Alissa Gordon Heinerscheid YKYDFU When You Take Down Your Linkedin Profile....,

ICE COLD PISSY LAGER PRETTY MUCH SELLS ITSELF DUMB ASS!!!  

WHAT KIND OF CATEGORICAL FUCKTARD INCOMPETENT MUST YOU BE TO FUCK UP A GIG AS EASY AS THIS ONE????

NYPost  |  In 2018, BlackRock CEO Larry Fink, who oversees assets worth $8.6 trillion and has been called the “face of ESG,” wrote a now-infamous letter to CEOs titled “A Sense of Purpose” that pushed a “new model of governance” in line with ESG values.

“Society is demanding that companies, both public and private, serve a social purpose,” Fink wrote. “To prosper over time, every company must not only deliver financial performance, but also show how it makes a positive contribution to society.”

Alissa Heinerscheid, Bud Light’s VP of Marketing, doubles down on her extreme woke strategy to promote the “declining” American beer brand to “young people”, while smearing her former customers as “fratty and out of touch”.

How’s that working out for you, lady? @budlight pic.twitter.com/zNYKbMnZnu

— Old Row (@OldRowOfficial) April 9, 2023

Fink also let it be known “that if a company doesn’t engage with the community and have a sense of purpose “it will ultimately lose the license to operate from key stakeholders.”

In December, Florida pulled $2 billion worth of state assets managed by BlackRock. “I think it’s undemocratic of major asset managers to use their power to influence societal outcomes,” Gov. Ron DeSantis said at the time.

Fink has denied that ESG is political, but key staff managing his ESG operations worked in the Obama administration and donate to Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders.

In his first veto, President Joe Biden last month rejected a GOP-backed bill that sought to block ESG investing — especially in pension funds where, critics say, American retirement funds will be sacrificed to a radical left-wing agenda.

Protesters in Paris targeted BlackRock’s office there this week due to the company’s role in managing and privatizing pensions, which are at the heart of the French government’s recent retirement-age reforms.

ESG and CEI proponents say that adhering to socially conscious values when investing and managing a company will make the world a better place. Not everyone agrees.

Derek Kreifels is the co-founder and CEO of State Financial Officers Foundation, one of several financial officers fighting ESG on a national level.

He calls ESG itself a “highly subjective political score infiltrating all walks of life, forcing progressive policies on everyday Americans [and] resulting in higher prices at the pump and at the store.”

The Corporate Equality Index is an ominous cog in ESG’s wheel, Kreifels told The Post.

“The problem with measures like CEI, and its big brother ESG, is that it introduces an incentive structure outside of the bounds of business, often in ways contradictory to fiduciary duty,” Kreifels said. “Whether Anheuser-Busch was trying to cash in on Dylan Mulvaney’s TikTok following or chasing higher CEI ratings for inclusivity, the backlash has been significant, and the stockholders to whom the company is obligated will feel the pinch.”

 

 

Dylan Mulvaney's Mimicry Of White Women Is Absurd

thecritic.co.uk  |  If a man seeks to humiliate a woman he encounters, nothing is easier than reducing her appearance to a mere caricature. Men do this directly in front of the woman they are targeting: lifting their voice to a squeak, exaggerating hand gestures, pushing out pretend breasts, wiggling their bum, pouting and fiddling with their hair. Most of these men confine the taunt to the woman in front of them, and the woman often feels and displays a righteous rage. However, when it comes to Dylan Mulvaney, the Tik Tok user who has become famous for his grotesque parody of women, women are not supposed to react critically. They are seen as cruel or “transphobic” if they express annoyance at being so grossly insulted. 

In March 2022 Dylan Mulvaney saw a way to take his barely-concealed disdain for women up a level, with predictable success. After his career as a musical actor had stalled due to the Covid pandemic, with people finding solace daily on Tik Tok, wily Dylan invented a new role that guaranteed his future wealth and success. He announced he was embarking on a journey of “being a girl” and began a series of videos documenting this ludicrous notion. 

