THE ANDERSON FILES

House gaslighting panel and Trump-Russia mysteries BY DAVE ANDERSON

The “Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government” is a grotesque, Orwellian joke. Created by the U.S. House Republican majority, it will be headed by Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio.

In a piece for online forum Just Security, Noah Bookbinder, former chief counsel for criminal justice for the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee, argues that the committee is going to politically abuse the congressional oversight system.

“Federal law enforcement has approached the rampant illegality of the Trump administration with tremendous restraint,” Bookbinder says. “Despite a plethora of credible allegations of criminal conduct by Trump and those around him, the many different instances of illegality during Trump’s presidency prior to efforts to overturn the 2020 election have been subject to little investigation and few charges.”

It’s time to re-examine the multidimensional Russian influence operation to elect Trump in 2016. Trumpistas insist it was a hoax.

In his substack, Yale historian Timothy Snyder argues that the recent indictment of a former FBI agent raises disturbing questions. “We are on the edge of a spy scandal with major implications for how we understand the Trump administration, our national security, and ourselves,” he said.

Charles McGonigal, who was the FBI’s leading spy hunter in the agency’s New York field office, was recently indicted on charges of money laundering, violating U.S. sanctions and other counts stemming from his alleged ties to Oleg Deripaska, a Russian aluminum tycoon and ally of Vladimir Putin. In his role at the FBI, McGonigal was investigating Deripaska.

Deripaska has been under American sanctions since 2018. He was the former employer of Paul Manafort, longtime GOP political consultant and lobbyist. Manafort owed Deripaska many millions of dollars and the angry tycoon was pursuing him in court. In 2016, Manafort approached Trump and offered to be his campaign manager for free.

Then Manafort offered “private briefings” to Deripaska on Trump’s campaign. Manafort sent the Russians data from the Trump campaign through an intermediary, including campaign polling data about Americans who would be useful for an influence operation.

In April 2016, Timothy Snyder wrote about the connection between Trump’s campaign and Putin. He wasn’t taken seriously. Snyder’s expertise is Eastern Europe and he was noticing a pattern.

He writes: “Between 2010 and 2013, Russia sought to control Ukraine using the same methods on display in 2016 in its influence operation in the United States: social media, money, and a pliable candidate for head of state. When that failed, Russia invaded Ukraine (in 2014), under the cover of some very successful influence operations.”

Unfortunately, the operations were also successful with quite a few Americans on the left who have accepted the Putin narrative of Ukraine.

Meanwhile, the FBI, CIA and NSA opened up a counterintelligence investigation of links between Russian officials and the Trump campaign after a Trump aide blabbed to an Australian diplomat in a London bar.

The probe was the basis of the Mueller investigation. We didn’t hear about it until after election day. In a clear contrast, FBI director James Comey announced on Oct. 28 that the agency had reopened its investigation into Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server. This was just 10 days before the election. Polls showed that this hurt Clinton. Trump celebrated the development at his rallies. Then, after eight days, Comey announced on Nov. 6 that the investigation was closed and Clinton was cleared. It was two days before the election.

Comey would later say he was concerned people in the New York FBI office would leak. Former NYC mayor Rudy Giuliani told Fox News he had insider knowledge of Clinton from the office.

On Nov. 4, Spencer Ackerman of The Guardian reported that current and former FBI agents in the New York office told him agents were enraged that Comey wasn’t indicting Clinton. A current agent said, “The FBI is Trumpland.” He added that Clinton is “the antichrist personified to a large swath of FBI personnel,” and that “the reason why they’re leaking is they’re pro-Trump.”

Snyder concluded: “The Russian operation to get Trump elected in 2016 was real. We are still living under the specter of 2016, and we are closer to the beginning of the process of learning about it then we are to the end.”

This opinion column does not necessarily reflect the views of Boulder Weekly.

Nuclear Power Is Not Carbon Free

Nuclear power is not carbon free (Writers on the Range, “The ‘energy gap’ nobody wants to tussle with,” Jan. 12, 2023). Enriching uranium alone requires more energy than Denver. The carbon impact of nuclear is the same as high-efficiency gas, only nuclear costs three times as much and a plant takes 10 years to build.

