So, you remember Pebble Mine? The one that everyone in Alaska hated because it will ruin about a 3rd of their Salmon fishery which is only worth a few Billion a year? The one that got pushed through because of corrupt Republicans?

Why looky here-

In secret tapes, mine executives detail their sway over leaders from Juneau to the White House
By Juliet Eilperin, Washington Post
September 23, 2020

A direct line to the White House, but routed through a third party to hide it from public view. Easy access to Alaska’s governor, as well as the state’s two U.S. senators. A successful push to unseat nine Republican state lawmakers who opposed their plan to build a massive gold and copper mine — the biggest in North America — near Bristol Bay in Alaska.

Those were some of the boasts made by two top executives of a company trying to build the Pebble Mine in videotapes secretly recorded by an environmental group and made public Monday. It was a rare glimpse into the private discussions surrounding the company’s heated campaign to win federal permits for the project, which environmentalists say will destroy a pristine part of Alaska and decimate its world-famous sockeye salmon fishery.

The conversations were secretly recorded over the past month and a half by the nonprofit Environmental Investigation Agency. Posing as potential investors in the mine, EIA investigators conducted Zoom calls in which the mine’s sponsors detailed how they sought to curry favor with elected politicians from Juneau to Washington, D.C.

The tapes feature separate conversations with two key men behind the project — Roland Thiessen, chief executive of the Canadian-based Northern Dynasty Minerals, and Tom Collier, chief executive of its U.S. subsidiary, Pebble Limited Partnership.

Within a matter of weeks, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers could grant a permit for the mine. While the agency found in late July that the project would have “no measurable effect” on the area’s fish populations, last month it informed Pebble Limited Partnership that it had to do more to show how it would offset the damage caused by the operation.

But even as the executives jump through several regulatory hoops, they are focused on wooing Republican politicians. In the taped conversations, they detailed their plan to manage all the decision-makers.

Thiessen described both of the state’s Republican U.S. senators, Lisa Murkowski and Dan Sullivan, as politicians who might make noises about the project to appear sensitive to environmental concerns but ultimately won’t stand in their way. “It’s an age-old practice where when you have constituents, you have important people who support you on two sides of an issue, all right, you try to find a way to satisfy them both,” he said in the recording.

He noted that Murkowski declined to move a bill that would have barred the federal government from permitting the mine. Instead, she included language in a spending bill that raised some questions about Pebble Mine but did not hinder it. “She says things that don’t sound supportive of Pebble, but when it comes time to vote, when it comes time to do something, she never does anything to hurt Pebble, okay?” Thiessen said.

At a different point in the tapes, Collier said both senators misinterpreted the letter the Corps sent last month and are now embarrassed. “So right now, they’re just sort of sitting over in a corner and being quiet, okay?”

The senior senator from Alaska was not amused.

“Let me be clear: I did not misunderstand the Army Corps’ recent announcement,” she said in a statement. “I am not ‘embarrassed’ by my statement on it, and I will not be ‘quiet in the corner.’ I am dead set on a high bar for large-scale resource development in the Bristol Bay watershed. The reality of this situation is the Pebble project has not met that bar and a permit cannot be issued to it.”

Neither was Sullivan. “Any suggestion otherwise is either wishful thinking, a blatant mischaracterization, or a desperate attempt to secure funding for a mine that cannot move forward,” he said. “This incident demonstrates how far Mr. Collier, who has serious credibility problems of his own, is floundering in the face of this project’s overwhelming challenges.”

An unusual coalition of Alaska Natives, conservationists and some famous anglers who enjoy fishing in Bristol Bay — including the president’s eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., the vice president’s former chief of staff, Nick Ayers, and Fox News host Tucker Carlson — have opposed the plan out of concern that waste from the operation could pollute the waters of southwest Alaska.

Jason Metrokin, president and CEO of Bristol Bay Native Corp., assailed the companies in a phone interview and accused them of hypocrisy.

“They’ll tell anyone what they want to hear based on whatever they think will move the needle for the Pebble Limited Partnership,” he said. “Now I think the public, at least those who have seen the tapes, they’re seeing behind the curtain now.”

In a statement Monday evening, Collier said he had not had time to review the tapes but that “there are some pretty questionable ethics at play” given that the individuals making the recordings disguised their identities.

A spokesman for Collier said he “regrets the way he conveyed their influence and importance” of the two senators.
…
Collier, who worked as chief of staff to Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt during the Clinton administration, said that he registered as an independent in Alaska but was “a well-known Republican fundraiser” in the state. He describes how he helped lead a successful effort to defeat nine state GOP legislators last election because they worked with Democrats and did not support Pebble Mine.

“Now, having said that, it’s entirely possible that we may have [former vice president Joe] Biden as a president, and if we do, I’m gonna brush off my Democratic credentials and start using them a little more actively than I do,” he added.

Collier will get a roughly $4 million bonus if the mine receives a favorable Record of Decision from the Corps and another $8.4 million if the permit can withstand a legal challenge.

More stuff about how this is a very bad idea to begin with and open bragging about Republican corruption-

Thiessen, for his part, explained to EIA investigators how he and his colleagues have ready access to Trump’s chief of staff but use Dunleavy’s office as a conduit.

