Saturday, October 03, 2026
PPress carries the AP feed, " Former GOP Rep. David Rivera sentenced to 10 years for secret Venezuela lobbying --The longtime friend of U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has been jailed since being found guilty in May of failing to register as a foreign agent and conspiracy to commit money laundering".
Link -
By JOSHUA GOODMAN
MIAMI (AP) — A former Republican congressman and longtime friend of Secretary of State Marco Rubio received a 10-year prison sentence on Friday for concealing a $50 million lobbying campaign on Venezuela’s behalf during the first Trump administration.
David Rivera of Miami has been jailed since his conviction in May for conspiracy to commit money laundering and failing to register as a foreign agent for the government of Nicolás Maduro.
Rivera, 61, appeared stone-faced as Judge Melissa Damian denounced him for betraying his life’s mission. His many friends in Miami would surely judge him harshly had the millions of dollars come from Cuba’s communist regime instead of its allies in Caracas, she said.
“Nobody would accept that’s ok and I don’t think this is different,” the judge said. “There’s no dispute this money came from the Maduro regime.”
The case offered a rare glimpse into foreign influence campaigns aimed at shaping U.S. policy toward Latin America, highlighting Miami’s reputation as a magnet for both anti-communist crusaders and corruption among its sizable exile population.
President Donald Trump’s secretary of state, Rep. Pete Sessions of Texas and a top Washington lobbyist all testified, saying Rivera had never mentioned his mammoth consulting contract with a U.S.-based affiliate of Venezuela’s state oil company, PDVSA.
Rivera was charged in 2022, during President Joe Biden’s administration. Charges of illegal foreign lobbying have plunged since Trump returned to the White House. Rivera’s lawyers have applied for a presidential pardon, and plan to appeal while also defending him against a related foreign lobbying case in Washington, D.C. Still pending is Damian’s ruling on the government’s request that Rivera forfeit $20 million in criminal proceeds.
Prosecutors described how Rivera worked GOP connections for Delcy Rodríguez
Rivera was tapped by Maduro’s Foreign Minister Delcy Rodríguez — now Venezuela’s acting president — to get the first Trump administration to normalize relations.
As part of the charm offensive, Rivera and a co-defendant, political consultant Esther Nuhfer, sought to manipulate influential friends, including Rubio and Sessions. But they didn’t disclose the lobbying as required, fearing it would ruin Rivera’s reputation as an anti-communist stalwart, prosecutors argued at trial. Nuhfer received a five-year sentence.
“The United States and the public were the true victims of this fraud,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Roger Cruz said. “He used his position of trust — and betrayed it consistently and repeatedly.”
Rivera denied being a two-faced grifter. In an emotional 20-minute address, he traced his life’s journey from a childhood without a father in an immigrant Miami neighborhood to the halls of Congress — always “fighting the good cause,” he said. Holding back tears, he begged for leniency, telling the judge that it was tantamount to a “death sentence” due to his age and lingering effects from a battle with prostate cancer.
Prosecutors said betrayal featured coded figures — ‘Sombrero’ and ‘Miss Clairol’
Trial evidence showed how Rivera set up an encrypted chat group called MIA — for Miami — with his main conduit to the Maduro government: Venezuelan media tycoon Raúl Gorrín, who was subsequently charged in the U.S. with bribing top Venezuelan officials.
Group members used playful code words: Maduro was the “bus driver,” Sessions “Sombrero,” Rodríguez “The Lady in Red,” and their windfall payments “La Luz,” Spanish for “The Light,” according to copies of text messages presented to the jury. Rubio was known as “Miss Clairol,” because rubio means blond in Spanish.
[...]
Rubio’s former housemate faced scandal before, but Cuban Americans support him
Before serving in Congress from 2011-2013, Rivera was a high-ranking Florida legislator and shared a Tallahassee home with Rubio, who eventually became the Florida House speaker.
Rivera faced earlier controversy, including allegations that he secretly funded a Democratic spoiler candidate in a 2012 congressional race — a case federal prosecutors eventually dropped after a sizable fine was thrown out on appeal. Rivera was also investigated — but never charged — for alleged campaign finance violations and a $1 million contract with a gambling company while serving in the Florida Legislature.
Despite all that, Rivera continues to have support among Miami’s Cuban American establishment and in circles of power beyond.
Friends of the former congressman, including the former president of Florida International University and Miami-Dade County’s supervisor of elections, packed the courtroom to show their support. Sessions also sent a letter seeking leniency, referring to his former congressional colleague as a devoted defender of democracy.
Crabgrass has not yet found any online link to court papers which might flesh out more.
Pope Hegseth I
According to the memo, the office’s director will serve as principal adviser to Hegseth and his deputy on religious matters. The office will oversee the Armed Forces Chaplains Board, issue religious affairs policy on the secretary’s behalf and represent him in dealings with Congress, other federal agencies and civilian religious endorsing organizations.
It is also charged with securing funding and resources for chaplains and their training, chapel youth programs, faith-based homeschool support for military families, and contracts with faith-based outside groups. Each military department has 90 days to deliver an inventory of its unfunded and underfunded religious affairs requirements.
Details on the office’s leadership, staffing and budget have not been released.
The Pentagon said the office will not compel religious participation or favor any one faith, and that it will not diminish the rights of personnel of any belief or none. Chaplains will remain the primary providers of religious support, with the new office acting as their advocate at the department’s highest level.
Part of a broader overhaul
The move builds on a string of chaplaincy changes Hegseth has made this year. In March, he cut the number of officially recognized religious affiliation codes from more than 200 to 31 and ordered chaplains to replace rank insignia with symbols of their faith on combat and working uniforms. He also hosts monthly evangelical worship services at the Pentagon.
The initiative fits within a broader Trump administration effort to elevate religion in government, including the creation of a White House faith office and new religious freedom divisions across federal agencies.
Critics push back
Mikey Weinstein, founder and president of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, told USA Today his organization condemns what he called Hegseth’s “unconstitutional actions,” arguing they violate the First Amendment’s bar on government establishment of religion and its protection of free exercise.
[...] The Freedom From Religion Foundation has also launched a Freedom of Information Act investigation into the office and is calling on Congress to examine its creation, authority and funding. The group said the inquiry will help determine whether legal action is warranted.