Women see this for the deliberately constructed misogyny it is

Shortly before this year-long, very public “transition”, Mulvaney performed a pilot video for his current lucrative act. In it he told the viewer that he “had trouble finding roles” so a friend had invented one for him, a “femme character”. His character wears a pink dress and pearls, white gloves and ankle socks. At this point Mulvaney must have been delighted to glimpse a potential new career path. It was a very savvy move for him to extend and develop this caricature of a 1950s woman. Now, just over a year later, Dylan Mulvaney has highly paid “partnerships” with a number of companies including Budweiser, Kate Spade and — during the past week, to great objection — the Sportwear giant Nike. 

In an inflammatory paid partnership video with Nike, an inanely grinning, barefoot Mulvaney wears a Nike sports bra and leggings. He performs a series of ridiculous moves including comedic side stretches, a theatrical run kicking his heels up nonsensically and failed chorus-line high kicks. He almost runs backwards into a hedge at one point and pulls a comedy expression of shock. It all looks ridiculous and slapstick. It mocks women by suggesting they exercise trivially and ineffectively, but smiling throughout. 

The media seems unwilling to focus on the actual reasons many women are angry about this. It has focused instead on stating that objections to the sponsorship are because Dylan is trans. This is not why women are outraged. When a man “performs woman” in front of women to such a humiliating degree, when he waggles and jiggles and implies that weakness and silliness are inherent to being a woman who plays sport, women appropriately see this for the deliberately constructed misogyny it is. Ria Chapman, a London PE teacher, told me why she finds this act so irritating and offensive:

Girls are still routinely bullied and mocked for being sporty and or breaking stereotypes, their achievements and ambitions not being celebrated and valued like those of their male peers. For a sports company the size of Nike to use a male performing a parody of what he believes women behave like during sport only adds to the ammunition that boys will use to put girls down.

Utilising female stereotypes is the foundation of Mulvaney’s role. On his “Day 1 of being a girl” video debut, he said:

I’ve already cried three times, written a scathing email I didn’t send, ordered dresses online that I couldn’t afford and when someone asked me how I was, I said “I’m fine” but I wasn’t fine. How did I do, ladies?

All of this encapsulates the stereotype of women as emotionally fragile, frivolous spendthrifts, imprudent around clothes and financially inept. In the stereotype Dylan performs, women routinely suppress our emotions and focus on being polite at all times. It is an archaic depiction of requisite female behaviour which was seared into women’s consciousness over decades in the past. This view of “girlhood” took further decades for feminist women to dismantle. Dylan Mulvaney is building it back up before our eyes and we refuse to stay quiet about it.

Clownish 25 Year Old Man Charts His Fame And "Girlhood" (REDUX 11/26/22)

dailymail |  Childcare experts are expressing alarm over transgender TikToker Dylan Mulvaney’s popularity bump after her White House debut, saying social media is driving a spike in teens seeking sex-change procedures.

Clinicians say Mulvaney’s sit-down time with President Joe Biden has raised the social media sensation’s profile, extending her reach and likely influencing teenage fans who may themselves be questioning their own gender identity.

Mulvaney’s TikTok following grew to 8.4 million after her White House appearance, and while she is entitled to share her experiences online, experts told DailyMail.com that online influencers like her in part drive an alarming uptick in teen transitioning.

dailymail |   'A lot of the initial deals were tailored to my queerness and to my transness,' she told The Creators newsletter last month.

'For some of these major corporations, I was actually their first trans creator. It's exciting to make money to support myself since I lost my job, and to have my transition surgeries be covered too.'

Her agency, CAA, did not answer DailyMail.com's interview request.

Mulvaney's ascent has not been without hiccups. Her appearance on Ulta Beauty last month led to controversy and calls to boycott the cosmetics firm. Critics called her 'misogynistic' for 'appropriating' womanhood.

Likewise, a post about Tampax feminine hygiene products left some viewers shocked and confused. Two replied: 'Is this a joke?' She is frequently bashed for referring to the vagina as a 'Barbie pouch'.

She has gained a massive following on TikTok as she documents her transition to a transgender female — originally identifying as 'nonbinary' but telling followers in March that she was a girl.

Mulvaney interviewed Biden last month as part of a panel of six progressive activists for NowThis News. In the interview, the Democrat vowed to protect 'gender-affirming care,' saying states should not limit access to transgender treatments.

