Sen. Whitehouse criticized for plan to ease project permitting

A bill in Congress would speed up project approval. Is this good or bad?

Barry Schiller in SteveAhlquist.news

Have you heard about the “Bipartisan American Affordability and Jobs Act,” S5653, introduced in the United States Senate? From its name, it certainly sounds like a good thing, but it has actually split the environmental movement.

It is a 417-page bill with 4 sponsors, two from each party, one of whom is our own Sheldon Whitehouse, long a climate leader. The bill purports to be about permitting reform, intended to reduce delays so the U.S. can build projects more quickly, especially in energy.

Rhode Island Senator Sheldon Whitehouse is thinking of renewable energy, and is quoted in the press release saying Americans “want lower energy bills, and they want more clean energy. Our permitting reform plan gets us a long way toward both of those goals. 

If we can pass this bill, we will flood the grid with clean, affordable energy and make data centers start paying their fair share. Like all major pieces of bipartisan legislation, this bill is a compromise. We believe it is a compromise that will result in a brighter, cleaner, more affordable future.”

Renewable energy firms, worried about getting transmission lines built, support the bill, as does the Citizens Climate Lobby, which claims it will “unlock a huge amount of clean energy development.” But because the bill can also speed up fossil fuel development, it has support from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the National Mining Association, natural gas interests, and apparently the Trump administration, which wants to speed up projects like oil wells, coal mines, gas pipelines, and nuclear energy.

But some environmental groups oppose it, as the bill limits time for public comment, restricts judicial remedies, and narrows the scope of environmental review. The New York Times summary of the bill says “it puts new limits on landmark environmental laws such as the Clean Water and Endangered Species Acts.” The latter inspired a 4-page letter signed by more than 200 environmental groups, including Friends of the Earth, the Western Environmental Law Center, and the Center for Biological Diversity, detailing why the bill is objectionable. 

Trump 2.0 reboot

Now that Bibi has lost...

What to watch for – and prep for – across the Southeast U.S. and Eastern Seaboard as El Niño peaks

We've got another Nor'easter rolling in tonight

By Bob Henson, Yale Climate Connections

Figure 1. Typical features of El Niño across North America. (Image credit: NOAA)

For all the destructive power it can pack, a very strong (aka “super”) El Niño event like the one now in place also brings some measure of seasonal predictability. Nothing is ever guaranteed, but especially from late fall into early spring, El Niño shifts the odds of temperature and precipitation outcomes in ways that have distinctive regional fingerprints. This allows a wide range of stakeholders, from water managers to farmers to energy traders, to hedge their bets and reduce their risk of unpleasant surprises.

The elephant in the room is the question of how human-caused climate change will affect this "super" El Niño.

In the United States, El Niño’s classic winter signature is drier-than-usual weather centered near the Ohio Valley, with unusual warmth extending across much of Canada and the northern U.S. tier. A wetter-than-usual arc typically runs from southern California across the Southwest and South and up close to the mid-Atlantic. A few areas in or near this typical moist arc have already been plastered with destructive flooding rains over the past several weeks, including Arizona and the Four Corners region as well as parts of Florida’s Space Coast and northern Georgia. Various factors, including El Niño, long-term warming, and unusually high monthly king tides, have already driven record-high coastal water levels this fall in California and Florida.

There could be many more local and regional flooding episodes between now and spring 2027, especially if the typical El Niño-juiced jet stream sets up along the southern tier of the U.S. – an outcome implied in NOAA's winter forecast as well as recent runs of seasonal forecast models. There's also historical and model-based evidence suggesting:

• a strikingly warm December for much of the U.S., but unusually chilly conditions that could emerge in February, particularly over the South
• a heightened risk of a major late-winter tornado outbreak, especially in Florida
• a sequence of potent nor'easter-type storms, but with major uncertainty over whether it'll get enough for much snow along the Interstate 95 corridor.

