RSN: Bernie Sanders's Plan to Make Banking Affordable for Average Americans, Koch Brothers Sneak Anti-Wind Op-Ed Past New York Times, The Laquan McDonald Email Dump Shows Rahm Emanuel's Administration in Crisis Mode

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Robert Parry | Saudi Game-Changing Head-Chopping

Robert Parry, Consortium News
Parry writes: "Saudi Arabia likes to distinguish itself from the head-choppers of the Islamic State but the recent mass executions, including decapitating a top Shiite dissident, reveals the Saudi royals to be just better-dressed jihadists, while creating an opening for a U.S. realignment in the Mideast."
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Bernie Sanders's Plan to Make Banking Affordable for Average Americans
Gillian B. White, The Atlantic
White writes: "Bernie Sanders has made a name for himself by pushing in his presidential campaign for fundamental changes to the way financial institutions operate within the U.S.: He wants to reform the Federal Reserve, make ratings agencies nonprofits, and close the revolving door between Wall Street and government agencies."
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Sen. Bernie Sanders. (photo: Mark Kauzlarich/Reuters)

In a speech on Tuesday, he said that there's a "special place in the Seventh Circle of Hell for those who charged people usurious interest rates."

ernie Sanders has made a name for himself by pushing in his presidential campaign for fundamental changes to the way financial institutions operate within the U.S.: He wants to reform the Federal Reserve, make ratings agencies nonprofits, and close the revolving door between Wall Street and government agencies. In a speech on Tuesday, he detailed plans—all of them highly ambitious, and many of them outside the purview of the president—that he hopes would make the banking system much more accessible to average Americans.

To Sanders, credit-card interest rates that top 20 percent and ATM fees as high as $5 are unacceptable. “The Bible has a term for this practice. It’s called usury. And in The Divine Comedy, Dante reserved a special place in the Seventh Circle of Hell for those who charged people usurious interest rates,” he said. Sanders said that if he were elected president, he’d push for a 15-percent cap on all credit-card interest rates and consumer loans, mirroring the rate cap credit unions must abide by for loans. And ATM fees, he said, shouldn’t be more than $2. “Big banks need to stop acting like loan sharks and start acting like responsible lenders,” he said.

Sanders’s plans represent an aggressive approach to rampant and growing economic inequality. But if he were elected president, his power to implement them would actually be quite limited. Many financial products are regulated at the state level, and when they aren’t, they are often governed by a federal agency such as the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, notes Mehrsa Baradaran, a law professor at the University of Georgia. “There’s not much a president can do for some of these things. As far as tinkering around with those usury rates, that is far outside of the realm of the executive office,” she says. Instead, a president would have to push for this agenda and then encourage regulatory agencies to carry out the reforms.

One proposal that is within his power is the creation of a postal-banking system, which would have post offices offer some banking services. This would give Americans excluded from the mainstream consumer-financial system a more affordable option, one that is a safer alternative to payday lenders, which can charge customers interest rates as high as 300 percent.

Sanders has been a vocal critic of the way Wall Street operates and an ardent supporter of other politicians who want to reform America’s financial system. He’s been particularly supportive of the efforts Senator Elizabeth Warren, who helped establish the CFPB, the agency tasked with ensuring that financial institutions, from payday lenders to major banks, deal fairly and honestly with customers. The agency also investigates consumer complaints and comes up with rules for how banks and other finance outfits must deal with customers. Among their latest projects are efforts to regulate payday loans and pushing for fair and transparent lending practices. (The CFPB is one agency that actually has the power to implement some of the banking regulations that Sanders proposes.)

The banking industry, which makes a huge sum of money through fees for its services, would be strongly opposed to the firm regulations Sanders proposed on Tuesday. But in his speech, he hinted that he’s not only aware of this, but embraces it:  “Will they like me? No. Will they begin to play by the rules if I’m president? You better believe it.”

http://readersupportednews.org/news-section2/318-66/34468-bernie-sanderss-plan-to-make-banking-affordable-for-average-americans

The Laquan McDonald Email Dump Shows Rahm Emanuel's Administration in Crisis Mode 

Rebecca Burns, In These Times 

Burns writes: "The emails show that the McDonald case was on the Emanuel administration's radar within two months of the fatal shooting. They also suggest that as the mayor prepared for a tough re-election campaign, his office was often more focused on running damage control than investigating disturbing questions about McDonald's death and the broader police culture that may have enabled it." 