 

Useless White Woman Signifiers Peddled As Feminine Gender (REDUX 2/11/23)

teenvogue  | The fast food joint where Zuriel Hooks worked was just up the street from where she lived in Alabama, but the commute was harrowing. When she started the job in April 2021, she had to walk to work on the shoulder of the road in the Alabama sun. She would pause at the intersection, waiting for the right opportunity to run across multiple lanes of traffic. 

It was hot, it was dangerous, it was exhausting – but if she wanted to keep her job, she didn’t have much of a choice. “I felt so bad about myself at that time. Because I'm just like, ‘I’m too pretty to be doing all this,’” Hooks said, laughing while looking back. “Literally, I deserve to be driven to work.” 

Hooks, 19, now works for the Knights and Orchids Society, an organization serving Alabama’s Black LGBT community. But the experience of walking to that job stuck with her. Though she’s been working towards it for two years, Hooks doesn’t have a driver’s license. 

For trans youth like Hooks, this crucial rite of passage can be a complicated, lengthy and often frustrating journey. Trans young people face unique challenges to driving at every turn, from complicated ID laws to practicing with a parent. Without adequate support, trans youth may give up on driving entirely, resulting in a crisis of safety and independence.

The most obvious obstacle involves the license itself. Teenagers who choose to change their names or gender markers face a complicated and costly legal battle. The processes vary: some states require background checks, some court appearances, some medical documentation. At times, the rules can border on ridiculous. Alabama’s SB 184 forbade people under the age of 19 from pursuing medical transition. Yet the state also passed a law requiring drivers to undergo medical transition in order to change their gender markers. Though that law has since been ruled unconstitutional by a federal court, the state of Alabama is appealing that decision, leaving trans drivers with no official resolution. 

“It creates this – I don't want to use the cliche, but – patchwork,” said Olivia Hunt, director of policy at the National Center for Transgender Equality. “Not just state-to-state, but even person-to-person, where every person's name change and gender marker change situation is different.”

The cost can vary widely, too. Documentation, court fees and other requirements can quickly tally up to hundreds of dollars. “If you've got somebody who's already in a situation where, due to financial problems, [who] doesn't have access to a car, that might make it just that more inaccessible for them,” Hunt told Teen Vogue.

This lack of access to name and gender marker revisions puts first time drivers in a dangerous limbo. If your name or gender marker doesn’t match your appearance, there’s potential for harassment. The fear of getting outed by an ID (and subsequent abuse) is what some researchers call “ID anxiety.”

“For trans drivers, this is a unique, personal embodiment of stress,” said Arjee Restar, a social epidemiologist and an assistant professor at the University of Washington, “given that the same ID anxiety does not occur to cisgender drivers.”

With that being said, ID law is not the only thing troubling young trans drivers. Public driver education programs have dwindled significantly since the 1970s, leaving much of the burden of teaching driver’s ed on parents. In most states, teenagers must practice for their driving exams under adult supervision, typically a parent or guardian. 

But trans youth often have fraught relationships with the adults in their lives . Hooks, who started practicing driving with someone close to her at 17, often felt like a captive audience while trying to drive. “As [they were] trying to somehow teach me how to drive, I feel like it was [their] way to try to… I would say somehow try to brainwash me back from being who I am,” said Hooks. “They’d turn [the conversation] from driving to, ‘why are you even transitioning?’”

In Alabama, teenagers must complete a minimum of 50 hours of driving with adult supervision in order to get their licenses in lieu of a state-approved drivers’ education course. Hooks tried to muscle through it. But navigating the roads while navigating the emotions in the passenger side got to be too much. One day, Hooks just gave up. “If I'm gonna have this much agony trying to get this done,” Hooks recalled thinking, “then I don't want to do it.”

The alternative wasn’t much better. She didn’t just feel miserable walking everywhere; she felt vulnerable. 

“I always got catcalled, I always got beeped at by a lot of men,” she said.

Nashville Shooter Manifesto: Memory Holed Cept For The Don't Fuck With Cats Peanut Gallery

Epochtimes  |  My home city of Nashville has been in a virtual non-stop uproar since the tragic murders of six people, three of them 9-year-old children, at The Covenant School on March 27.

