July, 30 2019, 12:00am EDT
For Immediate Release
Contact:
Yetta Stein
Western Values Project
yetta@westernvaluesproject.org
(406) 529-1682
Appointment of Anti-Public Lands Pendley to Top BLM Post is Dangerous
Full Background Research on William Perry Pendley, Interior’s New Acting Bureau of Land Management Chief Available Here
WASHINGTON
Today, the Interior Department named William Perry Pendley to be the Bureau of Land Management's Acting Director. Previously, Pendley was an extremist lawyer who supported the transfer of federal public lands to the state.
"This appointment shows Trump and Bernhardt are only interested in selling off public lands to the highest bidder. Pendley is an outspoken advocate for the transfer of public lands to the state. Anything they've ever said about not selling off public lands has just been a political smokescreen to distract from their real intentions: handing over public lands to their special interest allies," said Chris Saeger, Executive Director of the Western Values Project.
WVP is releasing background information today on the Department of Influence at this link.
Pendley's resume includes being dismissed from the Reagan Administration for controversy around a coal lease sale as well as continually calling for revoking monument designations and repealing the Antiquities Act. Pendley repeatedly criticized former Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke for not going far enough with his illegal monument reduction recommendations. He has rallied against sage grouse protections, even sporting the Twitter handle "SageBrush_Rebel." Pendley called the Endangered Species Act "the pit bull of environmental law," claiming that it did not rely on "good science."
Pendley was president of the Mountain States Legal Foundation (MSLF) for 29 years from 1989 until late 2018, which was launched "as a conservative counterweight to environmental groups' litigation efforts." MSLF's mission is "focused on defending the constitution, protecting property rights, and advancing economic liberty."
Western Values Project brings accountability to the national conversation about Western public lands and national parks conservation - a space too often dominated by industry lobbyists and their allies in government.
LATEST NEWS
To Thwart Trump Killing Spree, Biden Urged to Commute Death Penalty Cases
The former president, warned a broad rights coalition, "executed more people than the previous ten administrations combined."
Dec 09, 2024
A large and diverse coalition of broad coalition of rights organizations on Monday sent a letter to U.S. President Biden Monday, urging him to commute the sentences of all 40 individuals who are on federal death row.
The letter adds to a chorus of voices—including prosecutors and law enforcement officials—advocating for Biden to use his clemency powers to issue such commutations before he departs office.
The calls for Biden to issue pardons and commutations have only grown since the president issued a pardon for his son, clearing Hunter Biden of wrongdoing in any federal crimes he committed or may have committed in the last 11 years.
The joint letter to Biden was backed by over 130 organizations, including the ACLU, Brennan Center for Justice, and The Sentencing Project, commends his administration's "actions to repudiate capital punishment, including imposing a moratorium on executions for those sentenced to death, and for publicly calling for an end to the use of the death penalty during your 2020 campaign. In the face of a second Trump administration, more is necessary."
"President Trump executed more people than the previous ten administrations combined. Of those he executed, over half were people of color: six Black men and one Native American. The only irreversible action you can take to prevent President-elect Trump from renewing his execution spree, as he has vowed to do, is commuting the death sentences of those on federal death row now," the letter states.
The letter cites additional reasons that Biden ought to commute the sentences, including that the death penalty "has been rooted in slavery, lynchings, and white vigilantism."
A separate letter to Biden—sent in November by group of attorneys general, law enforcement officials, and others—argues that "condemning people to death by the state does not advance public safety. The death penalty fails as an effective deterrent and does not reduce crime. As an outdated, error-riddled, and racially-biased practice, its continued use—and the potential for its abuse—erodes public trust in the criminal legal system and undermines the legitimacy of the entire criminal legal system."
Matt Bruenig, president of the People's Policy Project think tank, directly tied Biden's inaction on this issue to the pardon he issued for his son in a blog post last week, writing that "if Biden does not act, there is little doubt that Trump will aggressively schedule executions in his next term. Their blood will primarily be on Trump's hands, but, if Biden does not act to prevent it, his hands will be bloody too."
The call for commutations for death row prisoners aligns with a wider push for the President to use his clemency powers before he leaves office.
Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.), who has been particularly vocal on this issue, said Sunday on social media that President Biden "must use his clemency power to change lives for the better. And we have some ideas on who he can target: Folks in custody with unjustified sentencing disparities, the elderly and chronically ill, people on death row, women punished for crimes of their abusers, and more."
Pressley was one of over 60 members of Congress who sent a letter to Biden last month, encouraging Biden to intervene to help these groups.
Several lawmakers have specific pardons or commutations in mind, according to Axios. For example, Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) has urged Biden to pardon Julian Assange of WikiLeaks, and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) has called for a pardon of Indigenous activist Leonard Peltier, per Axios.
So far, Biden has granted far fewer clemency petitions (161 total) than former President Barrack Obama, according to the Department of Justice's Office of the Pardon Attorney, and a few dozen less than President-elect Trump did during his entire first presidency. However, in 2022, Biden did grant full and unconditional pardons to all U.S. citizens convicted of simple federal marijuana possession—a move that was cheered by advocates.
