What a difference 11 years make. That is how long it has been since the conservative media sphere had a rock solid scandal with regard to payments from foreign sources.
Back then it was five writers (that we know of), including Ben Domentech of Red State and other media outlets who wrote for a foreign government in 2010.
The reports surfaced in 2013 revealing that the Malaysian government gave out big paychecks to a series of writers -- erstwhile conservatives all -- to provide positive coverage in several media outlets, among them Huffington Post, San Francisco Examiner and others.
This is all the short version. Its long, detailed form can be found here.
The link in the title is to a Daily Mail article about US government sanctions against RT, AKA Russia Today, and hereinafter referred to as Rossiya Sevodnya, where the Russian media outlet and some of its fronts were indicted for violation of the Foreign Agents Registration Act, a federal statute so old it is rarely, if selectively, enforced.
Names which came up in the course of Daily Mail work included some youtube.com media figures, including Tim Pool, Dave Rubin, Benny Johnson, and Lauren Chen through the Tennessee media company Tenet Media, owned by Chen's spouse, Liam Donovan. They were all identified as conservative, a label through the Biden years which has lost practically all meaning. Those four were employed by Tenet Media, a fact of which I was unaware. I thought that Pool was an independent. Guess not: Just another working stiff pulling down millions courtesy of Russian media.
Some important distinctions should be made: One is that Pool did some media work in Ukraine post coup, so it is hard to see why he would do media work through his youtube.com account for Rossiya Sevodnya, or would at least ensure his work would not appear in what I label Russia's CNN.
Two is that Scott Ritter, not included in this scandal, actually does write for Rossiya Sevodnya, and had made it no secret, and has run afoul of the FARA. If you read the article I wrote back in 2013, you will see that affected PR writers later were registered in the FARA database years after they did their work.
I suspect in order to stay on the federal government's good side, those five named in the Daily Mail article will wind up in that database as well.
But now, I bet that label will be splayed all over paid media: "har har, see the conservative money grubbers writing for Rossiya Sevodnya."
In fairness to the five media influencers it is easy to see how they were deceived as to the provenance of those payments, them with their hands out, their editorial integrity untouched. It's hard to Google Russian names; the Russian language has all those weird characters, and, besides, the Russians never spell things right.
So, weirdly, we have a media scandal, to call it what it is, this time during a national election in which a foreign government issues fat pay checks to one political side, and asks for so little in return.
It is clear the Russians still are trying to figure out how the US government gets the US national media to side with the US government without resorting to threats or to cash payments.
As for myself in relation to this story/scandal: I never made much money as a machinist. But whatever money was paid I was 100 percent certain it was for services rendered. No one was harmed from my efforts and product went out the door either for resale or for end use.
Were I to receive from anyone as little as $5 for my current activities online, I would want to know who it is from, and most importantly why.
The reasons are to express my thanks to the generous individual and to let my public know about the payment.
Were I not to receive a satisfactory answer to who and why, I would be compelled to return the cash payment, with grace and gratitude for their generosity.
Such an easy thing to do to retain your integrity.
Tim Pool hysterically banging table shouting UKRAINE IS THE ENEMY OF THIS COUNTRY
He didn’t know he was working for a company that took $10 million USD in black bag payments from Russia guys. Horrible coincidence. We’ve all been there pic.twitter.com/bGz0jHrOnD
[Doomberg] "Never mistake activity for achievement." - John Wooden
As far as carbon emissions are concerned, it is difficult to find a less relevant country than New Zealand. According to the endlessly helpful Statistical Review of World Energy, the country’s 5 million residents emitted just 0.08% of the anthropogenic global share in 2023. By comparison, China emits more in a single day than New Zealand does in a year, and the former’s year-over-year growth in this all-consuming metric amounted to 22 times the latter’s entire annual total. When combined with its considerable geographic isolation, New Zealand can pretty much do whatever it wants and nobody outside its borders would notice.
These hard numbers make former Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern’s
…her replacement, Chris Hipkins, lost the election for Labour last November to the center-right National Party, led by former airline executive Christopher Luxon …
obsession with being seen as caring about carbon emissions rather perplexing, especially considering that New Zealand already sports one of the "greenest" electricity grids in the Western world, with more than half of its power produced by hydroelectric dams. The primary concerns of any leader of an island nation, where global emergencies can quickly crimp imports, ought to be fuel security and the overall robustness of its food and energy sectors. It’s a long swim to Australia, after all.