This has been ineffably sad for the family and friends of the victims, who are victims themselves, their grief often overwhelmed in a city, indeed a country, now so politicized that our common humanity seems some distant memory from a long ago Jimmy Stewart movie one sees only at Christmas.

Lost too in all this is any sense of what really happened that Monday or why it happened.

Distraction reigns. The last few days have been arguably the mother of all distractions when, as reported here at The Epoch Times and virtually everywhere, riots or protests (depending on how you see them) broke out in front and within the Tennessee State Assembly.

The rioters/protestors were largely high school students, bent on gun control, instigated, at least in part, by three members of the assembly, two of whom have now been expelled for their behavior.

Unfortunately for the local GOP and Republicans everywhere, the two expelled, deservedly or not, happened to be black, naturally providing a propaganda opportunity for our resident White House “civil rights activist” and ally of former Sen. Robert Byrd (D-N.C.) who once informed us “If you have a problem figuring out whether you’re for me or Trump, then you ain’t black.”

Meanwhile, the tragic murders are being used inevitably as a battering ram for gun control that has never been shown to work and for red flag laws that can work, but not in the way intended.

Which brings me to the missing “manifesto.”

In the immediate aftermath of the murders the police informed us the obviously emotionally disturbed shooter was transgendered, something that was ratified by the video of the killings at the Christian school showing the female-by-birth Audrey Hale dressed entirely like a macho terrorist.

Further, they told us she had left behind documents and a manifesto, explaining her actions.

Then, as if by magic, we heard no more of the word transgendered in any of its forms, from the media or anywhere, nor, almost simultaneously, anything of the manifesto, except that it had been handed to the FBI for review.

Regarding the media, it isn’t just CBS, widely known to have decreed the word “transgender” should be omitted in coverage of the crime but almost all of the MSM. NPR, recently labeled “state-affiliated” on Twitter, does not mention the word in its recent update on the crime, nor does it apply a pronoun of any sort—male, female, or “they”—when referring to the shooter. This must be a new form of asexual reporting.

As for the FBI, no word so far on when they will release the manifesto, in original or redacted form.

Sound familiar?

No doubt it does. How long have we been waiting for the FBI to act on the Hunter Biden laptop or even reveal its contents? Do we expect it ever to happen, especially under the current administration?

Obviously not. And amidst the consternation over the expelling of the Tennessee assembly members, to demand transparency or even to mention the manifesto will invoke a response that one is transphobic.

But no one’s transphobic, just interested in the truth, a truth that has become evanescent for a reason.

Why suddenly has transgenderism broken out everywhere, as if sexual dysphoria were some new version of the measles? Cui bono?

Certainly not the children many of whom are going through developmental issues that have occurred since time immemorial without medical intervention, yet somehow we are all still here.

Who is guiding them to finding their salvation in changing sexes? Toward what end?

Perhaps the manifesto has a clue and that is why it is being hidden from us. Or maybe an abreaction is feared.

Seine Papieren Bitte: Memory Holed Indeed Cept For My Blanket Exemption Papers...,

brownstone  |  On a video podcast the other day, I made reference to the lockdown orders of March 2020. The host turned off the recording. He said it was fine to talk about this subject but from now on please refer to “the events of March 2020” with no specifics. 

Otherwise, it will be taken down by YouTube and Facebook. He needs those platforms for reach, and reach is necessary for his business model. 

I complied, but I was spooked. Are we really now in the position that talking about what happened to us is verboten on mainstream venues? Sadly, that seems to be where we headed. In big and small ways, and throughout the culture and the whole world, we are bit by bit being trained to forget and hence not learn and thus repeat the whole thing. 

This makes no sense since nearly every public issue in play today traces to those fateful days and the fallout thereof, including censorship, the entrenchment of industry-government oligarchs, the corruption of media and tech, the educational upheaval, the abuse of courts and law, and the developing financial and banking crisis. 

And yet hardly anyone wants to speak about the topic frankly. It is too upsetting. There is too much at stake. We cannot risk being canceled, the single greatest fear of every aspirational professional in today’s world. Plus too many powerful people were in on it and don’t want to admit it. It would appear that the whole subject is being memoryholed in ways of which they all approve. 

