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Elise Stefanik

'Serial Liar' Stefanik Grabs Credit For Infrastructure Funds She Voted To Kill

House Republican Conference chair Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY) recently patted herself on the back for a $1.8 million federal grant a community within her district received. However, that money came from a bill she and every other Republican opposed.

Local publication North Country This Week — based in Stefanik's 21st House District in upstate New York — reported that the US Department of Agriculture grant went toward the South Raquette Water District in Massena, NY. Stefanik took credit for the funding, telling the outlet that she helped fast-track the grant application through the House Appropriations Committee to quickly get the funds approved.

"Infrastructure has been a top priority for some time and I am able to offer assistance in a very targeted way, whether it be for water projects, sewer projects or supporting our first responders," she said.

"I am proud to announce that I secured $1,857,000 for a Water District Development Project for the Town of Massena in this year’s appropriations process," Stefanik wrote in a Tuesday tweet. "This funding will go toward providing public water service to the residents of Massena."

Stefanik didn't actually vote for those funds, which were part of the Inflation Reduction Act that passed the House of Representatives in 2022. In a now-deleted statement posted to her House.gov website, she called the legislation a "radical spending bill that will raise taxes and crush hardworking families and small businesses."

"[Democrats] have made their priorities clear, and they are not for the American people. I will continue to stand up against reckless government spending and any tax increases," Stefanik said at the time, adding that the bill "also wastes $350 billion on 'Green New Deal' provisions that prioritize large cities over rural communities."

Others on X/Twitter took issue with Stefanik boasting about her district receiving the funds she voted against. In addition to a community note (a public fact-checking feature on the platform) specifying that Stefanik "voted Nay along party lines with every other Republican" against the bill, she was also slammed by various journalists, public figures and commentators for her tweet.

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

Former Trump White House Doc Spent Campaign Funds

Former Trump White House Doc Spent Campaign Funds On Country Club

Earlier in April news came out that the former White house doctor for Donald Trump—the guy who said Trump had “good genes”—Rep. Ronny Jackson (R-TX) was under investigation by the House Ethics Committee. Why? It still isn’t clear. What is clear is that the new congressman who has spread lies like “In 2022, illegal immigrants will have MORE FREEDOMS and easier access to healthcare and ballot boxes than most Americans,” is likely being investigated for the kinds of things that racist, dubious, opportunist, craven doctors-turned-politicians can be investigated for: Anything and everything.

On Monday, Roll Call reported that Jackson seems to have spent “more than $2,300 in costs associated with membership at a private social club in Texas.” The campaign money Jackson spent was at the Amarillo Club in Texas. According to Federal Election Commission filings, Jackson seems to have broken the Federal Election Commission Act (FECA). That’s illegal, as in against the law. Here are a couple of things you aren’t allowed to spend campaign funds on:

  • “Country club memberships”
  • “Dues and fees for health clubs or recreational facilities”

You need only a third-grade reading level to understand that Jackson’s FEC filings seem to reek.

The Representative from the 13th District of Texas, best known as “Candy Man” for his willingness as a doctor to sign off prescriptions on anything and saying that Donald Trump was in amazing health, joins other fiscally irresponsible GOP candidates like North Carolina’s Madison Cawthorn in his willingness to spend other people’s money on his good time. A Jackson spokesperson told Roll Call that the membership costs to the this Texan country club “are strictly associated with campaign and fundraising events.” Of course, this is only legal if the costs were incurred during an event for fundraising. Having a year-round membership, unless all of your fundraising is done at this country club year-round, is not legal.

When charges solely listed as being for food and drink are included, the congressman's main campaign campaign committee, Texans for Ronny Jackson, reported spending more than over $6,400 at the Amarillo Club since 2020

Here’s the FEC’s explanation of fees that they consider “Automatic personal use.”

Campaign funds may not be used to pay for dues to country clubs, health clubs, recreational facilities or other nonpolitical organizations unless the payments are made in connection with a specific fundraising event that takes place on the organization’s premises.

The looseness with which MAGA monsters like Jackson are willing to dip into their campaign tills to pay for their own recreation and entertainment is pretty astonishing. Even more so when you consider that such a large part of the GOP platform is stifling any and all legislation that would help their constituents by arguing for “fiscal responsibility.”

In the scheme of things, $2,300 isn’t a lot of money for a campaign powered by GOP hate and Trumpian butt-kissing, but it does show how cavalier the Republican Party’s candidates have become with run-of-the-mill corruption.

All of this comes just a few days after revelations that Oath Keeper insurrectionists were exchanging private texts about Jackson’s need for militia protections during the Jan. 6 invasion of the Capitol building by people like the Oath Keepers. Jackson denies knowing any of the faktriots who were burning up their text threads worrying about him on Jan. 6, 2021.

Printed with permission from Alternet.
FEMA To States: No Climate Planning, No Money

FEMA To States: No Climate Planning, No Money

By Katherine Bagley, InsideClimate News (TNS)

The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) is making it tougher for governors to deny man-made climate change. Starting next year, the agency will approve disaster preparedness funds only for states whose governors approve hazard mitigation plans that address climate change.

This may put several Republican governors who maintain the earth isn’t warming due to human activities, or prefer to do nothing about it, into a political bind. Their position may block their states’ access to hundreds of millions of dollars in FEMA funds. Over the past five years, the agency has awarded an average $1 billion a year in grants to states and territories for taking steps to mitigate the effects of disasters.

“If a state has a climate denier governor that doesn’t want to accept a plan, that would risk mitigation work not getting done because of politics,” said Becky Hammer, an attorney with the Natural Resources Defense Council’s water program. “The governor would be increasing the risk to citizens in that state” because of his climate beliefs.

