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                     CAN REPUBLICANS ENDURE THE COST OF  NOT  SU PPORTING UKRAINE?                                                                         Randy M. Mott [i] Originally written in October 2022      At this point in time, the Ukrainian army is humiliating Putin’s army and dramatically reversing his invasion. Displaying incredible courage and at the same time patience, the Ukrainian soldiers have quickly learned mastery over NATO and especially American weapons that have made the difference on the battlefield. Long-range precision artillery and rocket fire have offset the Russian advantage in the number of guns, then have overwhelmed their command-and-control centers, ammo dumps and now troop concentrations. Stingers have negated Russian close air support. HARM missiles have neutralized Russian air defenses. Russia is not just withdrawing; it is frequently being routed.      Despite a clear victory brewing over one of American’s most persistent opponents, many in the Ameri

SUPPLY CHAIN DUE DILIGENCE DIRECTIVE MAY HAVE UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES

                                                            Randy M. Mott JD @All rights reserved. The author has been invovled in waste management and remediation cases for over thirty years in the US, Canada and Europe. He is a graduate of the University of Iowa, a double honors major in politicla science and history, and a graduate of the Georgetown University Law Center. He is currently Director for Euorpe, Africa and the Middle East for CHWMEG Inc. (a nonprofit association devoted to waste stewardship). The views expressed here are his own.     While the pending Supply Chain Due Diligence Directive from the European Union has been widely discussed by law firms and environmental consultants and produced many different EU documents, there has been almost no discussion of its possible unintended consequences. This article will describe some key concerns from the standpoint of the companies that will be affected by the Directive. For this discussion we will refer to the last Parliamen
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  TWITTER LINKS FOR THREADS OF RUSSIAN INVASION OF UKRAINE (UPDATED November 2023) NOTE: IF thread does not open automatically, copy link and paste to open Not Our war?    Ukraine aid is not major budget issue No one is making Ukrainians fight "Mighty Russia"? The Two Armies The war is not an unbreakable stalemate The United States does not provide proportionally more aid  Things Some Republicans Get Wrong The MAGA disconnect Russia is Losing Badly Bogus Tucker Carlson claims You have been lied to Debunk of bioweapons claim Zelensky thread Aid auditing & control UKR weapons inspections & tracking   Ukraine Nazi rebuttal WEF thread   RM propaganda thread   Fake war

NEW EU STATE AID GUIDELINES ACTUALLY RESTRICT GROWTH OF GREEN AND DISTRIBUTED ENERGY

This paper was originally published in 2015 in the European Energy Journal and presented at the PowerrGen2015 conference in Rotterdam.  It was incorporated into the position papers of the Green Party in the EU Parliament. The conclusions have been borne out over time with EU renewable energy investment declining due to increased market barriers (data up to 2020). See AURES II, " How (not) to respond to low competition in renewable energy auctions Endogenous rationing in renewable energy auctions," Policy Brief June 2020 (funded by EU Horizon 2020).      The European Community grew out of a generation-old dream to create a single market across numerous European countries. Explicit in this concept was the realization from the beginning that the various national governments in this community should be restrained from providing the traditional government assistance to their own businesses, which by its very nature weakened competition and created uneven playing fields across nati