For nearly two years, or longer, respectable intellectuals knew not to dissent from the prevailing norms and challenge the whole machinery. This was true of Washington think tanks, which went on their merry way from March 2020 either celebrating the “public health response” or just remaining quiet. The same was true of the leadership of major political parties and third parties. 

Most religious leaders stayed quiet too, even as their doors were padlocked for as long as 2 holiday seasons. Civic organizations played along. If you thought that the job of the ACLU was to defend civil liberties, you were wrong: they one day decided that lockdowns, mandatory masks, and forced shots were essential to their mission. 

So many were compromised over 3 years. These same people now just want the whole subject to go away. We find ourselves in an odd position, having experienced the biggest trauma in our lives and in many generations and yet there is precious little open talk about it. Brownstone was established to fill this void but we’ve become a target as a result.

Before There Can Be A Revoution There Must First Be A Revolution Between The Ears

Consciousness reflects–and goes towards further influencing–the material underpinnings of the system in which it is situated. U$A is rapidly trending in a sharply authoritarian direction because the structural contradictions of capitalism can only be effectively addressed by the 1% via domestic austerity, increased repression (suppression of information, outright dismantling of supposed rule-of-law mechanisms, etc.), and accelerating militarism and war. 

We are not approaching a crisis–we are in one. It was remarked to me years ago, there is a death wish at the core of capitalism. It’s 50/50 whether it’s more insane or evil, but both characterizations fit increasingly generalized events like the expulsion of legislators in Tennessee, the outright bribery of Supreme Court “justices,” and as always, the ability of the biggest banks to wallow outright in their corruption. 

We live in interesting times. To the extent it is a spectator sport, we can only expect this plunge to continue and intensify. There is no “technical fix” to a system that is irrational and self-destructive–as someone remarked long ago, we will be its undertakers or ourselves be interred by its collapse.

From ChatGPT: Propaganda methods are techniques used to manipulate information, ideas, and opinions to influence and control people’s behavior. Here are some common propaganda methods:

• Name-calling: This is a technique used to create negative associations by using negative labels or name-calling to discredit a person, group, or idea. 

• Testimonials: This is a technique used to build credibility by using endorsements or testimonials from respected people or authorities.

• Bandwagon: This is a technique used to create a sense of social pressure or conformity by suggesting that “everyone else is doing it,” or that it is the popular or accepted choice.

• Emotional appeals: This is a technique used to appeal to people’s emotions rather than reason, often by using vivid imagery, personal anecdotes, or appealing to people’s fears or desires.

• Glittering generalities: This is a technique used to create positive associations by using vague or undefined terms that sound good but have no real meaning.

• Simplification: This is a technique used to oversimplify complex issues, often by reducing them to simple slogans or catchphrases.

• False or misleading information: This is a technique used to manipulate information or present false or misleading information as fact to support a particular point of view.

• Scapegoating: This is a technique used to blame a particular person or group for a problem or issue, often unfairly, to distract attention from the real causes. 
  

I foresee a future in which it is simultaneously claimed that AI is sentient for marketing purposes but lacks sentience for legal purposes.  This is the way that Corporations have been given legal rights amounting to Corporate personhood but without the possibility of sending the Corporate person to prison no matter how many people the Corporation kills.

but but but Aren't You Just Elon's Sock-Puppet?!?!?

racket  |  Earlier this afternoon, I learned Substack links were being blocked on Twitter. Since being able to share my articles is a primary reason I use Twitter, I was alarmed and asked what was going on.

.@elonmusk, you know that thing where the left eats its own? We mustn’t let that happen to the emerging western-values/free-speech coalition. Many of us who have backed your Twitter play and taken substantial heat for it are thrown by this move. The public square isn’t a monopoly https://t.co/qe1Gn6P6H6

— Bret Weinstein (@BretWeinstein) April 7, 2023

It turns out Twitter is upset about the new Substack Notes feature, which they see as a hostile rival. When I asked how I was supposed to market my work, I was given the option of posting my articles on Twitter instead of Substack.