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Protesters march in downtown Chicago on December 18, calling for Mayor Rahm Emanuel's 

resignation in the wake of the Laquan McDonald shooting. (photo: Bob Simpson/Flickr)

A guide to the documents released by City Hall in the aftermath of the Chicago police shooting.

ew Year’s Eve in Chicago may lack an iconic midnight ball drop, but this year the city got a massive document drop as it prepared to ring in 2016. On Thursday morning, Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s office released hundreds of internal emails and other documents related to the October 2014 fatal police shooting of black teenager Laquan McDonald. Thirteen months passed before the city released the graphic video showing McDonald’s death, stoking suspicions of a cover-up and fueling calls for Emanuel’s resignation.

The emails were made public in response to open records requests, but some found the timing of the release suspect—Chicagoans headed out to celebrate the new year were unlikely to wade through 3,000 pages split across seven PDFs. Some readers launched an online collaboration to catalog all the emails and their contents for easier reference. The catalog, nearly complete, can be viewed here. Its contributors include Streetsblog Chicago reporter Steven Vance, Chicago Teachers Union member Luke Carman, Twitter  user natalie solidarity and numerous others who pitched in after news of the effort began circulating online on New Year’s Eve.

In These Times sifted through the documents and compiled some of the most significant information about City Hall’s handling of the case, annotated for reader reference (the seven files we refer to can be found in chronological order here). The emails show that the McDonald case was on the Emanuel administration’s radar within two months of the fatal shooting.

They also suggest that as the mayor prepared for a tough re-election campaign, his office was often more focused on running damage control than investigating disturbing questions about McDonald’s death and the broader police culture that may have enabled it. Mayor Emanuel’s office did not respond to a request for comment for this article.

Cover-up in City Hall? “This case will bring a microscope of national attention”

Perhaps the central question surrounding the killing of Laquan McDonald has been what Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s administration knew and when. The speedy settlement negotiated by the city—$5 million paid to the family without a trial—during the height of Emanuel’s re-election campaign has been scrutinized by many.

Emanuel himself is largely absent from the scenes in the documents, which do not appear to contain any indication as to whether the mayor actually watched the dashcam video of McDonald’s killing prior to its release—an issue that has been the subject of much speculation. (The mayor claims he did not.)

But the emails show the Emanuel administration began discussing the case within two months of the October 2014 shooting, seemingly aware that it could become a political flashpoint.

The city’s law department first requested video of McDonald’s shooting death from CPD on November 14, 2014 (file 1, pg 7), though it is unclear when they received it. City Hall began receiving press inquiries about alleged discrepancies in the case as early as December 8 of that year, (file 1, pg 15) and a December 9 email makes reference to two fatal police-involved shootings that were discussed by staff, presumably offline—McDonald’s, as well as the October 14 death of 25-year-old Ronald Johnson (file 1, pg 22).

As the Chicago Tribune reported, the city’s law department indicated that it was monitoring McDonald’s case closely and bracing for a legal challenge:

[On December 9], Stephen Patton — City Hall's top attorney — emailed Emanuel's then-chief of staff, senior adviser and others with an update on the McDonald situation. Though the teen's family had not yet filed a lawsuit, the city believed one was imminent.

“I have again asked our lawyers to be on the lookout for a complaint in that matter and to notify us immediately if and when a complaint is filed,” Patton wrote.

A January 20, 2015 email that had previously been obtained by NBC5 then shows another attorney for the city emailing Patton with the subject line: “Fatal shooting on video, 4000 S Pulaski.” This refers to McDonald, but the content of the message is entirely redacted. (file 1, pg 34)

Lawyers for the McDonald family approached the city on February 27, just days after Emanuel had been forced into a runoff with challenger Jesus “Chuy” Garcia in his reelection campaign.

In a March 6 letter outlining demands for a settlement, an attorney for the family insinuated that the video could trigger a backlash should the case go to trial:

I submit the graphic dash cam video will have a powerful impact on any jury and the Chicago community as a whole. This case will undoubtedly bring a microscope of national attention to the shooting itself as well as the City’s pattern, practice and procedures in rubber-stamping fatal police shootings of African Americans as “justified” (file 1, pg 92).