“I mean, we can talk to the chief of staff of the White House any time we want. You want to be careful with all this because it’s all recorded,” Thiessen said. “It’s not that they tape the call, it’s just that it’s recorded that ‘He had a call with Tom Collier, the CEO of Pebble Limited Partnership.’ You don’t want to be seen to be trying to exercise undue influence. It’s better for us if we want to push that envelope that Tom talks to the governor of the state of Alaska and the governor of the state of Alaska picks up the phone and calls the chief of staff to the White House, yes.”

Roland Thiessen is the CEO of Canadian-based Northern Dynasty Minerals, Tom Collins is just his U.S. Vice President and yes, they are both on tape.

So Saturday, the day after, yesterday, there was this-

Alaska mining executive resigns a day after being caught on tape boasting of his ties to GOP politicians
By Juliet Eilperin, Washington Post
September 23, 2020

Mining executive Tom Collier, who boasted in secretly taped conversations that he had leveraged his ties to Republican officials to advance a controversial project in Alaska, resigned Wednesday.

Collier, CEO of the Pebble Limited Partnership, offered his resignation a day after the group Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) released recordings of Zoom calls in which he talked of currying favor with the White House and Alaska lawmakers to win federal approval for a massive gold and copper mine.

Collier and Ronald Thiessen, CEO of the Canadian parent company, Northern Dynasty Minerals, were recorded separately suggesting that GOP politicians would not block Pebble Mine even though some had raised concerns about its environmental impact.

Collier, who served as chief of staff to then-Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt under President Bill Clinton, stood to receive $12.4 million in bonuses if the federal government approved a key permit for the mine and it could be upheld in court. Speaking to EIA investigators, who were posing as possible investors in the project, he touted his effort to funnel money to Republican politicians in Alaska and defeat those who sided with Democrats against the mine.

“I’ve supported all the Republican candidates in the state,” said Collier, who is registered as an independent. “I meet with the two senators, the congressman, the governor on a regular basis and they welcome me as someone they know supports the Republican Party.”

“Now, having said that, it’s entirely possible that we may have [former vice president Joe] Biden as a president, and if we do, I’m gonna brush off my Democratic credentials and start using them a little more actively than I do,” he added.
…
Chris Wood, president of the conservation group Trout Unlimited, said in a phone interview that Collier’s resignation marked a blow for a project that does not deserve federal approval.

“Tom Collier is a fall guy for a project that is fundamentally flawed and has essentially been a flimflam operation from the very beginning,” Wood said. “From the beginning, it has been an exercise in obfuscation. They took more than a dozen years to get an application together, and then they lied about the scope and scale of the potential project — either to Congress or to investors. But no matter how you slice it, they lied.”

In the taped conversations, Thiessen and Collier suggested that while they were seeking a permit for a 20-year operation, it might expand and last for as long as 180 years. In Wednesday’s statement, Thiessen left open the possibility that they could apply for additional permits to extend the scope and duration of the mining operation.

Me or your lying eyes?

Parsing Trump’s ‘there won’t be a transfer’ comments
By Philip Bump, Washington Post
September 23, 2020

“Mr. President, real quickly, win, lose or draw in this election, will you commit here today for a peaceful transfer of power after the election?” a reporter asked. He noted various incidents of violence that have occurred in recent weeks, apparently to demonstrate the elevated national temperature. “Will you commit to making sure that there is a peaceful transferral of power after the election?”

Trump’s answer was not reassuring.

“Well,” he began, “we’re going to have to see what happens.”

It’s a sharply atypical response for a president, certainly. George W. Bush or Barack Obama, for example, would probably have said something like, while I’m confident I’ll win, of course I will cede my position should that be what voters want. But they weren’t asked similar questions, to my knowledge, because they didn’t need to articulate those obvious answers.

Given his rhetoric in 2016, this was not an atypical response for Trump. To some extent he likes to accentuate this tension, to see cable news pundits gasp and to watch reporters scribble in their notepads. And, of course, he is heavily invested in suggesting that there might be some reason not to accept the results, a position that will allow him, if needed, to rail against the counting of mail-in ballots after Election Day, ballots that will almost certainly favor his opponent.

He transitioned to again bashing those mail-in ballots, as he has so often before.

“You know that.” Trump continued “I’ve been complaining very strongly about the ballots, and the ballots are a disaster and—”

“I understand that,” the reporter interjected, “but people are rioting. Do you commit to making sure that there’s a peaceful transferal of power?”

“We want to have—” Trump continued, before changing direction. “Get rid of the ballots and you’ll have a very trans — we’ll have a very peaceful—”

We’ll awkwardly interject here to illustrate how Trump’s thought process was probably playing out. His argument, which he seems perhaps to actually believe, is that mail-in ballots are subject to massive fraud, which is not at all demonstrably true. Since those ballots will be counted after Election Day, he views them (or, at least, hopes America views them) as suspect. While counting the ballots is obviously necessary to determine the will of voters, Trump argues that the inclusion of those ballots is itself an act that introduces instability and uncertainty, a factor that will erode public confidence in the count. Again, this is only because he incorrectly claims that these ballots are subject to rampant fraud, but that’s his position.