Hegseth, who frequently invokes his faith publicly, has said service members’ spiritual health is as important as their physical and mental health.
As necessary? As wise? As an affront to secular killing in war? As a pet Hegseth thing, and power play?
As bad as Trump is, . . . Trump seems less unhinged most times, but other times . . .
MJ has a look:
On Wednesday, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced the creation of a new entity within the Pentagon: the Office of Religious Affairs. The office, Hegseth promised the assembled troops in Quantico, Virginia, would “report straight to the top. No staff filters, no bureaucratic dilution, a direct line to the secretary.” Chaplains would “finally have an advocate at the highest levels.” What’s more, “policy and resources will serve the mission, not smother the mission.”
A hallmark of Hegseth’s tenure at the Defense Department has been his muscular Christian religiosity. Earlier this year, he spearheaded an initiative to bring prayer services to the Pentagon. Shortly after the start of the Iran War, during one such event in March, Hegseth prayed for “overwhelming violence of action against those who deserve no mercy.”
Hegseth’s own faith is relevant here: He is a member of a conservative denomination called the Communion of Reformed Evangelicals Churches (CREC) that explicitly advocates for Christians to exert their faith’s influence over the government. As I reported:
At a February Pentagon prayer service, the featured speaker was Doug Wilson, the Moscow, Idaho, pastor who founded CREC. Wilson, who has described his vision of “a network of nations bound together by a formal, public, civic acknowledgement of the lordship of Jesus Christ and the fundamental truth of the Apostles’ Creed,” has long argued in favor of Christian nationalism, and he has likened his fiefdom in Idaho—which includes a church, school, college, and publishing house—to a “working prototype” of what Christian nationalism could look like.
The new Office of Religious Affairs isn’t explicitly Christian; a memo (PDF) published yesterday specifies that “Nothing in this memorandum shall be construed to compel religious participation or to diminish the free exercise rights of any Service member, civilian employee, or family member of any faith or no faith.” Yet earlier this year, the Pentagon released a new list of 31 religions officially recognized by the US Department of Defense, drawn from the 200 that had previously been accepted. On the new list, 22 of the 31 groups were Christian. Atheists, pagans, and humanists, all on the original list, had vanished.
Details about what exactly the Office of Religious Affairs will do have not yet been released, but yesterday’s memo offers a few clues. In addition to moving chaplains directly under the control of the new office and overseeing the groups that decide who can become a chaplain, the office also will “sponsor and oversee research, technology, and analytical tools to support and assess spiritual fitness, spiritual readiness, and spiritual resilience.” It doesn’t define those terms, but Hegseth’s track record speaks volumes. As I reported a few months back:
In his 2024 book, The War on Warriors, Hegseth writes that the Geneva Conventions are unfair because the United States and Europe are the only ones that follow them. Instead, “America should fight by its own rules,” he declares. The nation’s soldiers should be “the most overwhelmingly lethal as they can be.”
Hegseth also bemoans a defense force infected, he writes, with the “fucking scary” disease of progressivism, which “will not stop until trans-lesbian Black females run everything!” He warns, “Sometime soon, a real conflict will break out, and red-blooded American men will have to save their elite candy asses.” In July, Hegseth announced an initiative to screen troops for low testosterone and offer hormone replacement therapy to those found deficient.
Hegseth has also long been preoccupied by what he sees as a “spiritual battle” between secular and Christian culture. Shortly before he became Secretary of War, Hegseth appeared on CrossPolitic, a podcast owned and hosted by Gabe Rench, whose brother, Aaron, is a co-owner of Doug Wilson’s Canon Press. In the episode, Hegseth accused liberals of using “patriotism to untether us from timeless truth, from the Bible” and praised classical Christian schools for providing “a comprehensive worldview that prepares them for the battle to come, because we’re in a spiritual battle, and otherwise we’d be sending our kids in as fodder.”
[...] Notably, Wilson’s Canon Press publishes popular homeschool curricula. “Education is warfare,” the website says. “Canon curriculum is designed to help you raise faithful, dangerous Christian kids, one subject at a time.”
Wacko Warfare brought on by the man with the Crusader's Cross tattooed over his heart.
searh = women's role in wilson's Idaho church --- JPR had an item in the return list:
Wilson is a self-described Christian nationalist who wants to repeal a woman's right to vote, has defended slavery and believes homosexuality should be a crime.
His beliefs are extreme, and not long ago they were considered fringe. But today, Wilson's teachings are entering the mainstream, according to religion and history scholars, including Kristin Kobes Du Mez, author of Jesus and John Wayne.
That's why Morning Edition's Leila Fadel sat down with Wilson at his Moscow, Idaho, church for NPR's Newsmakers video podcast.
In a wide-ranging interview, Wilson said he opened a D.C. "church service" because of the number of Christians who adhere to his church's teachings within the Trump administration.
The entire thing - best outsider-looking-in judgment - wholly unnecessary and burdensome to a degree on taxpayers.
And stupid. Hegseth stupid. Dangerous stupid.
Wednesday, September 30, 2026
Gary Gross stumbles again, but probably because Trump hid a big part of the truth under a hat - notning new that way. But Trump had to hold the hat tightly, because of the wind energy at play. [UPDATED]
As a start, whitehouse.gov, today, time of this post, apparently has nothing on it about the Essar steel mill to be built in Iowa; (search = https://www.whitehouse.gov/news/?s=essar being null on the move).
And - Gary's point - why Iowa, not in Minnesota where the ore gets mined. It is not as simplistic as Gary speculates. And it is not Gary's fault he got misled.
It will be most interesting to see how Whitehouse.gov spins things, when it posts of the new Essar Steel move.
Briefly, Gary spins as if Dems are at fault for Republicans being moribund naysayers in Minnesota when it comes to innovation and energy independence. That Rep. Stauber and his Republican friends up on the Iron Range are indifferent to the fact energy matters - and they should not be. Gary misses that point.
Trump obfuscated, Gary speculated, not unreasonably. But, wrong.
Gary posts this. It may be what confused him into not looking further.
