April, 12 2024, 02:10pm EDT
Biden Administration Rule Improves Accountability For Big Oil Corporations That Profit From Public Lands
Accountable.US today released the following statement in response to the publication of the Department of the Interior and Bureau of Land Management’s final oil and gas rule:
“The Biden administration deserves our thanks for holding accountable the companies who have gotten a sweetheart deal to drill public property for far too long. Anyone who wants to profit from resources that belong to all American taxpayers should pay their fair share. This is an important step toward fixing a wildly irresponsible system that has given so much to massive corporations at the expense of everyone who enjoys the great outdoors.” —Chris Marshall spokesperson for Accountable.US
An Accountable.US report last year found that the public lands oil and gas leasing system is broken in favor of some of the biggest, most profitable corporations in the world that lock up hundreds of thousands of acres of public lands.Accountable.US is a nonpartisan watchdog that exposes corruption in public life and holds government officials and corporate special interests accountable by bringing their influence and misconduct to light. In doing so, we make way for policies that advance the interests of all Americans, not just the rich and powerful.
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Wyden Probes 'Deeply Concerning' Kushner Firm Payments From Gulf Monarchies
The Senate Finance Committee chair accused the former Trump adviser of "creating significant conflicts of interest and potential counterintelligence risks."
Jun 12, 2024
U.S. Senate Finance Committee Chair Ron Wyden on Wednesday announced a new probe into Trump-era White House adviser Jared Kushner's private investment firm Affinity Partners, 99% of whose $3 billion under management comes from foreign sources, mainly the sovereign wealth funds of Gulf dictatorships.
"It is deeply concerning that several Middle Eastern governments are using funds managed by Affinity as a means to pay tens of millions of dollars in fees every year to former President [Donald] Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner, creating significant conflicts of interest and potential counterintelligence risks," Wyden (D-Ore.) wrote in a letter to Lauren Key, Affinity's chief financial officer.
"These arrangements also raise concerns that Affinity's exclusively foreign-funded private investment funds are being exploited as a loophole by Mr. Kushner and other former U.S. government officials as a means to avoid complying with the Foreign Agents Registration Act and other U.S. laws requiring U.S. persons to disclose payments from foreign governments," the senator said.
Wyden pointed out that almost all of the money under management by Affinity comes from the sovereign wealth funds of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Qatar:
The largest source of funding for Affinity appears to be a $2 billion investment from the Saudi Public Investment Fund (PIF)... made in June 2021, shortly after Mr. Kushner left the White House. The remaining $1 billion is split between sovereign wealth funds owned by the governments of the United Arab Emirates and Qatar; Terry Gou, a Taiwanese billionaire and politician who is the founder of the world's largest electronics manufacturer; and another investor whose identity has not been publicly reported.
Wyden said the Saudi PIF buy-in "raises concerns that the investment was a reward for official actions Kushner took to benefit the Saudi government, including preventing accountability for the Saudi government ordering the brutal murder" of journalist and permanent U.S. resident Jamal Khashoggi.
"Private investment funds that take money exclusively from foreign politically exposed investors present heightened national security and other risks," Wyden's letter asserts. "From a national security perspective, the U.S. government has recently highlighted how the opacity and lightly regulated status of private funds can present risk to national security."
Wyden is asking Key to list all of Affinity's clients, how much they've invested, and their annual rates of return. The senator is also seeking information about the company's employees; their roles, responsibilities, and compensation; and "whether the individual meets with or liaises directly with representatives of foreign sovereign wealth funds, including the Saudi PIF, as part of their professional responsibilities."
This isn't the first time that Wyden has questioned Kushner's business ties to Gulf dictatorships. In 2022, the senator sought details regarding possible Qatari involvement in a 2018 real estate deal in which Brookfield Asset Management, a Canadian firm, paid Kushner Companies for a 99-year-lease on 666 5th Avenue, one of the premier properties in the Kushner family portfolio.
