ALL IN THE FAMILY A SIDE-HUSTLE FOR JARED

Intro: Political Figures of different stripes - some who manage to get elected somehow both on the international. National, State and Hyper-Local level, frequently can evade scrutiny.

Political Figures

Law 

Jared Kushner’s Saudi Side-Hustle Merits a Full-On Criminal Inquiry

 

Elizabeth Warren has called on the DOJ to investigate how Trump’s son-in-law secured a $2 billion investment from a fund headed by Saudi Arabia’s crown prince.

By John Nichols

April 20, 2022

"Senator Elizabeth Warren wants the US Department of Justice to “take a hard look” at whether laws were violated when Jared Kushner, the presidential son-in-law who was widely seen as the Saudi Arabian royal family’s fixer inside Donald Trump’s White House, collected $2 billion from Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

The Massachusetts Democrat signaled that she thinks Congress could also open up an inquiry into the kickback, er, “investment,” which watchdogs say stinks of corruption.

Kushner, the famously incompetent real estate developer whose name has become synonymous with nepotism, was frequently accused of doing the bidding of the Saudi royal family while he “served” as senior adviser in an administration headed by his wife’s father. . Despite his close ties to Saudi Arabia’s oil-rich elites, Kushner’s scheming to secure a massive investment in the private equity fund he launched after leaving the White House in January 2021 ran into some initial challenges. . .

The warnings were dismissed and the Saudi fund—which is chaired by MBS—sent a couple billion Kushner’s way. How important was that “investment”? As of March 31, according to public filings, the Saudi money accounts for four-fifths of all the money Kushner’s fund is managing.

Revelations about the sordid deal made headlines last week in The New York Times and other major news outlets around the world, and this week the media and top Democrats are calling for investigations.

“If people actually cared about corruption by the president’s family members, Saudi Arabia giving Jared Kushner $2 billion would be the biggest story in America right now,” declared the watchdog group Citizens for Ethics & Responsibility in Washington on Monday. Former US secretary of labor Robert Reich noted how Kushner “cashes in” on his connection with Trump. Journalist and MSNBC host Mehdi Hasan said the $2 billion “investment” by the Saudi’s in Kushner’s latest scheme represents “a huge story of both corruption and human rights abuses.”

But Warren’s intervention is the most consequential. Asked about the story during an interview on the podcast Pod Save America, the senator said, “I think there’s a question that the Department of Justice should take a really hard look to see if [the arrangement may] violate any of our criminal laws.”

The senator did not stop there. “I think this is a moment when Congress needs to do a lot more about corruption,” added Warren.

The Saudi deal is not the only potential crime involving Kushner that the DOJ and Congress should investigate. There is also the matter of his oversight of the Trump administration’s scandal-plagued “Project Airbridge” scheme, . .

Kushner and his cronies arranged to use taxpayer money to fly medical equipment from overseas manufacturers to the United States at the height of the pandemic, but then let private corporations sell the supplies at a hefty profit. “Project Air Bridge—like the broader Trump Administration response to coronavirus—has been marked by delays, incompetence, confusion, and secrecy involving multiple Federal agencies and actors,” Senators Warren, Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), and Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) wrote in a 2020 letter to the Pandemic Response Accountability Committee. That letter raised concerns about Project Airbridge’s misspending of tens of millions of taxpayer dollars and called for an inquiry.

There’s no question that Kushner’s Trump administration machinations merit a congressional inquiry. Nor should there be any question that Kushner’s post-Trump administration hustling of the Saudis merits a criminal investigation by the Department of Justice."

READ MORE >> https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/jared-kushner-saudi-hustling/ 

=======================================================================

INSERT FROM 2017 ON THIS BLOG

THIS COULD BE A WHIRLWIND AND TORNADO that hits the generations-old political-private interests promoting the fast sprawl here in the East Valley

Gary Nelson's article throw some light on how this all works here in the East Valley, where politicians elected to public office have undisclosed business and/family interests [i.e. 'making money'] and undisclosed associations with real estate developers, public relations firms and lobbyists: for example Gary Pierce's wife Sherry [who owns a lobbying firm] is at the same time the $58,000-a-year deputy assistant to for U.S.  Congressman Andy Biggs - she held the same job with Matt Salmon when he was in Congress [Salmon and his wife Nancy operate a publish relations firm] .... Heads up and look into more

 

GIVE PARTICIPATORY DEMOCRACY A CHANCE...Here in Mesa, Arizona I Don't See That Happening

Intro: Interesting article from 22 April. Readers of this blog are invited and encouraged to process the information and data presented to apply locally.

Community Input Is Bad, Actually

Angry neighborhood associations have the power to halt the construction of vital infrastructure. It doesn’t have to be this way.

