If you (like me) would like to change your spending to not support bigots and people who want you dead (or at least be aware of how companies feel) you should use:
• Goods Unite Us (reference list when buying) [1]
• PublicSquare (companies sign up to join the "anti-woke parallel economy") [2]
• OpenSecrets (if a product isn't in the first two, check who owns it on Wikipedia, then search here) [3]
"I really hope that President Trump sees the writing on the wall," said Citadel CEO Ken Griffin, who previously donated $1 million to Trump'
Ken Griffin, the CEO of investment firm Citadel and a Republican mega-donor, called former President Donald Trump a "three-time loser" and said he hoped Trump wouldn't run for the White House again.
"I'd like to think that the Republican party is ready to move on from somebody who has been for this party a three-time loser," Griffin said on Wednesday at the Bloomberg New Economy Forum in Singapore.
While Griffin praised Trump for his rollout of COVID-19 vaccines in 2020, he referenced Trump's failed presidential bid in 2020, the results of this year's midterms, and the Republican party's loss of two Georgia Senate seats in 2021.
"I really hope that President Trump sees the writing on the wall," Griffin said. His remarks came before Trump announced his 2024 bid at Mar-a-Lago.
Griffin voiced support for Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who has yet to announce a presidential campaign for 2024.
"DeSantis is going to run on a record of just unbelievable accomplishment," Griffin said, noting that the governor won reelection by 20 percentage points in a once-hotly contested state.
Griffin donated $5 million to DeSantis' reelection campaign in 2018, according to data from the transparency website OpenSecrets. He gave another $5 million to DeSantis in April 2021, per NBC.
Trump and DeSantis are anticipated to clash for the Republican presidential nomination, with Trump deriding the Florida Governor with a mocking nickname, "Ron DeSanctimonious." DeSantis on Wednesday dodged questions about a brewing GOP civil war with the former president, saying people need to "chill out" after the midterms.
Trump has been blamed by some Republicans for the GOP's bad performance this election after the party failed to take the Senate but won the House.
Griffin, however, said he was happy with the midterm results, saying the split votes showed that people came out to cast their ballots. "It was a triumph of democracy," he said.
In 2018, Griffin donated $1 million to Trump's Future45 PAC, per OpenSecrets data.
In total, the CEO has put nearly $60 million into Republican campaigns this election cycle, becoming the second-largest current GOP donor, according to Politico. The only Republican donor who's spent more this cycle is Schlitz Beer heir Richard Uihlein, who has donated around $62 million, per the outlet.
Zia Ahmed, a spokesperson for Griffin, told Insider he had nothing to add to the billionaire's comments.
Representatives for Trump and DeSantis did not immediately respond to Insider's requests for comment.
My new favorite thing to do when I see ads on facebook is to comment with things like their opensecrets.org report on lobbying and campaign contributions.
Use the social media platform against them.
One example and side note: Starbucks deleted my comment twice, until the third time when I noted in my response that they’ve deleted it twice and promised to keep reposting it if they continued deleting. They didn’t delete it... aaaaand... it turned into an interesting thread. Be cordial but persistent. (And if you’ve got a long, well thought out post, save a copy on your computer in case you need to re-post it.)
(The ad was all about how they’re helping the homeless. I pointed out that their donation was pocket change and a tax write-off, and that they literally fought against a law in seattle to help the homeless that would have cost them a fraction of a single percent in taxes.)
Joe Manchin, the top recipient of oil and gas industry contributions during the 2022 election cycle, vowed to oppose President Joe Biden’s “
The Environmental Protection Agency unveiled a new proposal Thursday to cut greenhouse gas emissions from thousands of power plants burning coal or natural gas, two of the top sources of electricity across the United States. Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), criticizing the “radical” proposal, issued his own scorched earth ultimatum on Wednesday ahead of the announcement.
