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Congressman Dennis Kucinich (D-OH), the leading opponent of the Obama Administration's intervention in Libya, again challenged the basis for the Libyan war saying: "The critical issue today is not the defense of Libyan democracy but the defense of American democracy." Tomorrow, Kucinich will address the House for one hour.
See the video here. The full text of the Congressman's remarks follow.
"We are in the midst of a foreign policy and constitutional crisis. The Administration has committed our nation to a war against Libya in violation of the Constitution of the United States.
"The Administration has said that they do not have full information about the rebels they are assisting. But it is clear that for at least 30 years, U.S. intelligence has had a relationship with prominent elements within the Libyan opposition.
"Further, the New York Times today reports that elements of the opposition may be linked to Al Qaeda and that we are considering arming them.
"When it comes to the War in Libya, the Administration has subverted Congress and the United States Constitution.
"Tomorrow, I will present to Congress a definitive one hour response to the Administration's Libyan War in the form of facts and questions. Congress must challenge violations of our Constitutional principles relating to war and peace.
"The critical issue today is not the defense of Libyan democracy but the defense of American democracy."
Kucinich is the author of an amendment to the next funding measure to defund U.S. military intervention.
Dennis Kucinich is an American politician. A U.S. Representative from Ohio from 1997 to 2013, he was also a candidate for the Democratic nomination for president of the United States in 2004 and 2008.
"Fossil fuel producers and their enablers are still racing to expand production, knowing full well that their business model is inconsistent with human survival," said United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres.
United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres delivered a scathing address to corporate and political elites in Davos on Wednesday, ripping fossil fuel giants and governments for expanding oil and gas extraction in the face of increasingly devastating climate chaos across the globe.
"The science has been clear for decades," Guterres said at the World Economic Forum, an event attended by the top executives of major oil and gas firms including Chevron and BP. "I am not talking only about U.N. scientists. I am talking even about fossil fuel scientists."
Guterres was referencing a peer-reviewed study published last week showing that ExxonMobil—one of the world's largest oil companies—accurately predicted planetary warming in its internal models as early as the 1970s, even as the company's executives publicly denied the reality of climate change.
"Just like the tobacco industry, they rode roughshod over their own science," Guterres said Wednesday. "Some in Big Oil peddled the big lie. And like the tobacco industry, those responsible must be held to account. Today, fossil fuel producers and their enablers are still racing to expand production, knowing full well that this business model is inconsistent with human survival."
"This insanity belongs in science fiction, yet we know the ecosystem meltdown is cold, hard scientific fact," the U.N. chief continued. "We must act together to close the emissions gap. To phase out coal and supercharge the renewable revolution. To end the addiction to fossil fuels. And to stop our self-defeating war on nature."
"We are flirting with climate disaster. Every week brings a new climate horror story. Greenhouse gas emissions are at record levels and growing."
Guterres' address came shortly after the International Energy Agency said oil demand is likely to rise to a record 101.7 million barrels a day this year due to a number of catalysts, including a "faster-than-anticipated reopening of China" and a "somewhat improved economic outlook."
Hundreds of fossil fuel giants around the world, meanwhile, are "taking active steps to bring 230 billion barrels of oil equivalent of untapped resources into production before 2030," according to one recent analysis, imperiling hopes of slashing carbon emissions and curbing the runaway warming that is fueling increasingly catastrophic extreme weather events. Last year was one of the hottest years on record—and the hottest year on record for the world's oceans—as greenhouse gas levels continued to surge.
The oil and gas industry's climate-wrecking expansion plans are made possible by generous funding from large financial institutions such as Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase, and Bank of America, which have pumped billions into fossil fuel projects over the past two years even as they advertise their ostensibly climate-friendly net-zero pledges.
"More and more businesses are making net-zero commitments," Guterres said in his speech Wednesday. "But benchmarks and criteria are often dubious or murky. This misleads consumers, investors, and regulators with false narratives. It feeds a culture of climate misinformation and confusion. And it leaves the door wide open to greenwashing."
"The transition to net zero must be grounded in real emissions cuts—and not rely on carbon credits and shadow markets."
Later this year, Guterres is set to convene what he described as a "no-nonsense" Climate Ambition Summit in an attempt to jumpstart global climate action following two failed U.N.-hosted conferences—and ahead of COP28, which will be overseen by the head of the United Arab Emirates' state-run oil company.
"We are flirting with climate disaster," Guterres said Wednesday. "Every week brings a new climate horror story. Greenhouse gas emissions are at record levels and growing. The commitment to limit global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees is nearly going up in smoke. Without further action, we are headed to a 2.8-degree increase and the consequences, as we all know, would be devastating. Several parts of our planet will be uninhabitable."
"And for many," he added, "this is a death sentence."
"Instead of holding Big Oil executives accountable for price gouging consumers at the pump, the committee will be dominated by the interests of extractive industries," said one government transparency advocate.
A leading government accountability watchdog on Tuesday called out leaders of the Republican-controlled U.S. House of Representatives while revealing that the 21 GOP members appointed by Speaker Kevin McCarthy to the Natural Resources Committee took a combined $3.8 million in campaign contributions from Big Oil.
