Clean energy spending boosts GOP districts. But lawmakers are keeping quiet as Trump targets incentives https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/mar/31/clean-energy-spending-republicans-trump #HouseofRepresentatives #Trumpadministration #Bidenadministration #Climatecrisis #DonaldTrump #Republicans #Environment #USpolitics #Employment #Democrats #Lobbying #Energy #USnews
"Delaware just passed a law this week that would shield tech billionaires Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk from an array of potential misconduct, which could impact active litigation against them alleging theft from shareholders. The bill was crafted by Democratic governor Matt Meyer’s office in direct consultation from Meta’s own legal team and a roster of corporate defense lawyers representing both billionaires, according to documents released last week by CNBC.
Those outside lawyers consulted by the governor include an attorney at a firm that recently represented Meta in a Delaware court and Leon Strine, a former Delaware Supreme Court justice who now works at a major defense side law firm, Wachtell Lipton. The firm is currently defending Mark Zuckerberg against an ongoing shareholder lawsuit over an improper settlement Meta struck in 2019 regarding the Cambridge Analytica data breach.
Separate from that court case, Meta is currently being investigated for potential wrongdoing by shareholders who recently filed multiple “books and records” requests to obtain company documents. Changes in the new law would shut off legal avenues for any evidence in those documents to lead to lawsuits that could be worth billions of dollars in violations.
The bill makes it easier for companies to deny disclosure requests and hand over fewer internal documents. Additionally, the criteria for an improper transaction that may be reviewed by a Delaware court will be much more lenient to corporate executives. As long as a majority of so-called independent directors approve a deal, without shareholder input, executives won’t be subject to liability for potential conflicts of interest."
https://jacobin.com/2025/03/meta-delaware-musk-zuckerberg-litigation
What's depressing me today is realizing that I as an 18yo were right.
When I came to the US, I was explained the concept of lobbying. Coming from a post-soviet country, where I didn't get a stipend to a dream college because all the "full-rides" were bribed for by parents with money, I thought to myself - "lobbying's just bribery with extra steps, right?"
Living in the US for 10 years, realizing that I understood it correctly as a teenager is pretty depressing.
#Policy and #Law being captured through #lobbying to promote the will of the investors above the will of the people just makes for #privatized #aristocracy at this point.
It's not about democracy or law, but to game it and the constituency along with it in order to inject sweet, sweet #capital directly into the groin.
The body harmed being mother #earth, as the #petroleum and #oil industry have so aptly proven. For how many decades have they manipulated narratives to lie about #climatechange?
"Israel’s Foreign Ministry announced on Tuesday that the government is to launch a "media war room" to target Palestine content online, in the latest attempt to propagate pro-Israel narratives on internet platforms."
Israel is scared. Despite millions of dollars in #lobbying, buying media, #politicians and #SocialMedia, the truth is coming out. Millions of #activists around the world expose the crimes of #Israel to people of the world.
https://www.newarab.com/news/israels-new-media-war-room-targets-palestine-content
#Propaganda #Genocide #Hasbara #Palestine #HasbaraArmy @palestine @israel
More evidence of who exactly Rachel Reeves is listening to, when (re)formulating policies.... and if I tell you its investment firm Blackstone's CEO, who made representations about NonDoms interests right before the 'crack down' on NonDoms was softened, would you be shocked? Sadly, its all too predictable.
No doubt he'll have been whispering to her about those benefits scroungers & disabled people robbing the benefits system, too
What NGOs like Greenpeace ultimately offer, according to @ClementSenechal, is “environmentalism as spectacle.”
'Of particular interest is Sénéchal’s treatment of the past and present of Greenpeace. Quite visibly at odds with his former employer, the author takes Greenpeace as representative of the decadence of official environmentalism. Eschewing a coherent critique of the environmental crisis, organizations like Greenpeace, according to Sénéchal, are more devoted to agitprop demonstrations and photo ops better geared to satisfying activist egos rather than advancing strategic goals.
'These contradictions were apparent from the 1970s':
https://jacobin.com/2025/03/environmentalism-climate-activism-ngos-policy
ProPublica: Targeted: How Cambridge Analytica Used Intimate Data to Exploit Gun Owners’ Private Lives. “For years, some of America’s most iconic gun-makers turned over sensitive personal information on customers — without their knowledge or consent — to the gun industry’s main lobbying group. Political operatives then employed those details to rally firearms owners to elect pro-gun […]
“The BBC has announced that it has ‘no plans’ to restore to its iPlayer platform the documentary on the struggle faced by Gaza’s children under Israel’s genocide that it deleted last week under pressure from the Israeli embassy and UK Israel lobby.” – Skwawkbox
Watch it here. Share it far and wide.
Dekleva is now at the #EPA in a crucial job: She…has the authority to approve new #chemicals…. Earlier she spent 32yrs at Dupont, the chemical maker, before joining…the first #Trump admin.
Her most recent employer, the chemicals #lobbying group, has made reversing the EPA’s course on #formaldehyde a priority & is pushing to abolish a program under which the agency assess the #risks of chemicals to human #health.