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| https://www.youtube.com/embed/tnpuPIYCAlI |
Of importance, AP reports politics a factor, Iowa having a less moribundd Republican presence than in Minnesota:
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump on Monday announced a new $15 billion steel plant being built in Iowa, highlighting an economic victory in a key battleground state where Republicans face competitive midterm races.
Trump announced the new plant at an Oval Office event alongside steel executives and Iowa Republicans, including two running for office. The event highlighted Iowa’s elevated status for Republicans and for Trump, who on Monday pledged to campaign there in coming weeks.
“We’re going to do a great rally. We’ll all be there together,” Trump said alongside Rep. Ashley Hinson, who is running for the U.S. Senate, and Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks, who is up for re-election. Also joining him were Gov. Kim Reynolds and Sen. Joni Ernst, who are not seeking new terms in office.
The new steel plant is being built by Mesabi Metallics, a Minnesota company owned by India’s Essar Group, an industrial conglomerate. Trump said the project will become the largest steel plant in the United States. It is expected to produce 10 million tons of steel a year after it’s fully built out.
The plant was projected to begin production in 2030, supplied by a new $2.5 billion iron ore mine that Mesabi developed along Minnesota’s Mesabi iron range. The resulting steel will be produced from start to finish in the United States, the White House said.
[...] The Oval Office announcement at times took on the tone of a campaign event. Introducing Hinson, Trump described her as a “young lady who is going to be hopefully elected to the Senate.”
“She’s outstanding, one of the top anywhere in the country,” Trump continued. “They talk about her all the time.”
Trump told Ernst she had done a wonderful job in the Senate and said he would miss her: “I can’t believe you’re leaving,” he said.
Trump and Vice President JD Vance both have touched down in Iowa this year to shore up Republican enthusiasm and energize voters before the Nov. 3 elections.
Jeff Kaufmann, chairman of Iowa’s Republican Party, said the announcement was made possible by the state’s Republican leadership, including from Reynolds.
[...] Mesabi Metallics is based in Nashwauk, Minnesota. The Essar Group is an industrial conglomerate formed in India in 1969, with ventures in industries from energy and mining to technology and retail, according to its website.
Joe Broking, CEO at Mesabi Metallics, called the announcement a “major moment for U.S. made steel,” saying the factory would be supplying a critical product that U.S. national defense, cars and trucks, shipbuilding, household appliances, energy and infrastructure depend on.
Largely parallel, CBS does add detail -
Once it's up and running in 2030, the plant is expected to produce 7.5 million or more tons of steel per year. A White House official said the plant is expected to create 1,750 permanent jobs in Iowa.[... Trump tariffs were mentioned ] Mesabi has not announced where in Iowa the steel plant will be, but Energy Secretary Chris Wright mentioned that it would be in the southeast part of the state. A White House official said this will be the first mega steel plant built in the U.S. since the 1960s. The Trump administration expects the steel could support U.S. defense projects in the future. The Wall Street Journal was first to report the president's anticipated announcement of the new steel plant.
The Export-Import Bank's board approved a $770 million direct loan to Mesabi Metallics for its iron ore endeavors on Sept. 24, a spokesperson for EXIM told CBS News. The board was initially considering up to $10 billion in support, according to a March news release.
Mesabi Metallics is owned by India-based Essar Group, but its operations haven't always been known as Mesabi Metallics.
In 2008, the Essar Group's Essar Steel Minnesota LLC began work on a massive iron mine and processing facility in Minnesota. But after years of delays, missed deadlines and financial challenges, Essar Steel Minnesota LLC filed for bankruptcy in 2016. Frustrated with the delays, the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources took steps in 2019 to potentially bar Essar Global from working with the state, although the company sued over that move, and the state ultimately did not complete the debarment process.
[...] What was known as Essar Steel Minnesota LLC was eventually reborn from the ashes of bankruptcy and was bought by Chippewa Capital Partners. But Essar Group eventually regained control starting in 2019.
CBS News has reached out to Mesabi Metallics and the Essar Group for comment.
State aid could potentially be on the way for Mesabi Metallics, too.
The Des Moines Register reported state lawmakers are being alerted they may need to return to the statehouse to approve tax breaks for Mesabi. CBS News has reached out to top members of the Iowa statehouse for comment.
"I'm so excited about this project," Iowa Sen. Joni Ernst said, thanking Mr. Trump and Essar.
It's not clear why the steel plant is in Iowa, instead of Minnesota, closer to the iron ore mine.
Perhaps that history created a hostile animus on Essar's part, with the ore in Minnesota and thus having to be mined there, but with Essar having the choice to locate bigger capital down river.
It also anchors an idea that an Essar promise differs from a working facility generating jobs and steel output in Iowa, where specific siting remains unclear and Iowa ground has not been broken. More -
Iowa Republicans are facing competitive races for the U.S. House, Senate and governor's mansion. Republicans, who currently hold the governor's mansion and both Senate seats, are trying to fend off Democrats from changing that.
In the governor's race, Democratic Iowa State Auditor Rob Sand is facing off against Republican businessman Zach Lahn in what's expected to be a close race. In the open U.S. Senate seat being vacated by Sen. Joni Ernst's departure, Republican Rep. Ashley Hinson faces Democratic state lawmaker Josh Turek.
In the House, there are closely watched races in two Iowa congressional districts, between Republican Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks and Democratic former state Rep. Christina Bohannan, and between Republican Rep. Zach Nunn and Democratic state Sen. Sarah Trone Garriott.
Mr. Trump gave Hinson a shoutout in the Oval Office Monday, saying she will be "hopefully elected to the Senate, and she's outstanding." The president said he'll visit Iowa for a "great rally" there before the midterms.
A reporter asked the president why Republicans are having to work so hard to win seats in Iowa, a state he won by 13 points. The president said he thinks the polls, which show close statewide races in the Hawkeye State, are inaccurate.
"I don't know, I love Iowa," he said. "I've always been very strong with Iowa."
So, ExIm Bank ponies up cash. Iowa gets the big capital investment. Iowa politics seems a factor. Other reporting - important technical content added --
Mesabi Metallics’ iron ore mine on Minnesota’s Mesabi Iron Range is the first new iron ore mine built in the United States in 50 years, with close to $3 billion invested. Located in Nashwauk, Minnesota, the mine will produce Patriot Pellet, the company’s direct-reduction-grade (DR-grade) iron ore pellet engineered for modern electric arc furnace steelmaking – one of the highest-quality iron ore pellets made anywhere in the world. More than 1,500 construction workers are on site today, alongside over 200 full-time employees already working at the mine, building towards 350 full-time jobs once fully operational.