Within months of her first election win, Ardern’s new government nonetheless thought it wise to force change. In a move that was as celebrated as it was misguided, the new prime minister made global headlines with a bold sacrifice:
"The New Zealand government will grant no new offshore oil exploration permits in a move that is being hailed by conservation and environmental groups as a historic victory in the battle against climate change. The ban will apply to new permits and won’t affect the existing 22, some of which have decades left on their exploration rights and cover an area of 100,000 sq km. The prime minister, Jacinda Ardern, said her government ’has a plan to transition towards a carbon-neutral future, one that looks 30 years in advance’...
Greenpeace New Zealand said the government’s announcement was a ’historic moment’ for the country and ’a huge win for our climate and people power.’ Last month Ardern accepted a 50,000-strong Greenpeace petition calling for an end to offshore oil and gas exploration. ’The tide has turned irreversibly against big oil in New Zealand,’ said the Greenpeace New Zealand executive director, Russel Norman."
Having impaled the country’s ability to explore for oil and natural gas, the Ardern government subsequently oversaw the closure of New Zealand’s only oil refinery. While not overtly advocating to shutter the privately-owned facility, the government certainly did little to save it, and the Marsden Point Oil Refinery was converted into an import-only fuel terminal in 2022. Ominous foreshadowing of larger challenges swiftly followed:
"The New Zealand government is considering bringing forward plans to increase domestic fuel storage, following a jet fuel shortage earlier this month, a spokesperson for the energy minister said on Tuesday.
With the country depending entirely on imports since April, the failure of a recent shipment to pass quality tests resulted in shortages at Auckland Airport, the country's busiest. Airlines there were told in early December that jet fuel supplies would be reduced to just 75% of the originally planned allocation."
Weeks after the jet fuel scare, Ardern resigned as Prime Minister, unironically claiming that she no longer had "enough in the tank" to continue in her current role. Christopher Luxon’s conservative National Party won a plurality of the subsequent vote and went on to form a coalition government. It didn’t take long for the consequences of Ardern’s energy mishaps to wreak havoc on New Zealand’s economy. Like most countries that embrace the green energy agenda, New Zealand has slipped into a serious but utterly predictable crisis. Energy prices are soaring, heavy industry is culling operations, and fears of rolling blackouts are causing grid operators to plead with consumers to voluntarily cut demand.
As with Germany before it and Britain soon enough, the harsh realities of physics have asserted themselves yet again. Let’s explore the specifics of what’s happening and appraise Luxon’s proposals for the country’s path forward. [The rest behind the paywall.]
#2
Average price per kWhr in NZ is about 30-35 cents
for comparison it is about 40 cents in Hawaii; about 35 cents in Germany and Italy; 20-25 cents in New York and New Jersey; 11 cents in Iceland and Washington State.
Posted by: Lord Garth ||
09/06/2024 16:13 Comments ||
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[Washington Examiner] A former deputy chief of staff to Gov. Kathy Hochul (D-NY) has been charged for acting as an unregistered agent for China.
Linda Sun and her husband are accused by the Justice Department of promoting the Chinese Communist Party’s agenda on key concerns such as isolating Taiwan, underplaying the Uyghur genocide, and promoting positive attitudes toward Beijing. In return for her service, Sun received millions of dollars from China. These funds allowed Sun to purchase luxuries, including a Hawaii penthouse and a Ferrari. It’s concerning that a Chinese agent had tentacles into the highest levels of New York politics.
This is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to China’s illicit influence campaigns against the United States. Other recent examples of successful Chinese influence operations include the saga of Fang Fang, a Chinese honeytrap agent who targeted Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA), and the still unnamed spy inside the office of the late Sen. Dianne Feinstein.
It’s clear that China’s espionage and influence operations targeting America are vast in scale. FBI Director Christopher Wray warned in 2020 that the bureau was investigating Chinese espionage efforts in "all 56 of our field offices. And over the past decade, we’ve seen economic espionage cases with a link to China increase by approximately 1,300%." That caseload has not declined since 2020. China’s influence efforts extend to the state and local levels, seeking to forge early links with the next generation of political stars. This concern underlines why Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN) deserves greater media scrutiny over his long-term relationship with China. Yes, the new Chinese border tsar has been appointed and is simply waiting to take office.
It’s not just America facing this challenge. These Chinese antics extend across the globe. In the United Kingdom, lawyer Christine Lee was identified by that nation’s security service for working to influence members of Parliament in China’s favor. As part of these efforts, Lee donated $760,000 to a Labour member of Parliament, Barry Gardiner. Gardiner has adopted views in China’s favor. Sometimes, China’s influence efforts are quite extraordinary. Until recently, for example, New Zealand had two Chinese agents serving as members of its parliament.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
[Doomberg] "Never mistake activity for achievement." - John Wooden