Manchin, chair of the Senate Energy Committee and the top recipient of contributions from the oil and gas industry during the 2022 election cycle, vowed Wednesday to oppose every one of President Joe Biden’s nominees for the EPA “until they halt their government overreach.”
“This Administration is determined to advance its radical climate agenda and has made it clear they are hellbent on doing everything in their power to regulate coal and gas-fueled power plants out of existence, no matter the cost to energy security and reliability,” Manchin wrote in a statement released Wednesday.
The EPA proposal would require most fossil fuel-fired power plants to slash their greenhouse emissions by 90% between 2023 and 2040. The EPA projects the emissions reduction would deliver up to $85 billion in climate and health benefits over the next two decades by heading off premature deaths, emergency room visits, asthma attacks, school absences and lost workdays.
“Alongside historic investment taking place across America in clean energy manufacturing and deployment, these proposals will help deliver tremendous benefits to the American people — cutting climate pollution and other harmful pollutants, protecting people’s health, and driving American innovation,” EPA Administrator Michael Regan said in a statement issued Thursday.
By 2035, the Biden administration aims to shift all electricity in the U.S. to zero-emission sources including wind, solar, nuclear and hydropower, Roll Call reported. In a written statement, Manchin warned the administration’s “commitment to their extreme ideology overshadows their responsibility to ensure long-lasting energy and economic security.”
Manchin is up for reelection during the 2024 election cycle, but he has not yet announced whether he will run.
Last month, West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice (R) announced his campaign for Manchin’s seat. The Democrat-turned-Republican is among the most popular governors in the country and leads a state former President Donald Trump won by nearly 40 percentage points in 2020.
Manchin has hammered the Biden administration in recent weeks for its implementation of the Inflation Reduction Act, the president’s signature climate change bill that the Democratic senator was instrumental in shaping.
“Neither the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law nor the IRA gave new authority to regulate power plant emission standards. However, I fear that this Administration’s commitment to their extreme ideology overshadows their responsibility to ensure long-lasting energy and economic security and I will oppose all EPA nominees until they halt their government overreach,” Manchin said in his Wednesday statement.
What Manchin did not disclose in his statement, however, is that the EPA proposal would jeopardize one West Virginia coal facility that’s particularly lucrative for Manchin’s family business, Enersystems Inc., POLITICO reported. Enersystems delivers waste coal to the Grant Town power plant, which was reportedly already struggling financially, troubles that are expected to deepen with the strict new climate proposal.
Manchin personally received $537,000 from Enersystems last year, according to POLITICO’s analysis of personal financial disclosures filed with the U.S. Senate, and he has been paid more than $5 million by the company since he was first elected in 2010. His son, Joe Manchin IV, now runs Enersystems. The Senator’s campaign has also benefited from political contributions from Enersystems, OpenSecrets reported last year.
“This is going to make it harder for them to stay around. You won’t find written anywhere in the rule that this is supposed to be putting coal plants out of business, but just do the math,” Brian Murray, director of the Nicholas Institute for Energy, Environment & Sustainability at Duke University, told POLITICO.
In 2020, Manchin’s home state of West Virginia generated about 90% of its power from coal, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. By contrast, less than 20% of the energy generated nationally comes from coal. Many states, including neighboring Virginia, are phasing out coal by replacing it with natural gas.
While the U.S. may show signs of moving away from coal, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission told the Senate Energy Committee earlier this month that the country was not prepared to abandon coal and maintain a reliable energy system.
“Coal is more dependable than gas and yes, we need to keep coal generation available for the foreseeable future,” said Commissioner Mark Christie.
Manchin took another swipe at the EPA on Thursday during an energy committee hearing on permitting reform, when he accused the agency of preventing the development of carbon capture technology by denying companies the permits they need to trap captured carbon underground.
“Don’t tell me that you’re going to invest in carbon capture sequestration when we can’t get a permit to basically sequester the carbon captured,” Manchin said. “This is the game that’s being played. I know it, they know I know it, and we’re not gonna let them get away with it.”
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