[...] Some of the details of the project include:
- [...] Innovation and Sustainability Through innovation and new technologies, Mesabi Metallics’ integrated steel complex in Iowa will be one of the most efficient and environmentally friendly facilities in the world. The complex will utilize hot direct-reduced iron (DRI) and electric arc furnace (EAF) technology that will significantly lower energy usage and reduce emissions.
- DRI technology involves taking the iron ore mined in Minnesota, removing oxygen at temperatures below its melting point, and creating solid metallic iron. Feeding the DRI into the electric arc furnace while it is still hot reduces the energy required to melt it, improving the efficiency and productivity of the steelmaking process.
- EAF technology is a more efficient, cost-effective way to produce steel. This facility’s EAFs will be fed with a mixture of hot, freshly reduced iron from the plant’s own DRI process and scrap steel – reducing energy use and emissions compared to traditional blast furnaces. These technologies, along with other innovations and sustainable practices, will allow Mesabi Metallics to deliver a highly efficient, fully domestic manufacturing process – producing high- quality, sustainable, cost-effective, 100% American steel: mined, melted and poured.
So electric power availability and pricing, Genco capacity, is a major factor for plant location. That is simple economics, apart from Iowa or Minnesota politics. In terms of where this analysis will be headed, this parallel item is interesting -
A $250 million Nucor Corp. "micro" mill taking shape in Sedalia, Mo., that will be the first U.S. steel production plant that will run on wind energy.
The Sedalia mill’s significance stretches beyond the state and represents the potential for greening the steel industry, which globally is a major source of carbon emissions, environmental advocates say. A report last year from the group Mighty Earth — "Cold Steel, Hot Climate" — noted that steel represented 7% of global carbon emissions worldwide in 2013, much of that from less efficient blast furnaces.
The plant is also indicative of what Midwest utilities and clean energy advocates alike see as new potential for economic expansion in the Heartland. While Appalachia has cheap shale gas driving big new investments, the Great Plains has an unlimited supply of even cleaner cheap wind.
The contract between Nucor and Kansas City-based utility Evergy Inc., which will bring new wind capacity online to supply the plant, is part of a broader national trend of corporate renewable energy purchases to achieve sustainability goals.
Chuck Caisley, a senior vice president at Evergy, said the Nucor project symbolizes an advantage the utility has in the states where it does business: Kansas and Missouri.
"Of all the utilities in the U.S., we might be the best positioned to use wind for economic development," Caisley said, referencing both to the wind resource of the central Plains, the location of its service area in the center of the country, and highway and rail access.
The plant, expected to be commissioned by year’s end, is one of the largest capital investments in the Show-Me State in years. It will employ more than 250 people and be powered through a 75-megawatt power purchase agreement between Nucor and Evergy, which is seeking regulatory approval for a special tariff to serve the plant.
The utility will bring a new wind farm online to supply the mill, where high-efficiency electric arc furnaces will melt recycled scrap and convert it into steel rebar used for construction throughout the region.
To be sure, Nucor’s decision to build the plant in west-central Missouri was driven by more than access to wind.
When it announced the project in 2017, the company said its siting decision was driven by proximity to sources of scrap steel and end use customers. Two other wind-rich states, Kansas and Nebraska, were finalists for the project.
Charlotte, N.C.-based Nucor, the largest U.S. steelmaker, didn’t respond to interview requests.
But in testimony filed with the Missouri Public Service Commission, company officials said "access to a fixed, long-term, and competitive electric rate" was "critical" to the plant’s success.
See, also: here. And there are online caveats in some reporting -
The planned steelmaking route combines direct-reduced iron (DRI) technology with electric arc furnaces (EAFs), using iron ore pellets from Minnesota and scrap steel. The company says this design is intended to reduce energy use and emissions compared with traditional blast-furnace steelmaking. Actual environmental performance will depend on final design, energy sources, operations, and regulatory reporting.
[...]
Execution and schedule: Production is targeted for 2030. Permitting, detailed engineering, construction, financing, equipment delivery, and commissioning remain important milestones.
Project history: Mesabi’s Minnesota project has a long and complicated development history, including the 2016 Chapter 11 bankruptcy of Essar Steel Minnesota and disputes over state mineral leases. Historical claims about lease termination, restoration, repayments, and litigation should be supported with Minnesota state records and court documents.
Litigation: Mesabi and Cleveland-Cliffs have been involved in disputes. Any specific damages figure, allegation of anticompetitive conduct, or characterization of a party’s position should be attributed to the relevant court filing or party. Allegations are not court findings.
Market absorption: New capacity will compete with existing US steelmakers and imports. Whether demand can absorb additional production depends on construction, automotive, energy, infrastructure, manufacturing, and export demand, as well as the product mix and operating costs of new facilities.
Policy exposure: Changes in tariff policy, exemptions, trade relationships, or financing terms could affect project economics. The existence of tariffs is not proof of a particular investment return.
[...] Conclusion
Essar Group’s planned US$15 billion Iowa steel complex is a major proposed expansion of its US operations, following development of its Minnesota iron ore mine and pellet plant. Mesabi Metallics describes the combined Minnesota and Iowa investment as approximately US$18 billion, including US$3 billion in Minnesota and US$15 billion in Iowa. The project reflects the current US industrial policy environment, including steel import tariffs and federal financing support. The Iowa facility is targeted to begin production in 2030, with planned capacity of 7.5 million US tons annually in its first phase and approximately 10 million US tons at full build-out. The company and government project 1,750 permanent jobs and up to 6,000 construction jobs. These figures remain projections. The project’s eventual contribution to US steel capacity will depend on construction progress, permitting, financing, market demand, and the company’s ability to meet its milestones. Suppliers, manufacturers, and investors should monitor verified construction and financing developments rather than treating the announcement itself as proof of completed capacity.
There is more reporting online, but the above several reports flesh out pellets of a particular kind mined and processed in Minnesots. Then steel produced from the pellets and scrap steel in Lee County Iowa.