So: Get rid of those ballots, and everything’s copacetic.

But he doesn’t really finish that thought before he realizes what he’s about to say. He begins, “We’ll have a very peaceful—” But the only way to end that sentence is with “transfer of power.” And the only way you have a transfer of power is if he loses. And he can’t admit he loses. So, instead, he abruptly transitions.

“There won’t be a transfer, frankly,” he continued. “There’ll be a continuation.”

Then back to his main point — bashing mail-in votes.

“The ballots are out of control,” he said. “You know it. And you know who knows it better than anybody else? The Democrats know it better than anybody else.”

(“I don’t know that,” the reporter interjected.)

If we stop and pick this apart, it’s obviously misleading and centered on self-preservation, as surely as was his response in that 2016 debate. But the result is stark. The result is the president of the United States saying not that he’ll accept the results of the election but that “we’re going to have to see what happens.”

The result is the president saying, “Get rid of the ballots and you’ll have a very trans-, we’ll have a very peaceful — there won’t be a transfer, frankly. There’ll be a continuation.” As though he’s advocating stepping away from voting itself or advocating that he simply be granted another four years.

It’s a fool’s errand to try to translate Trump, in part because he’ll deny what he actually meant without any qualms whatsoever. But, assuming the above distillation is accurate, it’s disconcerting for a reason other than Trump apparently embracing the elimination of democracy. It’s disconcerting because it reinforces that Trump’s interest in appearing to be victorious remains a primary concern.

Welcome to the Stars Hollow Gazette‘s Health and Fitness News weekly diary. It will publish on Saturday afternoon and be open for discussion about health related issues including diet, exercise, health and health care issues, as well as, tips on what you can do when there is a medical emergency. Also an opportunity to share and exchange your favorite healthy recipes.

Questions are encouraged and I will answer to the best of my ability. If I can’t, I will try to steer you in the right direction. Naturally, I cannot give individual medical advice for personal health issues. I can give you information about medical conditions and the current treatments available.

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What To Cook

This is an easy roast chicken and side dish that is done a pre-heated cast iron or stainless steel skillet in a 450°F oven.

Yield : 4 servings
Active Time: 30 minutes
Total Time: 1 hour 45 minutes

Ingredients

1 4–4 1/2-lb. whole chicken
5 sprigs thyme, rosemary, marjoram, or sage
1 Tbsp. plus 1 1/2 tsp. kosher salt, divided
1/2 tsp. freshly ground pepper, plus more
1 1/4 lb. medium red-skinned or Yukon Gold potatoes, cut into 1/2″ wedges
2 small onions, cut into 1/2″ wedges, leaving root end intact
1 1/2 Tbsp. extra-virgin olive oil

Preparation

Place a rack in lower third of oven; preheat to 450°F. Place a 12″ cast-iron or stainless-steel skillet in oven.

Pull off excess fat around cavities of chicken; discard. Using paper towels, thoroughly pat dry chicken inside and out. Arrange chicken breast side up on a cutting board. Gently loosen skin covering breasts and thighs. Tuck 4 thyme sprigs under loosened skin, 1 sprig for each breast and thigh.

Combine 1 Tbsp. plus 1 tsp. salt and 1/2 tsp. pepper in a small bowl. Pat dry cutting board and chicken again, then tie legs together with kitchen twine.

Using a metal skewer or paring knife, poke 20–30 holes all over chicken, paying special attention to fatty (thickest) parts of skin. Season chicken with salt mixture, placing a pinch inside cavity, but primarily covering outside of bird.

Cut remaining thyme sprig crosswise into 3–4 pieces and place in a large bowl. Add potatoes, onions, oil, 1/2 tsp. salt, and a generous pinch of pepper. Toss to combine.

Carefully remove skillet from oven. Transfer potato mixture to skillet (mixture will sizzle), then place chicken, breast side up, on potato mixture. Return skillet to oven (remember, handle is hot!). Roast until an instant-read thermometer inserted into thickest part of breast registers 160°F and thickest part of thigh registers 175°F, 45–55 minutes.

Remove skillet from oven. Using tongs or a large wooden spoon inserted into cavity, transfer chicken to a large plate. Give potato mixture a stir, then return to oven. Let chicken rest about 5 minutes.

Using a sharp knife, slash stretched skin between thighs and breasts to let steam escape. Carefully tilt bird and plate over a large bowl to drain juices; reserve juices. Let chicken rest until potatoes are fork-tender, 15–25 minutes more.

Tilt chicken and plate again over bowl with juices to drain any last bits, then transfer chicken to a cutting board and carve. (If juices have cooled and congealed, gently rewarm over low heat or for 10 seconds in the microwave.)

Arrange chicken on a platter. Serve with roasted potatoes and onions alongside, spooning juices over.

Cooks’ Note: If time allows, after patting dry and salting chicken, place on a wire rack set in a rimmed baking sheet, or on a V-rack set in a roasting pan, and chill, uncovered, at least 12 hours or up to 2 days. This ‘dry brine’ will result in a flavorful juicy chicken with even crispier skin.

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