The policy doesn’t affect federal money for relief after a hurricane, flood, or other disaster. Specifically, beginning in March 2016, states seeking preparedness money will have to assess how climate change threatens their communities. Governors will have to sign off on hazard mitigation plans. While some states, including New York, have already started incorporating climate risks in their plans, most haven’t because FEMA’s old 2008 guidelines didn’t require it.

“This could potentially become a major conflict for several Republican governors,” said Barry Rabe, an expert on the politics of climate change at the University of Michigan. “We aren’t just talking about coastal states.” Climate change affects droughts, rainfall, and tornado activity. Fracking is being linked to more earthquakes, he said. “This could affect state leaders across the country.”

Among those who could face a difficult decision are Republican Governors Rick Scott of Florida, Bobby Jindal of Louisiana, Chris Christie of New Jersey, Greg Abbott of Texas, and Pat McCrory of North Carolina — all of whom have denied man-made climate change or refused to take action. The states they lead face immediate threats from climate change.

The five governors’ offices did not return requests for comment by press time.

Environmentalists have been pressing FEMA to include global warming in its hazard mitigation guidelines for almost three years. FEMA told the Natural Resources Defense Council in early 2014 that it would revise the guidelines. It issued draft rules last October and officially released the new procedures last week as partisan politics around climate change have been intensifying.

On March eighth, the Florida Center for Investigative Reporting said Scott instituted an unwritten ban on the use of “climate change” or “global warming” by Florida officials. Earlier this month, Republican Senator Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma took a snowball to the U.S. Senate floor as evidence the climate isn’t warming, highlighting GOP leaders’ climate views.

“The challenges posed by climate change, such as more intense storms, frequent heavy precipitation, heat waves, drought, extreme flooding, and higher sea levels, could significantly alter the types and magnitudes of hazards impacting states in the future,” FEMA wrote in its new procedures.

FEMA’s disaster preparedness program has been granting money to states since the 1980s for projects as diverse as raising buildings out of floodplains and building safe rooms. States are required to update their plans every five years to be eligible for the agency’s mitigation funding. Since 2010, FEMA has doled out more than $4.6 billion to states and territories as part of this program.

Republican-led regions constitute eight of the top ten recipients of this category of FEMA money between 2010 and 2014. Louisiana was No. one, having received almost $1.1 billion from FEMA for hazard mitigation. New Jersey was third with nearly $379 million and Texas fourth with almost $343 million.

The gubernatorial approval clause was included in the new guidelines to “raise awareness and support for implementing the actions in the mitigation strategy and increasing statewide resilience to natural hazards,” said FEMA spokeswoman Susan Hendrick.

The new federal rules don’t require public involvement in the creation of states’ disaster preparedness plans, eliminating the opportunity for environmental groups and concerned citizens to submit comments or concerns about the assessments.

Photo: Kelly Garbato via Flickr

Analysis: Campaign Cash Already Pours In

Analysis: Campaign Cash Already Pours In

By Cathleen Decker, Los Angeles Times

Let’s just go ahead and say it: As far as politics is concerned, 2014 will be the Year of the Boogeyman. Or men. (Aren’t they always?)

On the Republican side, as Democrats have bemoaned for years, are the Koch brothers, billionaire industrialists who have spent huge sums of money — granted, a drop in the bucket to them — in pursuit of what they say are free-market solutions and what Democrats say is their annihilation.

On the Democratic side, George Soros has been supplanted as the ultimate bete noire by Tom Steyer, the California billionaire who, aides said last week, plans to spend at least $50 million of his money to target Republicans running in 2014 who have been skeptical of global warming. (That number would be matched by other environmentalists for a $100 million anti-Republican hit spread across seven states.)

Or, as Steyer strategist Chris Lehane put it in his typically vivid fashion:

“We are not going to be talking about polar bears and butterflies. We are going to be talking about how this issue of climate impacts people in their backyards, in their states, in their communities.”

It took only a few hours for Terri Lynn Land, a Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate in Michigan and one of those in Steyer’s sights, to take umbrage in a Web ad that blamed her Democratic opponent, Gary Peters, for trying to kill 96,000 Michigan jobs.

“Why is Gary Peters waging a war on Michigan jobs and paychecks?” the ad asked, then answered: “Because Peters supports President Obama’s job-killing agenda and is bankrolled by billionaire radical Tom Steyer. Peters also supports Steyer’s call to kill the Keystone pipeline.”

This is not virgin territory for Land. A previous campaign video showed an ominous picture of Steyer’s San Francisco mansion and asserted that “a secret meeting was held in this San Francisco estate, owned by billionaire Tom Steyer. The subject: stopping the Keystone pipeline.” Among the participants: the very same Gary Peters, who, the video said, would benefit handsomely from killing the pipeline, as would Steyer.

“Gary Peters: working for billionaires, not Michigan,” the tag line stated.

Despite Land’s characterization, Steyer is hardly a flaming “radical” but a former financier who has taken to spending his millions to propel action on what he considers an urgent issue, climate change.

He is no more radical, that is, than the Koch brothers, who have chosen to spend tens of millions on ads against Obamacare and other issues and on behalf of multiple candidates.

The Koch brothers and Steyer are doing something that these days is utterly American — spending a ton of money to advance their political aims, aided by U.S. Supreme Court decisions that have loosened campaign finance rules.

In a campaign that so far has only a vague hold on the public, money continues to rain down, and the battle of the boogeymen rages.

Photo via Flickr