#Formaldehyde, the #chemical of choice for undertakers & embalmers, is also used in products like furniture & clothes. But it can also cause #cancer & severe #respiratory problems. So, in 2021, the #EPA began a new effort to #regulate it.
The #chemicals industry fought back w/an intensity that astonished even seasoned ofcls. Its campaign was led by Lynn Dekleva, then a lobbyist at the American Chemistry Council, an #industry group that spends millions on govt #lobbying.
#PublicHealth #law #USpol
@EUCommission Clean Industrial Deal sounds a total disaster - https://www.corporateeurope.org/en/2025/02/polluters-get-paid "deepens the EU’s commitment to false solutions to the climate disaster." #CID #lobbying
Who is Iain Anderson & how did he become a non-executive director in the Department of Business & Trade?
Well, having spent many years as a lobbyist for the financial services sector & paid up member of the Tory party, in the wake of the Liz Truss debacle, he seems to have had a Damascene conversion & joined Labour (just in time for them to get into Govt.; lucky eh?).
If you wonder who's whispering in Rachel's ear here's one candidate.
For someone who swallowed the #antiwindenergy pill, I'm sharing this with family members who barely speak English.
The fact is that #windturbines aren't as bad as people think. The #OilIndustry uses #psyop and #lobbying to spread #FUD, as well as lies to demoralize people - LIKE THEY HAVE BEEN DOING FOR DECADES.
Certain #films and #movies are part of said #corporatepropaganda, like #Yellowstone and #Landman.
How Oil Propaganda Sneaks Into TV Shows | Climate Town
https://youtube.com/watch?v=wBC_bug5DIQ
"This brief provides a detailed analysis of a first-of-its-kind, publicly available repository of U.S. think tank funding — www.thinktankfundingtracker.org. The repository tracks funding from foreign governments, the U.S. government, and Pentagon contractors to the top 50 think tanks in the United States over the past five years. It serves as a vital research guide for anyone wishing to learn more about the funding sources of prominent U.S. think tanks.
The repository gives a five-point transparency score to each of the top 50 think tanks in the U.S., a scale created by the authors based on five binary questions. Based on this criteria, nine of the top 50 think tanks (18 percent) are fully transparent, while 23 think tanks (46 percent) are partially transparent. Most concerning, the remaining 18 think tanks (36 percent) are “dark money” think tanks, entirely opaque in their funding without revealing donors.
In the past five years, foreign governments and foreign government-owned entities donated more than $110 million to the top 50 think tanks in the United States. The most generous donor countries were the United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom, and Qatar, which contributed $16.7 million, $15.5 million, and $9.1 million to U.S. think tanks, respectively. The Atlantic Council, Brookings Institution, and German Marshall Fund received the most money from foreign governments since 2019: $20.8 million, $17.1 million, and $16.1 million, respectively.
In that same period, the top 100 defense companies have contributed more than $34.7 million to the top 50 think tanks"
Long read: How a peripheral state can leverage its wealth, strategic geography and alliances to exert outsized influence on regional and global affairs
"How the UAE can simultaneously be both a subject of imperialism and an agent of imperialist practices within its spheres of influence while challenging traditional imperialist actors": https://www.tni.org/en/article/the-emerging-sub-imperial-role-of-the-united-arab-emirates-in-africa
#CampaignFinance #CampaignDonations #Lobbying
I disagree: "equal justice under law" and the same rights, even for oligarchs.
Not, *more* is what is causing all these problems in a democracy.
Public infrastructure, in particular for #SocialMedia, should never be privately owned.
put another way,
Incrementalism is just Progressive Conservatism, making smaller and smaller changes to the Status Quo until you're back with an immoveable status quo, ie. Conservatism.
Incrementalism isn't Progressive.
It's just Conservatism with bad short term memory.
Incrementalism is often raised as a way to make changes that people can handle (ie. won't punish electorially).
But my own theory is that incrementalism forces people into a cycle of diminishing returns.
The increment fixes less than the whole issue… and every increment after that addresses less of the issue than the last, until you effectively aren't making any noticeable changes at all, which leads the electorate to cynicism.
The only way to halt that cycle and regain credibility is to make a big change.
Which begs the question: Why didn't we just do the big change in the first place?
This might have to do with provincial trade barriers in Canada, or it might not, but the fact these barriers have been an "issue" for decades, and now all of a sudden they can "crumble" in less than 30 days, makes me think… incrementalism sucks.
#CanPoli #CdnPoli #Trade #Liberal #Capitalism #Lobbying #Incrementalism #TrumpTariffs #buyCanadian
#Scandale des #eaux en #bouteille : de l’ #Élysée à #Matignon, révélations sur le #lobbying de #Nestlé au sommet de l' #Etat https://www.francetvinfo.fr/enquetes-franceinfo/enquete-scandale-des-eaux-en-bouteille-de-l-elysee-a-matignon-revelations-sur-le-lobbying-de-nestle_7054010.html#xtor=CS2-765-[autres]-