By Jerusalem Demsas

The Atlantic

"Development projects in the United States are subject to a process I like to call “whoever yells the loudest and longest wins.” Some refer to this as participatory democracy. . .

Democracy is at its best when the views and needs of the people are accurately transmitted to their representatives, the representatives act, and voters express their approval or disapproval in the next election. The existing community-input system purports to improve upon this process by offering a platform where anyone can show up and make their voice heard. After all, providing input shouldn’t just happen at the ballot box, or so the thinking goes. But the process is fundamentally flawed: It’s biased toward the status quo and privileges a small group of residents who for reasons that range from the sympathetic to the selfish don’t want to allow projects that are broadly useful.

Granted, Big Government doesn’t have the best track record of respecting legitimate grievances about massive infrastructure projects. American cities still display the scars of highways that razed marginalized communities; many remember the indignities of urban renewal, a mid-century federal policy aimed at city revitalization. . .

Let’s look at housing first. Because participation in local politics, even at the ballot box, is extremely limited, elected officials are often swayed by just a handful of emails or phone calls,..Anytime a developer seeks to build something outside the existing zoning code (which in most places mandates single-unit residences, often with large yards and parking spaces driving up the cost of every home), they have to get a “variance” from the local zoning board. To receive that variance, developers have to present their projects at public meetings. Community members can come and register their opinions about apartment buildings, homeless shelters, dorms, and on and on. Even someone attempting to convert her garage into a mother-in-law suite might need the approval of her neighbors. It’s like a homeowners’ association from hell, backed by the force of the law.All of that feedback seriously impedes the production of new housing. . .

Sometimes the mere specter of community objection is enough to make a project less ambitious or less effective. According to a recent report from the Eno Center for Transportation, officials often attempt to preemptively avoid conflict with neighborhood groups by selecting “routes along freeways or industrial freight rail rights of way” instead of in dense areas where they would be most useful. . .

The community-input process is disastrous for two broad reasons. First, community input is not representative of the local population. Second, the perception of who counts as part of an affected local community tends to include everyone who feels the negative costs of development but only a fragment of the beneficiaries. . .

This representational problem is not one that can easily be solved by making these meetings more accessible. The BU researchers looked into what happened when meetings moved online during the coronavirus pandemic and discovered that, if anything, they became slightly less representative of the population, with participants still more likely to be homeowners as well as older and whiter than their communities. Relatedly, survey evidence from California reveals that white, affluent homeowners are the ones most committed to local control over housing development. Among renters, low-income households, and people of color, support for the state overriding localities and building new housing is strong. . .

>> Expanding opportunities for political participation failed to solve the problem of inequitable project distribution, because the fundamental problem wasn’t lack of community input; it was a lack of political power among disadvantaged groups. Making it easier for people to lodge their disagreements doesn’t change the distribution of power; it only amplifies the voices of people who already have it. . .

Government officials should not ignore concerns from ordinary citizens and organized community groups. In fact, state and federal officials should appreciate that these entities have useful knowledge that is difficult to access from afar. . .

In the U.S., moving decision making from the hyperlocal level to the state level is the first step to fixing the broken development process. This would ensure that a larger proportion of voters had a say, though an indirect one, in housing, transportation, and renewable-energy policy, because more people vote in these elections than hyperlocal ones. We have to let representative democracy actually work.

Local government is fundamentally not equipped to internalize and weigh the benefits and costs of large infrastructure projects, which can affect the economic and environmental prospects of the whole nation. . ."

READ MORE >> https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/04/local-government-community-input-housing-public-transportation/629625/

 

JUST THE FACTS PLEASE: What drives up inflation

Intro:

What's driving rising inflation? 

As prices rise, currency loses value and doesn't have as much purchasing power as it once did. Americans have been aware of that waning power over the past months; in March, prices in the US rose 8.5%, the highest in 40 years. The Bureau of Labor Statistics factors the prices of everyday consumer goods and services into the Consumer Price Index (CPI). The CPI-U is the most-used version of this measure, focusing on prices in urban areas. Costs for goods and services vary nationwide, so the CPI-U averages spending across multiple cities to account for price differences. >> Learn more about the CPI in this new article and do your own inflation analysis with the CPI calculator.

CPI-U prices are weighted based on their percent of average total consumer spending. For example, many average households spend 11.9% of their income on food, while average single-parent households spend 13.5%. Food and beverage prices are 14.26% of the CPI-U.   Transportation commodities like new and used vehicles, and vehicle parts or equipment, which are 8.8% of the total CPI-U, increased by 24% since last year. Used cars and trucks alone were 41.2% more expensive.    Energy prices increased by 25.6% overall from February 2021, but gasoline and other motor fuel prices increased by 38.1%. Energy goods and services account for 7.3% of the CPI-U.