No insurer will cover a nuclear operator or insure your home against nuclear accident. The industry exists because the government assumed liability under the Price-Anderson Act. Nuclear waste is born government property under the Nuclear Waste Policy Act.

Reactors generate plutonium and other transuranics. The half-life of plutonium 239 is 39,600 years. Ten pounds of PU 239 will become 5 pounds of PU and 5 pounds of more radioactive “daughters” in that time. After 396,000 years it will be 10 pounds of lead. High-level waste is eternal. It will outlast the formation we burn it in.

You cannot raise a cent of private capital to build a nuclear plant. Obama attempted to revive nuclear by guaranteeing 80% of the capital. The banks said, “No.” Public opinion is being “prepared” to accept complete public financing. Meanwhile, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission is rubber stamping operating license extensions for plants about to exceed design service life.

The nuclear industry is necessary to sell and sustain our ambitious nuclear bomb program, which accounts for 80% of the Department of Energy’s budget. Guaranteed profit on construction cost and tax advantages once made nuclear seem viable. From 1952 to the present, “the peaceful atom” has been a bomb.

Gary Erb/Boulder

Nibbles Is Back

Yay! Welcome back, John — I’ve missed you!

Craig Smith/Denver

Informed Electricity Users

Wouldn’t it be great if Xcel Colorado customers had an easy-to-use app to minimize greenhouse gas emissions produced when charging electric vehicles (EVs) and running electric appliances and equipment? This goal can be achieved if forecasted and realtime emissions data is available to customers.

Apps exist that do just that and can be used by Colorado customers if Xcel makes emissions data available.

At the upcoming quarterly meeting, I urge the Boulder-Xcel Partnership Advisory Panel to endorse Boulder’s Public Utilities Commission proposal — require Xcel to provide day-ahead emissions forecasts so Coloradans (and software) can plan electricity use with the least emissions.

We understand that clean solar power is only possible in the daytime, but without emissions information, we don’t know whether cloudy day or nighttime power is produced by coal or natural gas or wind.

Xcel, a pioneer in wind forecasting, uses forecasts to plan what fuel to use to produce electricity.

Xcel already informs select EV customers when renewable energy production is high through its EV Smart Charging Pilot Program.

Apple shares this information with iPhone16 users so they can charge during times of cleaner energy, if local carbon emissions info is available. Is Xcel Colorado providing this data to iPhone users?

There is even a nonprofit, WattTime, whose software allows smart home devices, fleet operators, utilities, and corporations to sync timing of flexible electricity to avoid times of dirtier energy. (WattTime.org.)

An example is smart EV charging station maker, Enel X Way, whose JuiceNet Green software “leverages grid data to charge [using] the cleanest energy.”

Tell City Council, legislators, and the Public Utilities Commission that we want to be informed electricity users — to access clean energy forecasts; to have electricity rates encourage using renewables; and to be assured that excess solar and wind energy is stored (not dumped).

Julie Zahniser/Boulder

BY WILL MATUSKA

When it comes to flags, Ted Kaye calls it like he sees it.

“Denver’s is great,” he says. “Centennial has a pretty good flag” and Loveland has “a great design.”

But not every Front Range municipality’s flag game is on point.

“Fort Collins doesn’t have a very good flag,” Kaye says, saving his harshest criticism for Superior’s flag.

“That’s a great business card,” he says. “It’s a terrible [flag] design.”

Kaye is a flag expert and enthusiast. He’s practiced vexillology — the study of flags — for 40 years and is the secretary of the North American Vexillological Association (NAVA). He knows the difference between good flag design and bad flag design, and wrote a book about it (“Good” Flag, “Bad” Flag).

The day we spoke, Kaye is flying the flag of New Orleans at his home in Portland, Oregon. He flies a different flag each day, one of the many he’s collected from around the world since his teenage years, and an electronic sign nearby tells passersby the flag’s identity.

In early January, NAVA announced the results of a survey which asked the public to rate the design of 312