Not much suspense there; I’m staying at Substack. You’ve all been great to me, as has the management of this company. Beginning early next week I’ll be using the new Substack Notes feature (to which you’ll all have access) instead of Twitter, a decision that apparently will come with a price as far as any future Twitter Files reports are concerned. It was absolutely worth it and I’ll always be grateful to those who gave me the chance to work on that story, but man is this a crazy planet.

If You Don't Like The Status Quo You Have No One To Vote For - Just People To Vote Against

neuburger  |  To answer that question seriously, consider the following premises. I think the first four accurately describe the thinking of mainstream Democratic leaders since the humiliating presidential loss of 2016:

1. Modern Republicans (leaders, media, and crucially, their voters as well) represent the worst threat to the American Republic since the Civil War.

   1. Or possibly since the Founding. Southern Confederates didn’t wish to institute Hitlerian reforms that would eliminate democracy from the governance of the state.

2. Any act by any individual or organization that advances the overall Republican Project, inadvertently or not, is as dangerous as the Project itself.

3. Because the Republican Project is evil, its supporters are evil — or in the most generous cases, deeply stupid.

4. Stopping the Republican Project means stopping all supporters and adherents, be they willing or not.

5. (Taibbi addendum 1) Matt Taibbi is a supporter, willingly or not, and therefore must be stopped.

6. (Taibbi addendum 2) Because his support is probably not inadvertent — Seder’s hosts and the Democratic committee members are certain his motive is money, a sell-out to advance Elon Musk — destruction of his entire career is a reasonable response. After all, the whole of American democracy is at risk; literally all.

I don’t think any of those statements, stark as they are, misrepresent the Democratic Party position. Everything I’ve observed since November 2016 confirms them all.

The Problem in a Nutshell

Statement 1 could well be true. I believe it myself, though about the leadership only. (I have other thoughts about Republican voters.)

But does the rest follow from that? Does it justify the destruction of free speech, to take one example, in order to preserve it? (If you doubt that’s what’s on offer, click the link.)

And even if it does, even if the means are justified by the end, the problem is that this Democratic Party response — this hate-Republicans-at-all-costs messaging (while party leaders themselves cut deals with them) — is not going to work. It won't blast them past their electoral opponents at near the speed it ought to, given their opponent's obvious and fatal flaws.

Mainstream Democrats run roughly even with Republicans except in protected districts. They certainly ran roughly even with Donald Trump in the only venue that counts, the Electoral College. And Democratic leaders are the reason that this is so. Will all this vitriol make them more attractive, or less?

If you don’t like the status quo, you have no one to vote for, just people to vote against.

What do you think would happen if Democrats ran a candidate of Real Rebellion, a Bernie Sanders, say, à la 2016, against the candidate of Pretending to Care what happens to suffering voters? Would real rebellion against predatory rule by the rich “trump” fake rebellion financed by the rich?

Of course it would. Sanders would have beaten Trump soundly, had he had the chance, in the 2016 race. All the momentum was his, and he won almost every head-to-head primary contest in states with open, same-day primary voting.

But Democrats, the other party of the rich, won’t take that course. Which leaves them only one pitch. In Taibbi’s language from the start of this piece:

It’s always “Vote for us or you’re a right-wing insurrectionist Putin-lover,” which is the opposite of persuasive.

This is the Democrats’ constant closing argument, and the worst they could advance. It makes them, not just wrong, but ugly as well, the “opposite of persuasive.” Yet this is all they have, if they can’t themselves attack the people’s real enemy, and this time actually mean it. Sad for us. Sad for them as well.

 

We Saw Matt Taibbi vs. Congressional DNC - Now Matt Taibbi vs. MSNBC

racket  |   I’m going to be interviewed on MSNBC today by Mehdi Hasan, the author of a book called Win Every Argument. I’m looking forward to it as one would a root canal or a rectal.

I accepted the invitation because it would have been wrong to refuse, on the off chance he was planning a good-faith discussion. If you’re reading this, things have gone another way.

I last appeared on MSNBC six years ago, on January 13, 2017, to talk with Chris Hayes and of all people Malcolm Nance, about the then-burgeoning Trump-Russia scandal.