CPI data pinpoints how purchasing power and prices change over time to make goods and services comparable across years. See for yourself with this interactive CPI inflation calculator at USAFacts. The growing role of solar energy  Solar energy is one of the nation's fastest-growing clean energy sources. There are more than 3 million solar energy installations in the US, and about 1 million have been built in the last two years. In advance of Earth Day later this week, USAFacts has the numbers on where this growing energy source is produced and how much it costs.

When it comes to cost per kilowatts produced, solar costs more to build than most other energy sources. In 2019, the average installation cost of solar energy was $1,796 per kilowatt produced, higher than facilities running on petroleum liquid or natural gas. It's also costlier than building new wind power production.   Solar farms and other utility-scale facilities produced enough electricity to power over 10 million homes last year. Solar farms generated seven times more energy in 2021 than in 2014.   Solar energy produced through homes, businesses, and other small-scale facilities generated enough electricity to power 4.4 million homes last year, four times higher than in 2014.   California leads the US in small-scale solar installations, housing almost 40% of all small-scale solar photovoltaic technology. From 2016 to 2019, the state added 5.3 gigawatts of new small-scale solar capacity, the most in the nation. Learn more about solar energy production here, and stay tuned for more energy data in the third annual State of the Earth report, coming soon.   The 2022 10-K is here Today is Tax Day, and USAFacts is marking the day with the sixth annual Government 10-K. This 10-K is the most comprehensive accounting of how taxpayer dollars are collected, spent, and the outcomes of that spending. Whether the country was served well by its government or not, that's for you to decide. Dive into the data now. One last fact

Between August 27 and November 26, 2021, 11,799 eviction cases were filed in Las Vegas, 26% higher than its historical average. Elsewhere, eviction filings were 75% of the historical average for 11 cities. Ten of these 11 cities did not have protections against evictions on the books.

ARIZONA: THE STATE OF UNHEALTHY AIR QUALITY | American Lung Association State of the Air 2022 Report

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

American Lung Association State of the Air Report 2022 for 2018-2020 Shows Fewer Unhealthy Days for Ozone Pollution but Ranks Air Quality Worse for Particle Pollution in Arizona

Key Findings: More than 4 in 10 people live where pollution levels frequently make the air too dangerous to breathe

>The State of the Air 2022 report ranks the Phoenix metropolitan area at 5th in the nation for unhealthy ozone days.

> Gila, Maricopa, Pima and Pinal Counties each received an “F” for the number of high ozone days

>The State of the Air 2022 report ranking for the Phoenix metropolitan area remained unchanged at 8th in the nation for year-round particle pollution, measured in small particulate matter or PM-2.5, but had more unhealthy particle pollution days as compared to the previous report.

> Maricopa, Pinal and Santa Cruz Counties each received an “F” for the number of days with high particle pollution.

American Lung Association State of the Air Report 2022 for 2018-2020 Shows Fewer Unhealthy Days for Ozone Pollution but Ranks Air Quality Worse for Particle Pollution in Arizona

PHOENIX (April 21, 2022) — The American Lung Association’s 2022 State of the Air report released today shows Arizona has the same ranking for ozone pollution for the period 2018 – 2020, but with fewer unhealthy days, and ranks air quality worse for particle pollution. The Lung Association developed its annual State of the Air report rankings using air quality data for the two most widespread pollutants in the United States — ozone and fine particulate matter. These pollutants pose a public health concern when they reach unhealthy levels.

“As a southwestern desert state with the sunniest cities in the country and increasing wildfires in the western U.S, Arizona, like our neighboring states, shares real air quality challenges when it comes to ozone and particle pollution,” said Daniel Czecholinski, ADEQ Air Quality Division Director. “While we’ve achieved significant improvements in overall air quality over the last 30 years from a 68 percent reduction in emissions — even as Arizona’s population has grown and our economy thrived — more wildfires in the western U.S. create and transport more ozone and particle pollution into the state, which affects our air quality.”

Taking small actions through voluntary programs can add up to cleaner air for Arizona | What you can do to improve air quality >

“As the science linking ozone and particle pollution to negative health impacts continues to grow, it remains essential that we continue every effort to improve air quality across the state to protect everyone living and visiting Arizona today and in the future,” said JoAnna Strother, Senior Director of Advocacy for the American Lung Association in Arizona.