The specific source mentioning Lee County:
Once it’s completed, Mesabi Metallic’s new steel plant will produce 10 million tons of steel per year, using iron ore from the company’s Minnesota mine, which will then be transported by rail to Lee County.
While nobody at the press conference spoke about specific locations other than Southeast Iowa, a press release Miller-Meeks did state that Lee County will be the home of the new steel plant.
“It’s the first new iron ore mine in the United States in more than 50 years; with the highest quality ore,” Trump said. “In other words, this steel will be mined, melted and made right here in the USA, which is something very unusual. The project is expected to create up to 6,000 new construction jobs, nearly 2,000 manufacturing and mining jobs and another $95 billion dollars to the US economy.”
The plant is expected to be up and running by 2030.
Export-Import Bank Chairman John Jovanovic said during the press conference that: “What we’re really talking about today is America’s economic security.”
“We are creating one American supply chain,” he said.
Howard Lutnik, U.S. Secretary of Commerce lauded Trump’s tarrifs.
“Without those tariffs, this mine doesn’t get built and this steel plant does not get built. $2.5 billion iron ore mine, it does iron ore pellets,” he said, and added that the U.S. primarily gets its iron ore pellets from Brazil. “So we are beholden to Brazil to build our steel in America because the input is coming from outside the country.”
Mesabi Metallics Chairman Rewant Ruja said the iron ore from the Minnesota mine “will be amongst the highest quality iron ore pellets in the world.”
“With the new steel complex in Iowa, we will complete the fully integrated American supply chain from mine to melt,” he said. “American ore carried on American railroads, to an American steel plant, powered by American energy, built and operated by the incredibly hardworking and talented American workforce. This plant will use the latest technology and will compete head to head with any steel plant in the world on size, quality and on cost.”
Reynolds said this is a “transformational” opportunity “not only for our country, but for Iowa and really for American families.
With more quoted than "Lee County" it does show how horseshit rhetoric was a part of Trump's show.
Lee County and Electricity
Through innovation and new technologies, Mesabi Metallics’ integrated steel complex in Iowa will be one of the most efficient and environmentally friendly facilities in the world. The complex will utilize hot direct-reduced iron (DRI) and electric arc furnace (EAF) technology that will significantly lower energy usage and reduce emissions.
- DRI technology involves taking the iron ore mined in Minnesota, removing oxygen at temperatures below its melting point, and creating solid metallic iron. Feeding the DRI into the electric arc furnace while it is still hot reduces the energy required to melt it, improving the efficiency and productivity of the steelmaking process.
- EAF technology is a more efficient, cost-effective way to produce steel. This facility’s EAFs will be fed with a mixture of hot, freshly reduced iron from the plant’s own DRI process and scrap steel – reducing energy use and emissions compared to traditional coal-fired blast furnaces.
These technologies, along with other innovations and sustainable practices, will allow Mesabi Metallics to deliver a highly efficient, fully domestic manufacturing process – producing high-quality, sustainable, cost-effective, 100% American steel: mined, melted and poured.
Lee County, Iowa, and environmentally friendly permits some speculation. First. Lee County appears to have a shit load of available unused genco capacity to supply the mill.
Next, in Iowa, genco wind energy capacity is greater than all other Iowa genco sourcing. Not in Lee County, specifically, but in the State's grid. With Lee County utilities presumably all on the grid.
It seems that wind energy likely will be a factor in the proposed plant's proposed future, given the thrust of the online info on Iowa electircity.
So in Iowa because of politics, and because Stauber and his Republican group up on the range have been lax about energy, they have wind there, so, Gary's blaming the DFL power in Minnesota is less true than the Republican Iron Rangers dropped the ball. And politics of Trump and others.
No DFL fault at all. Gary is wrong in his speculation. Even with Essar not specifically saying "It will involve reliance on the long term availability of steady wind energy on the Iowa grid."
Finally, with Essar's bankruptcy court history in Minnesota, don't count your chickens until they're hatched.
End of story.
_______________UPDATE_____________
Here is the story in a nutshell. Iowa gets 64% of its electricity from wind, and Siemens has a blade factory there. Per Wikipedia. Now. With a potential for more wind and less expensive transmission line opportunities than in urban places.
Minnesota wind energy is all concentrated on the Iowa border, the Iron Range is not optimal.
If reliance on cheap wind energy beyond what is need for existing local consumption, go to Iowa.
That simple. Gary is wrong ginning up a bum theory - blame game against the DFL.
Crabgrass, above, was overly critical of the Iron Range politicians. They can be windy, but not enough to turn a turbine. Not a spot for wind energy potential.
As to sulfide mining poisoning the waters, the Republican Rangers suck big time. Save the BWCA Wilderness! Let tribal fishing and wild rice treaty rights mean something by protecting water quality.
FURTHER: Trump his administration politicians, and the Iowa politicians made a possible thing a promise in spirit. It may not happen. Essar is not the most capital heavy operation on the planet.
The politicians all saying great things got Gary wandering why not Minnesota. Well, the part that Minnesota holds, ore in the ground, is a hammer of sorts. Without that part, which could be a business apart from the Iowa mill which at present is enthusically touted. And the ore production is needed first.
So, Iowa has the cheap electricity and Lee County where barge shipment of the pellets is feasible.
However, Strib writer Aaron Brown had some shade on the whole thing, and MSN carried the item:
Internet-age humans have short attention spans, so I’d like to bring up some historical facts from the not-too-distant past.
In 2001, I wrote a Hibbing Daily Tribune editorial supporting a company called Minnesota Iron and Steel. This company wanted to open a mine and steel mill on the site of the former Butler Taconite plant that closed in 1985. The closure of Butler was a landmark event in my childhood, sending the Mesabi Range into an economic tailspin from which it has yet to recover. I remember throwing all my toys in a big box because my parents lost our house in Nashwauk, and we had to leave.
When India’s Essar Steel bought the project in 2007, I supported that, too. After a long delay as the company pitched for investment, construction at the facility ramped up in 2014 and 2015. The state of Minnesota kicked in more than $66 million for electrical and railroad infrastructure through a bonding bill allocation to Itasca County.