Earlier this year, House Democrats led by Reps. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) and Robert Garcia (D-Calif.) urged colleagues to hold hearings over Kushner's "apparent influence peddling and quid pro quos" during the period in which he led critical foreign policy negotiations including over the Abraham Accords agreements between Israel and several Middle Eastern and North African nations.
During his White House tenure, Kushner faced repeated calls to resign as Trump's senior adviser, mostly over concerns about possible conflicts of interest related to his business dealings.
Kushner
said earlier this year that he will not accept any official administration position if Trump—the presumptive 2024 Republican presidential nominee, despite his recent felony conviction and dozens of pending federal and state criminal charges—is reelected.
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AOC, Raskin Announce Bill to Rein in 'Captured and Corrupted' Supreme Court
"A group of anti-democratic billionaires with their own ideological and economic agenda has been working one of the three co-equal branches of government," said Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
Jun 12, 2024
To rein in what he called "the highest court in the land with the lowest ethical standards," U.S. Rep. Jamie Raskin on Tuesday evening joined Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in announcing plans to introduce legislation to bar Supreme Court justices from accepting gifts worth more than $50, matching a ban for members of Congress.
Announced after a roundtable discussion with several legal experts on the pattern of ethics violations at the court, the legislation would be the latest attempt by progressive lawmakers to constrain right-wing justices including Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas.
Raskin (D-Md.) and Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) helped lead the roundtable discussion held by the House Oversight and Accountability Committee on Tuesday afternoon, where topics included right-wing billionaire Harlan Crow's funding of luxury vacations for Thomas—which the justice officially disclosed last week after it was first reported by ProPublica last year—and a fishing trip taken by Alito and paid for by hedge fund manager Paul Singer, who later had business before the court.
Speaking on MSNBC's "All In with Chris Hayes" after the roundtable, Raskin said that with the Supreme Court remaining "the only governmental officials in the land who are not governed by a binding ethics code," he and Ocasio-Cortez decided to introduce legislation "that the whole country will be able to understand immediately and intuitively."
"We want a $50 gift ban for U.S. Supreme Court justices," said Raskin. "They make $300,000 a year. Pay for your own lunch and pay for your own vacation."
Last fall, the Supreme Court introduced an ethics code for justices for the first time, but court reform groups have criticized the fact that it lacks an enforcement mechanism.
At the roundtable discussion on Tuesday, Alex Aronson, executive director of Court Accountability, told Rep. Summer Lee (D-Pa.) that the ethics code has "no teeth or function. It just serves as a way to get people to stop complaining and keep with the status quo."
The Senate Judiciary Committee, led by Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), has called on Alito in recent weeks to recuse himself from cases involving the 2020 election and former President Donald Trump, following reporting that Alito's family displayed two flags that have been embraced by the "Stop the Steal" movement, which baselessly claims Trump was the rightful winner of the presidential election.
Alito has refused to recuse himself, as has Thomas, whose wife supported efforts to overturn the 2020 election in favor of Trump. Last year, Hayes noted in his interview with Raskin and Ocasio-Cortez, Alito said Congress "has no ability to regulate [Supreme Court justices] whatsoever."
Ocasio-Cortez warned Alito's position that the judiciary is unaccountable to the other co-equal branches of government would pave "the path to authoritarianism, tyranny, and abuse of power."
"It's not a question of if Congress has jurisdiction and power over the Supreme Court, it is, 'What power are we going to exercise in order to rein in a fundamentally unaccountable and rogue court?'" said Ocasio-Cortez.
At the roundtable, the congresswoman said that the court has been "delegitimizing itself through its conduct," including the latest revelations regarding Alito, who was caught on tape at an event this month agreeing with an undercover documentary filmmaker that the U.S. needs to return to "a place of godliness."
The tape was released Monday, ahead of an expected Supreme Court ruling on whether the Food and Drug Administration's approval of mifepristone, an abortion pill, should be revoked. The case was brought by conservative Christian group Alliance Defending Freedom.