According to The New York Times, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said last week that Biden was expected to make more clemency announcements "at the end of his term."
"He's thinking through that process very thoroughly," she said.
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62% of Americans Agree US Government Should Ensure Everyone Has Health Coverage
The new poll shows the highest level of support in a decade for the government ensuring all Americans have healthcare.
Dec 09, 2024
Public sentiment regarding the nation's for-profit healthcare system—an outlier among wealthy nations—has dominated the national news in recent days following last week's killing of an insurance executive in New York.
On Monday, just hours before a suspect in the murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson was arrested by police, a new Gallup poll found a 62% majority in the U.S. believe the government should ensure all Americans have healthcare coverage—the highest percentage in more than a decade.
Just 42% of people in 2013 believed it was the government's responsibility to make sure everyone in the country had health coverage—a low since the beginning of this century.
The poll found that a majority of Republicans still believe ensuring health coverage is not the government's job, but the majority has shrunk since 2020.
That year, only 22% of Republican voters believed the government should ensure everyone in the country has healthcare, but that number has now grown to 32%.
The percentage of Independents who think the issue is in the government's purview has also gone up by six points since 2020, and Democratic support remains high, currently at 90%.
Americans have vented their frustrations about the current for-profit health insurance system in recent days as police searched for a suspect in the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, before arresting Luigi Mangione in Pennsylvania on Monday. Mangione, according to claims by police, was found with a manifesto that railed against the insurance industry.
Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield last week also faced public outcry and was forced to reverse a decision to slash coverage for anesthesia care, with U.S. Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) saying the move indicated that "the current system is broken."
"Democrats will regain trust by standing up to special interest insurance companies and fighting for Medicare for All," he said.
President-elect Donald Trump and other Republicans, who are set to control both chambers of Congress starting in January, have indicated that they would go in the opposite direction, working to weaken the popular, government-run Medicare program by promoting Medicare Advantage, which is administered by for-profit companies like United and is already used by half of Medicare beneficiaries.
But one of Trump's top allies, billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk, waded into the debate last week about the current healthcare system, questioning why the U.S. pays far more in administrative healthcare costs than other wealthy countries and suggesting Americans don't "get their money's worth."
Another poll released last Friday found Americans' positive opinion of the nation's healthcare quality has declined to its lowest point since 2001, with most agreeing the U.S. system dominated by private insurers has "major problems."
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Police Say Luigi Mangione, Suspected Killer of Insurance CEO, Had 'Ill Will Toward Corporate America'
Mangione, who was arrested Monday in Pennsylvania five days after UnitedHealth CEO Brian Thompson was gunned down in Manhattan, was reportedly in possession of an anti-corporate manifesto.
Dec 09, 2024
This is a breaking news story... Please check back later for possible updates.
Luigi Mangione—the 26-year-old man arrested in Pennsylvania Monday on gun charges and suspected of last week's assassination of UnitedHealth CEO Brian Thompson—was carrying a manifesto condemning insurance industry greed, police said after his apprehension.
Mangione, a Maryland native who according to his social media profiles has a master's degree in engineering from the University of Pennsylvania, was apprehended after being recognized in a McDonald's in Altoona,
The New York Timesreported.
New York Police Department (NYPD) Chief of Detectives Joseph Kenny said Mangione was in possession of a 9mm handgun—possibly a ghost gun made with numerous parts or a 3D printer—the type used to kill Thompson, as well as a silencer and what he described as an anti-corporate manifesto.
"It does seem he has some ill will toward corporate America," Kenny said.
According toCNN, Mangione admitted to killing Thompson in the manifesto, writing that he acted alone and was "self-funded."
"I do apologize for any strife or trauma," the document stated, "but it had to be done. These parasites had it coming."
NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch claimed that Mangione was also carrying a fake New Jersey ID matching the one the suspecter killer used to check into a New York City hostel 10 days before Thompson was gunned down in broad daylight in Manhattan with a silencer-equipped gun firing 9mm bullets.
Three bullet casings were inscribed with the words "deny," "defend," and "depose"—a phrase commonly used by critics to describe insurance industry tactics to avoid paying patient claims. UnitedHealth, the nation's biggest private insurer, is notorious for denying more claims than any other insurance company.
Mangione's social media posts run the gamut from praising the opinions of right-wing figures like Elon Musk and Tucker Carlson to leaving positive reviews on Goodreads for books including Dr. Seuss' cautionary environmental tale The Lorax and the manifesto of Theodore Kaczynski—better known as the Unabomber.
"He had the balls to recognize that peaceful protest has gotten us absolutely nowhere and at the end of the day, he's probably right," Mangione controversially opined of Kaczynski, whom he called "an extreme political revolutionary."
"When all other forms of communication fail, violence is necessary to survive," he asserted.
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