Oil and gas industry contributions to the 21 right-wing lawmakers range from more than $850,000 for Rep. Garret Graves of Louisiana—the nation's third-biggest fossil gas producer and a top-10 oil-producing state—to $18,800 for Rep. Mike Collins of Georgia, according to Accountable.US.
"The new MAGA-controlled House Natural Resources Committee aligns much closer with violent anti-public land extremists like the Bundys than they do with most Americans," the group said in a statement, referring to former President Donald Trump's "Make America Great Again" 2016 campaign slogan and the Nevada family that perpetrated an armed confrontation with the U.S. Bureau of Land Management over unpaid cattle grazing fees.
Accountable.US continued:
Of the Republicans on the committee, five outright oppose federal public lands, most have demonstrated support for election denial, and all have supported policies to expand industry-friendly federal leasing to Big Oil and other extractive sectors. While nearly all of the members have received donations from oil and gas companies, several have personal financial conflicts of interest in the form of either spousal employment or stock holdings.
"Big Oil's investment is already paying off," said Jordan Schreiber, director of energy and environment at Accountable.US. "McCarthy and his MAGA allies wasted no time delivering results for their wealthy industry donors, placing nine of the most extreme anti-conservation members on the House Natural Resources Committee."
"Instead of holding Big Oil executives accountable for price gouging consumers at the pump, the committee will be dominated by the interests of extractive industries, enabling them to push bills that stymie cost controls, and clear the way for multibillion dollar corporations to exploit the American people's land for private gain," Schreiber added.
In addition to highlighting the money that the lawmakers have taken from the fossil fuel industry, the new report notes relevant actions and remarks, from Graves describing President Joe Biden’s climate plan as "ushering in a Soviet-style state" to Rep. Harriet Hageman of Wyoming comparing conservation efforts to dictators starving and killing people, claiming that "it's about controlling people through controlling the food supply."
"Sinema has always been and will always be all about Sinema," said the head of one political advoacy group. "She doesn't care who her policies hurt. She doesn't care that she stood in the way of voting rights and abortion rights, as long as she got the headlines she wanted."
Independent U.S. Sen. Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona and right-wing Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia took heat Tuesday for high-fiving over their shared support of the filibuster while "rubbing elbows with Wall Street CEOs and celebrities in the lap of luxury" at the World Economic Forum's annual summit in Davos, Switzerland.
Sinema—who left the Democratic Party last month—and Manchin sat on a panel with Democrats including Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.), Rep. Mike Sherill (D-N.J.), and Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker, a multibillionaire. Also on the panel were Republican Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp and Rep. Mária Salazar (R-Fla.).
At one point during the panel discussion, Manchin asked Sinema, "We still don't agree on getting rid of the filibuster, correct?"
"That's correct," the former far-left anti-war activist replied. The two senators then proceeded to high-five.
\u201cAt the World Economic Forum in Davos, surrounded by the super rich, Kyrsten Sinema and Joe Manchin agree that they won\u2019t end the filibuster. Then they high-five.\n\nBoth have used their position to hurt working people, and the planet, and make their rich friends richer.\u201d— More Perfect Union (@More Perfect Union) 1673981616
"Sinema has always been and will always be all about Sinema. She doesn't care who her policies hurt. She doesn't care that she stood in the way of voting rights and abortion rights, as long as she got the headlines she wanted," Sacha Haworth, spokesperson for the Replace Sinema campaign, said in a statement. "Now, she's on stage in Switzerland, in front of an audience of billionaires and Wall Street CEOs, bragging about her obstruction and giving high-fives. It's no wonder she's so unpopular among Arizonans of every political stripe."
The Replace Sinema campaign is a Change for Arizona 2024 PAC project focused on "defeating her in a potential three-way general election and replacing her with a real Democrat."
Defending her support for the archaic Senate rule historically used to uphold white supremacy and, more recently, to stymie key Biden administration agenda items, Sinema said that "we had free and fair elections all across the country, so one could posit that the push by one political party to eliminate an important guardrail and an institution in our country may have been premature or overreaching in order to get the short-term victories they wanted."
\u201cShe has terrible taste in friends.\u201d— Replace Sinema (@Replace Sinema) 1673969300
Replace Sinema noted that the senator is "schmoozing with CEOs, securing more dark money, [and] ignoring her constituents" while "rubbing elbows with major players who ran well-funded campaigns to defeat any tax increases for billionaire corporations and Wall Street." These include members of the Business Roundtable, "including JPMorgan Chase's CEO, the head of Blackrock, the CEO of Hewlett Packard, and an executive at Bain & Company."
Center Forward, a dark money group funded by the Business Roundtable, ran ads in Arizona supporting Sinema’s opposition to the tax and drug pricing reforms on President Joe Biden's agenda.
"Where's Kyrsten Sinema today? Is she doing her job in Arizona or in Washington?" Replace Sinema asked in a statement. "Nope. She's in Switzerland, of course. At the famous Davos World Economic Forum, where billionaires and Wall Street execs can sidle up to global leaders and hang out with celebrities in the elitist, most rarefied of settings. As far away from her constituents as possible, and in the lap of luxury. Just as Sinema likes it."
"And of course," the group added, "Sinema will get to spend time with her Wall Street allies who have lobbied for many of the same special tax breaks and loopholes for corporations and billionaires that Sinema has championed."