And then, it all stopped. Essar Steel Minnesota went bankrupt in 2016 while the parent company sorted out its own bankruptcy in India. The city of Nashwauk, Itasca County and many local contractors starved waiting for payments from Essar, only some of which ever materialized.
Ultimately, the partially completed facility was rebranded as Mesabi Metallics, just in time to lose state mineral leases to rival Cleveland-Cliffs. At the time it was hoped Cliffs would restart the value-added dream on the Mesabi, but it has largely sat on those leases like a vulture, waiting for Mesabi to die.
Unfortunately for the vulture, this one was still alive. In fact, Mesabi Metallics alleges that Cliffs interfered in its financing and construction prior to bankruptcy in an antitrust lawsuit yet to be resolved. Just a few years ago, the construction site started to rumble back to life. We soon learned it was the original owners, the Ruia family in India, and a reorganized Essar Group, raising money to finish the project.
So, a troubled Minnesota history, with bankruptcy a factor, and still pending litigation.
[...] Let’s make a few things clear about the past. Essar had all the permits it needed to open the mine and make steel in Minnesota more than 15 years ago. It simply chose not to build here.
It has its reasons. Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds called a Friday, Oct. 2 special session. The Legislature there will consider amending the state’s tax credit program in a way that might allow up to a gobsmacking $1.5 billion in tax credits for this project. That’s paired with an unprecedented $10 billion loan package from the Trump administration’s EXIM Bank.
But even with this massive shot of government assistance this company still needs to raise money and doesn’t have cash flow yet. Thus, I am vexed by both the financial and logistical questions surrounding this proposal.
When I spoke to Mesabi Metallics CEO Joe Broking on May 5, we discussed moving iron ore on the Mississippi River. At the time, he was preparing to sell ore on the open market to steel mills in Louisiana.
Broking imagined massive tow barges carrying 100,000 tons of ore per load. Such an idea could be cost-effective, if it works. The logistics of hauling ore by rail south of the Twin Cities and shipping by barge are both complicated and untested.
And no, we can’t ignore the timing, or the blatant political tone, of Trump’s announcement.
In 2018, during his previous midterm election campaign, Trump announced major federal financial support to a Foxconn manufacturing facility in Racine, Wis. The project promised a jaw-dropping 13,000 jobs. But within months the company dramatically lowered its projected size. The initial announcement was pure bluster. Given the financial status of Mesabi Metallics, I worry the same here. Again, I say that as a supporter of the project.
[...] In Minnesota, the question is not how many jobs we lost to Iowa. I can name 15 billion reasons those jobs don’t exist yet. We are investors in a very expensive iron ore mine in Nashwauk, one that would benefit the local economy, schools and public services. We need this company to finish its work and start production so it can contribute to the state that gave so much to its founding.
If this company rushes again, as it has before, it risks another bankruptcy, and the shuttering of a good idea that Minnesota has supported at great cost.
So, it is not as if Apple is rolling out a new product. It is a thin company, apparently, wanting to expand its business reach with public money. That's dicey. If it happens and turns an ecologically clean profit, great.
If not, the idea was appealing, but a grond beaking is not even an assurance that steel will be made. So wish the venture well, in Iowa, with Minnesota getting the less fraught part of things, that job boost, and don't be greedy about the other State perhaps getting more. Show appreciation for getting the likelier less risky part of things. Be grateful. Not sore-headed over Iowa getting a promise bigger than Minnesota's.
Risk is a part of any planned venture. Risk at each juncture. The whole planned thing can be built out and producing steel, but then if the profit is not there, the thing suffers, and markets can vary for metals where the business is supply to other businesses also facing risks, so hope and wait and see.
Brown does mention the Foxconn slip twixt cup and lip.
Tuesday, September 29, 2026
I realize I have been posting mostly about Republicans, and their foibles. Why not a rousing post now about what is great about Amy Klobuchar? [UPDATED]
Well, no such rousing post. I don't have it in me. It's Klobuchar, after all. The personal view here is Klobuchar is popular with voters but why? Not that she'd be a disaster as Governor. Not that she's second best contesting for the job.
I have voted already, early voting being great where you pick your convenient timing, and my vote included Klobuchar for Governor.
It was not a vote of zealous liking. It was best of two, with the other saying education should produce workers and not activists. That kills Demuth, since we want educated people to keep the nation on an even keel when voting and weighing one of two conservative establishment candidates against the other.
Education is to have thinking innovative people leaving public schooling ready to make us a better nation as best they can. Educaton is not a tool to turn out drones. Musk is working on electro-mechanical robots to take drudge work over the near time, to free up human time for leisure or exploration. He talks of our future abundance, and a need to position for it.
BOTTOM LINE: Education is how children are molded into capable adults. Not necessarily conforming adults, but ones who'd add to the wealth and well being of the nation, by being smart and trained as well as diligent and motivated.
It is as if Demuth believes innovation is the domain of private schools, and not public schools, where she shares the bias toward voucher-drain on public education funding that is being advocated by Demuth's Republican politician in MN House District 31A, where I live. Why they want those vouchers, beyond a bias toward religious indoctrination orientation, confuses me. Niska children in a private Lutheran Legacy Christian Academy, Catholic schooling's extensive network being non-public and exclusionary. As well as doctrinaire.
Public Education exists because the founders of this State deemed it essential to democracy surviving, and to say churn out workers who will dutifully hail the punch clock by training via the school bell, is an attitude lacking understanding of what it all should be about.
In addition, George Bernard Shaw has correctly noted, "The reasonable man adapts himself to the world: the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.” The education emphasizing learning how to adapt the world to oneself is the better education over rote follow the leader, who is the one at the front of the room telling you things.
If Demuch misses that, or denies it, she's unfit for the job she seeks and the party endorsed guy in the primary was a better choice.
Her guy Musk is not your ordinary reasonable adaptive man, (nor is Trump, but there is competence in the equation as necessary too, over only loud inconsistent repeated fumbling lies and boorishness).
So, Crabgrass admits, voting Klobuchar was seen as voting lesser evil, again, and nothing special beyond that.
Tina Smith would have been a far better DFL option as Governor than Klobuchar, one you could be enthusiastic about, but she appears to have had enough politics for her lifetime and did not seek the office.
In fairness, Klobuchar is a step closer to being an extraordinary talent, than Demuth.
