Why are the billionaires always laughing?

Because they know the corporate media will never call bullshit on their bullshit.

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Why are the billionaires laughing?

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Why are the billionaires laughing?

It’s easy to laugh when the corporate press treats you as a glorious success instead of the epitome of a broken social order. Billionaires laugh because they know the corporate media prefers to fawn over them rather than hold them to account.

Today, we ask you to support our nonprofit, independent journalism because we are not impressed by billionaires flying into space, their corporations despoiling our health and planet, or their vast fortunes safely concealed in tax havens across the globe. We are not laughing.

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The memo outlines fourteen policies to be expected from President-elect Trump, which collectively amounts to a fossil fuel industry wish list and which would be devastating for attempts to slow climate change.

Revealed: The Trump Administration's Energy Plan

The future Donald Trump administration's energy agenda is revealed in a memo prepared by Trump's energy transition head Thomas Pyle, titled "What to Expect from the Trump Administration." The document, obtained by the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD), was sent by Pyle on November 15th, just days before the Trump campaign announced Pyle's appointment as head of his Department of Energy transition team.

Pyle is the President of both the American Energy Alliance and the Institute for Energy Research. Both organizations have received cash from numerous fossil fuel funders including ExxonMobil, Peabody Energy and Koch Industries. From 2001 to 2005, Pyle was Director of Federal Affairs for Koch Industries.

The memo outlines fourteen policies to be expected from President-elect Trump, which collectively amounts to a fossil fuel industry wish list and which would be devastating for attempts to slow climate change.

The agenda includes withdrawing from the 2015 Paris Climate agreement, eliminating the Clean Power Plan, increasing the leasing of federal lands for exploitation of coal, oil and gas, expediting the approval of pipeline projects including the Keystone XL and Dakota Access Pipeline and rolling back federal fuel economy standards.

Read the memo here.

© 2019 Center for Media and Democracy
Nick Surgey

Nick Surgey

Nick Surgey is an investigative reporter and the director of Documented, a watchdog group that investigates how corporations manipulate public policy. His research has been widely featured, including by The Guardian, the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, the Washington Post, and the Colbert Report. Nick was previously director of research at the Center for Media and Democracy, and prior to that, staff counsel at Common Cause, where he led the research and legal work on the group’s investigation into the American Legislative Exchange Council and its Supreme Court Ethics project.

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