, since Richard Nixon’s 0.7% […]

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The White House Counsel to provide the White House Security Office and Acting Chief Security Officer with a list of personnel that are hereby immediately granted interim Top Secret/Sensitive Compartmented Information (TS/SCI) security clearances for a period not to exceed six months and that these individuals shall be immediately granted access to the facilities and […]

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Lest anyone missed: The despicable one’s threats to annex Canada, Mexico, and Greenland gave his Best Bud Vladymir license for his invasion of Ukraine. “It’s OK if America does it.” This was no doubt cooked up during one of their chats. Anne, he is bullying Denmark because he can — he doesn’t need a reason. […]

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Or who is the biggest moocher of Federal funding? Mike Johnson wishes to Penalize California. According to Louisiana’s Mike Johnson, California should be penalized. “Mike Johnson told CNN’s Manu Raju that there should be “conditions” on the proposed federal aid to California in the wake of the deadly wildfires in Los Angeles County. It appears to us […]

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We are amazingly ignorant of what is going on economically in the United States. But for groceries, the nation had a good economy. The right president was in the right place to ensure Americans had what they needed during several years of a pandemic. He no leaves the nation and presidency with a sound economy. […]

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Joe Biden  – by New Deal democrat Over 5 years ago, I looked at the 500-year history of the Roman Republic. In my penultimate discussion of its downfall, I wrote: “By 78 BC the Republic was dead on its feet. Virtually all of its norms of office-holding had been swept away. Political mobs using violence to get […]

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