The Trump-Russia story was white-hot and still in its infancy. That same day, news leaked from Israel that Americans warned the Mossad not to share information with the incoming administration, because Russia had “leverages of pressure” on Trump. Asked by Chris about the scandal generally, I made what I thought was a boring-but-true observation, that we in the media didn’t “have any hard evidence” of a conspiracy, just not a lot to go on. This was the TV equivalent of a shrug.

Nance jumped on this in a way I remember feeling was unexpected and oddly personal. “Matt’s a journalist. I’m an intelligence officer,” he snapped. “There is no such thing as coincidence in my world.” Chris jumped in to note reporters have different standards, and I agreed, saying, “We haven’t seen anything that allows us to say unequivocally that x and y happened last year.”

“Unequivocally” seemed to trigger Nance. With regard to the DNC hack, he said, “That evidence is unequivocal. It’s on the Internet.” As for “these links possibly with the Trump team,” he proclaimed, “You’re probably never going to see the CIA’s report.” Nance went on to answer “no” to a question from Chris about whether leaks “were coming from the intelligence community,” Chris wrapped up with a sensible suggestion that we all not rely on a parade of “leaks and counter-leaks,” and the segment was done.

To this day I get hit probably a hundred times a day with the question, “What happened to you, man?” What happened? That segment happened, but to MSNBC, not me.

That exchange between Nance and me was symbolic of a choice the network faced. They could either keep doing what reporters had done since the beginning of time, confining themselves to saying things they could prove. Or, they could adopt a new approach, in which you can say anything is true or confirmed, so long as a politician or intelligence official told you it was.

We know how that worked out. I was never invited back, nor for a long time was any other traditionally skeptical reporter, while Nance — one of the most careless spewers of provable errors ever to appear on a major American news network — became one of the Peacock’s most familiar faces.

The U.S. And Canada Will Sue And Sanction Mexico For Taking Care Of Mexicans

NC  |  But all of that changed when AMLO came to power in late 2018. For the first time in 30 years Mexico had a government that was not only determined to halt the privatisation and liberalisation of Mexico’s energy market but to begin dialling it back. Allegations of corrupt practices and price gouging by Iberdrola and other energy companies became a popular talking point at AMLO’s morning press conferences. The juicy contracts began drying up. Instead, a range of obstacles began forming, from disconnections to nonrenewal of permits and fines for price gouging.

The times of plenty had come to an end. And not a moment too soon.

At the rate things were going, the CFE would be generating just 15% of Mexico’s electricity by the end of this decade, says Ángel Barreras Puga, a professor of engineering at the University of Queretero; the rest would be generated exclusively by private, foreign companies.

“Who was going to control prices in the market? Foreign companies, with all that entails. Behind the foreign companies are their national governments. And we have seen how the US government, the US Ambassador and US legislators came to Mexico to try to pressure AMLO to change his policies. Ultimately, they are all lobbyists of private companies.”

There are few better examples of this than US Ambassador to Mexico Ken Salazar, as Ken Hackbarth reported for Jacobin at the time of Sakazar’s appointment in 2021:

Upon leaving (the US Interior Department] in 2013, Salazar went through the revolving door to work for WilmerHale, a law and lobbying firm with close ties to the Trump family, whose roster drilling- and mining-related clients included none other than — you guessed it — BP. From his lucrative new perch in the private sector, Salazar used his clout to support the Keystone Pipeline and the Trans-Pacific Protocol (TPP), whose “investor-state” provisions would let corporations challenge environmental regulations in private tribunals; fought against ballot initiatives that would limit fracking and distance oil wells from buildings and bodies of water; opposed climate lawsuits against the fossil fuel sector; and, in a highly questionable skirting of ethics rules, provided legal counsel to the same company, Anadarko Petroleum, that benefitted on multiple occasions from his stint in government…

The fact of sending an oil and gas lobbyist to lecture Mexico on renewable energy — one, moreover, representing an administration that just opened 80 million acres for drilling in the Gulf of Mexico and is approving drilling permits on public lands at a faster rate than Trump — would be comical if it were not so revealing of the ugly underbelly of US-Mexico relations.

More to Come?