In settlement records contained in the documents, attorneys for the family also raised questions about the veracity of witness testimonies submitted in McDonald’s case.

In a March 23 letter, family attorney Michael Robbins alluded to an alleged discrepancy discovered while reviewing McDonald’s case file. “We were also surprised to learn that the police reports we reviewed, which contained summaries of witness statements supposedly taken on October 20 and 21, 2014, almost 5 months ago, were ‘submitted’ on March 15, 2015, nine days after the City received our demand letter,” he wrote. (file 1, pg 141)

By April 1, the emails show, the city had reached an agreement with the McDonald family, but required that “the fact and terms” of the settlement remain confidential until they were presented to the City Council. (file 1, pg 184)

It was only after Emanuel won re-election on April 7 that aldermen voted to approve the agreement, reportedly without having seen the video of McDonald’s killing. Memos circulated to the City Council about the settlement, as well as internal talking points used about the case in April 2015, are referenced but not included in the documents released Thursday. (file 1, pg 212)

Settlement records contained in the released documents show that during negotiations, the city pushed to include what lawyers for the family called a “sweeping” confidentiality clause. Specifically, the city sought to prevent the family from releasing the video or other materials until after criminal charges were concluded—an argument that the Emanuel administration also made as it fought the FOIA lawsuit that eventually forced the video’s release on November 24, 2015.

In response, the McDonald family’s lawyers named the same concern simultaneously being raised by members of the press and advocates seeking to pry the video loose—waiting for the conclusion of criminal investigations could effectively mean withholding the video for years, even if the Emanuel administration was not technically blocking its release.

In an April 6 letter finalizing the terms of the settlement, Robbins called this provision “unreasonable” and said that “such a broad, sweeping confidentiality provision” had not been discussed in earlier meetings with the City (file 1, pg 184). The city ultimately modified the agreement to allow disclosure of the video under a court order or in the event that it had already been publicly disclosed.

In response to an April 16 press inquiry about why it would not release the video, the city maintained: “We do not want to interfere with or compromise the pending criminal investigation by federal and state law enforcement authorities, but we are confident this video will be released at the appropriate time when their investigation is complete.” (file 1, pg 325)

Missing audio: “The number of malfunctions seems a bit odd”

Another key question in the Laquan McDonald case concerns the absence of discernible audio in dashcam videos showing his death. Cameras mounted inside five squad cars on the scene captured the faint sound of emergency sirens and other noises outside the cars. But as the Chicago Tribune reported on November 25, 2015, all the videos released thus far lack any audio of officers’ conversations inside the car or over their radios, fueling suspicions of tampering by Chicago police.

In a press conference held the day before the first video’s release, then-police Superintendent Garry McCarthy suggested that the lack of audio could be chalked up to technical difficulties. But he also acknowledged that “sometimes officers need to be disciplined if they don't turn it (the camera) on at the right circumstance.”

The emails released last week suggest that Emanuel staffers may have been dubious that all the missing audio was indeed the result of technical glitches, but sought to preempt further inquiries on the issue.

In response to the Tribune story, senior mayoral adviser David Spielfogel wrote to other top staff onNovember 25, 2015, “We might want to proactively get ahead of the onslaught of questions and release new dashcam rules. The number of malfunctions seems a bit odd” (file 5, pg 260).

Chief of Staff Eileen Mitchell responded, “No question. … I asked GFM [former superintendent Gary F. McCarthy] to get him and CPD to share with our office all they have on this issue so we could craft our narrative” (file 5, page 260).  

Two days later, Deputy Chief of Staff for Public Safety Janey Rountree drafted suggested measures for CPD related to enforcement of its dashcam policies. Mitchell asked, “What are the chances that GFM would announce these as his own?” (file 6, pg 100).

While a subsequent response is redacted, most of the measures were ultimately adopted after McCarthy’s December 1 ouster. New interim police superintendent John Escalante told reporters on December 4 that he would commence inspections verifying that officers were using dashcams properly and reporting any malfunctions and step up enforcement for non-compliance.

In the November 27 email, Rountree also appears to acknowledge that foul play could have been involved in the missing audio. Among the list of suggested measures on dashcams, she wrote, “need to consider at this point whether we should discipline any of the officers who responded to the scene of shooting of laquan mcdonald” (file 6, pg 100). It’s not clear whether this is currently being considered.