American Lung Association State of the Air 2022 Report | View >

OZONE LEVELS

The State of the Air 2022 report ranks the Phoenix metropolitan area at 5th in the nation for unhealthy ozone days. Gila, Maricopa, Pima and Pinal Counties each received an “F” for the number of high ozone days, while Yuma County received a “C” — an improved ranking from last year’s report. Ground-level ozone pollution is created when nitrogen oxides (NOx) and volatile organic compounds (VOCs) chemically react in sunlight. On average, Arizona has more sunlight and less cloud cover than any other state in the nation. Yuma and Phoenix rank number one and two, respectively, as the sunniest cities in the U.S. and this means more sunlight reaches the ground giving ultraviolet radiation a greater chance to react and form more ozone. Compounds that form ozone also come from biomass (shrubs and trees), industry, wildfires, gas-powered garden equipment and more.

Other contributors to ozone pollution in Arizona include emissions from international sources, such as Mexico and China, and other states, such as California and ADEQ is working with our neighbors to better understand ozone transport in an effort to improve air quality for everyone.

In the Phoenix area, vehicles driving on the roads produce the majority of NOx and are the biggest contributor to man-made ozone. A major source of VOCs is plants (vegetation). If there are enough VOCs present, it takes very little NOx to increase ozone levels. And, because of the complexity of ozone formation, less NOx does not necessarily equal less ozone right away.

Ozone Fact Sheet | View >
EPA AQI Guide | View >

To help address the complex ozone problem, ADEQ is partnering with researchers at Arizona State University and the University of Arizona to conduct field studies to verify emissions, model and predict ozone concentrations and identify opportunities to mitigate high ozone levels, including development of potential incentives addressing ozone reduction strategies | View the ADEQ press release about new Arizona Board of Regents’ Grants > 

PARTICULATE MATTER: PM_2.5

The State of the Air 2022 report ranking for the Phoenix metropolitan area remained unchanged at 8th in the nation for year-round particle pollution, measured in small particulate matter or PM-2.5, but had more unhealthy particle pollution days as compared to the previous report. Maricopa, Pinal and Santa Cruz Counties each received an “F” for the number of days with high particle pollution.

Contact | ADEQ Public Information Officer

602-540-8072 | Email >

---

About ADEQ

Under the Environmental Quality Act of 1986, the Arizona State Legislature established the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality in 1987 as the state agency for protecting and enhancing public health and the environment of Arizona. For more information, visit azdeq.gov.

During Arizona’s winter holiday season, the combination of smoke from burning wood in fire pits, fireplaces and fireworks and calm, cool weather can cause high levels of particulate matter pollution.

ADEQ Air Quality Data | View >
Particulate Matter Fact Sheet | View > 

COVER STORY: Free Market Oasis in The Desert

Governor Doug Ducey fielded wide-ranging questions on a variety of topics in the latest Washington Examiner magazine cover story. Economic recovery, keeping taxes low and shrinking government – the Governor touched on these and other important issues.

Check out excerpts from the story below and read the full article HERE.

A Free-Market Oasis In The Desert

Brad Polumbo Washington Examiner  April 21, 2022

Arizona’s Economic Recovery

Washington Examiner: Economic analysis has shown that Arizona is one of 10 states that has now recovered all the jobs lost since the pandemic downturn. What do you credit for that turnaround and success?

Governor Ducey: Well, first, I want to say we were booming before the pandemic. In my first year, I came into office, and we had a billion-dollar deficit and a sluggish economy. So, the first thing we did was make difficult decisions and tighten our belts. And we actually shrank the size of our government in terms of spending, which very rarely happens at any level in government.

We focused on economic development. I ran on kick-starting an economy. I came from the private sector, Cold Stone Creamery was my business. So, from 2015 until 2020, our economy was growing. We were bringing successful economic development wins to Arizona.

I said in my second State of the State [speech] that I’d be remiss if I didn’t thank Arizona’s partner in growing our economy — and that was then-California Gov. Jerry Brown. We just have seen an exodus of people and producers from the state of California that have been coming into our state.

[We were also] getting wins, like [big investments in Arizona from] Lucid Motors, Intel, Taiwan Semiconductor, Nikola, TuSimple, etc. Those types of businesses … time after time, chose Arizona.

 

Challenging Western Narratives: U.S., EU and NATO Information Wars in A More Polarized Turbulent World

Yes it is a truism that there's always more than one side to any story

"The Western media plays a dominant role in shaping the global narrative and has remained mostly unchallenged.

With the emergence of independent news outlets and social media, and the voice of emerging countries becoming more prominent, will the global media landscape be more diverse?

Will the voice of the Global South be heard louder?

"The Hub with Wang Guan" talks to Benjamin Norton, founder and editor of the independent news website Multipolarista, to discuss the U.S., EU and NATO war of information in a more polarized and turbulent world.

Norton explains that Western media have long been a tool of U.S. foreign policy and the freedom of speech has been drastically curtailed to fit the narrative of oligarchs and corporate and government elites."

Challenging Western narrative

13,342 views

Apr 23, 2022 

 

El-Erian: The Fed Will End Up 'Flip-Flopping'