The AMLO-Iberdrola deal has raised concerns in business circles that other foreign energy companies could face a similar fate as the Spanish utility, as AMLO government pushes to expand the state’s role in the energy sector. Bloomberg describes it as a warning shot for international energy companies.

“The choice of words and messages is deliberate,” said John Padilla, managing director of energy consultancy IPD Latin America, adding that such moves could be intentionally sending a warning to foreign companies amid protracted trade disputes with the USA on energy policy. “The main message for private sector investors, at least on the electricity side, is certainly not a good one.”

Mexico’s nationalist energy policies have already stoked the ire of its North American trade partners, Canada and the US, which argue that they violate the USMCA regional trade agreement by discriminating against Canadian and US companies. As Reuters reported a week ago, the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) is considering making a “final offer” to Mexico negotiators to open its markets and agree to some increased oversight.

Failing that, USTR will initiate a dispute settlement against its southern neighbour. If the panel rules against Mexico and the Mexican government refuses to rectify its behaviour, Washington and Ottawa could impose billions of dollars in retaliatory tariffs on Mexican goods.

When Americans Are In Trouble - Mexico Is Always Quick To Help

undrr  | Shortly after Hurricane Katrina struck the southern USA, 200 Mexican troops crossed the US border outside Laredo, Texas, and made their way towards San Antonio. It was the first time a Mexican army contingent had entered Texas since the Battle of the Alamo in 1836.

In 2005, the Mexican soldiers were on a relief mission to feed tens of thousands of homeless and hungry Americans displaced by Hurricane Katrina. They stayed 20 days at the former Kelly Air Force Base in Texas, one of the first American states in the USA to rescue thousands of hurricane Katrina refugees.

“We served more than 170,000 meals and distributed more than 184,000 tons of supplies including medical supplies,” recalled Colonel Ignacio Murillo Rodriguez of the Mexican Ministry of Defense SEDENA.

“We came with a big tractor trailer that we immediately converted into a huge field kitchen. At the time, thousands of hurricane survivors had moved to Texas and were living in a very precarious situation with no job and no revenues, and we were able to help them serving meals, and water and generally assist them. It was quite an incredible experience that really made our reputation abroad. Our food trucks are very well known by now and today constitute a major element of our emergency capacities ” said Colonel Rodriquez.

Created in 1966, the Mexican Plan to Aid Civilian Disaster known as DN-III-E is a series of measures to be implemented primarily by the Mexican Army and the Mexican Air Force, organized as a body under the name of Support Force for Disaster. It operates mostly in disaster emergency situations occurring in Mexico but not exclusively.

“We have now trained many troops in Spain, Belize, Venezuela, and Ecuador and our force has acquired a very established reputation in terms of capacity building,” says Captain Alejandro Velasquez Valdicisco.

The DN-III-E has three main roles: prevention, protection and recovery and it is part of the Federal Response Master Plan dealing with major contingencies and emergencies in Mexico.

The prevention plan better known as the MX Plan coordinates and articulates the response in all national instances when an emergency happens. It embraces the Navy Plan and the Civilian Population Support Plan of the Federal Police, as well as the plans of government agencies and public entities such as PEMEX, the Federal Electricity Commission and CONAGUA ( water agency).

"We have the responsibility to rescue people, to manage shelters, to make recommendations to populations at risk and to guarantee the safety and security of affected disaster areas. Every soldier or person working for the Mexican army receives a special training to protect civilians. We actually do not have a special unit to deal with emergency situations as armed forces are all trained to protect civilians when disasters happen,” said Captain Alejandro Velasquez Valdicisco.

Mexicans remember the role played by the Ministry of Defense when Volcano Colima erupted in October 2016 forcing hundreds of people to evacuate. They worked long hours with the Civil Protection and were able to relocate hundreds of people at risk.

The same happened during the 2007 floods that affected more than 1 million people in the south-eastern Mexican state of Tabasco. More than 13,000 soldiers were deployed in the flooding areas to help evacuating populations from 13 municipalities.

The Ministry of Defense is also involved in the surveillance of the Popocatépetl volcano and plays a direct early warning role to alert and protect the main communities of Puebla, Morelos, State of México, Tlaxcala and Mexico City when volcano activities increase.