Figure 2. Outlooks for seasonal temperature (left) and precipitation (right) averaged across the three months of winter 2026–27 (December through February). (Image credit: NOAA)

Pentagon Pete gives 30 minute lecture at the Naval War College in Newport

Hegseth attacks civilian-led education in Naval War College speech

By Christopher Shea, Rhode Island Current

Protesters assemble as the motorcade for Secretary of
Defense Pete Hegseth arrives in Newport.
(Photo by David Hansen/Rhode Island Current)

As calls for his resignation and impeachment grow in Washington, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth came to the U.S. Naval War College in Newport Monday, Nov. 9, to announce a sweeping effort to strip military education of what he called its overly civilian influences.

“This morning we strip away the comfortable veneer of academic tradition,” he told an audience of 672 military personnel, students, faculty and civilian instructors inside Spruance Hall. “The fundamental duty of the armed forces of the United States is to ensure victory in war — full stop.”

Laughing, talking, taking selfies - Hegseth has no
right to lecture anybody!

Hegseth set the curriculum overhaul in motion in March, ordering a 90-day review of the Pentagon’s six senior service colleges, including the war colleges for the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines and the National Defense University and National War College. 

The Pentagon established a task force to scrutinize their faculty and curriculum to ensure the schools were producing warfighters rather than “social justice warriors.”

The result: an eight-page memo dated Monday containing 33 directives Hegseth said would rid the colleges of “relics of 19th century academia” and better prepare officers for modern warfare.

“In the profession of arms, nostalgia is fatal,” he said. “When our war college graduates walk across the stage and take command, their minds cannot be anchored on the strategic consensus of a vanished world.”

Hegseth presented an outline on some of the new guidelines during his 30-minute speech after which he promptly left the auditorium. He allowed no time for questions and answers with faculty and students and did not take questions from local media. 

Under the new guidelines, the Pentagon will judge military education programs by a single standard: whether they produce leaders capable of winning wars. 

Trump made his Veterans Day speech at Arlington
Cemetery about himself and his vanity projects.
Hegseth gets it from his boss and...

The directives would make newly hired civilian faculty ineligible for lifetime tenure and emeritus status, instead putting them on renewable three-year contracts tied to teaching performance and national security research. They also call for new “warfighter chair” positions at senior service colleges, filled by high-performing colonels and lieutenant colonels who have held operational commands within the previous two years.

“Peace through strength is not achieved by comfortable consensus and business as usual approaches,” Hegseth said. “It is achieved by preparing our minds and our forces to wage war with such devastating speed, precision, and lethality that no adversary dares test American resolve — that’s deterrence.”

Hegseth’s central critique against America’s military colleges is that they have become too much like civilian universities, importing what he called the “worst pathologies” of higher education at the expense of their focus on victory in the battlefield.

...Role model for disgraceful conduct at Arlington Cemetery

He pointed to the Naval War College’s 12-year partnership with Brown University as an example, saying he directed the Pentagon to end the relationship last month.

“The only place more strikingly ideological in one direction — more than Columbia or Harvard — is Brown,” Hegseth, a graduate of Princeton and Harvard, said. “It was long past due to end that relationship.”

The partnership between the two schools dates to June 2014, when then-Naval War College President Rear Adm. Walter E. “Ted” Carter Jr. and Brown President Christina Paxson signed a research and education agreement with the university’s Watson Institute for International Studies. The agreement was intended to promote joint research and teaching, including programs in science-related fields tied to long-term national defense needs.

A spokesperson for Brown University did not immediately respond to request for comment on Hegseth’s statements.

Will Trump try to ban non-profit groups that oppose him?

Trump Weighing Executive Order to Label Disliked Nonprofits as ‘Terrorist’ Groups

Stephen Prager for Common Dreams

Donald Trump is reportedly considering a major escalation of his war against left-wing nonprofits with an executive order that would seek to suspend their tax-exempt status with the stroke of a pen.

The Wall Street Journal reported Friday that the order plans to label some nonprofit groups as having “terrorist” ties—an act that would immediately suspend their tax-exempt status, dramatically imperiling their ability to operate and raise money.

According to the report, the administration is seeking to use a little-known provision in the federal tax code to strip nonprofits of their status without going through the normal Internal Revenue Service investigation and appeals process.