Faint praise, yes, but true. She'll be okay as Governor. She'll have staff.
____________UPDATE_____________
It is clear that being unenthusiastic in seeing this two woman race could be seen as a case of misogyny.
It is not. I would welcome and easily vote for AOC for president, or Elizabeth Warren. I respect both on their understandings and capability, and I believe like minded people are showing up to make it reasonable to see aims being met should either reach the office.
Along with Bernie, those two move my needle off zero farther than any others I'd think of now. Gender has no part in the feelings. It is brains and belief set. Klobuchar is establishment Dem, alien to the belief set that generates Crabgrass enthusiasm. Status quo vanilla conservative Dem is not enough.
______________FURTHER UPDATE______________
Klobuchar is a Schumer of a different gender. Both tight with AIPAC. Both enemy to Medicare for All. Better keeping them loyal Dems, waiting rather than really helping them. They might get uppity.
What's to like? Not a Trump. But not Amazon because Amazon delivers.
Better than Demuth does not mean good. It only means better. However --
Enthusiasm is felt with Peggy Flanagan. She is real. Tafoya sits a cut below Demuth, who has at least held one office before thinking herself special. Demuth is less likely to rubberstamp for Trump than Tafoya, Even if the offices sought were reversed between those two. Tafoya is who'd be grateful to do it while full of herself.
And again, not misogyny. Flanagan is very likeable or comes across that way and should win and would try to deliver. That's enough, since she is only one person. One vote would be hers, if winning.
All Tafoya ever did was stand in sun or cold holding a mic and being a nuisance distraction from the game itself. Doing what she'd been told to do. If that's chops to be a Senator, we as a nation are in deep shit.
It's all she'd do it elected. If she'd be allowed a mic. She at least has brains enough to gravitate toward JD rather than Stephen Miller. Beyond that, your guess. My guess is already clear. The spouse is a business success, and they've stayed together, there is that in favor of the family unit. Tafoya speaks clearly on script, and that's her row to hoe in life. That she is not deep underwater to Flanagan now in polling astounds me and makes me question who the hell got polled, what methodology.
FURTHER: Figuring I've figured Tafoya out. Spouse buying a shot at boosting the scope of business conections. He stays and works the finance levers. Or relocates to DC with the lady. Michelle meets and greets and rubberstams Trump, rubbstamps spouseal advdamcement. Flocks arrive hoping the business gets valid insider information. Ditto, the family's own portfolio. So that means what? Committee assignments to fit the scenario, not necessary what's best needed for Minnesota advancement. Of course, I could be wrong. But if the speculation is spot on, would the Tafoya - Vandersall partnership admit it?
Ameriprise is an entereprise. Make that a campaign slogan? Not that she's especially fit for the job. But surely fit to goose the business along if winning. Even name recognition beyond Sideline Susie, as a candidate for high office, should blip the business somewhat.
The beat goes on. The campaign moves. Day by day.
And, of course, she's shocked SHOCKED! by nine billion in fraud, and trust her on the magnitude number. Some GOP prosecutor said so. She's sincere that way. And, yes, I could be wrong. Circumstantial inference is in the eye of the beholder. I behold a candidate flogging a made-up fraud number and sanctity of the girl's room.
Stuff the nation faces that can move markets, ruin lives, boost others. War's okay. Tariffs okay? Inflation's okay? Gaza genocide's okay? Trump's mental health's okay? Hegseth's fit for the job or for impeachment? Waffling on body autonomy - abortion as an issue is fair Senate campaigning?
That sports thing, Sideline background knows best, keep the girls athletics competition pure double-XX. Big pressing issue, right? In its way the equivalent of climate change and renewable vs fossil based energy questions? Lockerroom purity. An issue that rocks! One affecting every single individual, worldwide! As big a consideration as rogue AI endangering human life. However, no articulated AI policy position needed to be stated? With Trump on that one, or not?
No real trans issues beyond the lockeroom and "fair competition," right? Like psychologically with individuals facing gender feelings. Nothing to say there.
Again, Crabgrass speculates from facts that can be viewed many ways. And I could be wrong.
Flipping that last thought; I could be right.
FURTHER: I do not see cause to speculate about Flanagan in such a fashion. But I know nothing about the spouse's career arc after leaving MPR. However, having reached Lt. Gov status, i.e., having a Peggy career arc that would have noted any questionable anomaly with none publicly noted, the guess is there is none. An MPR background suggests nothing like an Ameriprise financial position.
I do know Flanagan is a progressive, with a legit record that way. Tested in office. Not a newbie.
SO -- Prove me wrong. Either way, re either candidate. I'd appreciate investigative reporters checking out both candidates that way. If there are any investigative reporters any more or has there been an extinction?
Anyway, the speculation is published. Of record. Let the parties to the speculation take it from here. Presuming MSM will even ask. Presuming there is some reporter somewhere with contacts to work, one who can fog a mirror: We may learn more.
As in, what's the Toyfoya position on members of the U.S. House and Senate actively trading a portfolio?
Duck that issue, lady.
You are running for the United States Senate, and the major worry is trans in the girls lockeroom, in girls sports?
GET REAL! You don't belong there. Sideline to Senate does not really fit.
FURTHER: The Vandersall spouse's business adventure management firm sure has a lot more to say about the midterm election than the Republican Senate candidate, Christsakes. Or it appears that way.
https://www.ameriprise.com/financial-news-research/insights/midterm-elections-2026-key-investor-takeaways --- quoting from there:
What financial issues will be at the forefront?
What separates this year's midterm election from a typical cycle is that several of the economy's most important pressure points sit at the intersection of politics, consumer sentiment and financial markets. As a result, some issues are likely to shape how Americans vote, while others may have an outsized influence on investors, corporations and stock prices.
Voters and consumers
Affordability, particularly around everyday expenses and energy costs, is likely to remain front and center for voters heading into Election Day:
Prices and the cost of living: The broadest visible economic concern today and, in our view, the issue most likely to influence voter sentiment and turnout.
Energy costs: A geopolitical risk premium on oil tied to Middle East tensions has kept gasoline prices in focus since late February. Because fuel costs are a regular household expense, they often carry outsized influence on voters' perceptions of the economy.