Coordination with IPRA: “That’s what happens when they don’t give us a heads up.”

CPD wasn’t the only one to receive guidance from City Hall. As media interest in McDonald’s death mounted, the documents also suggest that the Emanuel administration had a heavy hand in crafting the public statements of the Independent Police Review Board (IPRA), which was investigating the case—and, as its name suggests, is supposed to be a body for independent review of police-involved shootings.

As the Chicago Sun Times reported, the emails show mayoral aides drafting statements for former IPRA head Scott Ando, including one that accompanied the city’s announcement of the $5 million settlement with McDonald’s family. The IPRA also shared information about potential police misconduct cases being investigated by the Justice Department and Cook County prosecutors. Advocates have repeatedly raised questions about the degree of the IPRA’s autonomy from City Hall.

The documents additionally show staffers growing exasperated when IPRA staff failed to coordinate its press statements with City Hall. On July 27, 2015, Deputy Director of Communications Adam Collins forwarded a story by the Better Government Association about Chicago’s high number of fatal police shootings relative to other cities. He expressed frustration that IPRA had failed to play up Chicago’s transparency in making this data available publicly when commenting for the story.

“Would have been a much smarter answer for IPRA than what they said,” he wrote to other top aides. “That's what happens when they don't give us a heads up though” (file 2, page 271).

Missing minutes of Burger King video: “People may assume there was a CPD cover-up”

Allegations of police tampering have also arisen in relation to an 86-minute gap in video footage taken from a Burger King security camera near the shooting scene.

As the McDonald case captured national headlines in November, a Burger King manager publicly accused Chicago police of erasing the footage from the security camera. The Chicago Tribune reports that the new records shed light on these accusations:

Documents released Thursday include an affidavit from the restaurant's information technology supervisor, who stated there were only two possible explanations for the gap: Someone intentionally deleted the footage or they inadvertently removed the files instead of copying them.

“I believe that a person with sophisticated knowledge of such video surveillance systems could delete video footage intentionally,” the supervisor wrote.

NBC5 first broke the story of the missing footage in May 2015, and later obtained screengrabs that appear to show a Chicago police officer at a Burger King computer terminal.

As press inquiries on the issue began arriving that month, emails show, the city's law department was quick to defend CPD internally.

“I think we absolutely have to push back on this,” wrote deputy counsel Liza Franklin to other staffers on May 20, 2015. “Tom [Deputy counsel Thomas Platt] can speak to what happened but CPD absolutely did NOT erase any video” (file 2, pg 128).

Platt affirmed that the video had been seized by IPRA and federal investigators, neither of which had yet suggested or concluded that there had been any evidence of tampering. But it’s not clear that investigators had told the city that tampering could be ruled out, either: “I do not want to speak too soon about the results of the forensic investigation because neither has officially said anything on this point,” Platt subsequently cautioned (file 2, pg 128).

Nevertheless, the mayor’s office and the CPD appear to have spoken in one voice on the issue of the missing footage, with Emanuel staffers drafting statements for the police department to issue (file 2, pg 128). When the same allegations resurfaced in November 2015, lawyers for the city continued to rely on the CPD’s version of events, even though the allegations concerned a police cover-up.

“Good here,” replied attorney Stephen Patton to a response to press proposed by staffers onNovember 25. “But please make sure CPD confirms accuracy. This is accurate based on the facts reported to me … but we should confirm with CPD, which has the firsthand knowledge here” (file 5, pg 113).

IPRA staff members also coordinated with City Hall on responses to Burger King press inquiries. In another November 25 thread discussing about how to answer a similar question from the New York Times,former head Scott Ando suggested using his statement, which claimed that “the absence of video was a result of the system malfunctioning.” He suggested that his statement was “more assertive and should put this to bed” (file 5, pg 90).

Aides do not appear to consider the matter to be at rest quite yet, however. A December 4 email from Rountree reads: “For when we need it, below is a statement we could use for the BK video or the CPD case report on Laquan McDonald. In both cases, people may assume there was a CPD cover-up or tampering with the video, and in both cases, those are subjects of the federal investigation.” The statement itself is redacted (file 7, pg 481).

Surveillance of protesters: “Trolling the Twitters”

A theme that is repeated throughout the emails is Emanuel staffers’ meticulous monitoring of public sentiment about the case, including tracking announcements of protests.