"A group of anti-democratic billionaires with their own ideological and economic agenda has been working one of the three co-equal branches of government," Ocasio-Cortez said at the roundtable. "Americans are losing fundamental rights in the process, reproductive healthcare, civil liberties, voting rights, the right to organize, clean air and water because the court has been captured and corrupted by money and extremism."
Last month the congresswoman called on the Senate Judiciary Committee to open a formal investigation into the display of the two pro-insurrection flags at Alito's homes.
Indivisible co-founder Ezra Levin said Tuesday evening that while it is "great" that progressive members of the House minority are addressing the tools they have to hold the Supreme Court accountable, "it's embarrassing the Senate Judiciary chair isn't demonstrating half the interest or effort."
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'Imperative': Oxfam Pushes G7 to Use Fraction of Military Spending to Fix Hunger, Debt Crises
"Governments are finding their pockets run deep to fund war today, but when it comes to stopping starvation they are suddenly broke," an Oxfam director said.
Jun 12, 2024
Oxfam International called for Group of Seven countries to redirect a fraction of military spending toward solving world hunger and relieving poor countries' sovereign debts as leaders prepare to gather in Italy this week.
In a new analysis, the nonprofit found that just 3% of the seven countries' annual military spending—$1.2 trillion in 2023, with the U.S. alone spending $916 billion, according to SIPRI data that Oxfam used—would be enough to "help end world hunger and solve the debt crisis in the Global South," a statement said.
"Governments are finding their pockets run deep to fund war today, but when it comes to stopping starvation they are suddenly broke," Max Lawson, Oxfam International's head of inequality, said in the statement.
"We're talking about a small commitment with the potential for huge impact," he said. "Imagine a world where no one goes to bed hungry and where countries in the Global South can put money into public schools and hospitals instead of debt interest payments. The G7 not only has the means, but the moral and strategic imperative to make this happen."
Oxfam found that eradicating world hunger, both acute and chronic, would cost $31.7 billion per year—most of the proposed 3% redirection in funds. More than 281 million face severe hunger and malnutrition, Oxfam said. The nonprofit's statement cited Somalia, Guatemala, Yemen, and Kenya as places where hunger is on the rise. It also said that the G7 was complicit in the ongoing suffering and starvation in Gaza. The G7 nations are the United States, Japan, Germany, France, Italy, Canada, and the United Kingdom.
"The G7's collective failure has basically given the Israeli military a free pass to commit terrible atrocities against Palestinian people," Lawson said. "G7 leaders must do everything in their power to make sure there is an immediate and permanent cease-fire to stop the death and destruction. They also need to ensure full and permanent access of humanitarian aid through all ground crossings, and the release of all hostages and unlawfully detained Palestinian prisoners."
"Low- and middle-income countries are now spending nearly a third of their budgets on servicing debts―as much as on public education, healthcare, and social protection combined."
Oxfam also recommended redirecting a relatively small amount of military spending toward sovereign debt relief. Currently, Global South countries collectively are asked to pay $291 million a day in total debt payments, including on interest.
"Low- and middle-income countries are now spending nearly a third of their budgets on servicing debts―as much as on public education, healthcare, and social protection combined," the Oxfam statement said.
Poor countries currently owe about $4 billion to G7 governments, Oxfam found, based on World Bank and International Monetary Fund data, but G7 countries don't pay what they owe in social and climate aid: $15 trillion, according to Oxfam. This follows on an Oxfam analysis last year that found the figure was above $13 trillion.
"It's really the G7 which owes a debt to the low- and middle-income countries. It's not the other way around," Amitabh Behar, Oxfam International's interim executive director, toldAl Jazeera last year.
"We need to shift that gaze," he added.
Oxfam also called for G7 countries to follow up on a recent G20 effort to tax the super rich. In April, top G20 ministers—from Brazil, Germany, Spain, and South Africa—called for a 2% wealth tax on billionaires "to invest in public goods such as health, education, the environment, and infrastructure."
Following preliminary meetings, G7 ministers pledged to "increase our efforts aimed at progressive and fair taxation of individuals" and work with Brazil, which currently holds the G20 presidency and is led by progressive President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.
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