Health care and housing: Rising costs in both areas remain recurring concerns and are closely tied to broader affordability challenges facing many households.
Jobs and the labor market: Hiring trends, wage growth and perceptions of job security all play an important role in shaping consumer confidence and economic sentiment.
Investors and corporations
While voters tend to focus on affordability issues, investors and corporate leaders are often more concerned with policy decisions that can influence earnings, capital spending and economic growth:
Tariffs and trade policy: Trade policy has remained in near-constant flux throughout President Trump's second term and continues to influence corporate investment decisions, supply-chain strategies and inflation expectations. New tariff measures, sector-specific levies and ongoing negotiations with major trading partners have kept policy uncertainty elevated.
Regulatory policy: Potential shifts in regulation could have implications for sectors such as energy, financials, health care and technology, depending on the election outcome.
Business investment and capital spending: Companies continue to evaluate hiring plans, infrastructure investments and long-term growth initiatives against an evolving policy backdrop.
Corporate profit outlooks: Ultimately, investors are likely to stay focused on how election outcomes and policy decisions may affect earnings growth, which has historically been a more important driver of stock returns than politics alone.
It does not say boys in the girls room. Why would you expect it not to? It does not claim any $9 billion number invented by a prosecutor is reliable. It says there are things that matter.
Of all things, it says stuff where conflicts of interest might reach. How about that? In a different context, there is the saying, "You can run but you can't hide." What makes me think of that? Here?
There is focused effort by Doug Chapin to personally meet and convince Minnesotans around the State that he would upgrade things. DC-centered Emmer, not as focused.
https://www.chapinforcongress.com/events
A busy final week of September, a busy schedule of in-persson events for October, a schedule you can follow today and next month. An issue page for today's needs: https://www.chapinforcongress.com/issues
You can see him in your town per the schedule, or nearby, and you know issues important to him.
============================================
More online content about issue importance. https://emmer.house.gov/issues/blockchain
Absentee, but working on what to him is a driving issue, "our financial space race" no less. The linked item stating:
The emergence of cryptocurrency presents a tremendous opportunity for our country. The technology could help restore our national values of privacy, individual sovereignty and free markets back into our financial system. As a member of the House Financial Services Committee, I’m focused on giving the United States a fighting chance to win our financial space race:
- Exercise our duty of oversight on the Financial Services Committee by holding the Biden administration accountable and demanding answers from the Securities and Exchange Commission Chair Gary Gensler.
- Advocating for a clear and consistent regulatory landscape, so industry participants can effectively comply instead of being punished under regulation-by-enforcement policies.
- Preventing the proliferation of CCP-style digital surveillance initiatives and upholding the right to financial privacy.
Is absentee indifferent complacency the best thing in the U.S. House for Minnesotans, or might better be possible? How do you judge comparative efforts to inform on issues of today, Chapin vs. Emmer?
Is incumbency an excuse for asleep at the switch, to you, with today's Iran war, tariff war, and pump prices seeming to need attention and ideas? With healthcare family expense climbing precipitously month by month?
Or am I just being a petty critic of the absentee gentleman suffering a severe case of Potomac Fever that seems to be keeping him out of district, and out of touch?
UPDATE: Same problem, https://emmer.house.gov/issues/agriculture
One can say, well, blockchain is not really a grounded issue in Minnesota as much as some outlier concern that Emmer simply likes. Agriculture, a different thing. Quoting that linked thing, last bulleted item, "Urged the Biden administration’s action on the high fertilizer prices which burdened Minnesota Farmers."
Jeez, with the Strait of Hormuz under Iran's control, fertilizer prices are higher now than earlier before Trump let Bibi set US war policy, and yet the Emmer web is out of date on Ag issues too. You know it is out of date because there's an image of Emmer, in Minnesota. With his MAGA folks. That has to be years ago. Trump's first term perhaps. When Emmer was thinner.
:
ICE is killing people. Still. Less offensive swagger, same Stephen Miller.
Also -
The first item:
There were no ties between Durán Guerrero, Arenas-Silva and Coronilla Durán, but within those 24 hours, the three men suddenly became connected as casualties in the latest phase of Donald Trump’s aggressive anti-immigration campaign.
Twenty-four hours. Three states. Three people dead. Countless lives changed in seconds.
The men in Maine and Florida were not even ICE’s intended targets for arrest – they became “collaterals”, as agency officials call them.
“Three people dying in one day is an amplification of what we’ve already seen,” said Andrew Free, a former immigration attorney and investigative journalist who has for years extensively worked on ICE-related death cases. [...]
Throughout 2025 and into early 2026, federal immigration officials descended on cities including Los Angeles, Chicago and Minneapolis. They swaggered in militarized gear and brandished their weapons and crowd-control sprays, while engaging in raids and arrests in a high-profile attempt to show that Trump’s promise of “mass deportations” would be fulfilled.
An explosion of protests and public backlash grew, reaching a climax after the January 2026 fatal shootings of two US citizens in Minneapolis as they protested against what local leaders called “an invasion” by federal immigration officials.
Since then the flashy immigration enforcement mass operations have all but disappeared. Throughout the rest of 2026, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has switched strategy: more low-key arrest operations by small groups of officers and more 287(g) collaborations with local and state police and sheriffs deputized to make immigration arrests. Also, quicker processing with less representation in immigration courts and White House-directed collaboration to target undocumented children are fueling enforcement that is quieter but just as ruthless.
A summer surge of enforcement means arrests are at a record high, with the majority now being people with no criminal history. And deaths keep ticking up “even though ICE’s current tactics have been less visible than the chaos in Minneapolis at the start of the year”, said Austin Kocher, an assistant research professor at Syracuse University and an immigration data and policy expert, in his Substack posts. At least 31 people have died in 2026 during interactions with immigration officials. Four people have been shot, 25 have died in detention and at least two people, including Coronilla Durán, have died while fleeing officials.
The 24 hours between the mornings of 13 and 14 July stand out as exceptionally deadly.
Miller's mojo, Markwayne Mullin's minions. The buck stops with Trump, and that's a bottom line truth.
Anti-human zeal, with white nationalist overtones. "Western Culture" Miller calls it.
Gotta save that ol' time Western Culture. So fragile immigration could put it under?
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