The law, signed in 2003 by then-President George W. Bush, allows the president to identify an organization in an executive order as supporting or engaging in terrorism. The law also prevents organizations from challenging designation or suspension in proceedings concerning federal tax liability.

It’s not clear yet which groups will be targeted, but the administration and its allies in Congress have already signaled their intent to go after left-leaning groups like George Soros’ Open Society Foundations, the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), and the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR).

Advice for Dems from Nobel laureate

What do we do now? Paul Krugman has some suggestions

by xaxnar, Daily Kos

Democrats look to have control of both houses of Congress come January, assuming no shenanigans keep that from happening. That’s huge, but not sufficient. Although they have historic margins, it’s still not enough to guarantee overriding presidential vetoes or getting around the filibuster. Trump still retains vast powers as the chief executive and commander in chief, not to mention the GOP control of the Supreme Court.

Nonetheless, Paul Krugman has some suggestions. There’s a lot that can be done by Democrats in Congress even so.

The American people have just delivered a stunning rebuke to Donald Trump. If we had a parliamentary system, the moving trucks would already be at the White House. 

As it is, however, an increasingly deranged and debilitated Trump will remain in control of foreign policy, national security, and many of the federal government’s domestic operations for two more years. He will also, as he made a point of emphasizing on Truth Social as the returns came in, retain the ability to veto legislation. And Democrats, despite their huge margins in both houses of Congress, won’t have enough votes to override his vetoes.

So what can Democrats do with their new majorities?

One important answer is that they will now hold committee gavels, hence the ability to conduct investigations and hearings backed by subpoena power. This matters more for the Trump gang than it would for a normal administration. 

Everyone paying attention knows that Trump and his cronies have been stealing billions, but many Americans probably don’t grasp the full extent of the corruption. Gaining the ability to bring this corruption into the sunlight is critical to rebuild Americans’ faith in the integrity of government, as well as to hold Trump and his vandals accountable. 

Moreover, knowing that his days are numbered, the Trump gang have every incentive to engage in a wholesale smash-and-grab spree.

And Democrats know it. On Tuesday night Rep. Robert Garcia — the probable chair of the House Oversight Committee — had a blunt message for everyone associated with Trump: “Lawyer up.”

Should have checked under the bed

The truth won't set him free

Trump administration continues to tear down the VA

His main goal is faster privatization of the nation’s largest public healthcare system.

Steve Early and Suzanne Gordon for Common Dreams

If any Trump appointees lose their posts, as part of a midterm cabinet reshuffling, Secretary of Veterans Affairs Doug Collins is not likely to be among them.

Unlike controversial former colleagues, already sacked as the heads of the Homeland Security, Justice, and Labor Departments—or Pete Hegseth, the next to go?—Collins keeps his own head down. He does the president’s bidding, without personal drama or political scandal.

This low-profile Air Force Reserve chaplain is a clean-living Southern Baptist minister, small-town lawyer, and former congressman from Georgia. When the Senate confirmed him last year, there was no need for a tie-breaking vote like the one JD Vance cast to push Pete across the finish line as secretary of defense.

VA defenders, inside and outside the Beltway, need a damage control agenda that will restrain—rather than enable—further White House attempts to defund and dismantle our best working model of socialized medicine.

The far more affable Collins won Senate approval with the bipartisan support of 22 Democrats! They included Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), a military veteran whose own son is a VA patient and, sadly, were joined by Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), former chair of the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee (SVAC).

Expanded Outsourcing

Collins has proved to be Donald Trump’s worst VA Secretary ever; his main goal is faster privatization of the nation’s largest public healthcare system. The likelihood that he will control the third largest federal agency budget and second largest departmental workforce, for another two years, is not good news for 9 million VA patients.

By the time any Democrat replaces Trump in January, 2029, Collins will have diverted far more than $46 billion annually from the VA’s direct-care budget to a network of 1.7 million private sector providers and four healthcare companies who administer it.

Just two months ago, he awarded new contracts to the latter worth $1 trillion, over the next decade (if not cancelled or curtailed by a future administration). As a result, industry giants like United Healthcare and Humana will be profiting from further outsourcing of VA care that is costly, unnecessary, and not favored by veterans themselves.

