Elizabeth Warren is a climate hypocrite (and so is Bernie)
Elizabeth Warren has always been a phony. Her most obvious phony moment was claiming to be a Native American so she could make the leap from state schools into the Ivy League. Without that fake résumé-enhancer, she was merely a mediocre teacher; with it, she was a sop to the diversity gods.
She's told other lies to burnish her records: she lied about her parents' marriage, she lied about her father's job, and she lied about her job prospects when she was first pregnant. Now another lie has come to light: she's been lying about being green.
Legal Insurrection puts the pieces together to explain that Elizabeth Warren never really divested herself of valuable oil-and-gas leases. Instead, she transferred them to her children so they wouldn't show up in her portfolio while she was enthusiastically supporting the Green New Deal:
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) campaigns as an environmental activist, supporting the completely insane Green New Deal and stating that she will ban fracking on her first day in office.
As is often the case with Warren, what she says and what she does are very different things. The Wall Street Journal reports that Warren received income from oil and gas royalties in Oklahoma and that she transferred her holdings to her children before announcing her run for the Senate.
Warren latched on to the Green New Deal almost immediately. She did not care that it was concocted originally as a means of restructuring "the entire economy," with its socialist Justice Democrats creators only later slapping the green wash of "climate change" on it to make it more appealing to the left.
Back in August of 2018, investigative journalist Andrew Kerr reported that "Elizabeth Warren Earned Royalties From Natural Gas Producer With Long Rap Sheet Of Environmental Violations, Tax Returns Reveal."
It appears that as her political profile rose, she sold and/or transferred her interest in various oil and gas interests to her children.
The Wall Street Journal reports:
[I]t's worth noting that, for years, she and her husband reported modest income from natural-gas royalties in her native state of Oklahoma. Ms. Warren's financial disclosure filed with the Senate in 2012 included $504 of income from "gas well royalty interests" in Latimer County. The next year it was $203. Drill a little deeper and the facts get even more interesting.
... Property records offer further information, although the picture is hardly complete. A 2011 deed says Mr. Mann had sold his interest in "all of the oil, gas, and other minerals" under assorted pieces of land in Latimer County and Pittsburg County. The stated price was $5,000. The buyer? Alexander Warren, the Senator's son. The deed is dated Aug. 19. It says the transfer of royalty was effective Sept. 1. Two weeks later, Sept. 14, Ms. Warren announced her Senate candidacy in Massachusetts.
There are more transfers in 2014, as Ms. Warren's political profile was rising. "We are on the cusp of a climate crisis," she told the Senate that March, "a point of no return that will threaten our health, our economy and our planet." Two months later, deeds dated May 19 say Ms. Warren conveyed to her two children, Alexander and Amelia, her mineral rights for lands in Okfuskee County and Hughes County, amid the Woodford shale field in the state's southeast.
One of those Hughes County parcels appears on oil-and-gas leases from June and July 2017, signed by Alexander and Amelia, along with Ms. Warren's three brothers. The agreements allow exploration and drilling on an 80-acre plot in exchange for royalties on any potential output. The leases had an initial term of three years, so they would appear to remain in effect through this summer.
"Elizabeth and Bruce sold or transferred these mineral interests to her children several years ago," a Warren campaign spokesman said. "Her children still own them. They generated a few hundred dollars a year." How long did Ms. Warren and Mr. Mann receive these royalties? Were the amounts larger in the past? The campaign declined to say. For context, gas wells become less productive over time.
What Warren did is completely legal — and grossly hypocritical.
But that's not where Warren's green phoniness ends. Both Warren and Bernie (another apocalyptic Green New Deal–supporter) happily board private planes so they don't have to deal with the mess, fuss, lines, and delays attendant on public air travel:
So long (for now). @BernieSanders and @ewarren are both on their way back to DC. Here they each are boarding flights from the same general aviation area at DSM just 36 minutes apart. pic.twitter.com/iWLYh3cGKb
— Adam Kelsey (@adamkelsey) February 3, 2020
It took mere seconds for people to notice that these socialist greenies were unable even to share their own private flights:
TWO separate private jets going to dc & they can’t at least share?? and they want my family to not use a car or A/C & take public transportation to save the planet? ЁЯШВЁЯШВЁЯШВ #ClimateFrauds #ClimateProfiteers @tan123
— Janie (@jbr485) February 3, 2020
As is always the case when leftists are in charge, their belt-tightening policies are for the little people, not for themselves. If anyone is going to be inconvenienced, starved, herded, or killed, it's not going to be the politicians who pushed these policies.
Warren and Sanders may frame their socialism as something that will benefit the people, but it becomes more clear with every passing day that their socialism benefits only themselves by giving them the possibility of unlimited power over people's lives.