“Trolling the Twitters and I just saw this,” wrote chief spokesperson Kelley Quinn in a November 21, 2015 email—just as the city was preparing to release the video—alerting staffers of an activist call to boycott Black Friday. (file 4, pg 34) As demonstrations erupted in the wake of the video, staffers began sending out live updates about the location, size and characteristics of marches.

“About 150 folks sitting in Michigan Avenue at balbo. This is the same group with more people in it,” reported Chief Operating Officer Joe Deal, referring to a march that occurred on November 24, the evening of the video’s release.

“Any sign it’s growing?” asked David Spielfogel about half an hour later.

“Doesn’t seem to be growing,” responded Deal, adding in a subsequent email: “Here is a picture from in front of district 1. It looks like mostly college kids. They are trying to antagonize the line of cpd who are in front of the door” (file 5, pg 81).

Staffers also monitored trending hashtags. In a November 25 email with the subject line “Social,” a communications consultant wrote: “FYI #laquanmcdonald is no longer trending in the U.S. or Chicago, but #FreeMalcolmLondon is the #1 in Chicago” (file 5 pg, 165).

At other points, staffers appear to have attempted to intervene preemptively in order to shape community responses to the video. On November 20, prominent African-American lawyer Graham Grady wrote to Stephen Patton to express concern that Chicago may “erupt” if and when the McDonald video is released.

He suggested a solution: “What if the Mayor and some community leaders such as Fr. Pfleger lead a peaceful demonstration with 100+ African-American youth wearing red mortar boards to symbolize education as the solution?” he asks. Grady also offered to pay for 100 of the caps, which cost $10 each.

“Not a bad idea,” Spielfogel commented to other staffers. “We have five days to build community buy in and dialogue. We shouldn't waste a second” (The march did not end up taking place). (file 4, pg 6).

Ultimately, of course, such efforts failed to contain protests demanding Emanuel’s resignation, as well as calls for broader changes to address Chicago’s sordid history of police corruption and brutality. 

http://readersupportednews.org/news-section2/318-66/34467-the-laquan-mcdonald-email-dump-shows-rahm-emanuels-administration-in-crisis-mode

Wheaton Is Planning to Fire Professor Who Said Muslims and Christians Worship the Same God 

Kirkland An, The Washington Post 

An writes: "Wheaton College, an evangelical college in Illinois, had placed associate professor of political science Larycia Hawkins on administrative leave after she made a controversial theological statement on Facebook that Muslims and Christians worship the same God. The school has now begun the process to fire her due to an 'impasse,' it said in a statement released on Tuesday." 

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How Gay Marriage's Triumph Could Protect Abortion Rights
David H. Gans, The New Republic
Gans writes: "The Supreme Court's interpretation of the Fourteenth Amendment may play a role in its biggest abortion case in decades."
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Migration Is Not a Crime
Federico Barahona, NACLA
Barahona writes: "While attention is focused on the thousands fleeing Syria, Libya, and Iraq, the United Nations refugee agency has warned that a new refugee crisis is taking shape in Central America. The UN reports a nearly fivefold increase, since 2008, in asylum-seekers arriving to the United States from the Northern Triangle region of El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras, which has the world's highest murder rates."
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Koch Brothers Sneak Anti-Wind Op-Ed Past New York Times
Elliott Negin, EcoWatch
Negin writes: "Fortunately, the Koch campaign to break wind was foiled this time around by some last-minute horse trading on Capitol Hill. End-of-year negotiations over the omnibus government spending bill extended the wind production tax credit through 2019. That's good news for the wind industry."
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Charles Koch, shown in his office at Koch Industries in Wichita, Kan., in 2012. (photo: Bo Rader/AP)


n the run-up to the perennial debate in Congress over whether to extend a tax credit for the wind industry, The New York Times ran a provocatively headlined—and misleading—op-ed column denouncing it as corporate welfare.

Giving Billions to the Rich was a broadside against Congress’ end-of-the-year tax extenders package, which renews temporary corporate tax breaks, and it singled out the wind production tax credit as one of the most egregious.

The Nov. 23, 2015 column was written by Marc Short and Andy Koenig, both from an organization called Freedom Partners. They pointed out that the package the U.S. Senate was considering at the time would revive a tax credit for new wind energy facilities during their first 10 years of operation, which would cost the U.S. Treasury an estimated $10.5 billion over the next decade. Congress had let the tax break expire at the end of 2014.