VA defenders, inside and outside the Beltway, need a damage control agenda that will restrain—rather than enable—further White House attempts to defund and dismantle our best working model of socialized medicine. Otherwise, more VA staffing and budget cuts, plus facility closings, in the VA’s own system of 1,380 public hospitals and clinics around the country will be happening soon.

Marking November 11

In the United States:

In Canada...

And the United Kingdom...

COVID-19 vaccines generated trillions in benefits, far exceeding their estimated costs

Vaccination made good financial sense in addition to saving lives. 

Still does.

By New York University

Edited by Swati Mestri, reviewed by Robert Egan

Dr. Fauci was right

Every dollar spent on COVID-19 vaccine development and distribution generated an estimated $81 to $810 in economic value during the first year that vaccines were given, according to new research published in the journal PLOS Medicine.

The study—the first global analysis of the return on investment for COVID-19 vaccines—shows that vaccines not only averted severe illness and saved lives but were also a sound investment.

"Our study provides evidence that the unprecedented, rapid investments made into COVID-19 vaccines early in the pandemic paid off massively both in health and economic benefits," said study author Mark Jit, professor of global health at NYU School of Global Public Health. "Vaccine development, as well as equitable vaccine distribution globally, should be prioritized before and during global health crises."

Counting costs beyond vaccine purchases

Vaccines played a critical role during the COVID-19 pandemic, but their development required extraordinary effort—and spending—among governments, pharmaceutical companies and nonprofit organizations. The resulting vaccines were highly effective at preventing severe illness and death, with one study estimating that between 14 million and 20 million deaths were averted in the first year that vaccines were available.

Despite their health impact, the economic value of these vaccines has not been examined on a global scale. Moreover, most analyses of the cost-effectiveness of immunization look at the cost of purchasing the vaccine itself from its manufacturer, not the cost of developing it.

"With other vaccines, a company takes on the risk by investing its own money to develop a vaccine. But the COVID vaccine was not purely a private sector decision—the U.S., the European Union and other countries like China poured substantial funding into this to reduce the risk for vaccine companies," said Jit. "We wanted to understand how these costs compared to health and economic outcomes."

The Midterms Were a Populist Blowout

The miracle win

By Peter Certo

For years, Americans have been viciously divided according to race, religion, immigration status, and gender identity by politicians dead set on making us fight each other rather than them. In a year where real people’s struggles were impossible to ignore, that effort fell short.

It’s hard to overstate the scale of Democratic victories in this year’s midterm elections.

Voters broke for Democratic candidates by margins scarcely anticipated by even the party’s rosiest polls — often in deep red states and congressional districts that few seriously thought were competitive. Democrats will now control a commanding House majority and hold a significant edge in the Senate as well.

This was a decisive rejection of Trumpism — and it happened on a significantly tilted playing field.

Before the election, Trump-aligned justices on the Supreme Court gutted what remained of the Voting Rights Act, only the latest in a series of rulings limiting fair access to voting and representation. 

At Trump’s urging, Republican-led statehouses unleashed an unprecedented flurry of mid-decade gerrymanders designed to maximize their partisan advantage and disenfranchise their critics. Billionaires poured vast sums into races — and trillionaire Elon Musk spent over $400 million alone, more than George Soros has spent on elections his entire life.

And that’s not even getting into the concerns, often stoked by leading Republicans themselves, that the administration would try to cancel results, deploy National Guard or ICE agents to cities, or otherwise meddle in the election.

None of it was enough for voters who’ve spent years now watching events in their lives spin out of control.

Trump’s tariffs made life miserable for farmers, manufacturers, and consumers while his allies slashed safety net programs to fund tax breaks for billionaires. The war in Iran, which Trump launched shortly after promising no new wars, sent the price of fuel skyrocketing.

Lawless ICE agents terrorized immigrants and citizens alike and shocked the conscience of people across the political spectrum. And a data center boom spiked power bills and disrupted communities across the country, all to power a technology CEOs vowed to use for replacing people’s jobs and surveilling their day to day life.

In the races that mattered most, populist candidates spoke to these concerns directly.

Big mistake

Oh the horror!