“The supporters of this 23-year-old credit initially argued that it was necessary to kick-start a nascent industry,” they wrote. “Yet Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz and others say wind power is cost-competitive with other energy sources. So why are taxpayers still forced to subsidize it?”

Besides the fact that a tax credit does not force taxpayers to “subsidize,” i.e. give money to, the wind industry, Short and Koenig shrewdly confined their argument to temporary tax breaks. By doing so, they were able to avoid mentioning the fact that the wind industry’s more-established competitors—particularly fossil fuels, the primary cause of climate change—enjoy permanent tax breaks and subsidies that are significantly larger.

The oil and gas industry, for example, has been receiving an average of $4.86 billion in annual tax breaks and subsidies in today’s dollars since 1918, according to an analysis by DBL Investors, a venture capital firm. On top of that, Congress exempted natural gas developers from key provisions of at least seven major environmental laws, including the Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act and the Safe Drinking Water Act. That amounts to a substantial subsidy, too, by passing along any cleanup bill to taxpayers.

Renewable energy technologies, by contrast, averaged only $370 million a year in tax breaks between 1994 and 2009, according to DBL. The 2009 stimulus package did provide $21 billion for wind, solar and other renewables, but that support barely began to balance the scales that have tilted toward oil and gas for nearly 100 years and coal for more than two centuries.

The Koch Brothers’ Bank

So who are Marc Short and Andy Koenig? The Times identified them only as “the president and senior policy adviser, respectively, at Freedom Partners, which advocates for free-market policies.”

What the Times neglected to explain is that Freedom Partners Chamber of Commerce (its full name) is a major pass-through funding arm of billionaire industrialists Charles and David Koch—owners of the coal, oil and gas conglomerate Koch Industries—and Short and Koenig’s Times op-ed is just a small part of a Koch brothers-financed campaign targeting wind and other renewable energy technologies.

Founded in November 2011, Freedom Partners functions as the Kochs’ de facto bank, disbursing contributions from wealthy conservatives to a network of nonprofit “free-market” groups whose goals include rolling back public health, environmental and workplace protections. Unlike a foundation or a political action committee (PAC), Freedom Partners is classified as a trade association, enabling it to raise money without disclosing the names of its donor members, although the amounts and recipients of its grants are public. In June 2014, the organization expanded its arsenal by launching a Super PAC, Freedom Partners Action Fund, which can raise unlimited sums of money and run ads advocating for or against candidates, but it has todivulge its donors.

Freedom Partners Action Fund, whose top donors include the Koch brothers and hedge fund mogul Robert Mercer, raised $29 million and spent $24 million during the 2014 election cycle in support of Republican candidates. But that’s chump change compared to Freedom Partners Chamber of Commerce’s war chest. Between 2012 and 2014, it raised $418 million from its more than 200 anonymous members and distributed more than $387 million of it to dozens of organizations. Much of that money paid for television attack ads, but a chunk of it went to climate science denier groups, including the American Energy Alliance, Americans for Prosperity, Americans for Tax Reform, Club for Growth, Heritage Action for America (the Heritage Foundation’s political arm), and the 60 Plus Association. Those groups—along with Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation grantees Competitive Enterprise Institute and Frontiers of Freedom—were signatories on a July 27 letter to House members urging them to support a bill that would kill the wind production tax credit (PTC).

The letter claimed the proposed legislation “protects Americans from the large costs of an out-of-control subsidy.” Since the PTC was created, the letter went on to disingenuously assert, “taxpayers have sent billions of dollars to large multinational corporations in the wind industry.”

The bill referenced in the letter, “The PTC Elimination Act,” was sponsored by Mike Pompeo of Wichita, Kansas—home of Koch Industries—and Kenny Marchant of Texas. Pompeo is Congress’ top recipient of Koch campaign money, and ever since he took office in 2011 he has been introducing bills to scuttle the tax credit because, as he says, the wind industry should “compete on its own.” As of November 17, the bill had 53 co-sponsors. Forty-six of them, including Marchant, received contributions from Koch Industries over the last five years.

Of course, no one would expect the Times to explain all of that, but the paper should have at least mentioned Freedom Partners’ Koch connection. Beyond that, the paper also should have fact-checked its debatable description of the organization. Freedom Partners and other Koch-funded groups all claim to promote “free-market” policies, but they don’t complain about the massive subsidies fossil fuel companies receive. For the Koch network, the wind production tax credit is a “wasteful handout,” but eliminating tax breaks and subsidies for the oil and gas industry, as Grover Norquist’s Americans for Tax Reform once put it, would constitute “a massive tax hike on a vital sector of American industry.”

That hardly qualifies as a consistent free-market position.

The Times’ Opaque Transparency Policy

Coincidentally, a debate over how the Times identifies op-ed contributors was sparked four years ago by a column attacking the wind industry. In June 2011, the newspaper ran a column by Manhattan Institute Senior Fellow Robert Bryce that made a case for natural gas by misstating facts about renewables, and the Times failed to mention in Bryce’s bio that Manhattan Institute funders ExxonMobil and the Kochs are in the natural gas business. A few months later, the Checks and Balances Project, a government and industry watchdog group, sent a letter to the Times criticizing the paper for failing to report op-ed writers’ funding sources, citing Bryce’s column as a prime example. Signed by more than 50 journalists and educators, the letter called on the paper to “set the nation’s standard by disclosing financial conflicts of interest that their op-ed contributors may have at the time the piece is published.”

The paper’s public editor at the time, Arthur S. Brisbane, responded in a column, The Times Gives Them Space, but Who Pays Them? “[T]he issue of authorial transparency is an important one,” Brisbane wrote, “albeit one that isn’t always simple.” He then turned to editorial page editor Andrew Rosenthal to explain the complexities.

Op-ed writers have to sign an agreement that states: “You agree to disclose to the Times any financial interest you may have in the subject matter of the article,” Rosenthal said. Besides that, “story editors ask each writer if there is any real or perceived material or financial interest we should know about.” Finally, Rosenthal said, author bios are written for “clarity, transparency and brevity.”

Brisbane recommended that the Times do more. “So, while I recognize that the Times has limited space in print to provide more disclosure, I believe it should do more to help readers learn about outside op-ed contributors,” he wrote. “In print, besides noting prominent past achievements, author [bios] should include the writer’s current paid role. … On NYTimes.com, the Times should include links to [an author’s] organizational ties so readers can investigate, if they wish. Finally, it would be useful if the Times required contributors to provide a document listing all current paid positions, and publish a link to the document.”

Did the Times take Brisbane’s advice? Apparently not.

Wind Wins This Round, But More Transparency Needed

Fortunately, the Koch campaign to break wind was foiled this time around by some last-minute horse trading on Capitol Hill. End-of-year negotiations over the omnibus government spending bill extended the wind production tax credit through 2019 in exchange for lifting the 40-year-old federal ban on oil exports. That’s good news for the wind industry.

According to the American Wind Energy Association, the production tax credit has helped quadruple wind-powered electricity since 2008, from 16,700 megawatts to more than 70,000 MW at the end of last year, enough to power more than 19 million homes. The tax break also has helped drive down the cost of wind power by 66 percent over the last six years, and Iowa, South Dakota and Kansas—Mike Pompeo’s state—now get more than 20 percent of their electricity from wind. Nine other states get more than 10 percent of their electricity from wind, and a recent Department of Energy report concluded that the U.S. should be able to generate 20 percent of its electricity from wind by 2030.

The omnibus deal was also good news for Koch Industries, because lifting the ban on oil exports likely will boost its business. After all, it owns 4,000 miles of pipelines as well as refineries in Minnesota and Texas that, according to the company, together can process more than 600,000 barrels of crude oil a day.

The bad news is that, even after the debate prompted by an anti-wind op-ed back in 2011, The New York Times continues to provide a platform for special interest mouthpieces and fails to disclose their benefactors. To be sure, the Times is hardly alone. But it’s especially puzzling when it comes to the Times, whose editorial board routinely rails against “the scourge of dark money” in the U.S. political system and calls for greater transparency.

The Times should hold itself to the same standard. If its editorial page editors insist on publishing special interest propaganda, they should let their readers know who is paying for it. In this case, an op-ed with the headline Giving Billions to the Rich is indeed remiss if it doesn’t mention the fact that the covert sponsors of the column, the Koch brothers, are among those benefiting the most from government largesse.

http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/277-75/34463-koch-brothers-sneak-anti-wind-op-ed-past-new-york-times

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